[Paleopsych] Journal of Religion and Society: Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies
Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.
ljohnson at solution-consulting.com
Mon Oct 3 01:30:27 UTC 2005
This is an amazingly silly study, as it contradicts tons of social
research on the actual effects of religion. America is a sui generis,
and to compare us with any other country is ridiculous. Post hoc ergo
propter hoc fallacy. Other than that I have no strong opinion.
Lynn
Premise Checker wrote:
> Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with
> Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies
> Journal of Religion and Society
> http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html
> [Creighton is a Roman Catholic Jesuit university, founded in Omaha in
> 1878. First, an summary from the Times of London, to which Laird
> alerted me.]
>
> NATIONS WITH GOD ON THEIR SIDE DO WORSE
>
> RUTH GLEDHILL, TIMES, UK - Religious belief can cause damage to a
> society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual
> promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.
> According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only
> unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to
> social problems. The study counters the view of believers that
> religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of
> a healthy society.
>
> It compares the social performance of relatively secular countries,
> such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator
> rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in
> the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it
> inspires atheism and amorality.
>
> Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that
> religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to
> lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and
> abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been
> described as its "spiritual capital". But the study claims that the
> devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills.
>
> 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 Program, Gallup and other
> research bodies to reach his conclusions. . .
>
> 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 gonorrhea 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. . .
>
> 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.
>
> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1798944,00.html
>
> -------------------
>
> ISSN: 1522-5658
>
> Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with
> Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies
>
> A First Look
>
> Gregory S. Paul
> Baltimore, Maryland
>
> Introduction
>
> [1] Two centuries ago there was relatively little dispute over the
> existence of God, or the societally beneficial effect of popular
> belief in a creator. In the twentieth century extensive secularization
> occurred in western nations, the United States being the only
> significant exception (Bishop; Bruce; Gill et al.; Sommerville). If
> religion has receded in some western nations, what is the impact of
> this unprecedented transformation upon their populations? Theists
> often assert that popular belief in a creator is instrumental towards
> providing the moral, ethical and other foundations necessary for a
> healthy, cohesive society. Many also contend that widespread
> acceptance of evolution, and/or denial of a creator, is contrary to
> these goals. But a cross-national study verifying these claims has yet
> to be published. That radically differing worldviews can have
> measurable impact upon societal conditions is plausible according to a
> number of mainstream researchers (Bainbridge; Barro; Barro and
> McCleary; Beeghley; Groeneman and Tobin; Huntington; Inglehart and
> Baker; Putman; Stark and Bainbridge). Agreement with the hypothesis
> that belief in a creator is beneficial to societies is largely based
> on assumption, anecdotal accounts, and on studies of limited scope and
> quality restricted to one population (Benson et al.; Hummer et al.;
> Idler and Kasl; Stark and Bainbridge). A partial exception is given by
> Barro and McCleary, who correlated economic growth with rates of
> belief in the afterlife and church attendance in numerous nations
> (while Kasman and Reid [2004] commented that Europe does not appear to
> be suffering unduly from its secularization). It is surprising that a
> more systematic examination of the question has not been previously
> executed since the factors required to do so are in place. The
> twentieth century acted, for the first time in human history, as a
> vast Darwinian global societal experiment in which a wide variety of
> dramatically differing social-religious-political-economic systems
> competed with one another, with varying degrees of success. A
> quantitative cross-national analysis is feasible because a large body
> of survey and census data on rates of religiosity, secularization, and
> societal indicators has become available in the prosperous developed
> democracies including the United States.
>
> [2] This study is a first, brief look at an important subject that has
> been almost entirely neglected by social scientists. The primary
> intent is to present basic correlations of the elemental data. Some
> conclusions that can be gleaned from the plots are outlined. This is
> not an attempt to present a definitive study that establishes cause
> versus effect between religiosity, secularism and societal health. It
> is hoped that these original correlations and results will spark
> future research and debate on the issue.
>
> The Belief that Religiosity is Socially Beneficial
>
> [3] As he helped initiate the American experiment Benjamin Franklin
> stated that "religion will be a powerful regulator of our actions,
> give us peace and tranquility within our minds, and render us
> benevolent, useful and beneficial to others" (Isaacson: 87-88). When
> the theory of biological evolution removed the need for a supernatural
> creator concerns immediately arose over the societal implications of
> widespread abandonment of faith (Desmond and Moore; Numbers). In 1880
> the religious moralist Dostoyevsky penned the famous warning that "if
> God does not exist, then everything is permissible." Even so, in
> Europe the issue has not been a driving focus of public and political
> dispute, especially since the world wars.
>
> [4] Although its proponents often claim that anti-evolution
> creationism[1]<1> is scientific, it has abjectly failed in the
> practical realms of mainstream science and hi-tech industry (Ayala et
> al.; Crews; Cziko; Dawkins, 1996, 1997; Dennett; Gould; Koza et al.;
> L. Lane; Miller; Paul and Cox; Shanks; Wise; Young and Edis). The
> continuing popularity of creationism in America indicates that it is
> in reality a theistic social-political movement partly driven by
> concerns over the societal consequences of disbelief in a creator
> (Forrest and Gross; Numbers). The person most responsible for
> politicizing the issue in America, evangelical Christian W. J.
> Bryan,[2]<2> expressed relatively little interest in evolution until
> the horrors of WW I inspired him to blame the scientific revolution
> that invented chemical warfare and other modern ills for "preaching
> that man has a brute ancestry and eliminating the miraculous and the
> supernatural from the Bible" (Numbers: 178).
>
> [5] In the United States many conservative theists consider
> evolutionary science a leading contributor to social dysfunction
> because it is amoral or worse, and because it inspires disbelief in a
> moral creator (Colson and Pearcey; Eve and Harrold; Johnson; Numbers;
> Pearcey; Schroeder). The original full title for the creationist
> Discovery Institute was the Discovery Institute for the Renewal of
> Science and Culture (a title still applied to a division), and the
> institute's mission challenges "materialism on specifically scientific
> grounds" with the intent of reversing "some of materialism's
> destructive cultural consequences." The strategy for achieving these
> goals is the "wedge" strategy to insert intelligent design creationism
> into mainstream academe and subsequently destroy Darwinian science
> (Johnson; Forrest and Gross note this effort is far behind schedule).
> The Discovery Institute and the less conservative, even more lavishly
> funded pro-theistic Templeton Foundation fund research into the
> existence and positive societal influence of a creator (Harris et al.;
> Holden). In 2000 the Discovery Institute held a neocreationist seminar
> for members of Congress (Applegate). Politically and socially powerful
> conservatives have deliberately worked to elevate popular concerns
> over a field of scientific and industrial research to such a level
> that it qualifies as a major societal fear factor. The current House
> majority leader T. Daley contends that high crime rates and tragedies
> like the Columbine assault will continue as long schools teach
> children "that they are nothing but glorified apes who have
> evolutionized [sic] out of some primordial soup of mud" (DeLay and
> Dawson). Today's leaders of the world's largest Christian
> denomination, the Catholic Church, share a dim view of the social
> impact of evolution. In his inauguration speech, Benedict XVI lauded
> the benefits of belief in a creator and contended, "we are not some
> casual and meaningless product of evolution." A leading church cleric
> and theologian (Schonborn) proclaimed that "the overwhelming evidence
> for purpose and design" refutes the mindless creation of Darwinian
> natural selection (also Dean, Dean and Goodstein).
>
> [6] Agreement with the hypothesis that popular religiosity is
> societally advantageous is not limited to those opposed to
> evolutionary science, or to conservatives. The basic thesis can be
> held by anyone who believes in a benign creator regardless of the
> proposed mode of creation, or the believer's social-political
> worldview. In broad terms the hypothesis that popular religiosity is
> socially beneficial holds that high rates of belief in a creator, as
> well as worship, prayer and other aspects of religious practice,
> correlate with lowering rates of lethal violence, suicide,
> non-monogamous sexual activity, and abortion, as well as improved
> physical health. Such faith-based, virtuous "cultures of life" are
> supposedly attainable if people believe that God created them for a
> special purpose, and follow the strict moral dictates imposed by
> religion. At one end of the spectrum are those who consider creator
> belief helpful but not necessarily critical to individuals and
> societies. At the other end the most ardent advocates consider persons
> and people inherently unruly and ungovernable unless they are strictly
> obedient to the creator (as per Barna; Colson and Pearcey; Johnson;
> Pearcey; Schroeder). Barro labels societal advantages that are
> associated with religiosity "spiritual capital," an extension of
> Putman's concept of "social capital." The corresponding view that
> western secular materialism leads to "cultures of death" is the
> official opinion of the Papacy, which claims, "the proabortion culture
> is especially strong precisely where the Church's teaching on
> contraception is rejected" (John Paul II). In the United States
> popular support for the cultural and moral superiority of theism is so
> extensive that popular disbelief in God ranks as another major
> societal fear factor.
>
> [7] The media (Stepp) gave favorable coverage to a report that
> children are hardwired towards, and benefit from, accepting the
> existence of a divine creator on an epidemiological and
> neuro-scientific basis (Benson et al.). Also covered widely was a
> Federal report that the economic growth of nations positively responds
> to high rates of belief in hell and heaven.[3]<3> Faith-based
> charities and education are promoted by the Bush administration[4]<4>
> and religious allies and lobbies as effective means of addressing
> various social problems (Aronson; Goodstein). The conservative Family
> Research Council proclaims, "believing that God is the author of life,
> liberty and the family, FRC promotes the Judeo-Christian worldview as
> the basis for a just, free and stable society." Towards the liberal
> end of the political spectrum presidential candidate Al Gore supported
> teaching both creationism and evolution, his running mate Joe
> Leiberman asserted that belief in a creator is instrumental to "secure
> the moral future of our nation, and raise the quality of life for all
> our people," and presidential candidate John Kerry emphasized his
> religious values in the latter part of his campaign.
>
> [8] With surveys showing a strong majority from conservative to
> liberal believing that religion is beneficial for society and for
> individuals, many Americans agree that their church-going nation is an
> exceptional, God blessed, "shining city on the hill" that stands as an
> impressive example for an increasingly skeptical world. But in the
> other developing democracies religiosity continues to decline
> precipitously and avowed atheists often win high office, even as
> clergies warn about adverse societal consequences if a revival of
> creator belief does not occur (Reid, 2001).
>
> Procedures and Primary Data Sources
>
> [9] Levels of religious and nonreligious belief and practice, and
> indicators of societal health and dysfunction, have been most
> extensively and reliably surveyed in the prosperous developed
> democracies ([5]Figures 1-9). Similar data is often lacking for second
> and third world nations, or is less reliable. The cultural and
> economic similarity of the developing democracies minimizes the
> variability of factors outside those being examined. The approximately
> 800 million mostly middle class adults and children act as a massive
> epidemiological experiment that allows hypotheses that faith in a
> creator or disbelief in evolution improves or degrades societal
> conditions to be tested on an international scale. The extent of this
> data makes it potentially superior to results based on much smaller
> sample sizes. Data is from the 1990s, most from the middle and latter
> half of the decade, or the early 2000s.
>
> [10] Data sources for rates of religious belief and practice as well
> as acceptance of evolution are the 1993 Environment I (Bishop) and
> 1998 Religion II polls conducted by the International Social Survey
> Program (ISSP), a cross-national collaboration on social science
> surveys using standard methodologies that currently involves 38
> nations. The last survey interviewed approximately 23,000 people in
> almost all (17) of the developing democracies; Portugal is also
> plotted as an example of a second world European democracy. Results
> for western and eastern Germany are combined following the regions'
> populations. England is generally Great Britain excluding Northern
> Ireland; Holland is all of the Netherlands. The results largely agree
> with national surveys on the same subjects; for example, both ISSP and
> Gallup indicate that absolute plus less certain believers in a higher
> power are about 90% of the U.S. population. The plots include Bible
> literalism and frequency of prayer and service attendance, as well as
> absolute belief in a creator, in order to examine religiosity in terms
> of ardency, conservatism, and activities. Self-reported rates of
> religious attendance and practice may be significantly higher than
> actual rates (Marler and Hadaway), but the data is useful for relative
> comparisons, especially when it parallels results on religious belief.
> The high rates of church attendance reported for the Swiss appear
> anomalous compared to their modest levels of belief and prayer.
>
> [11] Data on aspects of societal health and dysfunction are from a
> variety of well-documented sources including the UN Development
> Programme (2000). Homicide is the best indicator of societal violence
> because of the extremity of the act and its unique contribution to
> levels of societal fear, plus the relatively reliable nature of the
> data (Beeghley; Neapoletan). Youth suicide (WHO) was examined in order
> to avoid cultural issues related to age and terminal illness. Data on
> STDs, teen pregnancy and birth (Panchaud et al.; Singh and Darroch)
> were accepted only if the compilers concluded that they were not
> seriously underreported, except for the U.S. where under reporting
> does not exaggerate disparities with the other developing democracies
> because they would only close the gaps. Teen pregnancy was examined in
> a young age class in which marriage is infrequent. Abortion data
> (Panchaud et al.) was accepted only from those nations in which it is
> as approximately legal and available as in the U.S. In order to
> minimize age related factors, rates of dysfunction were plotted within
> youth cohorts when possible.
>
> [12] 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. Nor were multivariate
> analyses used because they risk manipulating the data to produce
> errant or desired results,[6]<5> and because the fairly consistent
> characteristics of the sample automatically minimizes the need to
> correct for external multiple factors (see further discussion below).
> Therefore correlations of raw data are used for this initial
> examination.
>
> Results
>
> [13] Among the developing democracies absolute belief in God,
> attendance of religious services and Bible literalism vary over a
> dozenfold, atheists and agnostics five fold, prayer rates fourfold,
> and acceptance of evolution almost twofold. Japan, Scandinavia, and
> France are the most secular nations in the west, the United States is
> the only prosperous first world nation to retain rates of religiosity
> otherwise limited to the second and third worlds (Bishop; PEW).
> Prosperous democracies where religiosity is low (which excludes the
> U.S.) are referred to below as secular developing democracies.
>
> [14] Correlations between popular acceptance of human evolution and
> belief in and worship of a creator and Bible literalism are negative
> ([7]Figure 1). The least religious nation, Japan, exhibits the highest
> agreement with the scientific theory, the lowest level of acceptance
> is found in the most religious developing democracy, the U.S.
>
> [15] A few hundred years ago rates of homicide were astronomical in
> Christian Europe and the American colonies (Beeghley; R. Lane). In all
> secular developing democracies a centuries long-term trend has seen
> homicide rates drop to historical lows ([8]Figure 2). The especially
> low rates in the more Catholic European states are statistical noise
> due to yearly fluctuations incidental to this sample, and are not
> consistently present in other similar tabulations (Barcley and
> Tavares). Despite a significant decline from a recent peak in the
> 1980s (Rosenfeld), the U.S. is the only prosperous democracy that
> retains high homicide rates, making it a strong outlier in this regard
> (Beeghley; Doyle, 2000). Similarly, theistic Portugal also has rates
> of homicides well above the secular developing democracy norm. Mass
> student murders in schools are rare, and have subsided somewhat since
> the 1990s, but the U.S. has experienced many more (National School
> Safety Center) than all the secular developing democracies combined.
> Other prosperous democracies do not significantly exceed the U.S. in
> rates of nonviolent and in non-lethal violent crime (Beeghley;
> Farrington and Langan; Neapoletan), and are often lower in this
> regard. The United States exhibits typical rates of youth suicide
> (WHO), which show little if any correlation with theistic factors in
> the prosperous democracies ([9]Figure 3). The positive correlation
> between pro-theistic factors and juvenile mortality is remarkable,
> especially regarding absolute belief, and even prayer ([10]Figure 4).
> Life spans tend to decrease as rates of religiosity rise ([11]Figure
> 5), especially as a function of absolute belief. Denmark is the only
> exception. Unlike questionable small-scale epidemiological studies by
> Harris et al. and Koenig and Larson, higher rates of religious
> affiliation, attendance, and prayer do not result in lower
> juvenile-adult mortality rates on a cross-national basis.[12]<6>
>
> [16] Although the late twentieth century STD epidemic has been
> curtailed in all prosperous democracies (Aral and Holmes; Panchaud et
> al.), rates of adolescent gonorrhea infection remain six to three
> hundred times higher in the U.S. than in less theistic, pro-evolution
> secular developing democracies ([13]Figure 6). At all ages levels are
> higher in the U.S., albeit by less dramatic amounts. The U.S. also
> suffers from uniquely high adolescent and adult syphilis infection
> rates, which are starting to rise again as the microbe's resistance
> increases ([14]Figure 7). The two main curable STDs have been nearly
> eliminated in strongly secular Scandinavia. Increasing adolescent
> abortion rates show positive correlation with increasing belief and
> worship of a creator, and negative correlation with increasing
> non-theism and acceptance of evolution; again rates are uniquely high
> in the U.S. ([15]Figure 8). Claims that secular cultures aggravate
> abortion rates (John Paul II) are therefore contradicted by the
> quantitative data. Early adolescent pregnancy and birth have dropped
> in the developing democracies (Abma et al.; Singh and Darroch), but
> rates are two to dozens of times higher in the U.S. where the decline
> has been more modest ([16]Figure 9). Broad correlations between
> decreasing theism and increasing pregnancy and birth are present, with
> Austria and especially Ireland being partial exceptions. Darroch et
> al. found that age of first intercourse, number of sexual partners and
> similar issues among teens do not exhibit wide disparity or a
> consistent pattern among the prosperous democracies they sampled,
> including the U.S. A detailed comparison of sexual practices in France
> and the U.S. observed little difference except that the French tend -
> contrary to common impression - to be somewhat more conservative
> (Gagnon et al.).
>
> Discussion
>
> [17] The absence of exceptions to the negative correlation between
> absolute belief in a creator and acceptance of evolution, plus the
> lack of a significant religious revival in any developing democracy
> where evolution is popular, cast doubt on the thesis that societies
> can combine high rates of both religiosity and agreement with
> evolutionary science. Such an amalgamation may not be practical. By
> removing the need for a creator evolutionary science made belief
> optional. When deciding between supernatural and natural causes is a
> matter of opinion large numbers are likely to opt for the latter.
> Western nations are likely to return to the levels of popular
> religiosity common prior to the 1900s only in the improbable event
> that naturalistic evolution is scientifically overturned in favor of
> some form of creationist natural theology that scientifically verifies
> the existence of a creator. Conversely, evolution will probably not
> enjoy strong majority support in the U.S. until religiosity declines
> markedly.
>
> [18] 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 ([17]Figures 1-9). The most theistic prosperous
> democracy, the U.S., is exceptional, but not in the manner Franklin
> predicted. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional
> of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so, and almost
> always scores poorly. The view of the U.S. as a "shining city on the
> hill" to the rest of the world is falsified when it comes to basic
> measures of societal health. Youth suicide is an exception to the
> general trend because there is not a significant relationship between
> it and religious or secular factors. No democracy is known to have
> combined strong religiosity and popular denial of evolution with high
> rates of societal health. Higher rates of non-theism and acceptance of
> human evolution usually correlate with lower rates of dysfunction, and
> the least theistic nations are usually the least dysfunctional. None
> of the strongly secularized, pro-evolution democracies is experiencing
> high levels of measurable dysfunction. In some cases the highly
> religious U.S. is an outlier in terms of societal dysfunction from
> less theistic but otherwise socially comparable secular developing
> democracies. In other cases, the correlations are strongly graded,
> sometimes outstandingly so.
>
> [19] If the data showed that the U.S. enjoyed higher rates of societal
> health than the more secular, pro-evolution democracies, then the
> opinion that popular belief in a creator is strongly beneficial to
> national cultures would be supported. Although they are by no means
> utopias, the populations of secular democracies are clearly able to
> govern themselves and maintain societal cohesion. Indeed, the data
> examined in this study demonstrates that only the more secular,
> pro-evolution democracies have, for the first time in history, come
> closest to achieving practical "cultures of life" that feature low
> rates of lethal crime, juvenile-adult mortality, sex related
> dysfunction, and even abortion. The least theistic secular developing
> democracies such as Japan, France, and Scandinavia have been most
> successful in these regards. The non-religious, pro-evolution
> 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. Contradicting these conclusions
> requires demonstrating a positive link between theism and societal
> conditions in the first world with a similarly large body of data - a
> doubtful possibility in view of the observable trends.
>
> Conclusion
>
> [20] The United States' deep social problems are all the more
> disturbing because the nation enjoys exceptional per capita wealth
> among the major western nations (Barro and McCleary; Kasman; PEW; UN
> Development Programme, 2000, 2004). Spending on health care is much
> higher as a portion of the GDP and per capita, by a factor of a third
> to two or more, than in any other developing democracy (UN Development
> Programme, 2000, 2004). The U.S. is therefore the least efficient
> western nation in terms of converting wealth into cultural and
> physical health. Understanding the reasons for this failure is urgent,
> and doing so requires considering the degree to which cause versus
> effect is responsible for the observed correlations between social
> conditions and religiosity versus secularism. It is therefore hoped
> that this initial look at a subject of pressing importance will
> inspire more extensive research on the subject. Pressing questions
> include the reasons, whether theistic or non-theistic, that the
> exceptionally wealthy U.S. is so inefficient that it is experiencing a
> much higher degree of societal distress than are less religious, less
> wealthy prosperous democracies. Conversely, how do the latter achieve
> superior societal health while having little in the way of the
> religious values or institutions? There is evidence that within the
> U.S. strong disparities in religious belief versus acceptance of
> evolution are correlated with similarly varying rates of societal
> dysfunction, the strongly theistic, anti-evolution south and mid-west
> having markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy,
> marital and related problems than the northeast where societal
> conditions, secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach
> European norms (Aral and Holmes; Beeghley, Doyle, 2002). It is the
> responsibility of the research community to address controversial
> issues and provide the information that the citizens of democracies
> need to chart their future courses.
>
> Figures ([18]return)
>
> Indicators of societal dysfunction and health as functions of
> percentage rates of theistic and non-theistic belief and practice in
> 17 first world developed democracies and one second world democracy.
> ISSP questions asked: I know God really exists and I have no doubt
> about it = absolutely believe in God; 2-3 times a month + once a week
> or more = attend religious services at least several times a month;
> several times a week - several times a day = pray at least several
> times a week; the Bible is the actual word of God and it is to be
> taken literally, word for word = Bible literalists; human beings
> [have] developed from earlier species of animals = accept human
> evolution; I don't know whether there is a God and I don't believe
> there is a way to find out + I don't believe in God = agnostics and
> other atheists.
>
> [19]Figure 1
> [20]Figure 2
> [21]Figure 3
> [22]Figure 4
> [23]Figure 5
> [24]Figure 6
> [25]Figure 7
> [26]Figure 8
> [27]Figure 9
>
> Legend
>
> A = Australia
> C = Canada
> D = Denmark
> E = Great Britain
> F = France
> G = Germany
> H = Holland
> I = Ireland
> J = Japan
> L = Switzerland
> N = Norway
> P = Portugal
> R = Austria
> S = Spain
> T = Italy
> U = United States
> W = Sweden
> Z = New Zealand
>
> Bibliography
>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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