Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
A new Gallup poll of 350,000 Americans breaks down the importance of religion on a state by state basis. The question asked was whether religion was an important part of their daily lives. Here are the results:
Top 4 most religious states: Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee. 4 least religious states: Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts. In fact, those were the only four that were below 50% in saying that religion was important in their daily lives.
I thought it would be interesting to compare those lists to various rates of things that the religious right tends to consider moral evils, like divorce and teen pregnancy. Let's start with divorce rates, which can be seen here.
Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the nation, while the other three least religious states all rank in the top half of the states for lowest divorce rates, all below 4.4 per 1000. Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee all rank among the 11 highest states for rates of divorce with rates above 5.7 per 1000; South Carolina is 19th with a rate of 4.2.
How about out of wedlock births? The most recent data I could find easily is here. And it shows for the most religious states:
Mississippi: 45.5%
South Carolina: 38.7%
Tennessee: 34.9%
Alabama: 34.1%
And the least religious states:
New Hampshire: 24.1%
Massachusetts: 26.1%
Vermont: 28%
Maine: 30.6%
And finally, teen pregnancy, where all of the most religious states are in the top 10:
Mississippi: 20.9%
Alabama: 17.1%
South Carolina: 16.0%
Tennessee: 15.9%
And all of the least religious states are in the bottom 10:
Massachusetts 7.2%
New Hampshire 7.7%
Vermont 7.9%
Maine 9.8%
Does this prove that religion causes those bad things? Of course not. But it does make a pretty strong case against the constant claims of the religious right that religion is the answer to these problems.
Politics
Comments
Ed,
How about a comparison of the importance of religion to the education level of the state?
Posted by: mess | February 3, 2009 9:16 AM
This is an interesting survey, and the point you make is obvious, but it might have been interesting to see where Alaska -- the 5th least religious state -- finished, since that is astate with several problems not caused by its current Governor, particularly a high rate of meth use and spousal abuse. (The Baroness Munchhausen didn't cause these, but she also has never acted to reverse them.)
I also fiind it fascinating that the Mormon belt doesn't make the list. (I could check for my own curiosity, but where did they come on the list? The other 'frontier states' The mega-states of NY and CA? And was DC included on the list? I think those figures might be interesting to discuss as well.)
Posted by: Prup (aka Jim Benton) | February 3, 2009 9:17 AM
I thought there was a suspicious geographical division in those results so I did a little googling and there seems to be a lot of overlap between the top 10 most religious states and this list
Anyone want to speculate on why that might be?
Posted by: Matty | February 3, 2009 9:17 AM
Sigh. Living in #8.
Sigh.
Posted by: Ranson | February 3, 2009 9:20 AM
Perhaps G-d is tired of being constantly bothered by the supplications of these holy-rollin' fools and has cursed them?
Posted by: JusticeLeague | February 3, 2009 9:23 AM
I love those elitist, godless intellectuals in the Northeast! Longlive the Magnificent Gatsbies and the maple-gazers! But I'm just a bit disappointed that Rhode Island, cherished home of arch-atheist HP Lovecraft, still scores 53%.
Posted by: Christophe Thill | February 3, 2009 9:24 AM
Interesting data.
Posted by: Bourgeois_Rage | February 3, 2009 9:39 AM
Posted by: WScott | February 3, 2009 9:47 AM
Woo-hoo, top four. Oh wait, that's not a good thing.
At least there are some of us in the backwater trying to move us out of the top stats.
Posted by: James Taylor | February 3, 2009 9:54 AM
Go Nevada Go!
You'd think a state with legalized gambling and hookers would be more higher on the godlessness then usual.
Posted by: Asemodeus | February 3, 2009 10:02 AM
Posted by: llewelly | February 3, 2009 10:04 AM
llewelly,
It could be that after the first child is born out-of-wedlock, the young woman is encouraged to marry and produce five more children in-wedlock.
Posted by: Odie | February 3, 2009 10:25 AM
Hmm, my state, Pennsylvania, didn’t make the top 10 most religious. Then again when you cling to a gun with one hand and a Bible with the other, you don’t have one free to answer the phone. So our number is probably a bit skewed toward the liberal.
(Yea, some folks around here are still steamed about that little Obama misstep. They get in such a tizzy they don’t know whether to pray for him or shoot him.)
Posted by: Abby Normal | February 3, 2009 10:32 AM
Personnally, I feel you should rub each and every fundie's nose in this data until they cry...er, Jesus? Then ask them to explain it. Why god allows good christians to have so many problems. But maybe that's the militant agnostic in me....
@Abby - what part of PA are you located? I was born and raised in Wilkes-Barre myself. Which, if you knew me, would explain a lot....
Posted by: Pineyman | February 3, 2009 10:56 AM
Pineyman,
Those states (most religious) are also, more or less, the blackest. Should we rub every African American's nose in this data?
Posted by: heddle | February 3, 2009 10:59 AM
Remember, folks, the point of comparing this data is not to claim that religion leads to these bad things. As heddle alludes to, there are lots of different correlations here that one can look at - racial makeup, education levels, poverty levels, and much more. The point is simply to show that the simplistic claim of "if only people believed in God all these bad things would go away" is false. Trying to make a real causal argument here is far more difficult than that and would require looking at the interplay of a whole range of factors.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | February 3, 2009 11:10 AM
As you hinted in your post, it is still pretty disenchanting that even the supposedly most secular state in our country averages at 42% for stated religious importance. That's a hefty percentage.
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | February 3, 2009 11:11 AM
Pineyman, I'm living an Allentown. I moved here about 3 years ago when my company relocated from NY.
Heddle, African Americans aren't the ones claiming that being black reduces those social ills. That would be fundamentalists. Pineman's brush may be a bit broad. But at least he's painting the right building.
Posted by: Abby Normal | February 3, 2009 11:19 AM
Demographic data like this makes me forget how unpleasant some of my compatriots are for long enough to make me glad to be from New Hampshire.
Posted by: Paul | February 3, 2009 11:26 AM
I don't think anyone's tried to do that, have they? Or is this meant as a preemptive warning? It's a good point either way. I just want to see if I'm missing something.
Posted by: Abby Normal | February 3, 2009 11:27 AM
Thought I'd pass along my friend's comment on this:
"People who don't subscribe to crazy know that there isn't anyone watching out for them so they tend to be more responsible."
Posted by: Tophe | February 3, 2009 11:27 AM
Heddle said:
"Those states (most religious) are also, more or less, the blackest. Should we rub every African American's nose in this data?"
Good question. Ask Bill Cosby.
Posted by: Gingerbaker | February 3, 2009 11:34 AM
Interesting comparisons; it's too bad that some miss the point.
Vermont is looking better and better these days. The loosest gun control laws in the country, some of the lowest crime rates in the country to match, plenty of beautiful, rural mountainous areas to explore, AND it's the least religious state in the US? If I ever choose to leave Texas permanently, I'll head over there. (Assuming a paleontologist can find work there, that is.)
Hmm....come to think of it, a comparison of the violent crime rates in the most religious vs least religious states would be interesting!
Posted by: Thomas M. | February 3, 2009 11:39 AM
Three words spring to mind on reading the results of the survey:
Education, education, and education.
Then you can kill two birds with one stone. A better educated America would be a better place to live, and a more secular place to live.
Posted by: tacitus | February 3, 2009 11:46 AM
Using the stats provided in the links, the correlation is very weak (
Former slave states or territories (not just the 11 states of the former CSA) are correlated with both high rates of religious importance (r=0.69) and teen pregnancy (r=0.7).
The top 13 most religious states were slave states or territories and none of the bottom 19 were. I'll leave that to the inter-tube masses to figure out what that all means.
Posted by: Mike | February 3, 2009 11:53 AM
tacitus,
Or perhaps a place where people are, by virtue of education, less likely to self-identify as Christian solely because of familial, peer, or cultural pressure. We all can agree that this would be a very good thing.
Posted by: heddle | February 3, 2009 11:55 AM
It does little use to show the religious wingnuts the results of this survey, they tend to be immune to any rational debate on this type of subject.
I don't know how many times I've heard these people bewailing the sinful and apostate state of Americans today and how God will visit his wrath upon the nation unless we all repent and become good Christians again. And yet when it's pointed how much *more* reprobate and non-Christian many European nations are without any sign of a vengeful God doing anything at all about it, they refuse to listen and certainly don't think it invalidates their argument.
Posted by: tacitus | February 3, 2009 11:55 AM
Those states (most religious) are also, more or less, the blackest. Should we rub every African American's nose in this data?
Only if you can prove that African-Americans as a whole behave significantly differently from others. The correlations with religiosity are relevant because doctrinaire religious thinking is already known to have significant effects on people's thought-patterns and actions. Furthermore, significant claims have been made about the effect of religious thinking on human behavior, and these claims need to be tested.
(PS: heddle, I answered that question you directed at "liberal Christians" awhile back, and so did a few other people; and you never responded to us. Were you actually interested in getting an answer?)
Posted by: Raging Bee | February 3, 2009 12:12 PM
Gingerbaker,
Exactly. Similarly, "Ask a pastor." All the one's I've known give Bill Cosby like laments. That is, they do not say: "If everyone was Christian the divorce rate would go down" but rather "What an embarrassment that the divorce rate for evangelicals is as bad or worse than the national average."
I believe Cosby sends a similar message to the black community. So your comment is spot-on.
Posted by: heddle | February 3, 2009 12:13 PM
Education, education, education for sure; more specifically however, critical thinking, critical thinking, critical thinking.
Posted by: jls | February 3, 2009 12:20 PM
Man I love Mississippi. If it weren't for them my state would be at the bottom all the time instead of just 2nd to last.
Religion doesn't cause teen pregnancy any more than teen pregnancy causes religion. They're just caused by the same thing.
Posted by: JThompson | February 3, 2009 12:34 PM
Thomas M said:
"Vermont is looking better and better these days. The loosest gun control laws in the country, some of the lowest crime rates in the country to match, plenty of beautiful, rural mountainous areas to explore, AND it's the least religious state in the US? If I ever choose to leave Texas permanently, I'll head over there. (Assuming a paleontologist can find work there, that is.)"
Plus, we have some darned good beer brewed up here. :)
Oh yeah, and we just got Ben Stein to bow out (rather graciously) from Commencement at UVM.
But nobody moves up here anymore - it's too crowded. ;)
Posted by: Gingerbaker | February 3, 2009 12:37 PM
No wonder so many fundamentalist leaders are against condoms! Now I want a vasectomy to protect myself from becoming a Jehovah’s Witness. ;-)
Posted by: Abby Normal | February 3, 2009 12:49 PM
"Trying to make a real causal argument here is far more difficult"
Now you KNOW, without a shadow of a doubt, that if the numbers were the other direction (most religious states having the fewest out-of-wedlock births, divorces, abortions, etc.) that the religious nutters would be screaming it from the rooftops, and it would be front-page headlines in every newspaper in the top 10.
Posted by: Blaidd Drwg | February 3, 2009 12:53 PM
These two sentences together seem contradictory. If religious thinking is "already known to" have effects, then why test the claims that it has effects? I never test the effect of heat on raising the temperature of pure water, because it is "already known" to have an effect.
Is there a cause-and-effect relationship between being white and male and being a non-believer? There is a correlation: Most non-believers, the vast majority, in fact, are white and male. Or is this where education comes in? ... because white males in America tend to have more education as a subset of the population than do other groups.
All the African-Americans in my family are fundie Baptists. All the ones I ever knew growing up were fundie Baptists. I was the only irreligious African-American I had even heard of until I moved away from home. Even now, when I occasionally go to free-thought gatherings, I am the only non-white in attendance.
Posted by: Wnkme | February 3, 2009 1:04 PM
I think the teen pregnancy and divorce statistics can both be explained by the same thing: abstinence-only sex ed. Lack of knowledge about contraception leads to unwanted pregnancy, which lead to shotgun weddings, which everyone knows don't tend to work out well.
Abstinence-only sex ed is, of course, the darling and rallying cry of the religious right. So you could say this is all their fault.
Posted by: Kristinmh | February 3, 2009 1:04 PM
I think the teen pregnancy and divorce statistics can both be explained by the same thing: abstinence-only sex ed. Lack of knowledge about contraception leads to unwanted pregnancy, which lead to shotgun weddings, which everyone knows don't tend to work out well.
Abstinence-only sex ed is, of course, the darling and rallying cry of the religious right. So you could say this is all their fault.
Posted by: Kristinmh | February 3, 2009 1:04 PM
These two sentences together seem contradictory. If religious thinking is "already known to" have effects, then why test the claims that it has effects? I never test the effect of heat on raising the temperature of pure water, because it is "already known" to have an effect.
Is there a cause-and-effect relationship between being white and male and being a non-believer? There is a correlation: Most non-believers, the vast majority, in fact, are white and male. Or is this where education comes in? ... because white males in America tend to have more education as a subset of the population than do other groups.
All the African-Americans in my family are fundie Baptists. All the ones I ever knew growing up were fundie Baptists. I was the only irreligious African-American I had even heard of until I moved away from home. Even now, when I occasionally go to free-thought gatherings, I am the only non-white in attendance.
Posted by: Wnkme | February 3, 2009 1:05 PM
Ah Prof. Heddle -
One reason why I am so disdainfull of fundies:
Several years ago in my younger and more vociferously sarcastic days, a fundie started working for the same company as I. The first day she proclaimed her religion to one and all, marked me as a "spawn of satan" and refused to talk to me the ~4 months she was there. Why'd she leave? Seemed her boyfriend, who was in the service, was being transferred to Nevada and she had to move. Said BF? Married, with children.
Mote, meet beam.
Small anecdote, but I have hundreds more. The employee who recommended her was also a BAC.
Abby - thanks. You interpreted my not exquisitely thought out comment correctly. The ABE area is a nice resurgent area.
Posted by: Pineyman | February 3, 2009 1:21 PM
As a recovering fundie, I -really- hate to be the one to bring this up...
A) The poll asked how important --religion-- is in the respondent's life; not god, not church, not christianity. Religion. There are very devoted wiccans, budhists, and religious humanists in the world, too.
B) Even if the poll had asked how important the christian god is in a respondent's life, not every christian is a fundie.
Just my .02
-Echo
Posted by: Echo | February 3, 2009 1:51 PM
I think the teen pregnancy and divorce statistics can both be explained by the same thing: abstinence-only sex ed. Lack of knowledge about contraception leads to unwanted pregnancy, which lead to shotgun weddings, which everyone knows don't tend to work out well.
You've just described the experiences of my cousin's entire group of friends. That side of my family is very religious - Southern Baptists - and live South of Dayton, which is really just Northern Kentucky. When my cousin got married, at age 22, nearly every one of his male friends at the wedding were already married and divorced at his age, and all with children. As with my cousin, all of these men who were divorced had been having pre-marital sex, but not using contraception, and all ended up pressured to marry the girl when the inevitible pregnancy occurred. Apparently my cousin just got lucky enough to be done with school when he ended up in that position. Interestingly, his marriage is the only one that has survived.
It seems to me that, for evangelicals and other doctrinaire relgions, the divorce is less embarassing spiritually than the out-of-wedlock birth.
Posted by: CPT_Doom | February 3, 2009 1:57 PM
(On the other hand, Arthur C. Brooks publishes similarly weak studies claiming that the religious and the conservatives give more to charities, but the critics are not given any voice in the media. Apparently, conservative junk science gets a free pass.)
Posted by: bullfighter | February 3, 2009 2:20 PM
I don't think this follows at all.
I think it's high time we get past the 'divorce is bad' idea. I know so many people much better off post divorce or that made mistakes in their prior marriage that it is absurd think people can't fix errors in this aspect of life.
Posted by: GH | February 3, 2009 2:46 PM
I don't think this follows at all.
I think it's high time we get past the 'divorce is bad' idea. I know so many people much better off post divorce or that made mistakes in their prior marriage that it is absurd think people can't fix errors in this aspect of life.
Posted by: GH | February 3, 2009 2:53 PM
Please someone say something intelligent. I just got back from lunch where I brought this up for discussion. The most religious member of the lunch group looked at the percentages and confidently declared what must be going on. About 30% of women in Mississippi have kids and almost all the 15% of non-religious women in Mississippi were doing it outside of wedlock. [blink, blink]
I thought maybe she was just being facetious, perhaps making a comment about how statistics can be misleading. But no, she was absolutely convinced that’s what was going on. (I know her well enough to know she sucks at being deceptive.) Religion causes people to be good and that’s all there was to it. When asked why the unwed birth rates were lower in non-religious states... because education works too and they have better education. [headdesk]
Posted by: Abby Normal | February 3, 2009 4:00 PM
There are a lot of Mormons in Nevada - it is said that they make the best accountants and money handlers.
But they're not SPECIAL like we 'muurikkunz are.
Posted by: natural cynic | February 3, 2009 4:10 PM
For divorce, an eyeball fit suggests (religion/9) is about (divorce + 2%)... which raises further observations.
1) Divorce... plus 2%? I wonder what the spousal murder rate is? =)
2) There appear to be TWO distinct linear groupings, with VT-NH-ME-AK-WA-OR-NV-MT-CO-WY-DE-AZ-ID-FL-NM-IN-OK-AK in an "upper" group (along with NV an extreme outlier), HI-TN-KY being hard-to-place in-between cases, and the rest in a "lower" group.
Since NV is in a class by itself for divorce law, I wonder how the other groups relate for divorce laws.
Posted by: abb3w | February 3, 2009 4:48 PM
These two sentences together seem contradictory. If religious thinking is "already known to" have effects, then why test the claims that it has effects?
Because the observed effects may not be the same as the claimed effects.
Posted by: Raging Bee | February 3, 2009 5:11 PM
I get sort of tired of these polls. Asking a person if religion is important in their lives doesn't tell you anything about how dedicated they actually are to their beliefs. A better methodology would be to ask them what sort of church they attend, then ask them general questions designed to test how well they live up to that sect's standards. If you did this, I think you would find a much higher proportion of functionally irreligious people in the U.S.
Posted by: Julian | February 3, 2009 5:43 PM
Correlation doesn't prove causation. Did religion cause these presumed moral deficiencies in society, or does religion simply thrive in the environment. Its possible that religion goes were its needed, or rather were it can succeed. The stats don't make the case that religion is not the answer to the problem, because the case can also be made that these problems might be worse or much worse without it.
The opposite conclusion can be made from the same stats. The stats don't make a case about religion. They describe a simple relationship between it and other phenomena.
Posted by: Travis | February 3, 2009 6:10 PM
Umm... what's all this talk about "bad" things? Out of the three things Ed brought up I'd say that only teen pregnancies can be seen as "bad" from a liberal perspective, as it implies poor sex education. OOW births and divorces aren't (necessarily) bad things. I was born OOW (although my parents married some years later) and I wouldn't even exist if my mother hadn't divorced her first husband, so I may be a little biased, but ... don't forget that the whole point of this exercise is to look at those things that _religious_ people specifically consider bad. And they consider those things bad because they're religious and conservative. I doubt someone BECOMES religious/conservative because their parents divorced... or?
Posted by: Felicia Gilljam | February 3, 2009 6:46 PM
I know Ed was not drawing grand conclusions, but one thing that should be considered in some of those comparisons is the abortion rate. I.e., presumably a high abortion rate in the Evil Secular North would result in fewer teen pregnancies, fewer out-of-wedlock births, etc.
I doubt it actually works like that, I suspect abortion rates are lower in the northeast also, but it is an obvious loophole to consider if one is going to discuss a religiosity/social progress correlation...
Cheers!
Nick
Posted by: Nick (Matzke) | February 3, 2009 7:09 PM
Well duh - the top 10 states are part of the South's Bible Belt.
Posted by: Twin-Skies | February 3, 2009 7:44 PM
Some interesting figures on religious affiliation and divorce:
GSS 2000, 2002, 2004 (n=5,963):
58% Non-active Black Protestants
54% Non-active Evangelicals
51% No religious beliefs (e.g., atheists, agnostics)
48% Non-active other religions
48% All non-Christians
47% Active Black Protestants
42% All non-Christian religions
42% Non-active Mainline Protestants
41% All Christians
41% Non-active Catholics
39% Jewish
38% Active other religions
34% Active Evangelicals
32% Active Mainline Protestants
23% Active Catholics
And, older data, 1987, National Survey of Families and households (n=10,439):
52% Black non-active Protestant
49% No religion (e.g., atheist, agnostic)
46% Black active Protestant
42% Non-active Protestant
41% All non-Christians
40% Non-active Catholic
37% All Christians
34% Non-active other religion
33% All other religion
31% Active other religion
26% Active Protestant
24% Active Catholic
Posted by: Dr X | February 3, 2009 7:49 PM
WScott wrote:
I've wondered that too. And I've wondered if it wasn't exacerbated by the US's relative lack of social safety nets (as compared to much of Europe). You couple that with poverty, poor education (both the regular kind and sex education), lower access to and social stigma against abortion services, greater disparity in gender or ethnic/racial equality- it really starts to look like a perfect storm. And it's very easy to see why disenfranchised people would turn to the services that churches provide and then enter the fold from there.
Obviously, there are a great many religious people who do not fit that profile and I'm not suggesting they all, or even most, do. There's no doubt a lot more to it than what I offered, but it's something I've often wondered about too.
...
Nick Matzke wrote:
That's an interesting segue to an NPR interview I heard recently with an economist (I don't remember his name) who surmised that access to safe, legal abortion was what was the driving force behind the unprecedented drop in US crime rates in the 90's.
I've heard vaguely of this explanation before and I don't know enough about it evaluate it, but it's been on my mind since I heard the interview and your point reminded me of it.
I googled a bit because I was curious and found this ranking from 2006, I believe.
At a glance, it looks like states with higher live birth rates (among women aged 15-19) frequently have the highest abortion rates: 7 of 10 (if I counted correctly). That is unsurprising.
The ratio is the same for states with the highest reported importance of religion and live birth rates (7 of 10). Also unsurprising.
However, only five of the top ten states for abortion rates are on Ed's list. Frankly, and perhaps because I'm cynical, I expected it to be higher. Although, interestingly, Mississippi was second only to Wyoming in the percentage of women living in counties with no abortion providers. Women in the Midwest and South were much more likely to live in counties with no providers.*
Hmm. Interesting.
Now if we could just find a ranking of the prevalence of abstinence only sex ed....
(I found the pdf for the report from which those statistics were taken here, if you are interested.)
* Don't want to post to many links. I found this in a paper called Abortion in the United States: Incidence and Access to Services, 2005, published by the same group as above, The Guttemacher Institute. I am not making any claims as to it's reliability. This was purely an exercise in curiosity.
Posted by: Leni | February 3, 2009 8:49 PM
I know Ed was not drawing grand conclusions, but one thing that should be considered in some of those comparisons is the abortion rate. I.e., presumably a high abortion rate in the Evil Secular North would result in fewer teen pregnancies, fewer out-of-wedlock births, etc.
Here are some numbers - but the data is from 1998. Here's (pdf) 2004 data just for teens.
Posted by: Cheryl Shepherd-Adams | February 3, 2009 8:50 PM
I don't think that births OOW or divorce are bad things, but the fundies do, and yet they conveniently ignore the stats when it suits them.
Posted by: democommie | February 3, 2009 9:36 PM
Posted by: Kel | February 3, 2009 10:53 PM
Leni,
That was Steve Levitt from U of C on NPR yesterday:
The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime
Posted by: Dr. X | February 4, 2009 12:29 AM
Just looking at the top of the "least religious" list? I would think that religion isn't as important as staying warm during the winter time. And during the summer, going out and having fun before winter comes back would be more important than religion. Well that's how I see it anyway.
Posted by: Joe | February 4, 2009 12:51 AM
There may also be a chicken-and-egg relationship between religiosity in a population and poverty, teen pregnancy, divorce, etc.
Obviously, piety can screw people up.
On the other hand, religion tends to appeal to people who were already screwed. If things are really dire for you and you just don't see them getting better, it's comforting to think Somebody is noticing and might just help you out (or at least give you a terrific afterlife) if you pray really hard. Very religious people are usually the most powerless.
What's cause and what's effect isn't that clear here.
I'm just saying.
Posted by: Molly, NYC | February 4, 2009 5:02 AM
"Correlation doesn't prove causation." -Travis
"What's cause and what's effect isn't that clear here." - Molly
More said the same....
you guys really don't understand what has been said here, do you? So quick to defend ideas that are not even being attacked. No one ever made the argument that religion causes these things. Anyone who does, is stupid.
The entire point, was simply that these same type of statistics, if pointing the other way, would be use by bible thumpers to "PROVE" to everyone how immoral heathens breed crime, etc. Whereas when they point the way they do, we have people like you saying they are in no way connected, or just barely, etc.
WE DON'T KNOW! exactly, what the connection is. that means getting defensive and proclaiming "YOU GUYS ARE WRONG" is a bit premature. We're not trying to say ANYTHING, other than
"Hey, look at this - pretty interesting huh ... what do you think it means?"
yet you automatically assume that we, like you, must be attacking the others belief system, rather than just questioning the validity of it. two entirely different things.
"The stats don't make the case that religion is not the answer to the problem, because the case can also be made that these problems might be worse or much worse without it." - Travis
No , that case CANNOT be made, if you realistically look at the data. The point is that states with LESS religion, have LESS pre-marital birth, etc. There is NO FEASIBLE WAY for you to believe that that means more religion would make it better. No way. It's just not logically, or rationally possible to make that connection.
But that seems to be the case. More religion means less logic and rationale.
I am truly interested how you can possible believe that the presented data shows that more religion is better, that said problems would be worse without religion, when it so obviously shows that they are worse WITH religion (for whatever reason)
Posted by: digibucc | February 4, 2009 8:52 AM
I think we're all indebted to digibucc Johnson, for clearly stating what needed to be said. . . . Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish, but it expresses a courage little seen in this day and age.
Posted by: Molly, NYC | February 4, 2009 10:53 AM
Sorry Molly - I should not have put on the same level as "travis" - I had gotten so fed up with reading the junk, that by time I got to you I just scanned it - and am sorry about that.... I don't necessarily disagree with what you have said, you just had that little line standing out and it caught my attention
But - what is it that I said, that is so wrong? what is so ridiculous that you had to compare me to Gabby - that's just not nice.
Posted by: digibucc | February 4, 2009 11:34 AM
Since I am from and in Mississippi I can assure you the stats are correct and due to lack of education. Creationism is often taught in our schools, sex education is limited to abstinence education, and anything that could help is underfunded because the white people are the tax base and they manage to "gerrymander" things to hell and back. Our capital city's mayor is under indictment for not the first time and our governor is former RNC chairman Haley Barbour, so you can imagine how much he (doesn't) promote science and education. No one here cares about education, it's a sin to know so much, you're supposed to read the bible and pray. Out of wedlock births are high mainly because of lack of access to things: information, birth control, abortions. But also there's a factor in there that's less tangible. Being a mom early isn't looked down upon. The same way the religious right encourage women to cow tow to husbands and set themselves aside, it's just not looked down upon here to be a mom without a college education. There also isn't much for our young people to do. Anything that gives them something to do is shortly shut down by either the mayor or a lack of profit. It's a mess down here. I honestly believe a uniform school system countrywide is an answer. One should have to learn the same level of information here in Mississippi that children in NY or Seattle are learning. That would be a great start!
And thanks for posting this material. It's about time the connections between things like teen pregnancy and religion be discussed!
Posted by: dogsmycopilot | February 4, 2009 12:36 PM
it comes down to intelligence and education. some may find this offensive but it is the truth.
Posted by: ehutch | February 4, 2009 2:37 PM
Not to cause a stir but out of these list just exactly what is the break down for ethnic background, age and education level.
Posted by: Blunt truth | February 4, 2009 5:52 PM
Obviously, there are areas of the country where "religion" plays a larger role in the lives of the people who live there than it does in the lives of people who live elsewhere. As someone from the South, I can attest to the fact that "everyone" has a church that they "belong to"... even if they only attend once a year, on Easter. The real question shouldn't be, "are you religious"... the real question should be, "are you a committed follower of Christ". Even Christ himself disliked religion... The Pharisees were his chief rivals.
I recently read an article about how "abstinence pledges" really do not work. The author was quick to point out this fact, and readily made fun of those who would take such a pledge. But, buried deep within the study that the author quoted, was this interesting fact. While "abstinence pledges" didn't work, a personal commitment to abstinence, and a belief that abstinence was a Godly principal, did work. In other words, anyone can sign a card or slip on a promise ring, but only a few will actually "take to heart" such a promise, commit themselves to purity, and live out the pledge.
Statistics and charts are interesting, but, frankly, just asking people if they are religious really does a disservice and doesn't get to the real heart of whether they are dedicated Believers or not.
Posted by: NCN | February 4, 2009 5:58 PM
If you are stupid enough to believe in an invisbible man in the sky, then you are surely stupid enough to not to pull out.
Posted by: jc | February 4, 2009 11:11 PM
Or better yet, jc, stupid enough to believe that withdrawal is viable birth control at all.
Dr.X, thanks for the name and the link. Really interesting read and it sounds like the same guy. I hope it is as interesting to read the rebuttals.
NCN wrote:
But it wasn't just Christ the poll was asking about. It was religion. Not everyone who is religious cares about being committed to Christ. Given that this is America and we have a pretty good idea about the flavor of belief here, it's probably safe to assume most respondents are Christian. But it's not inconceivable that specific religions were left out for a reason.
Still, Julian already made the point I think you are getting at earlier in the thread when he said:
Even so, they might not attend church, but still find religion important in their daily lives and thus do the best they think possible to adhere, even if they don't think they ultimately measure up. It would be an interesting poll, but I don't think it means asking people how important religion is to them is a bad way to approach it.
Well, you've really just described the results of the study. Taking abstinence pledges doesn't work and it's not a viable strategy to prevent teen pregnancy. If people don't really want to do it, they aren't going to. Even if they say they will and wear a hokey silver band to publicly declare it.
It doesn't work for most of us and that is exactly the point. That doesn't mean religion is bad, it just means it's not a an effective or reliable, and therefore useful, basis for public health policy and/or education. At least as far as it relates to abstinence pledges.
Posted by: Leni | February 5, 2009 12:16 AM
I find it funny that the most religious states are also the states with the biggest problems of racism and prejudice.
Wow, shunning another race because of the color of their skin or their sexual orientation. That is sure showing your love for god and others. This is one reason why I am glad to be an atheist. I live in Oregon and I say that I am glad to live here.
If 85% of all people in my state were bible thumpers, I think I would kill myself. I couldn't handle all of the preaching and praise jesus mumbo jumbo.
Posted by: Joe | February 5, 2009 6:21 AM
I find it funny that the most religious states are also the states with the biggest problems of racism and prejudice.
Wow, shunning another race because of the color of their skin or their sexual orientation. That is sure showing your love for god and others. This is one reason why I am glad to be an atheist. I live in Oregon and I say that I am glad to live here.
If 85% of all people in my state were bible thumpers, I think I would kill myself. I couldn't handle all of the preaching and praise jesus mumbo jumbo.
Posted by: Joe | February 5, 2009 6:21 AM
digibucc - Actually, when I re-read your post without having to figure out just what it about religion was I was supposed to be defending, it made a lot more sense.
Peace.
Posted by: Molly, NYC | February 5, 2009 7:18 AM
It seems like Utah would be in the top ten since its government is run by the Mormon Church. Somewhere around 40% belong to the LDS church...
Posted by: jennie | February 5, 2009 2:01 PM
The total lack of tolerance here is appalling. It's hard to apply critical thinking when you are blinded by hate.
Turn off the hate and look again. You could be missing the most fascinating details because of your own closed mind.
Posted by: Shannon | February 5, 2009 6:03 PM
Do we trust a poll that fails to name Utah as one of the top 10 religious states?
Posted by: Ed Darrell | February 5, 2009 6:19 PM
Ed Darrell, jennie: Utah is fourteenth on the main list, and it is a western state, where people are less religious overall. Compare it to adjacent states like Nevada, Wyoming, Arizona, and Colorado.
Posted by: chancelikely | February 5, 2009 6:41 PM
Perhaps the most likely explanation is that the religious states are also the poor states. The poor generally consider divorce, out-of-wedlock births, and teen pregnancy to be important problems, because they have more of them. Naturally, churches, which cater to the poor, recognize these problems, and claim to help with them. Normalize these results by income, and you might have a point.
Posted by: Andrew | February 5, 2009 8:52 PM
Shannon:
We're not intolerant of their religious fantasies. We're intolerant of their insistence on using their fantasies instead of logic.
Posted by: democommie | February 7, 2009 12:37 AM
You need to control for other issues. For example, states such as Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee have very high African American population, while Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine are largely white. Divorce rate differs significantly from race to race.
Also, some librals do not get married. They just live together. So they divorce rate is 0.
This is a typical GRE logic question. People who cannot handle this simple question very well will not pass GRE and should not get into graduate school.
Posted by: Jeb | February 8, 2009 11:51 AM
jeb - why would it matter what education level, racial profile, or economic background the respondents have? Surely god can fix everything, overcome all things, do everything for the truly godly. I mean god will elevate the godly and bring down the ungodly isn't that what the religious right type preach? And yet.... :) DJ
Posted by: DIngoJack | February 8, 2009 12:00 PM