Jesus Christ, That’s a Lot of Murder

Wonkette discovers an interesting study in the London Times.

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

According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.

The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.

Believers also think that religion is necessary to prevent the horror of mass masturbation too. How’s that working out?

“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 in the prosperous democracies.

“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that we’re not spectacular.

Mr. Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from “uniquely high” adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.

Mr. Paul said: “The study shows that England, despite the social ills it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most indicators, even though it is now a much less religious nation than America.”

He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was compared with other countries, including France, Japan and the Scandinavian countries. These nations had been the most successful in reducing murder rates, early mortality, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion, he added.

That is quite interesting indeed. So those godless heathen (but beautiful) Scandinavians, with their gay marriage and naked midsummer celebrations, have lower abortion and sexually transmitted disease rates than we do? I wonder if that has anything to do with our faith-based sex ed classes?

Nah...