The Moral Minority.

Sep 10, 2011 17:55


It's nice when your philosophical opponents wind up conceding that your arguments were correct all along.

The Rabbi Myer and Dorothy Kripke Centre for the Study of Religion and Society is devoted to, as they put it, "facilitating scholarly activity in the areas of religion and society, and promoting understanding between and among faith communities."  In short, they're theologians.

In 2005, they released this study.  One of the highlights, from my point of view, was this...

Indeed, the data examined in this study demonstrates that only the more secular, pro-evolution democracies have, for the first time in history, come closest to achieving practical “cultures of life” that feature low rates of lethal crime, juvenile-adult mortality, sex related dysfunction, and even abortion. The least theistic secular developed democracies such as Japan, France, and Scandinavia have been most successful in these regards. 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. Contradicting these conclusions requires demonstrating a positive link between theism and societal conditions in the first world with a similarly large body of data - a doubtful possibility in view of the observable trends.

This is more noteworthy because it came from an ardently pro-theistic source.

We're probably always going to be stuck with a significant population of religious kooks on this planet, but as the percentage of atheists and agnostics rises and more data piles up proving that we're not a threat to order and polite society, we will be cease to be outcasts and begin to be recognised for what we are:  the minority of the human population that actually accomplishes the things that religious people merely pay lip service to.
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