It was an interesting study but it was criticized in the scientific community. Well, he did another study in 2009 and this time was more rigorous. The follow up study is called The Chronic Dependence of Popular Religiosity upon Dysfunctional Psychosociological Conditions. Now I haven’t read the whole thing, but Tom Rees of Epiphenom has. He was attracted to the charts, as I was, which I’ve added below.

What societal ills bring a country down from being successful and healthy? Paul used indicators like murder, suicide rates, size of prison populations, mortality, alcohol consumption, poverty, unemployment, sexually transmitted diseases, abortions and deaths. I think he had some positive indicators like marriages too.

Results? Unhealthy societies are more religious. Religion needs a dysfunctional society to flourish, which explains why a first world country like the U.S. can still be so religious, as you can see in all the charts. (click for larger versions)

Tom Rees also did a paper called Is Personal Insecurity a Cause of Cross-National Differences in the Intensity of Religious Belief? In it Rees found that the more insecure a society and its people are, the more religious that society is. So these two studies support each other. You can see his review of his own study at his blog, Epiphenom. It’s got all his nice graphs there, easy to read.

Here is a video of Gregory Paul talking about his work. It’s hard to hear him clearly, but I watched some of it and he said the way to help the U.S. become more secular was to get universal healthcare. The talk was in 2008, by the way, so maybe we’ll see if our recent pathetic bill will make a difference in the religiosity of America.

So making society more stable and helping people to feel more secure would help to get them out from under the boot heel of religion? Sounds plausible. I’d like to see more work done. How would you test that hypothesis? If you could choose 2 changes made to your country to make it more stable and less religious, what would you pick?

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Christopher Hitchens just wrote a 3 page piece for Vanity Fair about the 10 commandments titled The New Commandments. He goes through the KJV version and talks about where they are good and where they are not so good. Here is his summation:

What emerges from the first review is this: the Ten Commandments were derived from situational ethics. They show every symptom of having been man-made and improvised under pressure. They are addressed to a nomadic tribe whose main economy is primitive agriculture and whose wealth is sometimes counted in people as well as animals. They are also addressed to a group that has been promised the land and flocks of other people: the Amalekites and Midianites and others whom God orders them to kill, rape, enslave, or exterminate. And this, too, is important because at every step of their arduous journey the Israelites are reminded to keep to the laws, not because they are right but just because they will lead them to become conquerors (of, as it happens, almost the only part of the Middle East that has no oil).

So here is a rundown of how he fixes them:

• One to Three can go, “since they have nothing to do with morality and are no more than a long, rasping throat clearing by an admittedly touchy dictator. Mere fear of unseen authority is not a sound basis for ethics.” (the invisible sky daddy flexes his muscles and demands worship.).
• He also says we don’t have to ban sculpture and art (idols).
• Four. Gone. Pointless. (don’t work on the sabbath, except black sabbath, of course!)
• Five, respect elders, sure. But also ban child abuse. What a concept! (I’d add that parents should only get respect like anyone else, when they earn it.)
• Six, taken care of by modern law. Don’t murder. (Don’t kill under almost all circumstances.) (although I think assisted suicide for terminally ill people should be legal)
• Seven, he seems to destroy too.  (adultery) (and yeah, what about saying rape is bad? especially pedophilia and that kind of stuff?)
• Eight, ok. This one is good. Don’t steal. (stealing)
• Nine, don’t lie. Also basically good. (lying about your neighbor)
• Ten, women aren’t property. This one is pointless and harmful in that it makes you a sinner just from your thoughts. (don’t lust after your neighbor’s goods or wife)

Other evils of human society that should be denounced, according to Hitchens:

• genocide
• slavery
• rape
• child abuse
• sexual repression
• white-collar crime
• wanton destruction of the natural world
• people who talk on cell phones in restaurants (and movie theatres, or who talk on the phone or text while driving!)
• people who blow themselves up while shouting ‘god is great!’ (and any other kind of jihadism or crusade)
• racism
• using people as private property
• condemning people for their inborn nature (like homosexuality, etc)

And this is how he finishes:

“Be willing to renounce any god or any religion if any holy commandments should contradict any of the above. In short: Do not swallow your moral code in tablet form.”

Good advice! I think I stand by the principles I came up with for myself. What are yours? Do you agree with Christopher Hitchens?

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Links on the full page >>

• State of the States: Importance of Religion – Gallup Poll, January 28, 2009
• Average IQ Score By State
• Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (2008, US Census Bureau)
• Law Enforcement, Courts and Prisons: Crimes and Crime Rates (US Census Bureau)
• Divorce Rates by State, 1990-2005
• Generosity in Canada and the US: The 2009 Generosity Index
• Political Ideology: “Conservative” Label Prevails in the South (August 2009)
• 2008 State Well-Being Composite Rankings

Cross-posted from Morgantown Atheists

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Here is the full movie (140 minutes)

I learned some interesting facts and tidbits, but most of what Bill Maher finds out in these interviews around the world are not new to me. But combined with his commentary, it is interesting and provocative, to say the least.

I was afraid I’d hate this movie because I was afraid it would fill me with impotent rage, but somehow it didn’t. It frightened me, yes, but Bill Maher is masterful, helped by awesome editing, at telling us all something we need to know in a palatable format.

We’re on the road to nowhere with religion. It demands that people submit and remain ignorant and childish, it encourages people to hate and murder and kill for the stupidest reasons, it lies, and it is insidiously dangerous unlike any other threat in the whole world.

So whether you rent it, buy it, watch it here or however you manage to get a hold of it, watch this movie. Get your friends to watch it. It’s enlightening if you allow it to be, even for a cynical old atheist like myself.

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I finally picked up the book Saturday night. I’m on Chapter 5. So far it’s amazing. Then again what did I expect from a genius.

Here are three of my favorite quotes from the book.

We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.

Indeed, organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority.

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

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