I am really interested in reading through The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, an edited academic volume with multiple authors, when it comes out next month. I’m particularly interested after reading what appears to be an early draft of Phil Zuckerman’s chapter, Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns. Here’s an excerpt from a section of that chapter entitled “Atheism and Societal Health”:
…we can deduce that there are approximately 58 times as many atheists as there are Mormons, 41 times as many atheists as there are Jews, 35 times as many atheists as there are Sikhs, and twice as many atheists as there are Buddhists. Finally, nonbelievers in God as a group come in fourth place after Christianity (2 billion), Islam (1.2 billion), and Hinduism (900 million) in terms of global ranking of commonly-held belief systems.
…countries containing high percentages of non-believers are among the most healthy and wealthy nations on earth (Paul, 2004). Of course, we must always distinguish between those nations where non-belief has been forced upon the society by dictators (“coercive atheismâ€) from those societies wherein non-belief has emerged on its own without governmental coercion (“organic atheismâ€). Nations marked by coercive atheism — such as China, North Korea, Vietnam, and former Soviet states — are societies marked by all that comes with totalitarianism: poor economic development, intellectual censorship, widespread corruption, ubiquitous depression, etc.. However, nations marked by high levels of organic atheism – such as Sweden, the Netherlands, and France — are among the healthiest, wealthiest, most educated, and most free societies on earth.
Consider the Human Development Report (2004), commissioned by The United Nations Development Program. This report ranks 177 nations on a “Human Development Index,†which measures societal health through a weighing of such indicators as life expectancy at birth, adult literacy rate, per capita income, and educational attainment. According to the 2004 Report, the five highest ranked nations in terms of total human development were Norway, Sweden, Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands. All five of these countries are characterized by notably high degrees of organic atheism. Furthermore, of the top 25 nations ranked on the “Human Development Index,†all but one country ( Ireland) are top-ranking non-belief nations, containing some of the highest percentages of organic atheism on earth. Conversely, of those countries ranked at the bottom of the “Human Development Index†— the bottom 50 — all are countries lacking any statistically significant percentages of atheism.
Concerning the infant mortality rate specifically (number of deaths per 1,000 live births), irreligious countries have the lowest rates, and religious countries have the highest rates. According to the CIA World Factbook (2004), out of 225 nations, the top 25 nations with the lowest infant mortality rates were all nations containing significantly high percentages of organic atheism. Conversely, the 75 bottom nations with the highest infant mortality rates were all very religious nations without any statistically significant levels of organic atheism.
Concerning international poverty rates, the United Nations’ Report on the World Social Situation (2003) found that of the 40 poorest nations on earth (measured by the percentage of each nation’s population that lives on less than $1.00 a day), all but one (Vietnam) are highly religious nations with statistically minimal or insignificant levels of atheism.
Concerning homicide rates, Fajnzylber et al (2002), looked at 38 nations (excluding those in Africa) and found that of the top ten nations with the highest homicide rates, all but one (United States) were highly religious nations with statistically insignificant levels of organic atheism. Conversely, of the bottom ten nations with the lowest homicide rates, all but one ( Ireland) are highly secular nations with high levels of atheism. Fox and Levin (2000) looked at 37 nations (again excluding Africa), and found that of the top ten nations with the highest homicide rates, all but two (Estonia and Taiwan) were highly religious nations containing statistically insignificant levels of organic atheism. Conversely, of the bottom ten nations with the lowest homicide rates, all but two ( Ireland and Kuwait) were relatively secular nations with high levels of organic atheism….
Of course, it is essential to clearly state that I am in no way arguing that high levels of organic atheism cause societal health or that low levels of organic atheism cause societal ills such as poverty or illiteracy. If anything, the opposite argument should be made: societal health causes widespread atheism, and societal insecurity causes widespread belief in God, as discussed by Norris and Inglehart (2004) above.
The causes of the glaring differences in societal well being among the world’s rich and poor nations are numerous (Diamond, 1999; Landes, 1999). Certainly among them include the birth and development of the industrial revolution, the lingering residue of colonialism and international conquests, and international trade policies that heavily favor the interests of wealthy/first world nations and their multi-national corporations over the interests of developing/third world nations. Again, to suggest that widespread belief or non-belief in God is the cause of societal health or societal pathology is not my intention. Rather, I am simply seeking to clearly establish that high degrees of non-belief in God in a given society clearly do not result in societal ruin, and high levels of belief in God do not ensure societal well-being. This is an important fact to stress because politically-active theists often equate atheism with crime, immorality, and societal disintegration. From Muslim fundamentalists in Iran to Christian fundamentalists in Indiana, the argument is loudly trumpeted that belief in God is “good for society†– an ultimate panacea — while rejection of the belief in God is bad for society. The above discussion reveals that this thesis is baldly incorrect.
This is just an excerpt, of course; I’ve left out a fair chunk of the chapter. I encourage you to read the whole shebang right here, where Prof. Zuckerman helpfully provides it for our review. I’m eagerly anticipating the prospect Zuckerman’s final draft when it becomes available next month.
Good stuff, thanks for posting it. I notice Zuckerman classifies atheism as organic or inorganic based on whether is is voluntary or imposed by government. No such clasification is offered for religion, at least in that particular excerpt. I wonder what conculsions could be reached by comparing theocracies with countries that have institutionalized religious freedom but have large religious populations.
I’ll work on it.
Also, it’s worth considering the difference between societies where individualistic religious belief is more prevalent with societies where religious belief is controlled by and dedicated to centralized organizations, like churches.
Hm. How would you go about that…?
Well, ideally you’d go and find someone who had already done a cross-national comparison and created a theocracy index of some sort, an individualism of religion index, and so on. Then you could, most simply, cross plot the different variables in a graph and see what kind of relationship you’ve got. You could get fancier, but for a first pass there’d be no need. Indeed, Zuckmerman’s work is a pretty simple synthesis of previous research and then just a bivariate peek at tendencies.
But I can’t fund such indices in a quick search. I mean, I know Durkheim did something like that a century and a half ago, but it’s not exactly current. If anyone knows of any, I would be much obliged.
The only modern theocracies I can think of offhand are Saudi Arabia and Iran, and in recent history Afghanistan under Taliban. A theocracy index? it’s a continuum, then. It might be a challenge to untangle oil and money from the other issues. Maybe no one wants to know the answer to that one.