THE GLEANER-Bill Johnson poll on Thursday revealed that an astounding 92 per cent of Jamaicans consider themselves religious, and a previous poll showed strong support for the Prime Minister's decision to put pastors on state boards. Religion is clearly huge in Jamaica.

But is religion good for us? Does religion promote or hinder economic and social development? Are societies which are religious more peaceful, prosperous, harmonious and have a higher quality of life than distinctly secular ones?

Intuitively, one would want to answer in the affirmative - or one should expect the answer to be in the affirmative. But even looking at Jamaica should convince one that there is a vast difference between 'ought' and 'is'.

Jamaica, with such an overwhelming percentage of people claiming to be religious, is one of the most economically stagnant countries in the region, with the highest murder rate (and the second highest in the world) and clearly one of the most divisive and unequal societies in the region.

NEGATIVE LINK

Scholars at an international level are looking at the religion-development equation and some are positing a negative link. A major scholarly debate has erupted in the scholarly Journal of Religion and Society since Gregory Paul published his biting and scorching essay in volume 7 (2005) showing the negative link between religion and social health (the article is titled 'Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Social Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in Prosperous Democracies').

In volume 8 of the Journal (2006), scholars from Vanderbilt and Cedarville Universities continue the discussion with two essays, 'Religious Cosmologies and Homicide Rates Among Nations' and 'Religiosity, Secularism and Social Health'.

BRUTAL

Gregory Paul in his essay is brutal.

Drawing on an international survey of 23,000 persons in 17 democracies, Paul adduces evidence which in his view shows conclusively that religion is bad for societies, and that countries which are secular do much better in terms of quality of life: "In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early mortality, STD-infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies."

He goes on to say that "The non-religious, pro-evolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator. The widely held view that a godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted."

Paul, who is militantly anti-religious, notes and dismisses the popular view that people need religious values to promote better social health and that societies which discard God are courting moral decay and social disaster. It's a long-held view.

Benjamin Franklin said that "religion will be a powerful regulator of our actions, give us peace and tranquility within our minds and render us benevolent, useful and beneficial to others." The famous writer Dostoevsky made the oft-quoted statement that, "If God does not exist, and then everything is permissible." In other words, societies disintegrate when religious belief declines.

Many Evangelical Christian activists in America have been making that same point, warning gravely of the dangers as a result of the promotion of evolution in schools and the refusal to teach intelligent design and special creationism. America can't be a great nation, they say constantly, if she turns her back on God, who is the foundation of everything good.

Now, Gregory Paul presents what he sees as strong evidence that, in fact, religion is bad for society and bad for America in particular, which is the most religious of all the advanced democracies. Drawing on the international survey from the International Social Survey Programme, Paul shows that "the U.S. is the only prosperous democracy that retains high homicide rates. Similarly, Portugal also has rates of homicides well above the secular developing democracy norm."

The U.S, Paul points out, has experienced more mass student murders than all the secular democracies combined. Gary Jensen from Vanderbilt University says in his essay on 'Religious Cosmologies and Homicide Rates Among Nations' that "recent research on homicide among cities in the United States reports findings quite compatible" with the view that religious passion is linked to high homicides rates.

Among southern cities, Ellison Burr and McCall found the percentage of Evangelical Protestants to be a positive correlate of homicide rates when other relevant factors are controlled passion encouraged homicide while it discouraged suicide.

The U.S. (remember it's the most religious of the advanced democracies) does not exhibit any lower rate of youth suicide. "Rates of adolescent gonorrhoea infection remain six to three hundred times higher in the U.S. than in less theistic, pro-evolution secular democracies. The U.S. also suffers from uniquely high adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates."

Paul also shows that adolescent abortion rates are higher in the U.S. than in the more secular democracies of Europe. "Claims that secular cultures aggravate abortion rates (John Paul 11) are therefore contradicted by the quantitative data. Also, early adolescent pregnancy and birth have dropped in other democracies but are two to dozens of times higher in the U.S. where the decline has been more modest."

In terms of what Christians would consider sexual promiscuity among teens, Paul says the data does not show a wide disparity between the more religious U.S. and the more secular European societies. A detailed comparison of sexual practices show that - contrary to popular impression - the French are actually more conservative!

DYSFUNCTIONAL

Says Paul damningly: "The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the democracies, sometimes spectacularly so and almost always scores poorly. The view that the U.S. is a 'shining city on a hill to the rest of the world is falsified when it comes to basic measures of societal health. No democracy is known to have combined strong religiosity and popular denial of evolution with high rates of societal health."

Paul says, with apparent glee: "None of the strongly secularised, pro-evolution democracies is experiencing high levels of measurable dysfunction." The most secularised democracy in the world, Japan, is one of the most socially harmonious and prosperous societies on earth, one can also note. Paul sees religion as being at the heart of America's social crises, noting that "the United States' deep social problems are all the more disturbing because the nation enjoys exceptional per capita wealth among the major Western nations. The U.S. is the least efficient Western nation in terms of converting wealth into cultural and physical health."

Paul hopes that his preliminary look at the issue will spur further investigation. He did not have to wait long. In the very next issue of the Journal of Religion and Society there is a response from three scholars (Religiosity, Secularism and Social Health). The critique and caution to Paul is an intellectual delight. The scholars expose some of Paul's methodological blunders, reductionism and scholarly looseness. In a non-polemical, highly reasoned and nuanced response, the scholars show, quoting reputable scholars, that Paul has injudiciously used the data on religiosity and secularism and engaged in non sequitur reasoning.

"The methodological assumption inherent in Paul's inference is that the religiosity or secularity of a political system is reducible to the religiosity or secularity of its individuals as measured through survey questions."

The scholars go on to say that, "moving beyond the religiosity and secularity of individuals, a political system may be a secular system even if most of its members are committed to a religious worldview and vice versa. In the case of the U.S., its legal and judicial processes are not governed by any institutional religious sect or premises and it itself does not officially favour any religion. As such, the United States is a secular nation, not a religious or theistic nation."

STAUNCHLY SECULAR

Though the U.S. has many religious persons, the power elite is distinctly and indeed staunchly secular. The cultural power holders are secularists hostile to religious values. Religious people are effectively marginalised so the data on religiosity has to be carefully analysed.

Besides, while Europe and Japan are secularised, they have been heavily influenced by overarching religious values. These religious values still promote societal health long after people have abandoned the religious rituals and symbolism. Japan has been influenced by positive Confucian values and Europe by centuries of Christian influence.

It is a fact that secular society is parasitically living off the heritage of religious people and their values. A lot of the human rights issues so secularised by Europe today can be located squarely within a theistic, not an evolutionary, philosophical framework.

Yet one cannot dismiss the fact that many religious people are bigoted, militantly intolerant, judgemental and exhibit personality features which are not healthy. Democracy seems to flourish better without religious fanaticism.

So perhaps we should be discussing what type of religion promotes societal health. With 92 per cent of Jamaicans expressing religiosity, why don't we have greater social harmony and peace, not to mention greater economic health?

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. Email him at ianboyne1@yahoo.com.