Study: Religion hurts societies

First of all, let me say this:

YES! YES! YES!

With that off my chest, y'all should take a look at article from the Times Online. The headline: "Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'"

The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”

(my emphasis)

This makes me happy. I mean, really happy, I realize that this study won't have much of an impact, but it's great to see that an objective study has concluded that religion is a bad thing.

He said that most Western nations would become more religious only if the theory of evolution could be overturned and the existence of God scientifically proven. Likewise, the theory of evolution would not enjoy majority support in the US unless there was a marked decline in religious belief, Mr Paul ["Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist"] said".

We knew that.

And finally, the conclusion (a quote of Mr. Paul's) of this article is by far one of the best things I've read today:

“The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted.”