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 United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”
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.
Wow!
I have to say even I am a little shocked at this. I am no lover of organized religions, and I never thought that they had much of a positive impact on society, but I never thought that they might actually increase our disfunctionality.
Hey this means I am the well adjusted one! Hah, wait until my next family reunion!
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