[LINK] Religion /= morality?

[rfmcdonald]

Over at Cabalamat Journal, Phil Hunt links to a study by Gregory Paul in the Journal of Religion and Society suggesting that, over a wide range of societies, increased religious belief is negatively correlated in positive social outcomes. Says The Times,

Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other research bodies to reach his conclusions. He compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy.

The study concluded that the US was the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from "uniquely high" adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.

Mr Paul said: "The study shows that England, despite the social ills it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most indicators, even though it is now a much less religious nation than America."

He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was compared with other countries, including France, Japan and the Scandinavian countries. These nations had been the most successful in reducing murder rates, early mortality, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion, he added.

I'd like to see this study. Better yet, I'd like to see a study of the links between different outcomes and different sorts of religion--painting religion with a broad brush is crude, I believe.