Even though I do not agree with the methodology 100%.. I thought
it's an interesting observation.. 
Discuss!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1798944,00.html
The Times
Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing
towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and
suicide, according to research published today.
According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only
unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to
social problems.
The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary
to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy
society.
It compares the social peformance of relatively secular countries,
such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a
creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative
evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil,
believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.
Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that
religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to
lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity
and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have
been described as its spiritual capital. But the study claims
that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its
ills.
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.
Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used
data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and
other research bodies to reach his conclusions.
He compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion,
suicide and teenage pregnancy.
The study concluded that the US was the worlds only prosperous
democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least
devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that
rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times
higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also
suffered from uniquely high adolescent and adult syphilis
infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study
suggested.
Mr Paul said: The study shows that England, despite the social
ills it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA
in most indicators, even though it is now a much less religious
nation than America.
He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was
compared with other countries, including France, Japan and the
Scandinavian countries. These nations had been the most successful
in reducing murder rates, early mortality, sexually transmitted
diseases and abortion, he added.
Mr Paul delayed releasing the study until now because of Hurricane
Katrina. He said that the evidence accumulated by a number of
different studies suggested that religion might actually contribute
to social ills. I suspect that Europeans are increasingly repelled
by the poor societal performance of the Christian states, he
added.
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 said.
The non-religious, proevolution 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.
