God detrimental to society?

[Neo]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFr...8944-2,00.html

RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.

According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems....

[Dylflon]

Religion can cause some mighty big problems.

But I wouldn't say it destroys societies.

In fact, control by religion helped many early societies actually form into something other than crazy anarchy.

[Typhoid]

I would say that Religion stops individual societies from spiraling into a form of anarchy, yet at the same time, Religion causes problems between different societies interacting with one another.

[Dylflon]

Yeah.

That's a good addition to my thesis.

If only I didn't have to write my history term paper on an effing novel.

[Xantar]

What exactly is the definition of religion here? Simple belief in God (or some higher being) isn't all that destructive. It's when religion gets organized that you have problems. The former promotes compassion and good will among people. The latter promotes sheepism.

Besides that, I'm not sure how this study proved causality. What if a high murder rate causes people to turn to religion in order to justify and understand their world? I've known some people from the inner city, and they believe faith and God was what got them out of the ghetto. So maybe if you eliminated poverty, you'd see a decrease in religiosity?

[Professor S]

LOL!! They compared the US to Britain saying that "secular nations" tend to have less violence. Secular or not, the moral values that are held by Westerners are derived from Christian/Jewish belief structure. What a silly, agenda driven study.

It reminds me of the Temple professor who recently wrote a book about how Pedophilia is good for children.