Theism By The Numbers - Atheism vs Christianity

THEISM BY THE NUMBERS
Statistics and Figures

This page is to present a vast number of statistical studies to show that there is not nearly as much inconsistency between them as some people would have you believe. It is important to make a distinction between interpretations of data and the data itself. There is a great deal of inconsistency in interpretations of the data, but not much at all in the actual information. Hopefully, when viewed in context, the various stats and figures will gel into a more complete and accurate picture of the actual role of theism in the world.

SACRED AND SECULAR

The most thorough study of correlations between religiosity and economic factors is Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide by Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart.

Most of it is available online.

http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~pnorris/Books/Sacred_and_secular.htm

Some of it isn’t, however, and I would recommend the print version to anyone with a serious interest in the subject. It is by no means an anti-religious polemic—it is purely a statistical study and actually pretty dry, but it is the most complete document on the subject.

http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Secular-Religion-Worldwide-Cambridge/dp/0521548721/

THEISM AND INTELLIGENCE

Scientific American, Nature, and something like 30 other studies correlating religiosity (inversely) with scientific literacy, IQ and education.

http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Jesus/Intelligence%20&%20religion.htm

National Academy of Sciences growing more nontheistic over the years, only 7% theists.

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

IQ correlates inversely with religiosity by country.

http://hypnosis.home.netcom.com/iq_vs_religiosity.htm

Three times as many Americans believe in Virgin Birth as evolution. Most Americans believe it is necessary to believe in God to be moral.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/08/15/nyt.kristof/index.html

Gallup, “no religious affiliation” skew more educated:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/20329/Religion-America-Who-Has-None.aspx

RELIGIOSITY AND GDP PER CAPITA

Another study of the IQ correlation that observes that IQ also correlates inversely with GDP per capita. It is from a Christian fundamentalist website and is intended as a defense for religion.

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/religion_vs_iq.html

An article from _The Atlantic_ that confirms the inverse correlation between religiosity and GDP per capita.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/secularism

GDP per capita and life expectancy.

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/correlation.aspx?v1=67&v2=30&y=2003

GDP per capita and infant mortality.

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/correlation.aspx?v1=67&v2=29&y=2003

The apparent outlier of the United States is explained by its high economic inequality (Figure 4.7). Within the US, the statistics are actually consistent with cross-national statistics (Figure 4.9):

http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~pnorris/ACROBAT/Sacred_and_Secular/Chapter%204.pdf

RELIGIOSITY AND BIRTH RATES

One of many articles bragging about religiosity and birth rates.

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/191227

Birth rates and infant mortality.

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/correlation.aspx?v1=25&v2=29&y=2003

Birth rates and GDP per capita.

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/correlation.aspx?v1=67&v2=25&y=2003

Birth rates and life expectancy.

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/correlation.aspx?v1=25&v2=30&y=2003

RELIGIOSITY AND CRIME

Prison population by religion:

http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm

Compare this to various different estimations of the religious affiliations of Americans…

CIA World Factbook:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.html

Pew Forum:

http://religions.pewforum.org/affiliations

Countries by homicide rate:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homicide_rate

“The Myth of Secular Moral Chaos” by Sam Harris:

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=sharris_26_3

List of countries by Human Development Index:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index

THE SUICIDE ARGUMENT

This section is based on a conversation that came up in a recent thread. I posted another article in which someone analyzes the data that confirms that abortion rates, crime rates, life expectancy increase with religiosity. From The Journal of Religion and Society:

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

4praise asserted that this Gallup study contradicted the statistics from that article, called “In More Religious Countries, Lower Suicide Rates”:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/108625/More-Religious-Countries-Lower-Suicide-Rates.aspx

Does this contradict any of the above information? No. What 4praise failed to notice was that the original article referred to suicide rates among young people, observing that there was no major difference between religious and secular countries. Why is this significant? Because, with some obvious outliers, suicide rates correlate positively with life expectancy. I couldn’t find a graph for this, but you can compare the numbers yourself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

For example, in 4praise’s article the Phillippines was touted as the primary example of a country with low suicide rates and high religiosity, and it was compared to Japan which had much higher suicide rates and lower religiosity. The article suggests that the correlations between GDP aren’t significant enough to explain the discrepancy, but it does not take into account life expectancy. In Japan, people live an average of over ten years longer than they do in the Phillippines. “Suicidal” Sweden, France, Norway, Switzerland, etc. are all in the top twenty in terms of their life expectancies. “Happy” Paraguay, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Peru, Guatemala, etc. don’t crack the top fifty or, sometimes, the top 100. This seems counterintuitive, but not when you consider that suicide rates are highest among the elderly.

http://www.211bigbend.org/hotlines/suicide/SuicideandtheElderly.pdf

“Suicide rate among elderly rises as people live longer.”

http://www.iol.ie/~afifi/BICNews/Health/health26.htm

Here is a list of 17 wealthy nations by youth suicide rate (ages 15-24). Note that there is apparently no correlation either way with their Gallup religiosity index scores. The US, for example, has over twice the religiosity score of Japan and the UK, but suicide rates among the young are around 50% higher. The five least religious countries on this list aren’t even in the top eight.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_sui_rat_in_age_15_24-suicide-rates-ages-15-24

So, to summarize, youth suicide rates do not correlate positively with secularity. Life expectancies correlate positively with secularity, and suicide rates correlate positively with life expectancies.

CHURCH

There are a number of studies, most of them dubious, that theists claim contradict the stats that show that theists are less intelligent, more likely to commit crimes, etc. Almost always, these measure church attendance instead of belief. Since less than half of theists in the US (where most of these studies are done) go to church, this is largely comparing theists to theists, and disingenuous when used to prove the value of belief. If you prove that racists that go to Klan rallies are less likely to be incarcerated than racists who don’t, it does not mean racism is a deterrent to crime.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_rate.htm

However, the fact that there is a correlation at all does show that there are benefits to church—although they simply seem to have nothing to do with belief.

http://www.livescience.com/culture/080819-church-grades.html

While that article was used by Walt (disingenuously) to attempt to contradict the studies that suggest more religious people are less intelligent, the article itself explains why these church studies prove nothing about religious belief.

"Surprisingly, the importance of religion to teens had very little impact on their educational outcomes," Glanville said. "That suggests that the act of attending church -- the structure and the social aspects associated with it -- could be more important to educational outcomes than the actual religion."

This is a good argument for why churches should be secularized, much in the way some Unitarian churches seem to be. While this may sound like a radical suggestion, most countries have historically been theocracies. This hasn’t been an argument for religion, just because governments are useful—on the contrary, secularization has generally been an improvement. Churches could prove to be much more effective without the proselytizing and covering for pedophiles.

The Catholic Church and rape insurance figures:

http://deeplyblasphemous.blogspot.com/2007/08/more-on-catholic-rape-insurance-scandal.html

"Give to charity, not to church":

http://www.vexen.co.uk/countries/charity.html#Religion

MISCELLANEOUS STATISTICS AND FIGURES

28 percent of British Muslims want UK to become Islamic state, 1 in 4 support terrorism, etc.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/14/opinion/main1893879.shtml

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