New Study Links Religion to Immoral Behavior
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I haven’t read the paper but it sounds like the headline should be “Researcher Mixes Up Correlation With Causation, Gains Media Profile”. Am I wrong?
This is quite an old report, isn’t it?
If this is the same study I’m thinking of, I’m pretty sure that none of the academics involve are trying to claim that it shows religion -causes- immoral behaviour.
Rather, it would appear to -disprove- (well, that’s probably too strong. Perhaps highlight an important weakness in) any notion of religious societies being somehow more peaceful, or “better”. The results really were quite striking in showing more religious societies having higher crime and the like. Makes it hard to argue for that particular “benefit” of religion (i.e., that it makes people behave better).
As it says in the dying seconds of this clip, it’s a correlation not causality. Maybe some underlying thing causes both the “immorality” and the religion.
Who ‘s actually surprised?
surprising? i found this link from 3 years ago:
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2007/06/study-in-journal-of-religion-and.html
I’ve heard about it before. As said at the end – it shows a correlation, not cause and effect. But I’d bet on it being cause and effect. More research should be done. Of course it’s great someone actually had done any scientific research about religion, society and morality.
I’m actually rather astonished by this.
A reporter actually ran research past some statisticians to check the numbers. Has that ever happened before?
How do you measure faith? Especially per nation. All but 4 nations say they are a democracy, yet only half actually are, even fewer are electoral democracies. If religion is your system of control then you would claim to be a religious/faithful nation. So headline should read “Men with power will do anything to keep power.” SHOCK!
“He’s a dinosaur paleontologist..” Really? A dinosaur who studies fossils?
Which is cause and which effect though. Does religion thrive in crime filled countries?
Forget about what this dude does. If he doesn’t “know” that Africa is NOT a country, he’s not worth listening to! I don’t think Europe is a country! Kmt!
I wonder if the areas compared were equal in wealth.
The strict terms of what he wrote WAS correlation—–not causation. You should read the work before you criticize the author.
There could be all manner of explanation for the correlation, some negative to organized religion and some positive. Both are likely true to a certain extent. But how knows. It’s impossible to say based on the study, and the author wouldn’t disagree I don’t thin.
The results of the study could just demonstrate that the easier life is, the less likely people are to turn to religion. Historically, societies have become more religious during times of difficulty, less so when the pressure was off.
I think all it really shows is that people like to feel that they have ‘someone’ stronger than they are to lean on when things get tough, even if they regard that ‘someone’ as imaginary or irrelevant for much of the rest of the time.