Three simple words, God bless America. They seem harmless enough, but could those words actually conceal a detriment to the health of our society?
You bet.
Such a commercialized quote is the result of a nation that feels a belief in God is the only method toward a productive, beneficial, democratic society. Unfortunately for religious zealots, there is evidence that this nation's affinity for God may actually cause social dysfunction.
The claim that religion may be the culprit for an extreme social dysfunction was recently published in The Journal of Religion and Society's "Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies."
Data accumulated by author Gregory S. Paul, link an increase in secularization in prosperous democracies to lower rates of social stress.
Social stressors used in the study ranged from rates of homicide, teen pregnancy, even STD's -- all categories in which the U.S. ranks high when compared to other prosperous democracies.
The other 17 countries used in the study were mainly western European countries, such as England, France and Norway, as well as one Asian nation, Japan.
The study broke down populations in these countries according to strong belief in God, "agnostics and atheists," accept evolution and "take the Bible literally." It graphed these statistics alongside rates of homicide, teen pregnancy, abortion, youth suicide, youth mortality, gonorrhea, syphilis and life expectancy.
Of these societal stressors, homicide is certainly the most severe. In the U.S., where 70 percent of the population "absolutely believe in God" --higher than any other nation studied -- the homicide rate is triple that of other nations.
Additionally, the report compared those who absolutely believe in God against those who believe in evolution. In this category, the U.S. fell well below other nations.
This data seems to suggest belief in God is linked to high homicide rates, while belief in evolution provides for much lower homicide occurrences.
Certainly these statistics do not compensate for a wide range of social factors, and it would be quite unfair to infer cause and effect simply from the above data.
So let me continue.
The U.S. was the most theistic country surveyed, so the presumption would be that there is a higher moral standard -- whatever that is -- observed.
Yet, the U.S. ranks frighteningly high when compared to these other nations with regard to gonorrhea and syphilis in the 15-19-year-old age range.
Using the same age bracket, the U.S. ranked highest in abortions, with second place far down the scale.
Is this data shocking? Not really.
Religion has brought about the worst in humans as a species. With horrific events such as the holocaust, crusades, inquisition and every war fought under the banner of God, how can religious belief be justified?
Its justification springs from fear. If a society is not God-fearing, anarchy will ensue. Such a belief, however, is contradicted by the data in the report.
The report asserts, "The non-religious pro-evolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator. The widely held fear that a godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted."
Yet, the conclusions in this report do not directly accuse religion as the cause of heightened social stress in America.
In fact, you could make such an argument based on the number of cars, guns or fast-food chains in America, and the result may be the same. In essence, it's the same as pulling particular sentences out of, say, a Bible, and creatively applying them to suit your cause.
That, of course, would just be silly.
Noah Lewkowitz is a graduate student in architecture. You can catch him packing for Europe at noah.lewkowitz@asu.edu.
