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December 9, 2009
Are we better off without religion?
Christmas is coming up, and just in time the Guardian goes over some recent research in the social sciences asking the question: are we better off without religion?
Sociologist Gregory Paul's view is that religion is a sign of dysfunctional societies. Generally, societies with higher "popular religiosity" also fare worse when it comes to measures of community success, such as the number of jailed people, sexually transmitted diseases, corruption, and the like (Paul, 2005, 2009). The causality of this is not clear, but Paul argues that religiosity is the result rather than the cause. One should note that such correlations depend on a subjective, albeit wide-ranging Successful Societies Scale: if socio-economic factors would be weighted heavily, the most-religious country (US) would end up close to the the least-zealous societies (Sweden, Japan).
One may wonder how much of the originally intended "good" is left in the world's religions - the good that stabilized societies through more or less arbitrary rule systems. The good that kept people healthy ("no pork!") and made communities stronger ("Love thy neighbor!"). The good that allowed some preachers and some movements out of many to evolve and develop into world religions. Note Pope Benedict II's (Joseph Ratzinger's) views on liturgy, which argue that the "new" forms have made church-goers self-indulgent and ignorant of views from outside (the priest turning to the congregation, preaching in their language - his conclusion: back to the Latin mass, is, of course, ridiculous).
Christmas traditions are a good example of a combination of religious and pagan traditions that have lost their meanings. I for one am glad to avoid Santa Clauses, Christmas shopping in stores, and I greatly enjoyed my department's "non-denominational Holiday party".
Paul, Gregory S., Cross-national correlations of quantifiable societal health with popular religiosity and secularism in the prosperous democracies: a first look. Journal of Religion & Society. 7, 2005.
Paul, Gregory S., The Chronic Dependence of Popular Religiosity upon Dysfunctional Psychosociological Conditions. Evolutionary Psychology 7(3). 2009.
Posted by dr at December 9, 2009 2:53 AM