An anti-religion broadside

So I see on Thought Mechanics that The Times of London trumpets a study saying religion is bad for you:

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. [ Societies worse off ‘when they have God on their side’, The Times of London ]

Before we go any further, The “study” in question (“Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies”) is freely available here from the Journal of Religion and Society. The word “study” seems a little high-falutin’ for this work, since the author (Gregory S. Paul ¹) disavows his own conclusions before he even gets started:

This is not an attempt to present a definitive study that establishes cause versus effect between religiosity, secularism and societal health. It is hoped that these original correlations and results will spark future research and debate on the issue. [Emphasis added]

In other words, “my methodology sucks and my conclusions are unfounded, but that’s OK because I’m just trying to piss you off.” Sound a little harsh? It is an academic journal, after all. These people have standards. What could possibly be wrong?

Well, for starters the study is a mere correlation of raw data from other studies—not original research, and certainly not a carefully constructed analysis. His excuses for not doing more in-depth statistical analysis:

Regression analyses were not executed because of the high variability of degree of correlation, because potential causal factors for rates of societal function are complex, and because it is not the purpose of this initial study to definitively demonstrate a causal link between religion and social conditions. Nor were multivariate analyses used because they risk manipulating the data to produce errant or desired results, and because the fairly consistent characteristics of the sample automatically minimizes the need to correct for external multiple factors (see further discussion below). Therefore correlations of raw data are used for this initial examination.

Most of this is over my head, but these have the scent of poor excuses. (It’s also worth noting, as an aside, that Paul disavows his conclusions twice more in this paragraph.)

Paul fails to acknowledge the significant political and historical differences between the United States and the other secular Democracies he uses as comparisons. High rates of homicide, disease, suicide, and teen pregnancy rates can all be explained on an economic and/or policy level without resorting to “religious belief.” And to the extent that religious belief can either be directly related to these factors or to the policies that create this situation, it’s primarily Christian Fundamentalists who have sought and gained the political authority to put those destructive policies in place. It strikes me as horribly unfair to hang the failures of Christian Fundamentalist theology on traditions that don’t even consider the Bible sacred.

That’s the primary problem with the entire paper. Like most actively anti-religious atheists, Paul mistakes the 700 Club for all of Christianity and religion. His religious data points are primarily Christian theology—for example, he compares rates of belief in short-history Creationism and “taking the Bible literally.” Liberal Christians he treats as being weak versions of conservative Christians (not a fully developed theology in its own right), and other religions—Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, neo-paganisms, etc.—he references not at all. This would be acceptable if Paul was trying to correlate Christian Fundamentalism with social ills, but the beliefs of Pat Robertson are not a sufficient proxy for the faith of millions of American Buddhists, and is spectacularly offensive to the rapidly growing numbers of neopagans.

What possible use can this paper have? If I’m reading it right, all Mr. Paul is saying is “Religion is bad because fundamentalist Christians are really mean and stupid, although don’t hold me to that because I did my statistics on the back of a barroom napkin.”

Of course, it did get the Times of London trumpeting that science has discovered that Religion is bad for your health.

Mr. Paul is right about one thing: it’s an issue that deserves more discussion. But perhaps before Mr. Paul is allowed to publish an academic paper on this subject again he should take a comparative religion class or two. And maybe brush up on his basic science because, as you know, correlation is not causation.

¹ I contacted the editor of JRS and asked about Gregory S. Paul’s background. I specifically wanted to know if This GSP was the same GSP described here as “a freelance paleontologist, author and illustrator.” JRS responded that they had no further information on Mr. Paul, and the email address they had to contact him was apparently no longer operative. So Mr. Paul’s qualifications for publication are unknown.