This is interesting:
"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.'"
(courtesy of Mister Hand)
15 comments:
That was a cool article, I was quite pleased to have it sent to me.
You need some word verification turned on, babe. (see above spam)
God, now I'm really sorry for the "babe" comment. Tex has shamed me.
Sudan--very, VERY religious--and one of the worst places on the face of the Earth right now. Why? Because a whole bunch of people who ascribe to one religion want all the other people who ascribe to the WRONG religion to be dead. And so they, like those other countries you listed, are using mostly American-manufactured arms to kill each other real damned dead.
Does that answer your question?
Sorry Tex, all evils in society are brought on by religion.
Spread of AIDs, STDs, teen pregnancy -- obviously linked to abstinance being taught my Christian missionaries, instead of proper birth control methods. These people in Africa (,etc.) don't have all of your money and westernized outlets to understand about health issues, because they cannot turn on your big screen TV and watch Sex with Sue to find out how to put on a condom (with your mouth!). Also, because the G8 is being veto-ed out of discussions about better funding in non-abstinence programs to Africa by the USA, not much is going happen to help them out (the POPE is against condoms, must I say more). They aren't stupid, they are just mis-educated about these issues, and live in such conditions (mostly brought on my us through european colonialism) that they can't do anything but listen to their religion.
Thus causing the them vs. us mentality -- Read some Clash of Civilizations and maybe them you'll understand their perspective.
THE END.
ps. this = Alanna.
I posted before I read the article -- when I say africa, also am refering to USA, because they are only taught absitence in school.
On this note I will quote Sue Johansson from the UofO newspaper:
SJ: Oh, the Sunday Night Sex Show! No, we are not doing the Sunday Night Sex Show in Canada anymore, but we’re still doing the American show.
MW: So is that because you haven’t been doing it as long?
SJ: That’s right, and because the American sex education is literally non-existent. Abstinence only, thanks to George Bush.
So therefore, their kids are not getting any sex education at all, and boy you can sure tell by the questions.
When people are mis-educated, they will act stupidly.
Tex:
STD's and AIDS went down in Africa EVERY YEAR Bill Clinton was President. George W. Bush came along and refused to fund anything over there but "abstinence only." STD's and AIDS have gone UP every year since.
Abortion in this country? Guess what, tex? Went DOWN every year Bill Clinton was in office. Under G.W. Bush--guess what, tex? That's right. Gone UP, UP, UP!
Look it up.
You obviously didn't read the full story of this study. The person who conducted the study did not say it was conclusive that religion was a cause for all of these things. But they do seem to coincide in these places. However, in places where atheism or agnosticism rates are higher, guess what? Not so many problems. Showing that atheism or agnosticism certainly doesn't do any harm.
And the flip side of that coin is that if nothing else, religion is obviously not doing anyone much good.
And your facetious (and fatuous) comment about Roman Catholicism and terrorism displays one of two things:
a) You are either totally ignorant of history (look up the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition some time)
or...
b) You have very poor reading comprehension.
Never mind. It's both "a" and "b", apparently.
I feel bad about the snarky tone of my previous comments now, texerson. But yes, Bush has definitely "retarded" Africa's progress since his sorry-ass has been siting in the Oval Office (or, rather, since he's been falling down drunk underneath it, or on a bender at the Crawford Ranch, the stinking wino).
There. Now I feel I've made proper amends. Friends?
Ok Alex, it's time to stop acting like a child. Your antics have gone on long enough wussballs. Stop playing devils advocate and fess up to the harsh truth that religion isn't as positive as you thought it was.
All it does is perscribe false values and instil hatred into peoples lives, so that they can have an excuse to drink wine on Sundays, and slaughter humans (first nations - happy thanksgiving to you too!) and animals alike(because "god - note the undercase- put them there for us to eat")
Interesting, tex. But what do you think about this, this, and as long as we're talking about Bush killing poor people, this?
Oh, and yes, Clinton is a baptist, but Bush is a fundamentalist nutbag, much like these fundamentalist nutbags.
They say jihad, Bush says, "Don't mess with Texas! And Jesus and God and puppies and ponies and Fox News!"
By the way, I will debunk my own abortion rates rising under Bush myth.
Oops. I shoulda checked Factcheck.org first.
And, tex, you're taking assertions of the study out of context. When it is said that no one argues that Islamic Fundamentalism has been the keystone for a rise in violence around the world, and then says that Christianity has likewise done so, it is clearly referring to Christianity throughout history. And that is why I brought up the Crusades--which were essentially a series of massive missions to kill Muslims. And of course, the Inquisition was a massive effort to kill, torture, and imprison anyone who wasn't a specific kind of Christian (namely, Roman Catholic).
"And while Paul's study found that the correlation between high degrees of religiosity and high degrees of social dysfunction appears robust, it could be that high levels of social dysfunction fuel religiosity, rather than the other way around."
Yes, this is true--but in countries with high rates of atheism/agnosticism, you don't see the rise in homicides, teen pregnancy rates, etc. that you see in countries with high rates of religiosity. And a rise in religiosity does not seem to be doing anything to decrease these statistics.
And that's because people who are fundamentalist believe they have all the answers and all issues are black and white, and that one solution will fix everything. Whereas people who are not religious examine the complexity of problems and reexamine issues based on real results, rather than employing a "this is just the way it oughta be" attitude.
Before he invaded Iraq, Bush had no idea (he had to be filled in by an Iraqi expert just two weeks before the invasion) that the populace was divided into a few sects that had been fighting with each other for hundreds of years. Is the Sunni, Shiite, Kurdish conflict in Iraq an ethnic problem? Hell no. It's about how they interpret the SAME religion. Yes, they are ethnic groups, but they have differing views on how people should be governed based on what they believe they are being told by God. That's what the fight over the Iraqi Constitution is all about.
And the conflict in the Sudan is not an ethnic one--it's Christians vs. Muslims, is it not?
The WORST thing about religion is that when one religion (or one sect) decides it is offended by another religion or sect, there is no reconciling the issue because all of these people believe they are fighting on the side of God, and God doesn't take kindly (in their minds) to compromise. And God doesn't suffer heathens or heretics.
In this country, abortion has become a political issue for Fundamentalist Christians. They have been brainwashed into believing that God hates abortion. So there will never be any room for compromise on this issue and fundamentalist Christian voting blocks will continue to vote for any incompetent boob who promises to appoint anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court. These idiots have made abortion their number one issue and helped to elect the worst President this country has seen since Harding.
I believe Bush's current approval rating (the lowest in modern history) speaks for itself. Practically the only people left who still think this guy knows his head from the shiny insides of his ass are the anti-abortion yahoos and the Fox News junkies.
TEXERSON SAID:"By the way, why are you so against the idea of republicans -- sorry, that's not religious, I meant fundamentalist Christians -- robbing people of their choice to have abortions, but you don't seem to have a problem with speaking against people's beliefs in God?"
Anyone who holds to a religious belief holds to something for which there is no evidence and for which they have no good reasons to believe in. Furthermore, that belief cannot be tested nor proved. I believe in none of that, which imposes nothing upon others. Religious belief is an imposition upon the universe--an assumption that the universe must fit into a set of beliefs that a person carries for the sole reason that he or she WANTS to believe it.
Faith = believing whatever you want to believe.
Therefore, I don't think it's wrong (in fact I think it's necessary) to point out that my beliefs do not go beyond evidence, religious beliefs do, and therefore should not be presumed valid.
And if you think the abortion issue hasn't been made a religious one you're out of your mind. It is the religious right that keeps this issue at the forefront. Otherwise it would have died on the vine long ago.
TEXERSON SAID: There would be hatred without religion. Race, language, heritage, sexual orientation? People will always have different opinions, beliefs, skin color, fashion sense, etc. Some of those people will choose to strongly disagree with those who oppose their views. Some of those people are capable of hatred and violence, and a few of those people will act upon it.
Yes, people will always have all kinds of reasons to hate each other, and maybe initially those reasons have nothing to do with religion, but they will always turn to religion to justify and deepen the hatred, and to ensure that no compromise with the other side can ever be possible. To uphold segregation, white Southern leaders used the Old Testament's commandments on how one should treat slaves.
What is the constant between ALL cases of ethnic or religious violence? It's not religion -- it's that people hate other people who are different. Gosh, I feel like I'm repeating myself here, but no one really wants to address that.
Yes, people hate other people who are different, and in EVERY SINGLE CASE religion is used to reinforce the hate and to instill it within a far greater number of people than would have been possible without religion. It's tough to sit someone down and say, "We need to hate these people because they threaten our economic well-being, create a competition for jobs that we cannot afford to engage in right now, blah, blah, whaterver."
Now, try this example:
"Hey, that guy thinks women should have equal rights with men, offending God! Get him! Gaaaaaaaaaah!"
Really, how do you think people rally support for a cause? Do you really believe you can create such entrenched, inflexible hatred between groups without both groups believing "God is on our side?" I'd like for you to find that specific example--a longstanding hatred between two large ethnic or economic groups that never had religion entered into it.
Yes, the reasons for hatred are diverse and convoluted. But religion puts the spike to the wall.
Texerson, we both write too long.
Somalia: The BBC article you referenced says, "The fledgling administration, the 14th attempt to establish a government since 1991, has no civil service or government buildings. It faces a formidable task in bringing reconciliation to a country divided into clan fiefdoms." A fiefdom is established by a single ruler's ability to control a large amount of territory held by "'divine right'", the right to rule granted by God and then passed on through heredity." If Somalia is a wholly non-religious affair, what the hell was Osama Bin Laden doing spending so much time and effort there?
I feel slightly less ignorant after reading the article you cited, and even more slightly less ignorant since looking at the history of Belgium, which colonized Rwanda and passed out cards designating people there as belonging to either the Tutsi or Hutu clan. The assignments were arbitrary and made to strengthen Belgium's hold over the region by dividing the populace. The Belgian colonization of the region was a result of an Imperical philosophy emanating from the fiefdom in power at the time (see above).
In Burundi, again we're talking about Hutus and Tutsi's, are we not?
The North Koreans are taught that their leader is a god. All of the history in their schoolbooks is devoted to how their glorious leader is more divine than Buddha. But surely you knew this.
The Indian and Pakistani conflict is EGGREGIOUSLY religious, for crying out loud. I don't even feel like I need to address that.
Again, EVERY SINGLE CASE...
Here's something that was posted by a commenter on my site that may clarify my feelings on this issue a bit:
"Faith usually defined as the belief in the absence of evidence (or even in the presence of contradictory evidence). I would say that there is actual 'evidence' that is being used, and that is the feeling of comfort of the individual holding a particular 'faith-based' view. Why else would they persist?
While this is all well and fine for large portions of the populations, it can be a risky thing. To paraphrase/quote Mill, using deference to feelings as a defence can allow for the consecration of all deep-seated prejudices.
One must be cautious to whom they might relate holding views that they will never change. "
If you want me to get back to George W. Bush, I certainly will. Over and over again this President has been slave to intractable world-views that he continues to believe are correct despite all evidence to the contrary. Why? Because these views fall within the purview of his religion.
As to individual religious beliefs, these are dangerous because it's like someone sticks a sleeper cell within your mind that they can call upon and manipulate at will. You can say that people hate each other for all kinds of reasons all you want, but you have yet to address my argument that when you want to get a large group of people to hate another large group of people for no good reason, there's no better go-to boy than religion to accomplish this task. And it is used over and over again. It is used by leaders to shore up their power. It is used by racists to give just cause for their hatred. It is used to muddle the process of creating governments. It is used over and over again all over the world to ensure that no one gets any peace.
And why is it so well-used? Because it's so easily useable. It's so easily useable because it is the most irrational of irrationalities.
It is rational to get along with other people. It is rational to avoid conflict and war. It is rational to avoid hatred.
If you want to overcome this rationality, the best way to do it is to convince them that rationality "ain't all that." Convince them that the only beliefs truly worth clinging to are the MOST irrational ones.
Voila!
Religion.
God, you're exhausting.
Your definition for fiefdom is correct but the "something over which one dominant person or group exercises control" part is instigated by a belief instilled within those being controlled that the person they follow has a divine right to lead.
One billion Roman Catholics and there would be considerably less if the Pope would let 'em use birth control. And there would be a few more to make up for the loss if the Pope wasn't intolerant of homosexuals (unless they happen to be priests, and they're child molesters, and then they get all kinds of protection).
I posted this on the comments on my site as well:
"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order and harmony of the universe which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem--the most important of all human problems.
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
Albert Einstein.
So good is subjective? It is subjective that if I DON'T hate you I'm doing good? It's subjective that if I give you a gift rather than shoot you in the gut I'm doing GOOD? It's subjective that if I DON'T use God and Jesus and Buddha and whoever and whatever as a rallying cry to declare war on your country I'm doing GOOD?
As to abortion, it is what it is. If you disagree with it, fine. But I'm favor of it. I'm in favor of having fewer unwanted children in the world.
And I believe firmly in that bumper sticker slogan (and I normally don't go for this stuff) that says, "If you're against abortion, don't have one."
Why would people who never plan to have an abortion make it their NUMBER ONE issue? Because they are religious nutjobs, that's why.
And then when it comes to stem cell research, they get rabbleroused by religious groups that equate extracting stem cells from human embryos with abortion. An embryo is not a fetus.
Religion is doing more harm than good. Again, it's like a terrorist sleeper cell in your mind waiting to be activated. That's my firm belief.
And if you want history as a guide, it's obvious that religion has done more harm than good. Where are all the epic stories in history involving religion that don't encompass war, torture, mayhem, bloodshed, genocide, etc?
My very rational belief is to NOT believe in ideas not supported by any form of evidence whatsoever.
For all of your talk about my irrationality, I've yet to hear one word about why you believe religion should be categorized as "rational."
Is "faith" rational?
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