Skip to main content

Religion Healthy for Families


Religion is dangerous to society, right? Well, it depends on whether there is freedom of religion. Evidence is clear that freely religious families benefit in nearly every way over those who are less religious. Why don't we tout that more regularly in public life?

There is a great misnomer in the world today--the claim that religion is detrimental to society. After all, religion has been behind nearly all of the wars in history, right? Well, actually...no. With the exception of current Islamic Fundamentalists, in distant history, despots who have hijacked religion have caused a lot of problems, but in more recent memory, the furthest things from religion--Communism and Nazism--caused more deaths than probably all previous wars combined.

Evidence today is clear that among those nations where freedom of religious practice is the norm, religion is of great benefit to society. Even where certain forms of religion are prescribed, such as in the Middle East, it has an overall benefit.

A recent study on the effects of religion indicated, among other things, the following:

  • Religious couples are much more likely to stay together
  • Religious fathers are much more praising of the skills and traits of their sons and daughters
  • Religious mothers have much more enduring and mature relationships with their children
  • Religious people have a much greater sense of well-being and purpose
  • Religious husbands are much less likely to commit domestic violence
Religion often gets a bad rap. Sometimes religious people either are or appear a bit pompous. But the truth is, religion is a great benefit to society. It would be hard for even non-religious people to counteract the evidence.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for commenting. If you have a Google/Blogger account, to be apprised of ongoing comment activity on this article, please click the "Subscribe" link below.

Popular posts from this blog

The Inhumanity of Bob Lonsberry: Waterboarding, Concentration Camps, and the the Bataan Death March

KNRS 570 radio talk show host Bob Lonsberry advocated waterboarding and other forms of torture during his show on April 21, 2009. More grotesquely, he was beaming with pride about his advocacy campaign. It's difficult to imagine then, that, by the same rationale, had Lonsberry been a German at the time of Hitler, or a Japanese during the Bataan Death March, that he would not have advocated torture of Jews in the concentration camps or the bayoneting and shooting of American soldiers on the Bataan trail. Torture, Torture, Everywhere! Nearly 80,000 American soldiers were captured by the Japanese in the To contemplate a discussion about whether or not torture is legal or whether it even works, it is first required to come to the conclusion that 'I am a child of God, but my adversary is a monkey'. Phillipines in 1942 and forced to march with no food and very little water for six days. If a man stumbled, if he didn't respond quickly to a command, or if he tried to get wat...
50 comments
Read more

School Vouchers: "The Bramble Memo"

$429 million? What? Where? The legislative fiscal analyst for the State of Utah calculated the costs to the public schools over the next 13 years if school vouchers are implemented. It said the costs would be $5.5M in the first year, and $71M in the 13th year. Suddenly, the number I have started seeing thrown around was $429 million, the total costs for vouchers over 13 years. Where did that number come from? Enter the mysterious "Bramble Memo". In the past few days several of us (Jeremy, Utah Taxpayer, Craig, Sara, Urban Koda, Jesse, and me) have (sometimes?) enjoyed a lively discussion about school vouchers in Utah . Jeremy clarified to me the costs of the venture by linking to a copy of the Utah Legislative Fiscal Analyst's Impartial Analysis (LFA) of the costs of Vouchers , found on "The Senate Site". In my previous voucher article, I quoted some of Lavar Webb's article from last Sunday's Deseret News, wherein he stated that those total costs ...
66 comments
Read more

What's Your Reaction to California's Decision on Same-Sex Marriage?

Yesterday a "Republican-dominated" California Supreme Court struck down state laws against same-sex marriages. The LDS Church issued a press release, calling the decision "unfortunate". I agree, but not for reasons you might think. Did the California Court make the right decision? Update 5/17/2008 : California decision does not affect prohibitions against polygamy and marriage of close relatives. Why not? Government should not sanction same-sex marriages for the same reason that it should not sanction heterosexual adultery--such activities tend to be destructive to the family as the fundamental unit of society. Before you get too far into reading into my words, let me echo and agree with something that Madeleine Albright wrote in her recent book, The Mighty & The Almighty (one of the better books that I have read in a long time): I oppose discrimination against gays and lesbians and am convinced that heterosexual adultery is a greater danger to the institu...
67 comments
Read more