Quote Originally Posted by bipper
I look at this, and a blank gets drawn.

It really seems to make no sence, prolly written by a stonghardt atheist or somthing.
We should point out that the person who wrote the article is just repeating the findings of the study, which are that certain social ills are more common in places that have strong religious beliefs.

I look at this particular paragraph:

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 author goes out of his way to name off Christians. If anyone who was actually doing this study new a lick about Christianity, they would know that the core phiolosiphy of the religon is base on love and peace. Kill your enemy with kindness", "Love thy neighbor", and the whole God taking a mortal death to display obidence and servitude is greater than violence and retribution in the end. (Now I mean spiritually, not physically. As Jesus did die, and most would not mark that up as a win, the whole ressurection is part of the victory)
Many strands of modern Christianity have very little to do with Jesus' actual teachings. Does it strike you as odd that many of the most gung-ho war supporters in America are also hardcore religious believers? Many of the most religious areas in the United States are also the most prone to teen pregnancies and the like. Not to mention the bombing of abortion clinics and the like.

This whole article seems totally off, and to me, it serves as a blow to the credibility of whomever wrote this. I mean, the whole thing seem like it was written with an extreme bias. Read it carefully, and just try and blame every factor on a religon. Higher STD rates being blamed on religon? Yeah, cause Christianity really tells you to go sleep around :rolleyes2
Obviously they're not saying religion tells you to go do certain behaviours, but the study found that those behaviours are more common in religious areas regardless. Clearly, this is in strong dispute with the oft-repeated mantra that religion helps to lower the incidence of such behaviours.