Posted on 03/20/2011 10:09:37 AM PDT by delacoert
Many Americans doubt the morality of atheists. According to a 2007 Gallup poll, a majority of Americans say that they would not vote for an otherwise qualified atheist as president, meaning a nonbeliever would have a harder time getting elected than a Muslim, a homosexual, or a Jew. Many would go further and agree with conservative commentator Laura Schlessinger that morality requires a belief in God—otherwise, all we have is our selfish desires. In The Ten Commandments, she approvingly quotes Dostoyevsky: "Where there is no God, all is permitted." The opposing view, held by a small minority of secularists, such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, is that belief in God makes us worse. As Hitchens puts it, "Religion poisons everything."
Arguments about the merits of religions are often battled out with reference to history, by comparing the sins of theists and atheists. (I see your Crusades and raise you Stalin!) But a more promising approach is to look at empirical research that directly addresses the effects of religion on how people behave.
In a review published in Science last month, psychologists Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff discuss several experiments that lean pro-Schlessinger. In one of their own studies, they primed half the participants with a spirituality-themed word jumble (including the words divine and God) and gave the other half the same task with nonspiritual words. Then, they gave all the participants $10 each and told them that they could either keep it or share their cash reward with another (anonymous) subject. Ultimately, the spiritual-jumble group parted with more than twice as much money as the control. Norenzayan and Shariff suggest that this lopsided outcome is the result of an evolutionary imperative to care about one's reputation. If you think about God, you believe someone is watching. This argument is bolstered by other research that they review showing that people are more generous and less likely to cheat when others are around. More surprisingly, people also behave better when exposed to posters with eyes on them.
Maybe, then, religious people are nicer because they believe that they are never alone. If so, you would expect to find the positive influence of religion outside the laboratory. And, indeed, there is evidence within the United States for a correlation between religion and what might broadly be called "niceness." In Gross National Happiness, Arthur Brooks notes that atheists are less charitable than their God-fearing counterparts: They donate less blood, for example, and are less likely to offer change to homeless people on the street. Since giving to charity makes one happy, Brooks speculates that this could be one reason why atheists are so miserable. In a 2004 study, twice as many religious people say that they are very happy with their lives, while the secular are twice as likely to say that they feel like failures.
Since the United States is more religious than other Western countries, this research suggests that Fox talk-show host Sean Hannity was on to something when he asserted that the United States is "the greatest, best country God has ever given man on the face of the Earth." In general, you might expect people in less God-fearing countries to be a lot less kind to one another than Americans are.
It is at this point that the "We need God to be good" case falls apart. Countries worthy of consideration aren't those like North Korea and China, where religion is savagely repressed, but those in which people freely choose atheism. In his new book, Society Without God, Phil Zuckerman looks at the Danes and the Swedes—probably the most godless people on Earth. They don't go to church or pray in the privacy of their own homes; they don't believe in God or heaven or hell. But, by any reasonable standard, they're nice to one another. They have a famously expansive welfare and health care service. They have a strong commitment to social equality. And—even without belief in a God looming over them—they murder and rape one another significantly less frequently than Americans do.
Denmark and Sweden aren't exceptions. A 2005 study by Gregory Paul looking at 18 democracies found that the more atheist societies tended to have relatively low murder and suicide rates and relatively low incidence of abortion and teen pregnancy. So, this is a puzzle. If you look within the United States, religion seems to make you a better person. Yet atheist societies do very well—better, in many ways, than devout ones.
The first step to solving this conundrum is to unpack the different components of religion. In my own work, I have argued that all humans, even young children, tacitly hold some supernatural beliefs, most notably the dualistic view that bodies and minds are distinct. (Most Americans who describe themselves as atheists, for instance, nonetheless believe that their souls will survive the death of their bodies.) Other aspects of religion vary across cultures and across individuals within cultures. There are factual beliefs, such as the idea that there exists a single god that performs miracles, and moral beliefs, like the conviction that abortion is murder. There are religious practices, such as the sacrament or the lighting of Sabbath candles. And there is the community that a religion brings with it—the people who are part of your church, synagogue, or mosque.
The positive effect of religion in the real world, to my mind, is tied to this last, community component—rather than a belief in constant surveillance by a higher power. Humans are social beings, and we are happier, and better, when connected to others. This is the moral of sociologist Robert Putnam's work on American life. In Bowling Alone, he argues that voluntary association with other people is integral to a fulfilled and productive existence—it makes us "smarter, healthier, safer, richer, and better able to govern a just and stable democracy."
The Danes and the Swedes, despite being godless, have strong communities. In fact, Zuckerman points out that most Danes and Swedes identify themselves as Christian. They get married in church, have their babies baptized, give some of their income to the church, and feel attached to their religious community—they just don't believe in God. Zuckerman suggests that Scandinavian Christians are a lot like American Jews, who are also highly secularized in belief and practice, have strong communal feelings, and tend to be well-behaved.
American atheists, by contrast, are often left out of community life. The studies that Brooks cites in Gross National Happiness, which find that the religious are happier and more generous then the secular, do not define religious and secular in terms of belief. They define it in terms of religious attendance. It is not hard to see how being left out of one of the dominant modes of American togetherness can have a corrosive effect on morality. As P.Z. Myers, the biologist and prominent atheist, puts it, "[S]cattered individuals who are excluded from communities do not receive the benefits of community, nor do they feel willing to contribute to the communities that exclude them."
The sorry state of American atheists, then, may have nothing to do with their lack of religious belief. It may instead be the result of their outsider status within a highly religious country where many of their fellow citizens, including very vocal ones like Schlessinger, find them immoral and unpatriotic. Religion may not poison everything, but it deserves part of the blame for this one.
It is repellent nonsense in my book for any number of reason, but I'm poking around the web for treatises on "Christian niceness" just to give the topic a chance.
One of my favorite finds so far is:
Pharisees were the most overtly nice people you could have met. They did everything the proper and expected way.
The only thing that being an atheiest can make you is legal.
The only thing that being a Christian (born again) can make you is Saved.
I don't follow you. What impact does my atheism have on my legal status?
Most public Atheists are eager to show they have “decent” morality... This in itself though shows a certain willingness to accede to the concept that morality is divinely derived. For the very definition of morality is one in which you try to do no harm as you pass through life... and that is a derivative of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” a God inspired concept. Morality is a basis for living in harmony in human society... harmony being modified somewhat by laws that help to regulate unjustness. And where does society get the notion of what is just and unjust? There is a code written in our hearts... to deny that code, is to deny the code writer, and to deny the code writer is to give lip service to the moral code itself and can it when it infringes on one’s preference to disbelief.
If this is the definition of "nice" then I'm out.
"nice" doesn't mean a thing to me - it's not a virtue or absolute value that I can determine. It's more of an emotional good feeling. Sometimes virtue requires "un-niceness".
I can't help but think of the inevitible interview with the serial murderer's neighbor who goes on about how "nice" he/she/it was.
A message of true love and tolerance, which you can get from religions like Christianity or Buddhism, or atheistic humanism, make people compassionate.
“Nice” has nothing to do with the argument. People said that Ted Bundy was ‘nice’, up to a point. If God casts sinners into hell for eternity, does that make Him nice?
Agreed. How many preachers have cheated on their wives and beaten their kids and how many priests have molested children? How many so called religious people are nice for one hour on Sunday morning and immediately go back to their two-faced backstabbing drunken low-life mean hateful ways the rest of the week? Religion doesn’t equate with nice.
From my own personal experience:
When I was an atheist/agnostic I was a very, very angry, cynical person.
When I became born again 4 years ago (Praise God!) I’ve become (over time) far, far, far less angry and more positive.
I’m more of a “the glass is half full” rather than “the glass is half empty” now person.
People who knew me before I became saved have told me that they’ve seen great (good) changes in me over the past 4 years.
Ayn Rand was an atheist. Michael Moore is religious. Religion is independent of morals.
***Many Americans doubt the morality of atheists.***
Aethists can be moral. They will go to Hell not because of their morality but because of their denial of Christ.
I have known those who professed Christ who were true examples of living their faith, I have known athiests who would literally give you the shirt of their backs. I know a retired woman who calls herself a wiccan who volunteers at a homeless shelter.
Each and every one I would consider Nice people.
By the same token, I’ve known many of the above who were true P.O.S., not worth spitting on.
Religion or the lack thereof means little, it’s the heart inside that makes one worthy of drawing the next breath. Anyone who says “ours are better than yours” simply because they have a better publicity department is being foolish.
First off, atheism is a religion. They believe there is no God. So they’re theistic, but in a negative way. And that belief is illogical, because you can’t prove a negative.
I am NOT denigrating religious belief in what follows. Christianity has been a major force for good in our society, as well as a fount of good moral beliefs.
But it is not necessary to be religious to be moral. All that is necessary is to give being stupidly selfish and be intelligently selfish. Let’s take as an example, theft.
If I’m stupidly selfish, I take what I want. But there are consequences from that, depending who I stole from. They might take it back, and some of mine to boot. Worse, they might get together with others who’ve been ripped off, and do something nasty to me.
So is theft is my self interest ? If I’m intelligent, obviously not.
Clearly a case can be made for every other moral prohibition. If you’ve got a brain, you don’t do bad things because the common agreement between us is, you don’t do bad things to us and we won’t do bad things to you.
It’s pretty simple, and does not require belief in God.
Believing you’ll be writhing in agony in Hell helps you to be moral, but it’s not necessary - if you have a brain.
Did the author make the case about Denmark?
the state-supported Evangelical Lutheran Church accounts for about 84% (down from 92% in 1984) of those persons claiming religious affiliation. Several other Christian denominations, as well as other major religions, find adherents in Denmark. Islam is now the second-largest religion in Denmark.
.......
INCIDENCE OF CRIME
While both INTERPOL and UN Survey data are available for Denmark, INTERPOL data are more complete and current, and so will be used in the following analysis. The crime rate in Denmark is moderate compared to other industrialized countries. For purpose of comparison, data were drawn for the seven offenses used to compute the United States FBI’s index of crime. Index offenses include murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. The combined total of these offenses constitutes the Index used for trend calculation purposes. Denmark will be compared with Japan (country with a low crime rate) and USA (country with a high crime rate). According to the INTERPOL data, for murder, the rate in 2000 was 4.03 for Denmark, 1.10 for Japan, and 5.51 for USA. For rape, the rate in 2000 was 9.32 for Denmark, compared with 1.78 for Japan and 32.05 for USA. For robbery, the rate in 2000 was 59.14 for Denmark, 4.08 for Japan, and 144.92 for USA. For aggravated assault, the rate in 2000 was 23.68 for Denmark, 23.78 for Japan, and 323.62 for USA. For burglary, the rate in 2000 was 1868.06 for Denmark, 233.60 for Japan, and 728.42 for USA. The rate of larceny for 2000 was 1224.71 for Denmark, 1401.26 for Japan, and 2475.27 for USA. The rate for motor vehicle theft in 2000 was 604.18 for Denmark, compared with 44.28 for Japan and 414.17 for USA. The rate for all index offenses combined was 3793.12 for Denmark, compared with 1709.88 for Japan and 4123.97 for USA.
TRENDS IN CRIME
Between 1995 and 2000, according to INTERPOL data, the rate of murder increased from 1.13 to 4.03, an increase of 256.6%. The rate for rape increased from 8.44 to 9.32, an increase of 10.4%. The rate of robbery increased from 39.09 to 59.14, an increase of 51.3%. The rate for aggravated assault decreased from 165.29 to 23.68 per 100,000, a decrease of 85.7%. The rate for burglary decreased from 2042.56 to 1868.06, a decrease of 8.5%. The rate of larceny increased from 599.94 to 1224.71, an increase of 104.1%. The rate of motor vehicle theft decreased from 683.55 to 604.18, a decrease of 11.6%. The rate of total index offenses increased from 3540 to 3793.12, an increase of 7.2%.
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/rwinslow/europe/denmark.html
The author has lost all credibility in my mind.
INCIDENCE OF CRIME
The crime rate in Sweden is high compared to other industrialized countries. An analysis was done using INTERPOL data for Sweden. For purpose of comparison, data were drawn for the seven offenses used to compute the United States FBI’s index of crime. Index offenses include murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. The combined total of these offenses constitutes the Index used for trend calculation purposes. Sweden will be compared with Japan (country with a low crime rate) and USA (country with a high crime rate). According to the INTERPOL data, for murder, the rate in 2001 was 10.01 per 100,000 population for Sweden, 1.10 for Japan, and 5.61 for USA. For rape, the rate in 2001 was 23.39 for Sweden, compared with 1.78 for Japan and 31.77 for USA. For robbery, the rate in 2001 was 95.83 for Sweden, 4.08 for Japan, and 148.50 for USA. For aggravated assault, the rate in 2001 was 667.42 for Sweden, 23.78 for Japan, and 318.55 for USA. For burglary, the rate in 2001 was 1323.90 for Sweden, 233.60 for Japan, and 740.80 for USA. The rate of larceny for 2001 was 6988.81 for Sweden, 1401.26 for Japan, and 2484.64 for USA. The rate for motor vehicle theft in 2001 was 495.21 for Sweden, compared with 44.28 for Japan and 430.64 for USA. The rate for all index offenses combined was 9604.57 for Sweden, compared with 1709.88 for Japan and 4160.51 for USA. (Note that Japan data are for year 2000)
The data reported to INTERPOL make it appear that Sweden is perhaps the most crime ridden country in the world; however, these findings should be tempered by comparison with data reported to the United Nations.
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/rwinslow/europe/sweden.html
God Himself is "nice" at times..."mean" at others. But He is ALWAYS loving.
one only needs to look at that evil head spinning, hate filled, spilt pea soup spewing, vial, filthy so-called comedian on the HBO Channel Bill Mahr. Case closed!
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