IF religion was still a major factor of our belief system and religion was still a major player in the way peoples lives were run, would this stop the "I dont care" attitutes and crumbling social skills of our younger generations?

Religion's Effects On
Crime Rates
By: Edgar Saint George
Editor-in-Chief

The more "Christian" a place is, the greater the social ills and crime of the area. That's the primary conclusion of an exhaustive scientific study done by Gregory S. Paul and published in the scholarly onling journal, Journal of Religion and Science of the Creighton university of Omaha, Nebraska, a Jesuit school.
The study showed that the most "Christian' parts of the United States, the South and Midwest, have the highest rates of social ills and crime including murder, sexually transmitted diseases, mortality and so forth. The study also showed that the United States as a whole has far higher rates of crime and social ills than the rest of the developed world including all of Europe. The US is much more "Christian" than civilized nations.

There is no escaping the reality that Christian dogma goes hand-in-glove with a sick society. Religious fanatics and extremist are worse social dangers than drugs.

Most rational persons recognize that Christian mythology is farcicaly pathetic and that the Christians, especially the "evangelicals" or fundamentalists, are hypocrites who use religion as a weapon to demean others. Doctor Paul's study is one of the first to quantify the real social effects of Christian doctrine. It may be that religious zealots of all cults, not just Christian, produce a similar effect of social evil. Certainly the Catholic church spent centuries oppressing its subjects into poverty and misery. The Moslem dogma has the same appeal: violence, revenge, exclusion and oppression. One is constrained to wonder why sane persons would invent such mythologies. Religion should not go hand-in-hand with cruelty the way it does in America.
http://www.prisoners.com/relcrime.html

IF religion was still a major factor of our belief system and religion was still a major player in the way peoples lives were run, would this stop the "I dont care" attitutes and crumbling social skills of our younger generations?

It is known and has been brought up many times on this site nations that are less religious have a lower crime rate. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Well social decline and social ills do not always equate to crime though that is a part of it. I also doubt your claim is backed up by any studies there Darkwind besides those found on non-professional skeptic sites...it would also make more sense to show the relationship and links between such within communities rather than whole nations. There are also more factors than besides religion or the media that lead to the 'I don't care attitude' aka apathy that the OP was referring to. The greatest socialization factor in every case will always be family and friends.

The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society*, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.

“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.

“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”

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.

Mr Paul delayed releasing the study until now because of Hurricane Katrina. He said that the evidence accumulated by a number of different studies suggested that religion might actually contribute to social ills. “I suspect that Europeans are increasingly repelled by the poor societal performance of the Christian states,” he added.

He said that most Western nations would become more religious only if the theory of evolution could be overturned and the existence of God scientifically proven. Likewise, the theory of evolution would not enjoy majority support in the US unless there was a marked decline in religious belief, Mr Paul said.

“The non-religious, proevolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator.

“The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article571206.ece

The Journal of Religion & Society is a cross-disciplinary, electronic journal published by the Rabbi Myer and Dorothy Kripke Center for the Study of Religion and Society at Creighton University.

The journal promotes the study of religious groups and beliefs among the various peoples of the world, past and present, with emphasis on American religions and the Western religious traditions.

To cut a long story short... IF religion was still a major factor of our belief system and religion was still a major player in the way peoples lives were run, would this stop the "I dont care" attitutes and crumbling social skills of our younger generations?

*

*Pop*

Gregory S. Paul (born 1954) is a freelance paleontologist, author and illustrator. He is best known for his work and research on theropod dinosaurs, and his detailed illustrations, both live and skeletal.

...

Paul authored a paper in 2005 entitled "Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies: A First Look".[2] He states in the introduction that the paper is "not an attempt to present a definitive study that establishes cause versus effect between religiosity, secularism and societal health".[3] This paper has been criticized on statistical grounds, including the seemingly arbitrary sampling of 18 countries out of more than 193 for examination, its indirect measure of "religiosity" (the author's term) and its "chi-by-eye" interpretation of scatterplots rather than quantified measures.[citation needed] Moreno-Riaño, Smith, and Mach wrote in a published article in the same journal that "[Paul's] methodological problems do not allow for any conclusive statement to be advanced regarding the various hypotheses Paul seeks to demonstrate or falsify."[4] Note: Moreno-Riaño, Smith, and Mach, were, at the time of their paper, from Cedarville University, OH. This Christian University requests adhesion to a binding Doctrine Statement [5] that constrains the freedom of what a member of the faculty or a student could conclude in matters touching the University religious tenets.

Gary F. Jensen of Vanderbilt University is one of the scientists who criticizes the methods used by Paul, including that "Paul’s analysis generates the 'desired results' by selectively choosing the set of social problems to include to highlight the negative consequences of religion". In a response [6] to the study by Paul, he builds on and refines Paul's analysis. His conclusion, that focus only in the crime of homicide, is that there is a correlation (and perhaps a causal relationship) of higher homicide rates, not with Christianity, but with dualistic Christian beliefs, something Jensen defines as the strong belief in all of the following : God, heaven, devil and hell. Excerpt: "A multiple regression analysis reveals a complex relationship with some dimensions of religiosity encouraging homicide and other dimensions discouraging it."

Over the years, countless efforts have been made to find a comprehensive explanation for delinquency. The results of these efforts have offered possible reasons as being both biological and social. It is still debatable as to what forces have the greatest influence on youth crime, but it is undoubted that several factors clearly make an impact. The direct relationships a child has with concrete social elements, like his family and friends, are likely to give some intimation of his involvement in crime. However, it must be noted that there are more abstract contexts for socialization that also exist as potential explanations for a child’s behavior. The most prominent of these less specific forces are the media, community, and religion. It has been argued extensively that these three elements represent a major source of delinquency in the U.S. today.

...

Another, seemingly less obvious, aspect of this argument deals with the role of religion in society. In paralleling it to delinquency, for all its power and influence, religion is much more perplexing than the media or sense of community. For one, religion exists on many different levels and is extremely difficult to define in a fashion suitable to the debate. In addition, the fact that religion is such a controversial and sensitive subject only complicates the pursuit of characterizing and understanding it. These obstacles notwithstanding, the multifaceted effects of religion on crime have been argued for centuries. They will likely continue, as people observe that religion influences the behavior of people, serves as a set of values for society, and correlates with delinquency in several ways. The relationship between crime and religion has been explored for many years, with only a handful of theorists drawing any direct conclusions. Among few others, three of the most influential social philosophers of the past 200 years, Marx, Durkheim, and Weber, have all commented on the importance of religion to this issue. Marx believed that religion existed to give people a false hope for the future and to keep them motivated during the present. In accomplishing this, religion also deterred people from crime by making them concentrate on their social roles, while ignoring the oppression of stratified economic systems. Durkheim asserted that “social order could be maintained only if people had common beliefs in something greater than themselves” (Jensen and Rojek 309). He saw religion as very interconnected with social values as it contributed to a loss of strong communal bonds between the tenants of Western society. As people begin to believe more in themselves and less in a higher power, Durkheim argued, they become less committed to an interdependent society and highly prone to selfish acts of lawlessness. Weber, another distinguished sociologist, attributed social deviance to religious factors as well. He believed that “religious institutions were intertwined with other institutions,” contributing to both progressive and regressive social development (Jensen and Rojek 309). These three attempted to explain the social importance of religion, while only scratching the surface of its relationship to crime. Although they fail to adequately expand on the subject, the ideas of these influential thinkers represent some basic thoughts on the religious causes of crime, and they have led to successive investigations of religion and delinquency. Surprisingly, facts about crime and religion over the years have been rather indecipherable, as research findings from different studies have frequently produced contradicting results.

...

Because religion is such an obscure notion, there is no correct way to view its possible social consequences. Although some studies have represented religious causes of crime as negligible, more recent data has provided insight into alternative measures of religion and delinquency. Later arguments began to proclaim social control theories that religious traditions serve as inhibitors of deviant behavior. Normally, religious practices advocate policies of self-control, temperance, and self-denial. In this case, religion prevents people from acting in opposition of these policies. Accordingly, a study by Burkett and White concluded that alcohol and drug use was less common among church-going people than those who were religiously inactive. Also, research by Bruce Johnson indicated that church attendance was a strong factor in predicting the marijuana use of college students. In this study, church attendees were less likely to be regular users, and 77 percent of them reported never having used marijuana. On the other hand, “only 26 percent of nonattendees were complete abstainers” (Jensen and Rojek 313). Another similar study by Middleton and Putney suggested that religious values inhibit the breaking of religious standards, but do not inhibit the potential violation of social standards. Moreover, continuing studies illustrated that the ways in which religion influences crime may be different in specific regions, depending on the degree of commitment to religion in that area. Similarly, “researchers have proposed that some measures of religiosity are more likely to correlate with delinquency as well” (Jensen and Rojek 314). Religiosity, or differing degrees of personal or private commitment, church attendance, faith, and practice of values, may present a better explanation of how religion affects crime than other social elements. Modern research has begun to find more clues outlining the extent to which religion is relevant to the study of delinquency.

It seems that throughout time we have had religions popping up all over the place, new or old these all seem to be lessening day by day or so it seems.

Throughout history and to the present day religious groups gathered upon their temples, churches etc on their given day/s and listened to the teachings of whatever god they followed.
Whilst there, I suppose it can be said that all the people socialised and got to know each other to whatever extent and it would have been here that their own respective religions taught them their moral stances and gave them guidance on how to treat each other in order to reach their "heaven".

Now (in my opinion) religion is rapidly on the decline. Many churches/temples now lay empty, some religions have faded into obscurity and many that remain are short in worshippers numbers.

Kids, teenagers and young adults no longer see religion as a viable option, they want to see proof that a higher being exists. Proof we know that we cannot provide.

To cut a long story short... IF religion was still a major factor of our belief system and religion was still a major player in the way peoples lives were run, would this stop the "I dont care" attitutes and crumbling social skills of our younger generations?

Salaam (Peace)

I do not think it would "stop" the attitudes and crumbling social skills, but it do think it would be curtailed. The youth, which are driving crime rates sky high, are rarely atheists, they do believe in "God", but they are usually non-religious, no outward structure to their belief. The dismantling of the family structure coincides with the decrease in religiosity. However, spirituality has increased, which I believe is a good thing, but far too many see it as an "either - or" scenario. Abandoning religion for spirituality is a mistake, its like developing the mind while ignoring the body. Religion (without spirituality) will decay like a body without a soul. Religion and Spirituality should work together like the Mind and Body in our society. I pray for this redeeming balance.

I thought youth crime rates have gone down in recent years?

That is a fair assessment stargazer. There are so many factors involved that lead to social decline but first and foremost on my list would be the lack of having one full time parent at home due to the dual-income family, which became a necessity in the process of modernization, since a company instead of paying one bread winner and insurance for a whole family can instead pay each person less. Next in line would be the media and the mixed messages it sends. Then the change of schooling. Then religion at the very end of the line.

I would have to disagree with you that social decline is not occurring. We have so many social ills today compared to before and it has much more to do than the youth since adults have their own share of issues.

That is an excellent point as well Clovis with the change in families having both parents work and another addition would be divorces. I'm a single mom who works full time and it does have an impact on my children in many ways. Media and schooling also excellent points for sure. Three other factors that I hear alot of parents speak of are the internet, video games and the medical establishment. It seems to me like doctors are always trying to hand off drugs like candy these days to parents for their kids. Perhaps some younger people do need them but my daughter is in middle school and 3 out of 7 of her friends are on some sort of medicine for mental ailments such as depression.

Clovis do you think that perhaps the youth of today had the same social ailments they have always had and maybe because of media and the internet and growing population we are just able to hear more about it more?

If the media is to blame then we are to blame...because the media only shows us what we want to see. The media is a manifestation of our problems and not the source of them.

Violence in videogames.
Rap music and street gangs.
Elvis and Marilyn Manson being the cause of unruly children.
Dungeons and Dragons/Harry Potter turning children into cultists.
R rated movies, comic books, MTV, etc, etc.

There is rarely ever a direct link. Columbine would be a famous example, the blame was put on music and videogames claiming that these things caused the kids to do the shooting which wasn't in the least bit true.

Media doesn't cause social ills...social ills effect the media.

That is an excellent point as well Clovis with the change in families having both parents work and another addition would be divorces. I'm a single mom who works full time and it does have an impact on my children in many ways. Media and schooling also excellent points for sure. Three other factors that I hear alot of parents speak of are the internet, video games and the medical establishment. It seems to me like doctors are always trying to hand off drugs like candy these days to parents for their kids. Perhaps some younger people do need them but my daughter is in middle school and 3 out of 7 of her friends are on some sort of medicine for mental ailments such as depression.

Clovis do you think that perhaps the youth of today had the same social ailments they have always had and maybe because of media and the internet and growing population we are just able to hear more about it more?

Yes. You may not have asked the right question, but the only logical answer to the question you have asked here,is yes.
For better,or for worse,religious people are by definition caring so they would care. An organised player such as religion in the ways peoples lives were run would also, by definition, reinforce and improve social skills. Any such force would do so. Some people might not like the results of a society operating within the parameters you have outlined, but it would definitely have the effects you are seeking. Take the new alternatives to religion among young people like green peace or al gores crusade. They organise and harness the energies of a percentage of young people, tapping into in many cases a religious like fervour, at times with almost martyristic zeal
They do not touch the lives of many young people in comparison with the total cohort, but do illustrate the effects organised belief can have on young people.
In Australia the beliefs and organising force of many sports has a similar effect on young people. It is a very rare and brave young australian who says " I dont care", or displays ignorance of the social ettiquettes/conventions surrounding sport in Australia.

Hey Cadetak. Perhaps you are misunderstanding what I am getting at. I'm not blaming these things but they do play a factor in the changes in culture and children as do many things. I can't argue the media because I do not read newspapers or watch the news ever.

Now as far as the other things go and from my point of view as a parent these things do have an impact and a link if they are something youth sees or experiences, I know they have an impact on me as an adult so therefore by reasonable logic I think they have an impact to some degree on youth, now I'm not saying they are solely to blame, parenting and other factors are a huge role as well but they do play some part in my opinion as does everything a human being sees and experiences in their lives.

I am afraid mate that all the evidence actually points to the opposite.
I think you are a bit naive in thinking that religious people are caring by definition sadly.

Religion was one of the socially cohesive agents and still in in many communities. Without these institutions we can only replace them with others like the media which does not provide social cohesion in the sense of community but does create generic, uniform consumers. It does offer moral guidance, not the same as churches, or even as schools when schools provided a 'liberal education' which is quite different than 'standardized test preparation'. Industrialization and the dual-income family has also removed parents out of the house making our children more dependent on the media to raise them in many cases. It is a sad state of affairs. There are no solutions. Socialization does not stop when one is 18. Adults are being inadvertently affected by a loss of community. Even houses are made without common living spaces in most places and their design is to keep everyone isolated from each other. Consumerism and materialism has replaced many traditions.

Well social decline and social ills do not always equate to crime though that is a part of it. I also doubt your claim is backed up by any studies there Darkwind besides those found on non-professional skeptic sites...it would also make more sense to show the relationship and links between such within communities rather than whole nations. There are also more factors than besides religion or the media that lead to the 'I don't care attitude' aka apathy that the OP was referring to. The greatest socialization factor in every case will always be family and friends.

Upon re reading what i said i can see why you missed what i was saying.

My point was that if you dont care about anything you wont be religious care=worry=concern=many things. Religious peole are rarely indifferent (i did also point out this could be seen as for better or for worse.) Sometimes they care about the wrong thing and in the wrong way.

Look at it another way. If you dont give a damn about anything, youre not likely to be the religious type.

Again, it may be a uniquely australian perspective but i think many australians are not religious simply because they do not care about things spiritual; (they dont have to, we are the lucky country still, to most people, and there are few things which really trouble us deeply enough to get "religious " about. As ive pointed out before, the classic exception to this is aussie rules footballl)

No, I definitely think that meds are being over prescribed especially to children but also to adults. It is a regular mill industry and doctors make many bonuses for prescribing medication from certain pharmaceuticals they have agreements with. The number of agents for pharmaceuticals whose full time job is to wine, dine, and give doctors gifts is pretty outrageous. Also some parents, no sure if it is just out of concern or a lack of concern that they would hope meds can fix their children, are all too eager to allow them to be medicated. But some school systems advocating their own students get medicated and then pressuring parents also does not help.

As far as video games and the internet they are certainly part of the media as well.

It seems that throughout time we have had religions popping up all over the place, new or old these all seem to be lessening day by day or so it seems.

Throughout history and to the present day religious groups gathered upon their temples, churches etc on their given day/s and listened to the teachings of whatever god they followed.
Whilst there, I suppose it can be said that all the people socialised and got to know each other to whatever extent and it would have been here that their own respective religions taught them their moral stances and gave them guidance on how to treat each other in order to reach their "heaven".

Now (in my opinion) religion is rapidly on the decline. Many churches/temples now lay empty, some religions have faded into obscurity and many that remain are short in worshippers numbers.

Kids, teenagers and young adults no longer see religion as a viable option, they want to see proof that a higher being exists. Proof we know that we cannot provide.

To cut a long story short... IF religion was still a major factor of our belief system and religion was still a major player in the way peoples lives were run, would this stop the "I dont care" attitutes and crumbling social skills of our younger generations?

I really can not agree at all. There are plenty of apathetic religious types and religious people are no less indifferent than religious people. The two are not interlinked.
You also miss that just because you care about things, it doesn't increase the chance of you being religious.

May be im missing something. How/why can a person be religious without caring. That care may be misplaced eg they care about whether they wil go to hell rather than caring about their fellow man. People might SAY they are religious ,but its almost physically impossible to BE religious without caring.

I agree that you can be caring without being religious. But is unusual to care without a spiritual dimension to your life. What are the reasons anyone might care, which are not connected to the spiritual element of humanity? It is easy to do what is right in return for social recognition/status or reward, (As posted on other threads animals display this type of social behaviour) but to care, requires another dimension entirely.

Religion can be purely indoctrinated and believed and even followed with the person not being caring. Caring however is more than likely the product of being a social species and it is a survival trait (would you say hyaena's are spiritual and they show amazing levels of altruism towards each other).

Where did you get the information that parents are eager for their kids to get medicated or that school systems advocate their own students to get medicated AND that the parents pressure this? Can you please give some examples?

I am a parent, I know MANY parents, and lots with kids with ADHD and other issues. My own son has it, so before I go any further I want to know where you get this info.

While you think religion is on the decline, I think that spirituality is on the increase. Religion IS an option now, which is why more and more people are choosing themselves over organized religion. I don't know why people keep insisting there are "I don't care" attitudes and crumbling social skills. I don't see it. Maybe its where I live. Maybe your corner of the world, wherever it may be, is lacking something other than religion?

I just don't get this line of thought and where it comes from as no one says why they believe this. The line of thinking the OP is going on is a fairly negative thing, seemingly stemming from other issues, perhaps.

no. that would be the problem of parenting. you don't have to have religion to have good kids.