From Dissident Voice
The Roman Catholic Jesuit Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska, in its Journal of Religion and Society recently published a report by social scientist Gregory Paul. The report is entitled "Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies."The study contradicts a commonly held belief that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society. Belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society, but may actually contribute to social problems.
Mr. Paul's report is based on a decade long, cross-national collaboration on social science surveys of 38 nations and 23,000 interviews. The study assessed such issues as societal health and dysfunction, measuring rates of homicide, youth suicide, sexually transmitted disease, teen pregnancy, and abortion data. This data was analyzed relative to the nations that had the highest rates of absolute belief in God as creator, attendance at religious services, frequency of prayer, and Biblical literalism.
The report concludes, "The populations of secular democracies are clearly able to govern themselves and maintain societal cohesion. Indeed, the data demonstrates that only the more secular, pro-evolution democracies have, for the first time in history, come closest to achieving practical 'cultures of life' that feature low rates of lethal crime, juvenile-adult mortality, sex related dysfunction, and even abortion. The least theistic secular developing democracies such as Japan, France, and Scandinavia have been most successful in these regards."
