I don’t think that is implied by
the data. I said “not necessarily”
because the correlations between religious belief levels and
measures
of social dysfunction for different societies do not imply
causality.
But neither do they imply lack of causality. So it’s not really
correct to say, based on the evidence, that religious system
concepts
are “not very likely” to be the cause of social dysfunction;
just that
they are “not necessarily” the cause of this
dysfunction.
[From Bill Powers (2008.01.28.1355 MST)]
Rick Marken (2008.01.28. 1230) –
I wasn’t judging from the correlations but from common sense. The cause
of teenage pregnancy is teenage sex. I don’t see how religion could cause
that. Religions work against abortions as best they can, so I don’t think
abortions are caused by religion. They’re caused by women and girls
getting pregnant and wishing not to carry the baby to term (or someone
else not wishing it, pretty forcefully). If safe abortions were not
allowed to be discussed and were effectively unavailable, I could see
that the rate of unsafe abortions would probably increase. But I don’t
see abortion rates increasing because of religion. How would that work?
And anyway, look at the scatter in the data. It’s horrendous. Those are
not facts.
In fact,
there is other data that suggests that there is a causal
relationship
between religious beliefs and abortion rate, for example. Abortion
rates are higher in regions where counselors are not allowed – for
strictly religious reasons – to discuss the abortion option with
expectant mothers than in places where they are allowed to discuss
this option.
That’s pretty mysterious. Not discussing the abortion option leads to
more abortions? I hardly think that’s the link. I should think that when
counsellors are allowed to mention the abortion option to teens who don’t
know about it, abortions would increase – unless the counsellors mention
it in a way that makes it sound dangerous, evil, or something like
that.
This is not a
pure experimental study, of course, (the
abortion vs non- abortion counseling “treatment” was not
randomly
assigned to counseling centers) so the causal link is still not
certain. Nevertheless, while these data certainly leave open the
possibility that religious beliefs are not necessarily responsible
for
the difference in abortion rates, they do suggest that it is more
than
“not very likely” that they had something to do with it. Don’t
you
think?
Not unless I can understand how.
Point (1) is
interesting because many people, here in the US
in particular, seem to take it for granted that adopting a religious
system concept is important for the social health of a society. I
think these data show that this is unquestionably not the case at
all.
There is no evidence that more religious societies are better off in
terms of these social variables; in fact, the data suggest that
these
societies may be worse off.
Worse off in some ways, I agree. But the religious impulse in most people
is aimed, I think, at combating evil, not increasing it. It shouldn’t
surprise us to find that people who think they are doing one thing may
actually be accomplishing the opposite, but it would surprise me to find
that religious people are deliberately doing bad things. They don’t think
they are bad.
As is usually
the case, other means of handling problems
are less effective than the means science typically comes up with,
but when
scientists refuse on principle to deal with
“non-scientific” issues, what
other choices are there?
I agree. And I presented the data to show how one might start to
approach this problem scientifically; with a model of behavior that
suggests that the kind of system concepts people control for should
make a difference in the kind of social behavior we see among those
people and with some data that are at least a start at testing that
notion (in a very general way, true, but it’s better than the pure
armchair approach, I think).
Fine. I think we’re doing that even if we haven’t got very far with it
yet. We think we have an approach that will improve the human lot more
than religion has ever managed to do. Very well, let’s get on with it. We
don’t have to beat religion into the ground to do that. Why waste time
getting into fights? Let’s just do it. Lots of us ARE doing it.
Militant
athiesm is no more contructive than
religion, and no more capable of solving problems, so that’s no
help,
either. In fact it creates one of the classes of social
problems.
I’m no fan of militant atheism either. But this article suggests
that
the the atheist (and agnostic) system concept is strongly related
to
societal health, unlike the religious system concept, which is
strongly related to societal dysfunction.
I think the statistical trends in the data are mild and entirely
insufficient to accomplish the ends I want to see brought about. If we
eliminated religion entirely and let atheism triumph, do you think people
would instantly become sane and happy? I think there would still be
prejudice and jealousy and depression and crime and despair in full
measure. In fact, all the reasons that people use religion in disgusting
and oppressive ways would still be there; they would simply motivate some
other kind of unpleasantness. All the good reasons would still be there,
too. The point is that religion and other conventional approaches to
human difficulties are for the most part irrelevant, incapable of finding
and curing the real disease because they misidentify the cause. It
doesn’t really matter whether you are religious or not; you’re not going
to have much effect either way, unless you turn to some other approach
that works a whole lot better.
These data
show pretty
clearly that an increased prevalence of religious system concepts
does
not make things better and that increased prevalence of atheistic
system concepts does not make things worse.
That religion (and athiesm) are unsuccessful in solving
problems is shown
clearly by the fact that the same problems exist now as have existed
through
recorded history.
Yes, but they clearly exist to very different degrees in different
societies. Homicide rate is a good example. Religious system
concepts
(getting people to believe that god will be pissed if you kill
someone) are supposed to keep people from killing. But the data show
that this is not the case. Homicides are far more prevalent in very
religious countries (like the US) than in non-religious countries
(like Scandinavia and Japan).
Or you could say that in countries where the underlying culture is
violent and hostile, religion is commonly evoked as a way of combating
such things (ineffective, of course), and in countries with less
underlying violence, there is less reason to bring religion into play. I
see religion as a very popular but unsuccessful way of trying to make the
world better. The worse the world is (for entirely nonreligious reasons)
the more likely people are to try to make the religious formula work. If
something that worked better were as well known as the religious approach
is, it would be used instead.
This just
supports what you say: that
religion is unsuccessful at solving problems like this, as evidenced
by the fact that these problems have existed through recorded
history.
But the data I presented make a more interesting point than this;
they
suggest that certain system concepts (the one’s adopted in Japan and
Scandinavia, for example) may result in better societies (in terms
of
low homicide rate, for example) than do other system
concepts.
I don’t think religion has anything to do with making societies better or
worse. I see it as a symptom of the state of a society. The worse things
get, the more desperate the measures become; people will try anything
that might even hypothetically work when things get bad enough. But
making them stop using religion is not going to make the reasons they
want to use it go away. We ought to be looking at the evils that beset
our society and thinking about what to do about them, not focusing on the
methods people have been using (in vain, but what’s the alternative?) to
combat those evils.
The
data also suggest (though this must certainly be tested more) that
the
system concepts that have led to more civilized societies are
inconsistent with the religious system concepts adopted in less
civilized societies.
No, I think you have it backward. Less civilized societies have more
reason to try to cure the problems, and lacking any other means, they
crank up their religions in the attempt to cure them. It doesn’t work,
but what else do they have? Abolish religion, and the problems will
remain. You have to ask WHY people adopt religions. They’re trying to
make some sort of errors go away. If we address the errors, there will be
no need for the religions or the other conventional approaches that work
so poorly.
I don’t know
if this is the case but it
certainly seems like it might be a place to start a scientific look
at
the kinds of system concepts that result in the kinds of societies
that I’m sure most of us – even those with religious system
concepts
– want to live in.
That’s getting involved in the content. The particular system concepts
are not the problem; the problem is ignorance, confusion, and conflict.
Why do all these errors still exist? What is wrong with people’s capacity
to reorganize? How can we redirect reorganization to the levels where it
will do some good? We’re not in the business of saying which system
concepts people should adopt. We’re in the business of bringing conflicts
into awareness and trying to find out what is causing them. We can’t
reorganize other people, and nobody knows what the next reorganization is
going to produce. We have a strategy that works anyway, without giving
advice or analyzing or even always making the right moves. It works a lot
better than creating more conflicts does.
Understanding the importance of conflict between control systems is a
start.
Yes, of course. And it seems to me that the kind of system concepts
adopted in the more civilized societies – those with less crime,
teen
pregnancy, abortion, poverty, etc – are the kind that seem to
reduce
conflict between the control systems who adopt those system
concepts.
All I can say is, try thinking of it the other way around. System
concepts don’t control behavior; just the opposite.
Best,
Bill P.