Can I just tell you that this makes complete sense to me?

I read this article yesterday and finally feel some scientific validation for what I have been suspecting since my mid-teens.

You all pretty much know my feelings about religion - particularly as is being forced down our throats right now:

Let's put the fables of the Bible, or whatever your particular "holy" story book is, back in Sunday School (or whatever day is your holy day).

Please folks, don't allow the wing-nuts to dumb down our next generation any more than has already been done by NCLB. The rest of the world is already laughing at us - we have to import our scientists now as it is - let's don't bring religious fables into equality with knowledge that stands up to the scientific method...if we continue to allow this to happen, we are only going further down the yellow brick road.

China, with all of its brilliant minds, scientifically trained, and now holding a HUGE United States debt, looms in our future...

If they take over, whatcha gonna do...PRAY?

Our country is becoming a world laughing stock, with our archaic views of evolution, women's rights, same-sex rights, and sex education. Our country is overwhelmingly full of self-claimed "believers" in a "higher power". Bunk, I say - it is just an excuse not to take full responsibility for oneself. 'Bean weighed in with an interesting take on "God" in an email the other day - perhaps he will share it in the comments.

However, please take a look at this study: (I have added the highlighting in the text):

The Times

Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'

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.

The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.

It compares the social performance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.

Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its “spiritual capital”. But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills...

The article goes on, but I summarize it here:

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”

It gets even better:

Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist...compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy.

The study concluded that the US was the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from “ uniquely high” adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.

Mr Paul said: “The study shows that England, despite the social ills it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most indicators, even though it is now a much less religious nation than America.”

He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was compared with other countries, including France, Japan and the Scandinavian countries. These nations had been the most successful in reducing murder rates, early mortality, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion, he added.

Hear, hear!!!!!

Can we please stop hiding behind a book now, and terrorizing our children with guilt, fire, brimstone, and a self-loathing for being interested in sex???

Can we please stop calling body parts "nasty" and "dirty"??

Can we please stop this slippery slope between fable and government??

Ms. Julien