If you do that, then you’re inferring causation or a lack thereof. No such claim can be logically inferred, which is why I offered a scenario in which it’s the incidence of crime that leads to increased religiosity.
Furthermore, even if we could conclude that religion leads to increased crime, it does not logically follow that religion “doesn’t lead to [any] strong benefits for a society.” To do that, you’d have to expand the study far beyond its current scope.
Torture/duress wouldn’t be an effective method if it wasn’t used on the right people. Police generally know when a bad guy is a bad guy. Going through the work of proving it is just red tape.
I suspect that the correlation is actually between level of education and crime. I believe that in a society like the USA were being religious is the norm, irreligious people are for a significant part people who tend to think more by themselves and are more educated (as opposed to being irreligious because mom was or because they never really thought much about it). And being more educated, they’re less likely to end up as criminals, for instance.
I suspect that if the %age of believers in a jail and in the general population were compared in a country like mine where being irreligious is quite widespread, there wouldn’t be as much of a difference as in the USA.
I’m not sure that all crime and religion are related.
We could find that some capital crimes may have been
religiously influenced (Susan Smith, the lady that sacrificed
her kid, the crusades…), but little ones like petty theft?
Embezzlement from a large corporation? Doubtful.
As the authors readily admit, the United States is much more strongly religious than any other country in the survey. That means that they really have only one data point for strongly religious countries, and the results are heavily influenced by that one data point. On many of those graphs it’s clear that if you removed the United States then the remaining data would be essentially flat, that is to say the rate of murder/suicide/gonorrhea would have no real correlation with religiosity.
As for the case of the United States, it depends on what data you choose to study. The USA trails in some categories, but leads in other categories. Take a survey of religiosity compared to median income, property crime, college educations, or any number of other things and you’d find the United States looks more positive.
Who says they don’t? If out of every 100,000 there are 6 who commit murder and 5 who commit suicide in a given year, then there are 999,989 who don’t commit murder or suicide. (Even assuming that no one commits two murders or a murder-suicide.)
That’s not the same thing, however. If the hypothesis is that high religiosity leads to increased social well-being, the absence of a correlation between high religiosity and increased social well-being (defined here along the axes the study measured, for convenience) is evidence against the hypothesis.
First of all, that only holds true if the societies evaluated are at all comparable. And second, saying that this study is “evidence against the hypothesis” falls far short of establshing that “religion doesn’t appear to lead to strong benefits for a society.” At best, it would merely offer a data point, and it’s usually reckless to draw conclusions from a single data point.
Furthermore, there is a great deal more to “increased social well-being” than just the crime rate. Ergo, even if we grant that religion and crime are strongly correlated, it still takes a HUGE leap to conclude that religion offers no strong benefits to society.
When there’s a claim, and that claim is investigated, and that investigation doesn’t turn up any evidence for the claim, that doesn’t mean the claim appears to be false?
Why are you hawking on about the crime rate anyway? Such a thing wasn’t even investigated; the factors correlated were relative number of homicides, youth suicides, infant mortality, life expectancy, gonorrhea infection rate, syphilis infection rate, teen pregnancy abortions, and teen pregnancies. In all categories but the youth suicides, a positive correlation to religion was found. (Also, belief in evolution and religiosity was correlated, but a negative correlation there surprises probably nobody, and while I personally would say that a high acceptance of evolution is indicative of a better off society, I don’t even want to bring that onto the table right now.)
While these obviously aren’t all factors that determine social well-being, it’s a few more than just the ‘crime rate’.
That rustling sound you hear is the turning over in the grave of all the brave men who died to defend the American Constitition.
Not sure how the teen pregnancy/abortion stats in this study
reveal much. I think that teens of all denominations are beyond
curious, yet a religious, rule-stricken society with a high school
(public or private) can expect anything less than curiosity of sexual
rigor.
Incidentally, I am currently dealing with something
religious at work (video) called “Consequences of Opinion”.
Funny how that title reflects a lot of opinion, 'specially on this board! 
Another quick aside, I once had a boss who told me
to never hire anyone from Liberty U. I guess entertainment
actually has its limits too, and I agreed with my boss on this.
Apologies, had to log off before I finished my last post,
but education, limited to its region on the most part,
isn’t that part of the cause on religion contributing
to a downfall of awareness that MAY cause increased
teen pregnancies, and other broad data somewhat collected
by this study?
I have read the OP and the study link, but even though
I am not a thesist, believer, what have you, I still think the data
presented is BEYOND broad. This study would have to be more focused
to convince me, but how I don’t know.
TO BE CLEAR: When I said, “I agreed with my boss on this,”
I meant I agreed with my boss that “entertainment has its
limits too,” NOT agreeing with singling out one school’s
grads as unequal.
Sorry for the phrasing. (!)
Locrian, the box you type into to write a post will autowrap your text. You don’t need to word wrap yourself.
It looks like you’re writing a poem or something.
Another obvious problem with the survey is that they measure “religiosity” simply by polling the current inhabitants. Looking at the list of countries, it’s obvious that all of them except Japan have a long Christian heritage. Hence many of their institutions are built on Christian principles, and a general Christian worldview has seeped into their people’s thinking even if they aren’t praying several times per week or taking the bible literally. Throughout most of Europe, there are still numerous schools, hospitals, clinics, and other charities run by churches, and they’re still having an effect on society. Someone should do a survey that includes these factors among their measure of “religiosity”.
Well, Japan has been discussed. Maybe he’s trying for a haiku.
So…virtually all the countries in the survey come from a similar, strong Christian heritage. And you want to correct for that factor. Why bother if they are almost all the same in that respect?
Our society
Imagine no religion
Less chance of murder?
With all due respect, you’re missing the point. The study in question discussed crime rates, but it did not attempt to cover the other effects of religion. America’s oldest and most venerated universities, for example started out as Bible-teaching schools, for example. (Harvard and Yale were originally Puritan, and Princeton has Presbyterian roots.) A great many hospitals were also founded as Christian outreaches, which is why so many of them are named after St. Luke the Physician.
That’s why you can’t simply look at this study and proclaim that religion has been bad for society. The study doesn’t even come close to establishing a correlatino between religion and any overall detriment to society, much less any causative relationship.
Apparently though, this doesn’t stop people from eagerly saying “Hmmmm… Seems like religion might be damaging overall to society. Okay, so correlation isn’t causation, but still…”
Saying Harvard started as a “bible-teaching school” is a stretch. This is from their site:
At the risk of sounding like I learned my debating skills in a playground: I think it is you who has missed the point. (Checkmate!)
The study in question measured various social statistics versus current levels of religious practice, and found a corrolation.
Now, as pointed out by ITR champion, all but one of the countries in the study has come from a strong Christian heritage. Therefore, just strike out the exception of Japan, and it doesn’t affect the survey to any great degree whether a Christian tradition is bad or good for a society.
Has anyone said that?
Look, if I believed that religion was good for society then I’d probably look at this study and think “corrolation is not causation; more people are drawn to god in hard times”, or I’d question the data, or whether the study was biased (as implied perhaps by the tone of the paper).
But arguing against the conclusion that there’s a corrolation, when that’s clearly what the data shows, smacks of denial.