Living the Secular Life_New Answers to Old Questions
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Now here’s what happened to my mother-in-law, who took quite a tumble. It was the same year as Ami’s stabbing, although it happened in Denmark, where my family and I were living for the year. I was doing research on secularity in Scandinavia and teaching a couple of classes at Aarhus University, my wife was working on a screenplay, and our kids were in school, learning about Danish kings and queens. We were living in a small IKEA-smitten third-floor apartment on the campus of the university. My mother-in-law came to stay with us for ten days. One afternoon in the middle of her visit, she was playing a game on the outside stairway with my daughter Ruby. Somehow she lost her footing, slipped, and thudded down the stairs. Fortunately, she didn’t break anything, but she was bloodied here and quite badly bruised there, and in a lot of pain.
We quickly got her to the local hospital, where she received immediate, excellent care. They took X-rays, treated her cuts and bruises, gave her medication for the swelling, gave her some pain pills, and then double-checked to make sure that nothing serious had unknowingly occurred. And all of this medical attention was totally free, of course—Denmark not only has one of the best health care systems in the world, but it is universal health care; it’s free to everyone (including visiting in-laws), provided by the state, and subsidized by progressive taxation.
What these two anecdotes illustrate is just how different Jamaica and Denmark are, at least in terms of what we might refer to as standard measures of societal goodness and well-being. For starters, Jamaica is one of the most violent societies in the world, while Denmark happens to be one of the least violent; the current murder rate in Jamaica is 52 per 100,000, while in Denmark it is less than 1 per 100,000. Just to be clear: that means that there are fifty times more murders, per year, per capita, in Jamaica than in Denmark. And while health care is sadly substandard in Jamaica, Danes enjoy one of the best-developed, best-functioning health care systems on earth, which helps explain why Denmark consistently scores very high on the United Nations Human Development Index.
There are many additional differences between these two small countries—economic, cultural, geographic, demographic, political, and culinary. The history of Jamaica as a brutal, bloody link in the transatlantic slave trade bears significant stressing. And while Jamaica was on the losing end of colonialism, Denmark was certainly on the benefiting end. So yes, the differences between these two societies are many.
But the one key difference I want to highlight here is the matter of religiosity/secularity. Simply put: Most Jamaicans are a very religious lot. Most Danes are not. Most Jamaicans pray a lot. Most Danes don’t. Most Jamaicans go to church regularly. Most Danes don’t. Most Jamaicans place a lot of importance on faith in God. Most Danes don’t. Most Jamaicans believe that the Bible is the word of God. Most Danes don’t. Most Jamaicans believe in heaven and hell. Most Danes don’t. Most Jamaicans love Jesus a lot. Most Danes certainly like Jesus, but love him? Well, that’s a bit much for your typical Dane. In sum, on just about every single indicator one can think of in an effort to measure religiosity or secularity, most Jamaicans lean very strongly toward the religious side, while most Danes lean very strongly toward the secular side.
I am focusing on Jamaica and Denmark—their differences in societal well-being as well as religiosity/secularity—because of what these two small nations represent globally. Jamaica can readily serve as a standin for the many nations of the developing world in similar sociological straits: poor, struggling, vulnerable, violent—nations like Haiti, El Salvador, Colombia, Liberia, Zimbabwe, or the Philippines. And Denmark can readily serve as a standin for many of the developed nations out there enjoying high levels of prosperity and peacefulness—nations like Norway, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Canada, or Australia. And when we compare these types of nations, we see that the religiosity/secularity correlation holds true the world over: the poorer, more chaotic, more troubled countries tend to be among the most religious, while the wealthier, more stable, more well-functioning countries tend to be among the most secular.
And yet this state of the world is not how things are supposed to be—well, at least according to conservative Christians and many other like-minded Americans, who deeply believe and routinely assert that religion is supposed to be good and beneficial for society, while the absence of religion is supposed to be harmful and bad. That is, strongly pious nations (like Jamaica) should be faring the best, while relatively secular nations (like Denmark) should be faring the worst.
But when we actually look around, we find just the opposite state of affairs. As University of London professor Stephen Law has observed, “If declining levels of religiosity were the main cause of … social ills, we should expect those countries that are now the least religious to have the greatest problems. The reverse is true.”
The Well-Being of Secular Societies
“No God, no moral society.” So declared syndicated radio talk show host Dennis Prager recently in an op-ed in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles. In today’s American body politic, Prager’s declaration garners much assent. For many Americans—usually the more conservative, but not always—there is a deep and long-standing distrust of atheism and secularism, two growing elements of modern life that many people fear are intrinsically dangerous or detrimental to societal well-being.
Consider former Republican congressional leader, presidential candidate, and best-selling author Newt Gingrich. He is one of our more outspoken religious conservatives, and he repeatedly makes the claim that religion is good and necessary for societal well-being, while the absence of religion is bad. Really bad. Indeed, according to Gingrich, a secular society would be hell on earth. As he said during a live television broadcast back in 2011, any country that ignores God or attempts to “drive God out of public life” will surely face all kinds of social problems, and a secular country would be “frankly, a nightmare.” A few years earlier, in his 2006 book Rediscovering God in America, Gingrich characterized secularism as the most ruthless, destructive force threatening to ruin this country; indeed, if the United States ignores God or fails to worship God, the results will be hellish. In a more recent book, from 2010, Gingrich argued that secularism was as dangerous to society as Nazism. And in the aftermath of the wanton massacre of schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut, Gingrich publicly proclaimed that such violence was the obvious result—and inevitable consequence of—secularism in our society.
Newt Gingrich’s position is not without its many historical predecessors. For example, in his 1790 classic Reflections on the French Revolution, Edmund Burke argued that religion was the underlying basis of civil social order. Voltaire, the celebrated Enlightenment philosopher, argued that without theism society could not function; it is necessary for people to have “profoundly engraved on their minds the idea of a Supreme being and creator” in order to maintain a moral social order. Alexis de Tocqueville, in his 1835 classic Democracy in America, argued that religious faith is “indispensable” for a well-functioning society, that irreligion is a “dangerous” and “pernicious” threat to societal well-being, and that nonbelievers are to be regarded as “natural enemies” of social harmony.
Such brazen assertions continue to abound. In addition to the likes of Prager and Gingrich, consider Fox pundit Bill O’Reilly. Back in 2011, during a televised debate with British atheist Richard Dawkins, O’Reilly made the traditional argument that an absence of religion results in societal depravity. “My hypothesis,” he declared, “is that religion is a constraint on society.” Religious beliefs, according to O’Reilly, hinder “bad behavior.” And he’s written similar sentiments, declaring in his best-selling books that a society without religion would be anarchic, chaotic, weak, and lawless. Pundit Tammy Bruce concurs; she has argued that Christianity is the “last bastion of morality, values, and decency” and that without it society will be “vague, empty, and lost.” Or consider the perspective put forth by Larry Alex Taunton, the executive director of Fixed Point Foundation and the author of The Grace
Effect. In a prominently placed op-ed on CNN.com in December 2011, Taunton declared that a nation lacking Christian faith is a nation in ruin, a nation in decay. Directly referencing the classic American film It’s a Wonderful Life, starring Jimmy Stewart, Taunton argued that societies strong in religious faith will resemble “Bedford Falls” (content, humane, peaceful, and moral), while societies without such religious faith will resemble “Pottersville” (corrupt, harsh, degraded, and immoral).
But the current state of the world reveals a very different picture. Indeed, it is actually among the more secular societies on earth that we find the greatest levels of social harmony, civility, freedom, equality, peacefulness, and prosperity, while it is among the more religious societies that we find the greatest levels of destitution, chaos, insecurity, inequality, oppression, immorality, and poverty. Truth is, the highly secularized “Denmarks” of the world are much closer to resembling the goodness of Bedford Falls, while the highly religious “Jamaicas” of the world come closer to resembling the destitution of Pottersville.
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NOW, BEFORE PROCEEDING any further, let me be clear: I don’t think that the Denmarks of the world are doing so well solely because they are highly secular, and I don’t think that the Jamaicas of the world are struggling so much solely because they are highly religious. Thus I am certainly not blaming the Jamaicas of the world’s problems on their high rates of religiosity, nor am I attributing the Denmarks of the world’s success solely to their secularity. Such a view would be horribly simplistic and reductionist. And furthermore, the obvious case could be made that certain countries around the world are highly secular because they are doing so well economically, politically, and socially, while other countries are highly religious because they aren’t.
Regardless, these results fly in the face of those who say that we need faith in God in order to have a well-functioning society, or that secularism is intrinsically bad for society. Both of these claims are demonstrably false.
To prove it, let’s begin by considering which countries today are the most and least God-believing. Drawing on numerous international surveys that reveal what percentage of the population in various countries believes in God, has faith in God, prays to God, and so on, we are able to get a fairly good, reasonably accurate, and widely agreed-upon list of the most and least God-worshipping nations in the world. The most faithful nations on earth—those highest in theism—include Nigeria, Uganda, the Philippines, Pakistan, Morocco, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, El Salvador, Colombia, Senegal, Malawi, Indonesia, Brazil, Peru, Jordan, Algeria, Ghana, Venezuela, Mexico, and Sierra Leone. And as for the least faithful, most secular nations on earth—those with the highest rates of atheism, agnosticism, or theological indifference—we can include Sweden, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Japan, Canada, Norway, Finland, China, New Zealand, South Korea, Estonia, France, Vietnam, Russia, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Germany, Hungary, Great Britain, Australia, and Belgium.
Okay, so which set of countries is faring the best, on average? According to the claims of many Americans, it should be the most God-loving nations. But such is not the case. Far from it. Rather, it is those countries with the lowest rates of God belief that tend to be the “healthiest” in terms of prosperity, equality, freedom, democracy, women’s rights, human rights, educational attainment, crime rates, life expectancy, and so forth (though not all, to be sure, such as Vietnam or China), and it is those nations with the highest rates of God belief that tend to be relatively unsuccessful in terms of any standard sociological measurements of societal health—from having high infant mortality rates to high poverty rates, from entrenched inequality to a stubborn degree of corruption, from lack of clean water to absence of democracy.
Let’s consider some specific examples. Take motherhood, something that just about everyone can agree on as being supremely important, if not deeply good. Which countries are the best for mothers? The Save the Children Foundation, a nonprofit organization, publishes an annual “Mother’s Index,” wherein they rank the best and worst places on earth in which to be a mother. They take into account a host of factors, such as the percentage of births attended to by skilled personnel, maternity leave benefits, infant mortality rates, and other measures. And according to their most recent annual reports, of the top ten best nations on earth in which to be a mother, all are highly secularized nations, with most being among the least theistic nations on earth. Of the bottom ten worst nations in which to be a mother, all are highly religious, such as Yemen, Mali, and Niger. Not a single one of the most theistic nations ranks among the best nations on earth in which to be a mother, and many, like Bangladesh, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Senegal, and Nigeria, rank among the very bottom.
Consider peacefulness, yet another phenomenon that almost everyone can agree is a societal good. Which countries today are the most peaceful? Not the very religious ones. Rather, it is the least God-fearing nations that enjoy the greatest levels of peace. Just ask the nonprofit organization called Vision of Humanity, which publishes an annual “Global Peace Index.” They calculate numerous variables, such as levels of safety and security in a given society, levels of violent crime, warfare, and ease of access to dangerous weapons, when compiling their index. And according to their most recent rankings, among the top ten most peaceful nations on earth, all are among the least God-believing—in fact, eight of the ten are specifically among the least theistic nations on earth. Conversely, of the bottom ten—the least peaceful nations—most of them are extremely religious. For example, Mexico ranks number 121, the Philippines number 136, Colombia number 139, Zimbabwe number 140, and Pakistan number 146.
One final variable: murder. If there is any one single, widely agreed-upon pathological element in a society, it is murder. So which countries have the highest murder rates? Which have the lowest? According to the United Nations 2011 Global Study on Homicide, of the nations with the highest intentional homicide rates, all are very religious/theistic, and many—such as Colombia, Mexico, El Salvador, and Brazil—are among the most theistic nations in the world. But of those at the bottom of the list—the nations with the lowest homicide rates—nearly all are very secular, with seven being among the least theistic nations, such as Sweden, Japan, Norway, and the Netherlands. Additional research by sociologists and criminologists such as James Fox, Jack Levin, and Pablo Fajnzylber shows that murder rates are significantly lower in the more secular nations on earth, where atheism and agnosticism are more common, and higher in the more religious nations, where faith in God is widespread. Indeed, Robert Brenneman is a sociologist who studies gangs in Central America, and based on his extensive fieldwork, he notes that among the most violent, brutal barrios of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, atheism and agnosticism are virtually nonexistent.
The best countries in which to be a mother, the most peaceful countries, those countries with the lowest murder rates—their populations generally tend to be quite secular. And this correlation holds true for nearly every measure of societal well-being imaginable, such as levels of corruption in business and government, sexually transmitted disease rates, teen pregnancy rates, literacy rates, quality of hospital care, quality of roads and highways, rates of aggravated assault, degree of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, environmental degradation, pollution, sanitation, access to clean drinking water, voter turnout, and so on. We can even look at various studies that measure subjective happiness. Year after year, nations like Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, the least religious countries in the Western world, report the highest levels of happiness among their populations, while countries like Benin, Togo, and Burundi, which are among the most religious nations on earth, are the least happy.
One scholar who has researched this matter extensively is Gregory S. Paul, and he has created a “Successful Societies Scale,” in which he tries to objectively measure a whole array of variables that are indicative of societal goodness and well-being. When he measures such factors as life satisfaction, incarcer
ation rates, fertility rates, alcohol consumption rates, per capita income, inequality, and employment rates, and correlates them with religiosity/secularity, his findings are unambiguously clear: aside from the important but exceedingly outlying exception of suicide—religious societies have significantly lower suicide rates than more secular societies—on just about every other measure of societal goodness, the less-religious nations fare markedly better than the more-religious nations.
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SO THE PATTERN is indisputable when comparing and contrasting countries from around the world. But let’s bring this discussion closer to home and see if the same pattern also emerges when we look within our country. It does, unmistakably. The correlation of high rates of secularity with societal well-being remains evident and robust when looking at our fifty states. For when we compare the most religious states in terms of faith/belief in God with the least religious states, we find that yet again the least theistic states tend to fare better, on average, than the most theistic.
The ten states that report the highest levels of belief in God are Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Oklahoma (tied with Utah). The ten states with the lowest levels of belief in God are Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Alaska, Oregon, and California. It is important to remember, of course, that the populations of the last ten states listed are not wholly secular—far from it. In all of them, a majority of residents still believe in God. But the rates of theism are simply much lower in the latter ten than in the former ten. So, for example, 91 percent of people in Mississippi and 86 percent of people in South Carolina claim to believe in God “with absolute certainty,” but only 54 percent of people in Vermont and 59 percent of people in Maine do so. And only 1 percent of people in Kentucky explicitly claim to not believe in God, compared to 9 percent in Oregon.