RELIGION: A POX ON THE LAND
Better Off Without Him?

A George Monbiot essay via Alternet:

Remarkably, no one, until now, has attempted systematically to answer the question with which this column began. But in the current edition of the Journal of Religion and Society, a researcher called Gregory Paul tests the hypothesis propounded by evangelists in the Bush administration, that religion is associated with lower rates of "lethal violence, suicide, non-monogamous sexual activity and abortion." He compared data from 18 developed democracies, and discovered that the Christian fundamentalists couldn't have got it more wrong.

"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 ... None of the strongly secularized, pro-evolution democracies is experiencing high levels of measurable dysfunction."

Within the United States "the strongly theistic, anti-evolution South and Midwest" have "markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital and related problems than the Northeast where ... secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach European norms."

Click here for the rest.

My personal take on this is that religion is more of a result than a cause. That is, when people are economically and politically marginalized, as they are in the South more so than the rest of the country, they look for something to make them feel better, something greater than themselves to ease their suffering and add meaning to their lives. Marx first made this observation in the nineteenth century: religion is the opium of the people.

But that doesn't get religion, or to be more precise, American Christianity, off the hook. Religion, like corporations, essentially amount to institutions of ideological, political, and economic power, and these institutions have self-serving interests. Don't get me wrong: I'm not talking about spirituality, which I consider to be one's own personal connection to God, or the universe, or whatever; I'm talking about churches and associations of churches, like the Southern Baptists or the Catholics. Such entities, by their very nature, act in order to ensure their survival and expansion. These actions include, but are not limited to, high levels of fund raising, mass ideological indoctrination, and influencing political policy. So, while miserable Americans seek religious affiliation to ease their suffering, their suffering is compounded by stupid-ass, archaic, fundamentalist philosophy which feeds right back into the social, political, and economic forces that made them suffer in the first place, which, in turn, brings more sheep into the flock.

It's a pretty good racket, if you ask me.

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