Why can't we all be Japanese? A very interesting essay, though a bit discursive into unrelated theological matters, introduces a major new cross-cultural study of the correlations between belief in the divine, and violence and sexual behavior.
The counter-inuitive, and politically provocative, conclusion of the study is that there is a strong positive correlation between a belief in God and rates of homocide and teen pregnancy, as well as other social ills. In other words, believing in God tends to make societies rather tawdry.
The exemplar of a non-violent and sexually responsible society is Japan, where over 80% of people accept evolutionary theory and less than 10% believe in the existence of any god. They have among the lowest homocide rates and rates of teen pregnancy on earth.
Of course, we are all familiar with the comparitive inefficiency of the United States in converting its immense wealth into social and physical health for its people. Our rates of homocide and teen pregancy are the very highest in the developed world, despite both our material abundance and the spiritual striving after moral perfection for ourselves and others (especially for others) that so dominates our politics and social policy.
In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator
correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult
mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the
prosperous democracies. Does this evidence mean there is a causal connection between the two factors? No neccessarily. But the moralistic and unscientific approach to solving such problems that characterizes the "faith-based" approach to such problems may undermine, or make impossible, rational, "reality-based" solutions.
It is certainly possible that were we to approach these social problems with the tools of social science, economics, system analysis, and statistical study, rather than moralistic pronouncements from a bronze-age text, we might make some progress on our worst social problems.
The examples are numerous.
Instead of telling teenage citizens that they must just resist nature, giving them no safety net in fear they will voluntarily step off the straight and narrow, we could give them the education and tools to make personal choices that have a positive social impact.
Instead of condemning violent crime (done by individuals without the sanction of the state, that is) and locking away the perpetrators, we could do that AND investigate and ameliorate the causes of violent crime such as child abuse, poverty, lack of education, and developmental health problems to foster a long-term reduction in violent crime rates.
Instead of maintaining a healthcare system that treats the wealthy and ignores the ill who haven't the coin to pay, we could create a universal healthcare insurance system the serves all citizens' basic needs and creates social incentives to lower the cost of care by addressing the incidence of epidemiological risks, such as diet, excercise, smoking, pollution that lower our quality of life.
Instead of continuing a moralistic war on the evil of drug use that costs billions, incarcerates millions, destroys our civil liberties, and denies fundamentals of market economics, we could stop the insanity and create a legal regime that instead creates revenue, provides treatment for the addicted, empties our jails, and safeguards the health of the public.
The list goes on and on, really. This study points to the very real connection between irrational belief systems and the stagnation of our social development as a nation. Among the costs of tolerating control of our politics by those espousing irrational, moralistic, and inflexible beliefs are murder, dead junkies, the unhealthiest wealthy population on earth, and youth exposed needlessly to sexually transmitted disease and the weighty consequences of premature parenthood.
Those of us in the "reality-based" community have a duty to speak out, and speak out strongly, against infecting the marketplace of our public discourse with the unchallengable and demonstrably harmful dogmas of established religion, even as we welcome the grace, charity, and compassion that often springs from personal faith.