Read and decide for yourself.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1798944,00.html

I imagine he did some sort of correlation study, but I didn't find numbers for it. I suspect that this might be a case of A and B both existing, but A not causing B. England also doesn't have a large section of the entertainment industry (50-cent) glorifying homicide, etc. Also, the most "spiritual" section of the US has traditionally been the "Bible belt" (midwest, south) while the highest STD and homicide rates have been metropolitan areas (NE and West coast mainly).

Like I said, hopefully he did a causation study. But perhaps he didn't.

Plus, it only compares 2 places that I saw. Point is, people in Europe grow up differently. They grow up with alcohol, we grow up thinking we should get drunk. I hope I don't need to explain the rest of my point.

I don't know if I would necessarily agree with underlying premise of the article (from what I understand, it's claiming that a higher proportion of god-believing citizens will yield a higher crime rate, more social problems, etc.). The vast majority of religious people I have encountered are decent, upstanding individuals. A majority of Americans are religious, and if you look at a group of people that is in the hundreds of millions, other factors come into play aside from religion.

It would be nice if the study were linked in the article, as it would hopefully be able to shed light on how the data was gathered, what variables were taken into account, etc.

I hope that most people atheist and non-atheist alike would base their view of people more on the content of their character and their history rather than what religion they believe in.

~ K

I love Bad Religion

How many months were you waiting to spring that jewel?

13

Plus it seems to measure bad society by the number of murders, STD's, etc. What about civil and religous freedom, economic wealth, and charity? You have to consider the good with the bad.

If it proves anything, it proves that the US has a worse society. It proves nothing about religion at all. The US society is not all religious societies.

It seems to me far more likely that social ills spur religiosity.

There is a reason for seperation of chuch and state.

I've been saying it for years, lol. But to eash great mind, their is their neh-sayer. Brilliant.

Blah, to each his own. I say judge a man based on his character not his religious beliefs. Chris Rock said it best, "If someone makes an opinion before they hear both sides of the argument... they're a fucking idiot." That said, I've never done drugs or had sex outside of a relationship and I tend to lean towards the evolution side of things. I don't see how someone can come to a science based school based and not at least agree that evolution is a very likely possibility, unless of course they're one of the few history, english or philosophy majors. As far as this particular study goes, I would have to know more about the variables involved to make an intelligent decision.