Is God Bad for Society ? (Study Claims Atheistic Societies are Safer)

Worldnetdaily.com ^ | 9/29/2005 | Joseph Farrah

[SirLinksalot]

Did anyone really make a detailed comparative study between the crime rates of a Christian society and a secular society ? This I'd like to see.

Put it this way... imagine yourself walking towards your car in a darkly lit neighborhood and then encountering a group of 18 to 20 olds coming towards you. Would you be more comfortable knowing that they just came out of a church's Bible Study, or that they just came out from a bar, a club or a strip joint ?

[SmithL]

Boy, are they in for a surprise!

[Vicomte13]

Where is there a truly "secular society" to study anyway?

[Paleo Conservative]

Like the Soviet Union, Peoples Republic of China, and Cuba?

[tortoise]

I'm pragmatic about it.

God is good for society. A society of rational people do not require God to have a very high functioning society, but the reality is that most people are irrational imbeciles and if some random belief (irrational or otherwise) keeps them in line then I guess I'll have to take that as the runner-up solution. Systems based on axioms are suboptimal, but hardly worse than societies based on neither rationality nor a vaguely consistent set of axioms.

[NJ_gent]

"encountering a group of 18 to 20 olds coming towards you. Would you be more comfortable knowing that they just came out of a church's Bible Study, or that they just came out from a bar, a club or a strip joint ?"

Well, if they're coming from a bar, then something's a little "off" to begin with, considering they weren't old enough to get in the door. Same thing with most strip clubs. However, if by chance they did come from a strip club, I could at least get directions to it. So I guess my answer is the last one?

[No Longer Free State]

(Study Claims Atheistic Societies are Safer)

Maybe in this life...

[hlmencken3]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1492813/posts

[aomagrat]

[RadioAstronomer]

Nicely said!

[Better Dead Than Red]

Wasn't there a report just released by the UN that says Scots are three times more likely to be assaulted than Americans?

[DoughtyOne]

My God, Europeans are certainly a fine lot to hold up as a role model for us. And where have the major wars of this world started, almost exclusively?

Europe and Asia are responsible for what 100 million deaths of just their own citizens?

Wow, just damn...

Let me guess, some CYA athiest must have written this.

[Borges]

To be technical those weren't non-religious societies. They had a religion...Marxism.

[Northern Yankee]

Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a self-proclaimed "social scientist," writes: "Many Americans agree that their church-going nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly skeptical world. In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD (sexually transmitted disease) 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."

So dysfunctional we had to rescue their European hides out of two World Wars!

[rollinginmybuggy]

how does your wife feel about that?

[Centurion2000]

(Study Claims Atheistic Societies are Safer)

Europeans are much better off than Americans because of their lack of faith.

Nazi, communists and maoists are safer than here?

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

What do you suppose that John Lott would do to the statistics in this "study?"

[Always Right]

Did anyone really make a detailed comparative study between the crime rates of a Christian society and a secular society ?

A dumb 'study'. He just compared the US with Britain and a few other more secular countries and attributed all the differences to the US being Christian. Forget about the race relations and our inner city problems. All ills were simply assumed to be because we are a more Christian society. What a lame 'study'. This 'study' could have been done in a week by one person.

[VoiceOfBruck]

Wishful thinking by doomed agnostics and atheist wannabes.