The correlation between religiosity and well-being among U.S. states

[mrmody]

The correlation between religiosity and well-being among U.S. states
Dr. Harry Roy, a professor of biology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, saw my talk on evolution, religion, and science, and societal dysfunction, which proposed not only that antievolutionism in most countries is motivated by religion (duh!), but religion itself is promoted by societal dysfunction, so that those societies with higher levels of income inequality, child mortality, incarceration, and lower levels of health care (all embodied in Greg Paul’s “Successful Societies Scale”) are the most religious. My suggestion was that if we want to promote acceptance of evolution, in the end we have to build healthier societies.

In that talk, I showed a slide from Greg Paul’s work documenting a pronounced (and statistically significant) negative correlation between the degree of religiosity of 17 Western nations (and Japan) and their “success” as measured by the SSS. This was supported by other studies showing a striking positive relationship between income inequality (as measured by the Gini Index) and each of 12 separate measures of religiosity. A tentative conclusion is that people are more religious when their societies fail to give them the support or feeling of well-being that, for example, is enjoyed by inhabitants of countries like Sweden and Denmark.

Anyway, Harry found some relevant data in the United States, crunched the numbers, and did a statistical analysis. He left comments and a link to the analysis, after my post. And he’s kindly done a bit more analysis and allowed me to reproduce it here. What he found is precisely the same relationship among states (using the HDI) as I found among countries: American states with lower HDIs are more religious.

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/...-s-states/

[myotch]

Validation + Free Parking = Less Religion?

[Hollandmichigan]

Quote:Why the correlation? Again, it could mean—but I am not pushing this interpretation as dogma—that people tend to either become more religious or retain a historical religiosity in areas where they are not very well off.   There may also be ethnic differences that contribute to this (the population of blacks in America is concentrated in the south, for instance, and educational attainment is lower in general), but education itself is likely negatively correlated with indices of well being, and poverty is a component of both the HDI and SSS.

Seems like a reasonable statement.

And note that its not say, "rich people are less religious". It's saying that the poor are more religious

[lucrezaborgia]

Poor people more religious??? Gee I wonder why they would want to believe in an afterlife full of riches...

[oneflewoutofthecuckcoosnest]

I think to balance this discussion one needs to consider the "Handbook of Religion and Health" by Koenig, McCullough and Larson published by Oxford University Press. I heard Koenig earlier this week. Fascinating stuff.

[greg]

I take exception to the statement that "antievolutionism in most countries is motivated by religion."

Antievolutionsim in most countries is motivated by a clear lack of scientific, proveable, observable, testable observations. Same with the climate hoax (es)

The world stands ready to accept it, if you can prove it, and guess what, you're along ways off.

[redbeardiam]

(06-11-2012 03:17 PM)greg Wrote:  I take exception to the statement that "antievolutionism in most countries is motivated by religion."

There is no other motivation to dispute evolution. For instance, what other reason would anyone have for suggesting the earth is millions of years younger than it looks?