{"id":176,"date":"2008-11-28T07:32:36","date_gmt":"2008-11-28T15:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=176"},"modified":"2008-12-05T17:30:05","modified_gmt":"2008-12-06T01:30:05","slug":"religion-and-moral-behavior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/religion-and-moral-behavior\/","title":{"rendered":"Religion and Moral Behavior"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jerry Muller\u2019s excellent Public Interest article, linked by Hume, references the ubiquitous \u201csocial utility\u201d argument for religion: \u201cbelief in ultimate reward and punishment leads men to act morally.\u201d The disappearance of religious belief, religion advocates argue, will produce individual and collective moral decay. \u201cWhere atheism and agnosticism flourish,\u201d writes Michael Novak in his latest book<\/a>, \u201cone may expect to find a certain . . . slacking off, a certain habit of getting away with things\u201d (268). It has even been suggested<\/a> that the subprime crisis was brought on by the \u201csecularizing\u201d of the United States, as epitomized by Americans\u2019 alleged unwillingness to say \u201cMerry Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Secular conservatives take most such charges seriously. They appreciate the fragility of social order and understand how complex are the myriad norms that maintain respect for common decencies and the rule of law.<\/p>\n

That having been said, it seems to me that a rough survey of the evidence does not necessarily bear out the warnings that waning religiosity encourages moral decadence. Northern European countries are among the most secular in the world. Here\u2019s a thought experiment: Where would a contract to build a highway, say, stand a better chance of fulfillment free from corruption and bribes: Sweden or Mexico? Where is the risk higher that the construction firm\u2019s CEO will be kidnapped and held for ransom: in Sweden or Mexico? Where is the CEO more likely to pay his taxes?<\/p>\n

The incidence of secular humanists in Sub-Saharan Africa is undoubtedly a fraction of that in Scandinavia. If you want to run a business or raise a family free from the fear of violence, you\u2019re better off in Scandinavia.<\/p>\n

Religion advocates point to the much higher religiosity of the United States compared to Europe as proof of America\u2019s moral superiority. Belief in the divine origin of the 6th Commandment apparently does not do much to restrain behavior, however, since American murder rates are magnitudes higher than Europe\u2019s. Denmark, Sweden and Norway have among the lowest murder rates in the world, despite their populations\u2019 infrequent church attendance. Within the United States, violent crime is highest in red states, with their higher degrees of religiosity, than in blue states.<\/p>\n

Religious belief does not reliably inoculate against other social pathologies. The black illegitimacy rate in the U.S. is nearly 70%, despite blacks\u2019 Biblically-inspired social conservatism. Catching up quickly are the country\u2019s heavily Catholic Hispanics, who now have a 50% illegitimacy rate. Unwed teen pregnancy in Europe is a fraction of what it is in the United States. Bible Belt states such as Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi have the highest divorce rates in the country, Massachusetts the lowest. Sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s religious zeal\u2014whether Christian, Muslim, or pantheistic\u2014has not inhibited rampant AIDS transmission there.<\/p>\n

But perhaps Oslo or Newton, Mass., are simply living off of the legacy of religious culture. Michael Novak asserts that \u201cwidespread public atheism\u201d takes three to four generations to show its full effects (how he arrived at that interval is unclear) (52). But even if the \u201cfull\u201d effects of atheism are not apparent until \u201cthree to four generations,\u201d some moral decay should show up before that. The main signs of European moral decline that conservative religion proponents have come up with are the unpopularity of the Iraq War and the continent\u2019s low birth rate. This first piece of evidence is a curious one, since the Holy See itself was no war enthusiast. The Vatican\u2019s foreign minister declared in March 2003 that a unilateral military strike by the U.S. would be a “crime against peace.” As for low birth rates, it is debatable that a patriarchal Palestinian family with eight children occupies a higher moral plane than an Italian or English family with one child. Affluence and women\u2019s liberation ineluctably push birth rates down. This is a demographic issue, not a moral one. <\/p>\n

Now it is undoubtedly the case that the influences on violence and other social dysfunction in highly religious countries are enormously complicated. At the very least, more complicated than\u00a0the assertion\u00a0that religious belief is the sine qua non of moral behavior.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jerry Muller\u2019s excellent Public Interest article, linked by Hume, references the ubiquitous \u201csocial utility\u201d argument for religion: \u201cbelief in ultimate reward and punishment leads men to act morally.\u201d The disappearance of religious belief, religion advocates argue, will produce individual and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[58,57],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":545,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions\/545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}