http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...icle571206.ece
RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.
According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.
The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.
It compares the social peformance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.
Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its “spiritual capital”. But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills.
The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.
“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.
“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”
Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other research bodies to reach his conclusions.
He compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy.
The study concluded that the US was the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from “ uniquely high” adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.
Mr Paul said: “The study shows that England, despite the social ills it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most indicators, even though it is now a much less religious nation than America.”
He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was compared with other countries, including France, Japan and the Scandinavian countries. These nations had been the most successful in reducing murder rates, early mortality, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion, he added.
Mr Paul delayed releasing the study until now because of Hurricane Katrina. He said that the evidence accumulated by a number of different studies suggested that religion might actually contribute to social ills. “I suspect that Europeans are increasingly repelled by the poor societal performance of the Christian states,” he added.
He said that most Western nations would become more religious only if the theory of evolution could be overturned and the existence of God scientifically proven. Likewise, the theory of evolution would not enjoy majority support in the US unless there was a marked decline in religious belief, Mr Paul said.
“The non-religious, proevolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator.
“The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted.”
Riferimento: La Religione peggiora la vita delle società?
Conversely, how do the latter achieve superior societal health while having little in the way of the religious values or institutions? There is evidence that within the U.S. strong disparities in religious belief versus acceptance of evolution are correlated with similarly varying rates of societal dysfunction, the strongly theistic, anti-evolution south and mid-west having markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital and related problems than the northeast where societal conditions, secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach European norms (Aral and Holmes; Beeghley, Doyle, 2002).
Riferimento: La Religione peggiora la vita delle società?
Non è la Religione che dà potere; è la "Classe dirigente ecclesiastica" che dà voti.
Una cosa è la Religione, una cosa sono gli esseri umani, imperfetti, peccatori, corruttibili.
Riferimento: La Religione peggiora la vita delle società?
la religione cattolica permetta la civiltà nella società.
con l'ateismo sarebbe un caos, e come potrebbe essere altrimenti, se gli unici valori sono il libertinismo sessuale e il diritto di ognuno di decidere cosa è giusto e sbagliato?
con l'idea che l'essere umano è solo un aggregato cellulare complesso frutto dell'evoluzione, e niente più, nessun valore divino?
c'è da rimanere sbalorditi che persone che abbiamo imparato a leggere e a scrivere possano sostenere l'ateismo, ed è addirittura esilarante che si sostenga che la società sarebbe meglio atea!
Riferimento: La Religione peggiora la vita delle società?
Il Cristianesimo inteso come religione fondata sugli insegnamenti di Gesù non può peggiorare la nostra società,anzi può migliorarne alcuni aspetti .
La Chiesa Cattolica sicuramente la peggiore in maniera spropositata .
L'Islam non ne parliamo nemmeno .
L'ebraismo mamma mia .
Il buddhismo più che una religione è una filosofia,niente in contrario;però in generale la ragione e la religione non vanno molto d'accordo .
__________________ " Ipocrita, togli prima la trave dal tuo occhio e allora potrai vederci bene nel togliere la pagliuzza dall'occhio del tuo fratello ! "
Riferimento: La Religione peggiora la vita delle società?
Secondo me dipende da persona a persona. Se una persona crede che la risposta in ogni cosa sia da trovare nei testi sacri prima ancora che nella realtà che lo circonda secondo me è negativamente influenzata dalla religione.
Eppure la religione è una componente essenziale della società umana da sempre. Un motivo ci sarà senz'altro... al di la dell'affermare quì la verità o meno dell'esistenza di Dio, anche solo considerando la religione come fenomeno sociale, non si può negare che la religione faccia parte della società e di ogni cultura... colma vuoti altrimenti incolmabili... l'"infinito" dell'idea della morte che altrimenti sarebbe difficilmente paragonabile al "essere finito" dell'individuo
La Religione peggiora la vita delle società?
