I agree somewhat here. I think those benefits could exist without the religion part. The UU church is a good example of this. At least some of the UU churches have secular services, which are more just about community.
Additionally, if we look at the most religious countries vs the most secular countries (I saw a list of the top 20 of each) the differences in things like happiness, life expectancy, personal freedom, and GDP/person are vastly better in the most secular countries. It is a layup of a debate to argue that living in the most secular counties is far better than the most religious.
The reason that is their rebuttal so often is that they most likely had religious parents, were brought up in the religion, and found out later that they donât believe. It is a large negative to leave anything that is cult like (which most religions are, they just get the privilege of not being labeled a cult once they reach a certain size). Those people were hurt by religion. The effect religion has on people that once believed the same thing, but no longer do is a huge negative. I donât see eye to eye with my parents any longer on religion and it has created a lot of distance between us that wouldnât be there if not for religion.
I used to try my best to do this. I came to the conclusion reading the Bible that you were either all in or not in. That many were on the wide path that lead to hell, even though they went to church.
First, the Soviet Union was easily the most secular country (er, âunionâ) for a long time. It was hardly a paradise.
Second, I am deeply skeptical of polls like this, as they can be easily designed to get whatever result the pollster is out to prove. Mainly, they select whatever criteria they think is important to determine if someone is better off, but they also pick and choose who to talk to. Going back to point one, I am quite sure the Soviets put out plenty of studies showing it was a regular workersâ paradise.
Third, and this goes back to my correlation vs. causation issue, is people turn to God/religion when the chips are down. Heck, thatâs pretty much the point. If youâre a Norwegian, with a relatively homogeneous population, well-developed infrastructure, and plenty of money from North Sea oil production that your politicians wisely invested for 75 years, things are probably pretty good. You (think) you donât need God.
You could argue that self reported religiosity was not reflective of actual religiosity. You could argue that religiosity is correlated with poverty (or lack of education), and therefore while true that religion and worse outcomes are correlated, it is the poverty (or an uneducated population, or other factors) that is causing negative outcomes. Which is what you get at here:
This doesnât defeat my point (that the most secular countries are better to live in than the most religious ones). It would just point out that religion isnât necessarily the reason (the only reason) that the most religious countries have terrible metrics for the list of things Iâve listed above.
OK, so how about China? Official communist state atheism, but people are very happy and have lot of personal freedom, right? Just ask the hundreds of thousands of Muslim Uighurs in re-education camps.
There is also the question of how they define religious. In Poland they just recently declared that Jesus is the king of the country, Jamaica has the most churches both per capita an per square mile. One country is fairly prosperous and peaceful, the other is poor and crime is out of control. Hard to reach any conclusion off of that.
You shouldnât weigh each one by population (that wouldnât be fair for what we are trying to evaluate, for example we wouldnât say Costa Rica really isnât a happy country because of their low population). Additionally, one could argue that forced atheism with the combo of socialism is religion like. Just look at the scores for the different metrics and average over 20. The least religious countries on average do far far better.
Iâm not trying to defeat any point. I just think the polls (to the extent even reliable) donât really mean much.
They certainly canât be used for the proposition (which you didnât really make, but people often do) that âless religion = more happiness.â
I think what would be interesting is to poll people within one of those countries, say Norway, ask similar questions, correcting for things going on in their lives (e.g., cancer, loss of work), importance of religion.
Be curious if people similarly situated (same country, same relative level of âstuffâ in their lives) but different levels of religious observance have different levels of self-reported happiness
They have government-authorized religious groups in China. Religion is not encouraged, but itâs not forbidden either.
Correlation does not equal causation. Of course poor African countries arenât doing well, religion or not. But becoming atheist certainly wonât fix the problems.
You are correct here. Another proposition (one you didnât make) from many religious folks is that a loss of religion leads to a down fall of society. These countries are a good argument against that idea. They have low religiosity, but aside from a few of them, I would argue on average that they do far better than the countries with a lot of religion.
You are not arguing against my point. My point was that the least religious countries were better to live in because of their stats on things like life expectancy, happiness, wealth, crime rates, education⌠I did not argue that religion caused the issues, just that the most religious countries generally suck, while on average the least religious countries are kicking ass.
Vatican City became independent from Italy with the Lateran Treaty (1929), and it is a distinct territory under âfull ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdictionâ of the Holy See, itself a sovereign entity of international law, which maintains the city stateâs temporal, diplomatic, and spiritual independence.[j][13] With an area of 49 hectares (121 acres)[b] and a population of about 805,[c] it is the smallest sovereign state in the world by both area and population.[14]
Except the largest and least religious one of all.
Well, we could site some reservations in the US if this is the case. Many very religious, many with terrible outcomes.
Itâs also possible that a country that is not religious, could have other things that make it not so desirable (Chinaâs version of socialism for example). I think if you look at the list, China is preferable to many of the most religious countries.
My point was originally in reply to Brick who sorta asserted that religion increases prosperity (and that lack of religion lead to worse outcomes, which is what I have been arguing against with these countries).
Depends on what you value in life. Also a large proportion of Chinese people are basically slaves.
My point is that it can go either way. But I also think that when people are poor and suffering, more of them tend to turn to religion. That may explain part of is going on in Africa. Africa is the region where Christianity is growing the fastest, as opposed to rich western countries where churches are closing down.
I enjoyed your post, but I am going to pick on a couple of points.
I donât think religion could work outside the existence of God. We have a perfect example in this SJW- identitarian thing that has grown in to some sort of creepy cultish psuedo-religion and itâs a mess. Itâs non-nonsensical violence and mayhem. What ever god they pray to, doesnât forgive, doesnât forget, keeps changing its mind, but if you donât do as they say when they say it, they will kick your ass and burn down your business or house and publicly shame you.
There has to be a God for religion to work and itâs adherents have to believe in God totally, or it wonât work. You can fake it for a while, but ultimately it falls apart.
The irony of this statement is not lost on me, as itâs a hypocritical thing to say.
However, hypocrisy is a problem, but everybody it a hypocrite itâs just a matter of degrees. We all do and say things we know we ought not do and do anyway. Nobody is perfect. But I know what your getting at, itâs the judgmental type folks. And they do exist, but churches have been trying to correct and call out this problem among its congregations. Itâs another way of saying, itâs getting better weâre working on it. It will never fully go away though. Religious people can be some of the worst people on Earth. And every time somebody tries to do something in the âname ofâ their religion, the results are often disastrous. So itâs a mixed bag.
Iâd say, overall religious people can be the best of us and sometimes the worst of us, 'cause well, weâre just human after all.
But I really enjoyed your post and you made some really good points. I would be happy to live peacefully among you.