At 11:37 AM 04/10/2001 -0400, you wrote:
>Though it is an unpopular view, I, like Jim Clark, believe religion has no
>special hold on morality. In case you missed it, here is an interesting
>article by New York Times science writer Natalie Angier that touches on
>this issue:
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20010114mag-atheism.html
>
>Stuart
>
>--
>Stuart A. Vyse, Ph.D. | Dept. of Psychology | (860) 439-2339
>Associate Professor | Connecticut College | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
This is, indeed, a very stimulating critique of religion. Enough so that,
some
time after reading it, I penned a response, which, coincidentally, was just
distributed electronically today by the University of Chicago's Public
Religion
project (see below). The gist is that, yes, religion has been associated with
some pretty awful things in human history ("piety is the mask," William James
once said). But across individuals, religiosity (as indexed by such things as
participation in faith communities or self-rated importance of religion)
correlates with intentional altruism. While the correlations between faith
and
altruism/happiness/health seem pretty well established, the causal
explanations
of the correlations are open for debate and research. And it remains to be
seen whether the proposed faith-based interventions will pay social dividends.
Dave Myers
----- Original Message ----- From: Jonathan Moore
To: Recipient List Suppressed:
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2001 7:20 AM
Subject: *Sightings* 4/11/01 -- Godliness and Goodliness
Sightings 4/11/01
Godliness and Goodliness
-- David G. Myers
"George Washington warned us never to indulge the supposition that 'morality
can be maintained without religion,'" offered Joseph Lieberman in a campaign
stop last August.
The skeptics responded: Can the irreligious not be moral? Is America more
civil
and moral than secular Scandinavia? "The Swedes may skip church, but they take
better care of their poor and their elderly and provide a higher percentage of
the national budget to humanitarian efforts than we do," noted Washington Post
columnist Richard Cohen.
Creation of the new White House Office of Faith-Based and Community
Initiatives
has rejuiced the God and goodness debate. "The canard that godliness and
goodliness are linked in any way but typographically must be taken on faith,
for no evidence supports it," contended Natalie Angier in the New York Times
Magazine.
Indeed, examples of faith-linked greed, lust, and bigotry come readily to
mind,
from Bible-quoting Klansmen to Scripture-wielding gay bashers. As Madeline
L'Engle lamented, "Christians have given Christianity a bad name."
Anecdotes aside -- "I can counter the KKK with MLK," responds the believer --
what does the evidence show?
It shows, first, that faith-rooted values give many people a reason to behave
morally when no one is looking. According to social psychologists Shalom
Schwartz of Jerusalem and Sipke Huismans of Amsterdam, their studies of people
in all major contemporary religions show that "Religions encourage people to
seek meaning beyond everyday existence." Religions "exhort people to pursue
causes greater than their personal desires. The opposed orientation,
self-indulgent materialism, seeks happiness in the pursuit and consumption of
material goods."
In one U.S. national survey, frequent worship attendance predicted lower
scores
on a dishonesty scale that assessed, for example, self-serving lies, tax
cheating, and failing to report damaging a parked car. Moreover, in cities
where churchgoing is high, crime rates are low. In Provo, Utah, where more
than
9 in 10 people are church members, you can more readily leave your car
unlocked
than in Seattle, where fewer than a third are.
Even the eighteenth-century French writer Voltaire, to whom Christianity
was an
"infamy" that deserved crushing, found the influence of faith useful among the
masses. "I want my attorney, my tailor, my servants, even my wife to
believe in
God," he wrote, because "then I shall be robbed and cuckolded less often." He
once silenced a discussion about atheism until he had dismissed the servants,
lest in losing their faith they might lose their morality.
University of Pennsylvania criminologist Byron Johnson examined forty
religion-delinquency studies, including his own. His conclusion: "Most
delinquent acts were committed by juveniles who had low levels of religious
commitment. Those juveniles whose religiosity levels were in the middle to
high
levels committed very few delinquent acts." Even when controlling for other
factors, such as socioeconomic level, neighborhood, and peer influences, kids
who went to church rarely were delinquent.
Other research asks who are the altruists? Who gives most generously of time
and money? Fortune reports that most of America's top philanthropists are
"religious: Jewish, Mormon, Protestant, and Catholic. And most attribute their
philanthropic urges at least in part to their religious backgrounds."
It's not just the super rich who demonstrate a connection between generosity
and religious faith. In a 1987 Gallup survey, Americans who said they never
attended church or synagogue reported giving away 1.1 percent of their
incomes.
Weekly attenders -- who constitute 24 percent of the total population -- were
two and a half times as generous, accounting for 48 percent of all charitable
contributions. The other three-quarters of Americans gave the remaining half.
Follow-up surveys in 1990, 1992, and 1994 confirmed the faith-philanthropy
correlation.
A half dozen national surveys also reveal that faith is linked to
volunteerism.
In one Gallup survey, charitable and social service volunteering was reported
by 28 percent of those who rated religion "not very important" in their lives
and by 50 percent of those who rated it "very important."
People who think godliness unrelated to goodliness might also want to
consider:
Who most often adopts children? Who sponsors the nation's food pantries and
soup kitchens? Who first took medicine into the Third World and opened
hospitals? Who sheltered orphans? Who spread literacy and established schools
and universities? And who led movements to abolish the slave trade, end
apartheid, and establish civil rights?
Though it's true that many are good without God and that many believers go to
sleep each night behind bars, the accumulating evidence indicates that faith
tethers self-interest and nurtures character. Godliness and goodliness are
more
than typographically linked.
David G. Myers is professor of psychology at Hope College. This essay draws
from his recent book, The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of
Plenty
(Yale University Press, 2000). Information about the book, its sources, and
related essays can be found at www.davidmyers.org/paradox.
Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago
Divinity School.
Sightings welcomes submissions of 500 to 750 words in length that seek to
illuminate and interpret the forces of faith in a pluralist society. Previous
columns give a good indication of the topical range and tone for acceptable
essays. The editor also encourages new approaches to issues related to
religion
and public life.
Attribution
Columns may be quoted or republished in full, with attribution to the
author of
the column, Sightings, and the Martin Marty Center at the University of
Chicago
Divinity School.
Contact information
Please send all inquiries, comments, and submissions to Jonathan Moore,
managing editor of Sightings, at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.davidmyers.org
