50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God (40 page)

Randi, James. Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions.
Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1982.

Sagan, Carl. Billions and Billions. New York: Random House, 1997. More
fascinating thoughts from the late Carl Sagan.

Despite the universal belief that religion makes
people "good," it's obvious that it makes some
people commit heinous acts.

-James A. Haught

have heard the claim that religion is good for a society or nation
more times than I could possibly count. It's one of the most popular justifications for belief. Most believers of virtually every religion
I have ever encountered anywhere in the world say that society
"needs" religion. It's simple: the more people who believe in a god
and worship that god, the better off a country will be. More religion
means more happiness, more security, and more prosperity. Just
because many believers repeat this idea over and over, however,
doesn't make it true.

The claim that belief in a god or gods is necessary for a nation's
well-being may seem sensible to believers but it ignores the reality of
our world. More belief definitely does not guarantee positive results.
If anything, just the opposite is true. An objective look reveals that
belief in a god seems to have a negative impact on societies. It might
be a coincidence, but that's what the data show. Harsh as it may sound
to believers, religion appears to retard social progress and facilitate
barbaric behavior. There are many examples of this, both in the past and in the present. I would not go so far as to claim that this proves
religion is bad or even the primary cause of a given nation's problems.
There probably are many other factors one can blame a society's problems on other than religion. But the clear negative relationship
between belief in gods and a society's overall condition strongly
refutes the claim that religion is a key ingredient for social success.

Believers who call upon this idea to defend their belief in a god
need to recognize how belief really plays out around the world when
it flourishes and shapes a society. Sociologist Phil Zuckerman has
researched how belief impacts the quality of life in societies. His work
confirms that belief in gods falls far short of guaranteeing good things
for a nation and its people. "If this often-touted religious theory were
correct-that a turning away from God is at the root of all societal
ills-then we would expect to find the least religious nations on earth
to be bastions of crime, poverty and disease and most religious countries to be models of societal health," writes Zuckerman. "A comparison of highly irreligious countries with highly religious countries,
however, reveals a very different state of affairs. In reality, the most
secular countries-those with the highest proportion of atheists and
agnostics-are among the most stable, peaceful, free, wealthy, and
healthy societies. And the most religious nations-wherein worship of
God is in abundance-are among the most unstable, violent, oppressive, poor and destitute" (Zuckerman 2006).

Zuckerman's findings about societies and belief have nothing to
do with personal opinions or prejudice against religious belief. His
data, drawn from objective and respectable sources, shows a pattern
that anyone can see. Despite all claims to the contrary, belief in gods
does not create or maintain superior societies. The pattern seen in our
world is clear: the more belief and the more intense the belief, the
more violence, more oppression, and more economic failure. Less
belief and less intense belief mean more peace, more tolerance, and
more economic success. One can look at modern immigration trends
as well. The major flow of people is away from more-religious societies toward less-religious societies. Why is this? If more belief is better and if gods protect societies that worship the most, then
shouldn't people be moving in the other direction? I do not want to
overstate this or antagonize believers, but belief in gods really does
seem like a social toxin based on the current state of the world. The
more of it there is, the sicker the society. So many times during my
travels around the world I noticed that intensely religious societies
were more stressful for me. As a solo traveler concerned with staying
safe and healthy, I found that the more in-your-face religious belief
was, the more on the edge I was because of security and health concerns. Conversely, visiting countries that were relatively free from the
overbearing presence of religion were safe and enjoyable, like a walk
in the park.

The following are a few of the key points from Zuckerman's
research that believers should be aware of:

• The 2004 United Nations' Human Development Report ranked
177 countries on a "Human Development Index," by measuring
such indicators of societal health as life expectancy, adult literacy, per-capita income, educational attainment, and so forth.
According to this report, the five top nations were Norway,
Sweden, Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands. All had
notably high degrees of organic atheism. The bottom fifty countries lacked statistically significant levels of organic atheism.
("Organic atheism" refers to atheism in societies were there is
sufficient freedom for citizens to openly state their lack of belief
without fear of persecution.)

• The United Nations Report on the World Social Situation (2003)
found that, of the forty poorest nations on Earth (measured by
the percentage of population that lives on less than one dollar a
day), all but Vietnam were highly religious nations with statistically minimal or insignificant levels of atheism.

• A study reported in the Journal of Law and Economics (2002),
looked at thirty-eight non-African nations and found that the ten
with the highest homicide rates were highly religious, with min imal or statistically insignificant levels of organic atheism. Conversely, of the ten nations with the lowest homicide rates, all but
Ireland were secular nations with high levels of atheism.

• Of the thirty-five nations with the highest levels of youth-illiteracy rates all were highly religious, with statistically insignificant levels of organic atheism. This is according to the United
Nations Report on the World Social Situation (2003).

• The most religious nations on earth-particularly those in
Africa-have the worst rates of AIDS and HIV infection. Conversely, the highly irreligious nations of Western Europe, such
as those of Scandinavia-where public sex education is supported and birth control is widely accessible-fared the best,
experiencing among the lowest rates of AIDS and HIV infection
in the world.

• Nations with a high degree of organic atheism are the most equitable to women, while highly religious nations are among the
most oppressive. According to the 2004 Human Development
Report's "Gender Empowerment Measure," the ten nations with
the highest degrees of gender equality were all strongly organicatheistic nations with significantly high percentages of nonbelief. Conversely, the bottom ten were all highly religious nations
without any statistically significant percentages of atheists.
Countries such as Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands, with
the most female members of parliament, tend to have high
degrees of organic atheism, and countries such as Pakistan,
Nigeria, and Iran, with the fewest female members in parliament, tended to be highly religious. (Zuckerman 2006)

Is it fair to pin all of this on belief in gods? What about a nation's historical problems that don't have anything to do with religion? What
about economic exploitation by other nations, wars, environmental
disadvantages, political oppression, racism, corruption? Of course
there are many factors that drag some societies down and keep them
there. The point here, however, is that belief in gods is supposed to solve serious social problems and provide a better life for people. This
is the claim so many believers make. More religion is better, they say.
Clearly, however, it is not.

Zuckerman adds: "Religion is clearly not the simple and single
path to righteous societies that religious fundamentalists seem to think
it is. Belief in God may provide comfort to the individual believer, but,
at the societal level, its results do not compare at all favorably with
that of the more secular societies. When seeking a more civil, just,
safe, humane, and healthy society, one is more likely to find it among
those nations ranking low in religious faith-contrary to the preaching
of religious folks" (Zuckerman 2006).

Author Sam Harris shows in his book Letter to a Christian Nation
that this pattern can hold true even within highly religious societies:

The United States is unique among wealthy democracies in its [high]
level of religious adherence; it is also uniquely beleaguered by high
rates of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted
disease, and infant mortality. The same comparison holds true within
the United States itself: Southern and Midwestern states, characterized by the highest levels of religious literalism, are especially
plagued by the above indicators of societal dysfunction, while the
comparatively secular states of the Northeast conform to European
norms. (Harris 2006, 44)

America's political landscape shows more of the same. "Red states"
that are dominated by conservative Christians do not fare well in
measures of bad behavior. Harris reports that 76 percent of the twentyfive most dangerous cities in America are found in red states. The
twelve states with the most reported burglaries are red, and seventeen
of the twenty-two states with the highest murder rates are also red. "Of
course, correlation data of this sort do not resolve questions of
causality-belief in God may lead to societal dysfunction; societal
dysfunction may foster a belief in God; each factor may enable the
other; or both may spring from some deeper source of mischief.
Leaving aside the issue of cause and effect, however, these statistics prove that atheism is compatible with the basic aspirations of a civil
society; they also prove, conclusively, that widespread belief in God
does not ensure a society's health" (Harris 2006, 45).

A common catchphrase is that a society is judged best by how it
treats it prisoners. I believe how a society treats its children is an even
better measure. In 2007 UNICEF published An Overview of Child
Well-Being in Rich Countries. The report analyzed and ranked the
world's wealthiest nations by how well they protected, educated, vaccinated, and nurtured their children. As you can probably predict by
now, nations with high levels of atheism (Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Finland) ranked higher than nations that are far more religious
(Ireland, Greece, Poland, United States). If belief in a god and the sincere worship of that god bring "blessings" upon a nation, then
shouldn't we at least be able to see this payoff in the condition of that
nation's children? Surely a protective god or gods would look out for
the basic needs of children within those societies that are more dedicated to belief and worship. Apparently not.

Any believer who claims that religion is necessary for a nations's
social well-being needs to explain why nearly every measure of social
well-being point to exactly the opposite conclusion. Why do the most
religious societies have the most problems? Why do societies with the
highest ratios of atheists have the least problems? This is a very important question that believers are obligated to think about if not answer.
Jesus has not delivered widespread good health and comfort to Christian-dominated Haiti, Cape Verde, or Bolivia. Allah has not delivered
security and justice to the faithful women of Afghanistan, Saudi
Arabia, or Yemen. Likewise, Ganesha and Vishnu have not provided
India with a solution to poverty and illiteracy. I suspect, of course, that
the serious problems some countries face have nothing to do with gods
because gods are most likely not real. However, it seems reasonable to
suspect that taking belief in gods too seriously can distract governments and citizens from earthly concerns such as healthcare, crime
prevention, education, and economic development. This lack of focus
on what really matters can have a severe impact on a society by
slowing progress, if not derailing it completely.

Harris, Sam. Letter to a Christian Nation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.

An Overview of Child Well-Being in Rich Countries. UNICEF report, 2007.
http://www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/pdf/rc7-eng.pdf.

Zuckerman, Phil. "Is Faith Good for Us?" Free Inquiry 26, no. 5 (August/
September 2006). http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section
=library&page=pzuckerman_26_5.