Society without God
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Society without God

What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment

Phil Zuckerman

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eBook - ePub

Society without God

What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment

Phil Zuckerman

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About This Book

“Silver” Winner of the 2008 Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award, Religion Category

Before he began his recent travels, it seemed to Phil Zuckerman as if humans all over the globe were “getting religion”—praising deities, performing holy rites, and soberly defending the world from sin. But most residents of Denmark and Sweden, he found, don't worship any god at all, don't pray, and don't give much credence to religious dogma of any kind. Instead of being bastions of sin and corruption, however, as the Christian Right has suggested a godless society would be, these countries are filled with residents who score at the very top of the "happiness index" and enjoy their healthy societies, which boast some of the lowest rates of violent crime in the world (along with some of the lowest levels of corruption), excellent educational systems, strong economies, well-supported arts, free health care, egalitarian social policies, outstanding bike paths, and great beer.

Zuckerman formally interviewed nearly 150 Danes and Swedes of all ages and educational backgrounds over the course of fourteen months. He was particularly interested in the worldviews of people who live their lives without religious orientation. How do they think about and cope with death? Are they worried about an afterlife? What he found is that nearly all of his interviewees live their lives without much fear of the Grim Reaper or worries about the hereafter. This led him to wonder how and why it is that certain societies are non-religious in a world that seems to be marked by increasing religiosity. Drawing on prominent sociological theories and his own extensive research, Zuckerman ventures some interesting answers.

This fascinating approach directly counters the claims of outspoken, conservative American Christians who argue that a society without God would be hell on earth. It is crucial, Zuckerman believes, for Americans to know that “society without God is not only possible, but it can be quite civil and pleasant.”

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Information

Publisher
NYU Press
Year
2008
ISBN
9780814797273

1
Society without God

In Holland . . . the whole nation, at its core, seemed so ungodly. Here one could (and many did) contest the very existence of God at every turn. People openly disbelieved every aspect of religion . . . almost everything was secular here. God was mocked everywhere . . . and yet nobody was struck by a thunderbolt. Society worked without reference to God, and it seemed to function perfectly. This man-made system of government was so much more stable, peaceful, prosperous, and happy than the supposedly God-devised systems I had been taught to respect.
—Ayaan Hirsi Ali1
WHAT ARE SOCIETIES like when faith in God is minimal, church attendance is drastically low, and religion is a distinctly muted and marginal aspect of everyday life? If people don’t do much in the way of praying, they aren’t too concerned about their soul’s salvation, and they don’t instill in their children a strong belief in Jesus, what might be the overall condition of such a relatively secular society? Having recently lived in just such a society, I can confidently declare that the answer is not chaos, selfishness, criminality, or societal decay. As I stated in the Introduction, despite their relative secularity, Denmark and Sweden are not bastions of depravity and anarchy. In fact, they are just the opposite: impressive models of societal health.
The connection between religion—or the lack thereof—and societal health is admittedly complex. It is difficult to definitively establish that secularism is always good for society and religion always bad. However, the opposite claim is equally difficult to substantiate: that secularism is always bad for a society and religion always good. To be sure, in some instances, religion can be a strong and positive ingredient in establishing societal health, prosperity, and well-being. And when considering what factors contribute to the making of a good society, admittedly religion can be a positive force. Here in the United States, for example, religious ideals often serve as a beneficial counterbalance against the cutthroat brand of individualism that is so rampant and dominating. Religious congregations in America serve as community centers, counseling providers, and day-care cites. And a significant amount of research has shown that moderately religious Americans report greater subjective well-being and life satisfaction, greater marital satisfaction, better family cohesion, and fewer symptoms of depression than the nonreligious.2 Historically, a proliferation of religious devotion, faith in God, and reliance on the Bible has sometimes been a determining factor in establishing schools for children, creating universities, building hospitals for the sick and homes for the homeless, taking care of orphans and the elderly, resisting oppression, establishing law and order, and developing democracy. However, in other instances, religion may not have such positive societal effects. It can often be one of the main sources of tension, violence, poverty, oppression, inequality, and disorder in a given society. A quick perusal of the state of the world will reveal that widespread faith in God or strong religious sentiment in a given country does not necessarily ensure societal health.3 After all, many of the most religious and faithful nations on earth are simultaneously among the most dangerous and destitute. Conversely, a widespread lack of faith in God or very low levels of religiosity in a given country does not necessarily spell societal ruin. The fact is, the majority of the most irreligious democracies are among the most prosperous and successful nations on earth.
It is that last point that I want to focus on and establish in this chapter: that some of the least religious nations in the world, particularly those in Scandinavia, are simultaneously among the most prosperous and successful societies out there. Just to be perfectly clear here: I am not arguing that the admirably high level of societal health in Scandinavia is directly caused by the low levels of religiosity. Although one could certainly make just such a case—arguing that a minimal focus on God/the afterlife and a stronger focus on solving problems of daily life in a rational, secular manner have led to positive, successful societal outcomes in Scandinavia—that is not the argument I wish to develop here. Rather, I simply wish to soberly counter the widely touted assertion that without religion, society is doomed.
If you can smell my axe starting to grind here, your nostrils are in good working order. I will admit that I do feel the personal need to challenge and explicitly counter the claim that without religion, society is doomed. This claim deserves to be challenged because, aside from being poor social science, it is a highly political claim that is regularly promulgated by some of America’s most popular and most influential Christian conservatives. These individuals do not represent or speak for the majority of believers in America, but together they do comprise a formidable and uniquely zealous chorus that reaches the hearts and minds of millions of people on a regular basis. I am referring to people like Pat Robertson, the successful televangelist and founder of the Christian Coalition, who regularly condemns secularism. Robertson has publicly stated that the existence of secular Americans can potentially destroy the foundations of society, and that when school boards push for secular science curricula over religious beliefs, God’s punishment will ensue. Robertson has argued that when a society is without religion, “the result will be tyranny.”4 Furthermore, according to Robertson, any nation that accepts and tolerates homosexuality “can expect the judgment of God and the full weight of God’s wrath against them.”5 And then there is the recently deceased Jerry Falwell, another successful televangelist and founder of the Moral Majority. Falwell publicly declared that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, were caused by Americans who angered God by pushing secularism. “God will not be mocked,” Falwell declared on Robertson’s widely syndicated television show The 700 Club. “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians . . . all of them who have tried to secularize America—I point the finger in their face and say, you helped this happen.”
“Well,” replied Pat Robertson, “I totally concur.”
More recently, Christian conservative media pundit, Ann Coulter, has written in one of her best-selling books that societies which fail to grasp God’s significance are headed toward slavery, genocide, and bestiality6 and that when Darwinian/evolutionary theory is widely accepted in a given society, all morality is abandoned.7 Best-selling author and enormously successful conservative Christian journalist and television personality Bill O’Reilly has similarly declared that a society that is not full of religion and spirituality and fails to live “under God” will be a society of anarchy and crime,8 where lawbreakers are allowed to run wild.9 O’Reilly further argues that secular societies are necessarily “weak” and “chaotic” and that in secular cultures, the only creed people believe in is “personal gratification.”10 Super successful conservative radio and television commentator Rush Limbaugh has argued that if a society exists in which the majority of people do not believe that they ultimately must answer to God for their behavior, the result will be “national disaster.”11 Conservative pundit William Bennett has argued that “the only reliable answer” for combating societal ills is widespread religious faith, and that without religion, a society is without “the best and most reliable means to reinforce the good” in social life and human relations.12 For Bennett, religion is “fundamental” to a “vital society.”13 Paul Weyrich, founder of the right-wing, conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, has argued that secular humanists threaten the “very survival” of society.14
But conservative Christian Americans aren’t the only ones that broadcast this perspective. Oxford-trained philosopher Keith Ward has recently argued that societies that lack strong religious beliefs are essentially immoral, un-free, and irrational.15 He claims that any nonreligious society without a strong belief in God is a society “beyond morality . . . and freedom” and ultimately predicated upon “the denial of human dignity.”16 Contemporary philosophy professor John D. Caputo has declared that people who are without religion and who do not love God are nothing more than selfish louts, thereby implying that a society with a preponderance of irreligious people would be a fairly loveless, miserable place.17
The assertions of Robertson, Falwell, Coulter, O’Reilly, and others quoted above, will be countered in my discussion below, as I shall make it very clear that a relative lack of religion in a given society does not necessarily lead to societal chaos, but is actually strongly correlated with impressively high levels of societal health, social well-being, and an admirably moral social order. For as I traversed the bike paths of Aarhus, as I walked my children to and from their schools, as I strolled the streets of Copenhagen, Stockholm, Odense, Gothenburg, and Silkeborg, and as I hiked along the coastline of Denmark and in the woods of Sweden, as I frequented the banks, bars, bakeries, and bookstores of Jutland, and as I traveled around wider Scandinavia, I could not avoid the striking sociological fact that here were societies in which religion is markedly weak, and yet at the same time, they are extremely healthy, well-functioning, and manifestly sensible.
• • •
“But what about China? North Korea? The former Soviet Union? Or the very first officially declared ‘atheist’ nation on earth, Albania? Surely these irreligious societies can hardly be characterized as exemplars of societal health.”
That assertion is often leveled at me when I broach the matter of irreligion being correlated with healthy, prosperous societies. It is a seemingly logical assertion, and therefore one that merits a careful response.
I‘ll start with Albania.
In the late 1960s, the communist dictator of Albania, Enver Hoxha, outlawed religion and declared Albania to be the first atheist nation in the world. He forbade Albanians from giving religious names to their children, he razed churches and mosques, and he outlawed possession of Qu’rans, Bibles, and religious icons. Anyone caught with these items faced imprisonment. Like most fascist leaders, Hoxha was insanely paranoid. His political and economic policies were disastrous, and he single-handedly ruined his nation by oppressing, starving, and demoralizing Albanians for decades. Although Hoxha died in 1985 and Albania is no longer under his wicked boot, the nation today is extremely poor, its infrastructure is a mess, and its level of societal health is relatively low. Not a pretty picture when it comes to society without God.
And North Korea isn’t any prettier. It is one of the most un-free, destitute societies on earth today. Similar to what happened in Albania, in North Korea, religion is severely repressed, with the only truly acceptable and legal “religion” being worship of its brutal dictator, Kim Jong Il. In China, another communist dictatorship, religion is also kept on a very tight leash. Indeed, even the most benign forms of religious worship can land you in prison. And simultaneously, indicators of societal health in China are distinctly unimpressive. What about the former Soviet Union? Yet another example of a communist dictatorship that was hostile to religion and sought to promote atheism over faith among its citizens. And like all communist dictatorships the world has ever known, the former Soviet Union was a gruesome exercise in repression, paranoia, and injustice, resulting in frightfully dismal levels of societal health.
Based on these examples of ostensibly anti-religious or nonreligious countries—Albania, North Korea, China, the former Soviet Union—one could quite easily make a very strong case that whenever religion is stomped out and replaced by atheism or state secularism, the resulting situation for such a society is horrid: corruption, inequality, poverty, suicide, injustice, and a whole slew of other societal, economic, and political maladies ensue. In sum, it may very well be that when nations turn away from God, they suffer the consequences.
Not so fast.
There is something else—something very significant—that all of these supposedly “godless” nations have in common. In each case, religion wasn’t abandoned by the people themselves in a natural process over several generations. Rather, the “abandonment” of religion was decreed by vicious dictators who imposed their faithlessness on an unwilling, decidedly un-free citizenry. Just because Enver Hoxha of Albania banned religious faith in favor of atheism, that does not mean that he succeeded in changing what was in Albanians’ hearts and minds. In fact, despite decades of “official” atheism in Albania, belief in God was never abandoned by the Albanians themselves; recent surveys indicate that today over 90 percent of Albanians believe in God.18 They may have hidden their holy books while Hoxha was in power, and pretended to be atheists to avoid arrest, but their belief in God clearly held fast. The same can be said for much of the former Soviet Union; though the citizens of these former communist nations came under Soviet occupation and were subjected to forced secularization for decades, we now see that belief in God wasn’t successfully stamped out, and is even rather robust in many former Soviet states.19 For instance, 96 percent of Romanians and Moldovans currently claim to believe in God, as well as 93 percent of Georgians and 87 percent of Lithuanians.20
As for North Korea, unfortunately, we cannot even attempt to know what is in people’s hearts and minds there because the dictatorial regime in power is so brutally totalitarian that it won’t allow social scientists to carry out unfettered research. Social science on religion has also been hindered in China, for decades. However, in recent years more has been accomplished, and nearly all scholars of religion in China are in agreement that governmental estimates of religion are severe undercounts.21 Some scholars have even argued recently that rather than being among the least religious nations in the world, China may in fact be one of the most religious nations in the world today.22 But again, with the absence of democracy and the freedom it brings to social inquiry, we just can’t be sure.
This discussion thus leads to a crucially important matter when looking at any country in terms of its religiosity: is it a dictatorship or a democracy? When religion is repressed by a dictator—that is, when a nonelected cabal or individual fascist takes over a country and attempts to forcibly abolish belief in God—such a country cannot be assumed to be truly void of religion. When we are dealing with a situation of governmentally forced atheism, what we might call “coercive” or “imposed” atheism, we cannot assume the people themselves have actually lost their faith in God.
In order to find societies where religion is truly, genuinely, and verifiably weak—where it can be observed that the majority of people honestly don’t believe much in God, don’t go to church much, and don’t concern themselves much with religious or theological matters—we must look at free, open, democratic nations where atheism has not been enforced upon an unwilling population by a threatening, powerful regime. In such societies, if people lose faith in God, forget about their Bibles, stop going to church, and stop praying to Jesus, we can safely assume that such secularization is an organic process. That is, the majority of people have stopped being religious of their own volition. Such nations can be more accurately described as societies where religion is truly weak. And it is to such societies that we must look in establishing the fact that relatively irreligious societies are not bastions of depravity, but quite the opposite.
• • •
The best tool we have for assessing levels of religiosity among large populations or at the national level is the survey—an admittedly weak, problematic tool. Surveys of religiosity are riddled with methodological flaws, including: (1) nonrandom samples, (2) low response rates, (3) adverse political or cultural climates, (4) problematic cross-cultural terminology, and (5) surface answers. First, if the sample of people participating in a given survey was not selected randomly, then the responses they offer are nongeneralizable to the wider population or country of which they are members. Second, concerning low response rates: most people do not respond to surveys. They hang up the phone, toss the soliciting mail into the trashcan, shut the door on the inquisitor, or simply walk away from the sociologist on the street corner with clip...

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