Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'?

[Aytumious]

Saw this posted in Politics and I thought I'd post it here as well.

Timesonline (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1798944,00.html)

"Religious belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today."

[purnell]

[ QUOTE ]
...with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution.

[/ QUOTE ]

Really? I didn't think the majority of Americans were creationists, but maybe...

[Aytumious]

Well, here is a rather disturbing link on polling data that shows the majority believe in some type of creationism.

Link (http://www.pollingreport.com/science.htm)

[purnell]

It appears that my neighbors are even more ignorant than I thought. Now, that is frightening.

[The Truth]

It seems to me that many of the people who consider themselves "religious" are simply "religous" for 2 reasons.

1) Social pressure
2) Most of them simply don't actually believe in their faith. They have never actually sat down and considered what they mean when they say they are religious. I have some family members that are "religious"

In actuallity, when we discuss their religious views, they always concede that they don't really know if there is a god or not, they simply want to believe that their might be a greater presence, and they hope that their is.

I think this belief is a long way from being religious.
It simply means that intelectually it is silly, but they are driven to believe anyway.

So, while they concede they aren't really "christian" (because they dont really know if jesus is god, they just hope that their is a god and that if their is he looks after us. They see jesus as synonymous with god for cultural reason and no other reasons.) They continue to call themselves Christians.

Why? beats me.


-blake