Godless, Orderly Heathens

Liesa notices a study on religion in industrialized democracies that finds something interesting:

[Paul] found that the most religious democracies exhibited substantially higher degrees of social dysfunction than societies with larger percentages of atheists and agnostics. Of the nations studied, the U.S. — which has by far the largest percentage of people who take the Bible literally and express absolute belief in God (and the lowest percentage of atheists and agnostics) — also has by far the highest levels of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

This conclusion will come as no surprise to those who have long gnashed their teeth in frustration while listening to right-wing evangelical claims that secular liberals are weak on “values.” Paul’s study confirms globally what is already evident in the U.S.: When it comes to “values,” if you look at facts rather than mere rhetoric, the substantially more secular blue states routinely leave the Bible Belt red states in the dust.

All quite true. Not only are secular countries more socially sound than religious ones, but the so-called blue states have lower crime/std/divorce rates than the supposedly more spiritually grounded red states. This would, of course, all change if liberals just allowed prayer in schools or the ten commandments etched into homeroom blackboards, but they're pigheaded about that.

Of course, much of this is very tough to accurately assess. Income matters here, as does inequality, wealth, race, and a variety of other markers that correlate with religiosity. There's little to no evidence that religion is to blame for social dysfunction or crime, but nor is there any truth in the oft-posited argument that it stops it. All of which brings us down to the nub of the debate -- this really is, as the right claims, about values. It's not about public policy, not about societal outcomes. This is total ephemera, a rock 'em sock 'em robots pitting belief systems and socio-spiritual structures against each other. What that means, though, is that it should be argued there. Wanting religion in the public realm is a perfectly defensible viewpoint, but justifying that by arguing it'll improve the world and heal societal ills is, well, bearing false witness.

Update: As some have pointed out, what this study basically shows is that the US is more dysfunctional than Europe. True 'nuff. And indeed, crime and so forth are much more heavily correlated with things like racial tensions, economic inequality, and similar factors. It's nevertheless true though that religion is anything but a miracle cure for societal ills, whatever their cause. Neither the godliness of America nor the piousness of the South save either from serious rates of societal dysfunction. As such, the conclusion stands, but I should make clear that it's not the ostensible point of the study.