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The Row Boat"Had we but world enough, and time..." *
I Was a Pretty Ethical Atheist11/15/2006 00:36:183 Quarks Daily referenced an article in Skeptic, which in turn referenced an article from the Journal of Religion and Society from 2005. It is a preliminary statistical study suggesting that religious societies are more dysfunctional than secularized ones. The original article by Gregory S. Paul raises some interesting eyebrows on Google. The Wikipedia article says what seems to be correlated elsewhere: Paul is not a statistician or a sociologist but a freelance paleontologist and illustrator of dinosaurs. This helps to explain why believing in evolution plays such an important role in his study. A number of critics some of whom happen to be Christians dig into him (this and this and this) for not having any credentials and not doing good statistics. So it is important to recognize, for those who care, that this guy (by the standards of a society that believes in credentials for better or worse) is not "professional." Really, this is important stuff for the Secularists Are People Too position, which I wholeheartedly believe in despite being a card-carrying member of a particularly hegemonic and reactionary church. Religionists need this to see religion for what it is, whatever that might be, and to see other people for what they are. Which is to say, folks just as capable of being ethical and socially effective. To me, it leaves the question of what religion is after all all the more interesting. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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