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> Obviously religious people remain the vast majority and being a good person or not is largely disconnected from religiousness. Religiosity is highly inversel

> Obviously religious people remain the vast majority and being a good person or not is largely disconnected from religiousness. Religiosity is highly inversely correlated with criminality amount Americans.[1] Religious people also donate significantly more money to charity. To a large extent religious participation does seem to make people behave more pro-socially. It's certainly not the only way to promote ethical behavior. But even as an atheist, I'll freely admit that religion serves a pretty beneficial important role in our society. A role that we haven't really figured out how to replace with secular counterparts. [1] http://marripedia.org/effects_of_religious_practice_on_crime_rates#fn__3 http://marripedia.org/effects_of_religious_practice_on_crime... [2] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/30/religious-people-more-likely-give-charity-study/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/30/religious-p...

arrosenberg 6y ago
> To a large extent religious participation does seem to make people behave more pro-socially. That's different from religiosity correlating with "being a good person" though, which I'm interpreting as "the ability to act both morally and independently". It does seem that some people need religion to be a good person, because they lack the moral structure to do without (due to trauma or bad parenting or whatever). For those people, religion allows them to function in society with a set of business rules, but they still tend to lack a solid moral/ethical decision matrix to function on their own or act outside the contexts they have rules for.
amanaplanacanal 6y ago
You are assuming causality there. It could be that an individual’s mindset could lead to both less criminality and more religious participation. It’s not obvious that sending criminals to church would make them less criminal.
ericbarrett 6y ago
One of your sources is overtly Christian and the other is quite conservative[0]. Here is an academic survey of such studies; seems a lot more nuanced: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261834488_Religion_and_Crime https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261834488_Religion_... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times
tstrimple 6y ago
> Religious people also donate significantly more money to charity. Religious people donate significantly more to their churches. Whether that's charity which actually goes on to help people is highly variable. You can say we haven't really figured out how to replace them, but to me it seems pretty clear. Replace a patchwork of "charities" with an actual support network which works for everyone and not just parishioners. Fund it through taxes. You know, the was every single other developed nation in the world handles things. The whole "charity is just as good as sound policy" thing has never panned out and is why we have so many medical bankruptcies as just one example.
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
Charity - religious people are more likely to donate to religious organisations. In fact roughly a third of all donation money in the US goes to supporting religion. Large churches are quite astonishingly wealthy and also tax exempt, so it's not clear why they need the money more than any number of smaller charities and social programs. Crime: There isn't any reliable evidence that religion reduces crime in general. It may make certain kinds of crime less likely, but it's very difficult to disentangle all of the influences - because of course religion also affects crime reporting, and defines which actions can even be considered crimes. This can be a huge problem for victims who live in the same religious community as perpetrators. One textbook example is the history of child abuse in Catholicism. It didn't show up in crime figures for a very long time because the Church worked hard to cover it up. The truth didn't come out until the political power of the Church was reduced to a level where it could no longer do that. Another example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Laundries_in_Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Laundries_in_Ireland There's a good case for considering the possibility that religion actually encourages these kinds of abusive cultures - whether or not they're considered criminal at the time. So there really isn't an argument that religion serves a beneficial role. It has some benefits, but it also causes a lot of social and political distortions, some of which are extreme and persistently harmful.
randcraw 6y ago
Does that include war? Throughout history, religious leaders have very rarely opposed killing "the enemy". Likewise it's a rare soldier in a time of war who is insists on obeying, "Thou shalt not kill". Yet if this is true, then how do you define religiosity if it overlooks willingly acting in contradiction to the most essential laws that a faith and its faithful claim to believe?
- zdbrandon 6y ago
  > Throughout history, religious leaders have very rarely opposed killing "the enemy". The 20th century would like a word with you.

arrosenberg 6y ago

> To a large extent religious participation does seem to make people behave more pro-socially. That's different from religiosity correlating with "being a good person" though, which I'm interpreting as "the ability to act both morally and independently". It does seem that some people need religion to be a good person, because they lack the moral structure to do without (due to trauma or bad parenting or whatever). For those people, religion allows them to function in society with a set of business rules, but they still tend to lack a solid moral/ethical decision matrix to function on their own or act outside the contexts they have rules for.

amanaplanacanal 6y ago

You are assuming causality there. It could be that an individual’s mindset could lead to both less criminality and more religious participation. It’s not obvious that sending criminals to church would make them less criminal.

ericbarrett 6y ago

One of your sources is overtly Christian and the other is quite conservative[0]. Here is an academic survey of such studies; seems a lot more nuanced: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261834488_Religion_and_Crime https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261834488_Religion_... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times

tstrimple 6y ago

> Religious people also donate significantly more money to charity. Religious people donate significantly more to their churches. Whether that's charity which actually goes on to help people is highly variable. You can say we haven't really figured out how to replace them, but to me it seems pretty clear. Replace a patchwork of "charities" with an actual support network which works for everyone and not just parishioners. Fund it through taxes. You know, the was every single other developed nation in the world handles things. The whole "charity is just as good as sound policy" thing has never panned out and is why we have so many medical bankruptcies as just one example.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

Charity - religious people are more likely to donate to religious organisations. In fact roughly a third of all donation money in the US goes to supporting religion. Large churches are quite astonishingly wealthy and also tax exempt, so it's not clear why they need the money more than any number of smaller charities and social programs. Crime: There isn't any reliable evidence that religion reduces crime in general. It may make certain kinds of crime less likely, but it's very difficult to disentangle all of the influences - because of course religion also affects crime reporting, and defines which actions can even be considered crimes. This can be a huge problem for victims who live in the same religious community as perpetrators. One textbook example is the history of child abuse in Catholicism. It didn't show up in crime figures for a very long time because the Church worked hard to cover it up. The truth didn't come out until the political power of the Church was reduced to a level where it could no longer do that. Another example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Laundries_in_Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Laundries_in_Ireland There's a good case for considering the possibility that religion actually encourages these kinds of abusive cultures - whether or not they're considered criminal at the time. So there really isn't an argument that religion serves a beneficial role. It has some benefits, but it also causes a lot of social and political distortions, some of which are extreme and persistently harmful.

randcraw 6y ago

Does that include war? Throughout history, religious leaders have very rarely opposed killing "the enemy". Likewise it's a rare soldier in a time of war who is insists on obeying, "Thou shalt not kill". Yet if this is true, then how do you define religiosity if it overlooks willingly acting in contradiction to the most essential laws that a faith and its faithful claim to believe?

zdbrandon 6y ago
> Throughout history, religious leaders have very rarely opposed killing "the enemy". The 20th century would like a word with you.