Why is it that "High levels of organic atheism are strongly correlated with high levels of societal health"

Question

According to Phil Zuckerman in Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns (2005)
http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/zuckerman/atheism.html

Answer 1

I believe that can be correlated with a phrase I coined: "As crutches are to a man with a broken leg, so is religion to the mind that is feeble." Religion can be blamed for so many of society's ills, as well as efforts to impede progress in the sciences and societal developments.

Answer 2

Social health often breeds complacency, and when human beings think they are self sufficient, they don't feel they have a need for God, so why believe in him? If one was to remove the social health, then there would probably be a revert back to religiosity.

One could say that the good social health is a result of religion. In no example did it show that atheism was absolutely the majority worldview. Likewise, there is still a rather larger contingency of religious people in those states in spite of the social health. The increase in atheism is a recent trend which started after good social health began to exist. Conversely, there are numerous atheist states while atheism was being enforced that actually saw a decline in social health. China after the Communist took over in 1949 went about systematically destroying religion. It wasn't to long before the people were hopeless and starving to death. The former Soviet Union attempted to irradiated religion. Now, they are facing one if the greatest humanitarian crisis. A recent article published by the LA Times shows the ill social health in Russia saying, "one of the world's fastest-growing AIDS epidemics, resurgent tuberculosis, rampant cardiovascular disease, alcohol and drug abuse, smoking, suicide and the lethal effects of unchecked industrial pollution". These states enforced atheism as the state worldview (notice I didn't say religion) and went about enforcing it in the same way the Taliban enforced Islam. China has softened the hard-line policy and has seen a resurgence in religion, particularly Christianity. While atheism isn't the sole blame of the problems in these states, it is certainly a contributing factor, and a counter example to show that atheism doesn't always correlate with good social health, but bad social health.

Another thing to note is that the study groups agnostics, atheists, and non-believers in God. The non-belief in God could be a result of forced belief, such as in Vietnam which only recently in 1989 lifted the ban on religion. 17 years may seem like a long time, but compared to the the time it takes religion to spread, it is relatively short. China did a similar thing, except much earlier in 1979 and atheism has since started declining there. Non-belief can also include religions that that don't have a God. According tot the CIA Fact book, 84% of the people in Japan follow Shintoism, which does not claim an all powerful deity. If one were to ask a Japanese person if he or she believed in God, then it is likely that he he would answer, "no", but this does not mean he is or she is not religious.

With these things in mind, one must not commit a fallacy and hastily conclude that "High levels of organic atheism are strongly correlated with high levels of societal health." There is enough reason not to believe the conclusion because it doesn't include the whole picture.

Answer 3

An interesting read. While I don't agree that belief in a higher power is a built in function of the brain, the rest of the report is very interesting.

I think the reason is simple - smart people have no need to blame everything good and bad on supernatural forces.

Answer 4

Why is it that high levels of foolish questions are correlated with foolish people?

Answer 5

I bet you've heard this before...... you can read anything you want to in that and make your own assumptions.

I AM

Answer 6

Someone needs to ask these questions that are aimed at undermining religion.