Yes, I know it's only what the SAFF has been telling you for the past two decades but extensive new scientific research has now categorically proven that Religion is causing the problems in society that it pretends to fix.
'Religious belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide. ....belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems. '... The Times (sept 27, 2005)
These findings completely reverse the normally accepted effects of religiosity. The painstaking research which compared statistics from secular and sectarian countries around the world , was undertaken by social scientist Gregory S. Paul and published in the academically respected Journal of Religion & Society .
Mr Paul discovered that societal problems such as, homicide, early mortality, the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases, teenage pregnancy and abortion were up to 300 times higher in countries whose morals and mores were driven by Religious models than in secular nations whose motives were based on common sense.
It concludes with the bombshell:
'The widely held fear that a godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted.'
Has Science just made God obsolescent?
There is a link to the full on-line report below:
It shows that, despite chest-beating about finding solutions for crime and social deviance in our society, politicians will never succeed in curing these problems whilst they are hamstrung by the self-righteous religious morality they invariably pay allegiance to. In fact, the astounding conclusion from this report is that it is the politicians themselves who are causing society's problems by adhering to the wishes of religious activists.
What this ground-breaking research really means is that the tidal wave of dysfunction and suffering which is amply portrayed in the British Tabloid media every day, will never be cured until there is a formal separation between church and state. The Church of England should be disestablished forthwith and all the influential power structures it has taken unto itself by claiming that it had a moral solution to society's problems should be dismantled. Then, when our politicians are more free to take decisions based on common-sense and the power of Religion has been set aside the people of the U.K. can benefit, like Japan, Sweden, Norway, and many other nations, from an improved and happier life based on humanitarian rather than religious ideals.
The findings in this research support the investigations we here at the S.A.F.F. have completed over the past 20 years and we congratulate Mr Gregory S. Paul for his sterling work, however there are some crucial observations we wish to add to enlighten our own supporters and any member of the public reading this website.
Fifteen years ago the SAFF identified a fundie strategy to attack science at its roots. The fundamentalists rightly saw that it was science, not some imagined pan-global satanic conspiracy, which was destroying the power base of religion. Children were being taught scientific materialism as an accepted part of the school curriculum and academe had all but dismantled the deity with its discoveries in physics. The anachronistic stories in the bible were rationalised for what they were, paranoid delusions caused by early man's ignorance of his world. The best the fundie machine could do at the time was to agree that the wrathful and vindictive legends were allegories containing spiritual insights whose meaning were still relevant to society today. In the renaissance the Christian Church persecuted scientists and materialist philosophers as heretics and regained control through torture and death. However since the 18th Century the established churches (Catholic / Anglican / Methodists) had come to an arrangement of power with the establishment of science and had been largely de-toothed . They had turned into 'apologists' for the bible. Later, other more extreme Protestant sects (Pentecostals, Baptists etc) decided that to fulfil their obligations to their deity science had to be met head on and defeated. They saw that the most dangerous (to them) precept of science , was Darwin's Theory of Evolution because it condensed all scientific explanations of how we came to be and therefore flatly conflicted with biblical teachings.
So it was that the Christian Militia began its campaign against academe, infiltrating universities to question and undermine existing teaching; setting up rival biblical colleges, pressing for religion to be taught in schools, to enable them to countermand any scientific materialistic teachings, and getting their best minds to represent the idea of Creationism (the ludicrous idea that god made the world and everything in it in 7 days) as a theory which had the same validity as The Theory of Evolution. Creationism was taught alongside Evolution as a valid option in Bible State schools where prejudiced educationalists pushed their personal religious beliefs at the expense of the education of their young. This resulted in the recent court cases where independent educationalists tried to get a ruling to ban the pseudo science of Creationism from being taught in schools. By this time the fundie machine had corralled heavy support in the shape of George Bush who when asked said that he thought there was nothing wrong in Creationism - he believed in it. By this time it was clear to the academic community that there was a battle going on and they were a good few steps behind. As usual provocation from religionists has caused the trouble, resulting in a breach of the uneasy peace between religion and science and now the gloves are off. Science has begun to actually do the job expected of it and to challenge the orthodox churches head on. About time! Let's face it, they've spent decades attacking New Age beliefs whilst ignoring the very same activities in the orthodox religions for fear of upsetting their cosy arrangement.
So, this new research is one of many which we hope to see hitting the headlines in the next year or so as the battle for the minds of the masses continues apace. Because Mind Control is what this is all about. When the scientific community complained about the completely unscientific claims of the Creationists their response was that they had indeed undertaken scientific research with a survey which showed that most people in the U.S. believed God had made the earth in 7 days than believed we we evolved from apes. If the majority of people know a thing to be true then it must be reality! Mind control pure and simple.
However, the scientists who produced this amazing report have missed the point somewhat by sidestepping the really controversial implictions of it. It is not 'Religion' per se which is responsible for damaging western societies - the only religion which has had control over this society for the past two thousand years is Christianity. This research shows that ALL organised religions by qualification must affect their followers deletoriously but the one clearly responsible for doing it throughout Europe and the New World is Christianity. Just as the holy writ of the Islamic religion has affected the other half of the world for centuries,. That is the unpalatable conclusion this report brings.
We agree that the moderates in both Christianity and Islam try to work together amiably under the idea of Inter-Faith but no matter how many nice folk there are in Christianity and Islam they will never overcome the wicked, selfish nature of fundamentalism. It only needs a handful of people to destroy the best efforts of everyone else by misconstruing Holy Writ. At the SAFF we have always maintained that the idea of creating a Multi-Faith community was a facade due to the disproportionate power of the Church of England. People said we were being too cynical - yet recently the Church of England insisted on its superiority by redefining the boundaries. Their shot across the bows of Islam was the public statement that 'Britain is not a multi-faith community - it is a Multi-Cultural community'. A clear warning that the people who run Christianity see it as taking precedence and having rights above any other religion in the U.K. Rights that they they have no intention of relinquishing.
So we applaud this new research which shows clearly what the SAFF has been saying for years - that the root cause of most of the world's problems is due to the impositions of Absolutist religions throughout history.
It is not a belief in spiritual things which causes evil, it is the unreasonable and almost impossible demands which the orthodox churches make upon their congregations. It is the wicked and superstitious fears which the orthodox religions inject into the minds of people at an impressionable age. The guilt, the intolerance and the unwillingness to allow any other form of spiritual belief to co-exist on equal terms teaches people how to hate others who are different. Having a belief in spiritual things is part of the human condition. This is not an attack on people's chosen beliefs. It is a criticism of Orthodox Religion. Orthodox Religion is a harmful parasite still clinging to the soft underbelly of democracy ; sucking the life out of it because the Priesthoods who lead it are unworthy or incapable. No wonder hardly anything improves.
Ends:
Gregory Paul's full report can be obtained on-line from : http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html
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