Here's a pair of interesting items James pointed out to me recently...

The first, Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side' describes a new study which indicates that the more religious a society is, the more damage it will suffer:

In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

If you want to read the study itself, feel free to check it out.  One thing to keep in mind is just because there is a correlation doesn't mean there is causality.  Sometimes facts can lead to the wrong conclusions if you don't investigate the causality.  For example the facts might be that in 2000, 35 people died at 23 South Street and 1 died at 14 Arbor Way.  Sounds like 23 South Street is a dangerous place.  But if 23 South Street turns out to be a hospital, and 14 Arbor Way a toxic waste dump, we'd look a little silly concluding that hospitals are very dangerous places that cause people to die at alarming rates.

The study notes causality is not addressed itself:

...Regression analyses were not executed because of the high variability of degree of correlation, because potential causal factors for rates of societal function are complex, and because it is not the purpose of this initial study to definitively demonstrate a causal link between religion and social conditions...

The study describes itself as an "initial look" which hopefully means we can see a more detailed study in the future.  The thing I found most interesting about the study was the graph showing religiousity versus belief in evolution.  Of all the countries on the list the US was markedly less accepting of evolution than any other.  How depressing.

Religion in Decline?

The other item James highlighted for me was a report from ReligiousTolerance.org entitled "RELIGIOUS IDENTIFICATION IN THE U.S.".  This report seems to be largely based on polls, so I wouldn't put too much faith in it (pun intended).

However if it is to be believed, currently Christianity is in a downward slide in the US, while both nontheism and paganism are on the rise:

...[As of 2001] 76.5% (159 million) of Americans identify themselves as Christian. This is a major slide from 86.2% in 1990. Identification with Christianity has suffered a loss of 9.7 percentage points in 11 years -- about 0.9 percentage points per year. This decline is identical to that observed in Canada between 1981 and 2001. If this trend continues, then by about the year 2042, non-Christians will outnumber the Christians in the U.S....

...14.1% do not follow any organized religion. This is an unusually rapid increase -- almost a doubling -- from only 8% in 1990. There are more Americans who say they are not affiliated with any organized religion than there are Episcopalians, Methodists, and Lutherans taken together...

So if religiousity is directly proportional to misfortune, things ought to be getting better!   Right?  Right?

Anyway, both of these items make for interesting reading.  Check 'em out!