Let the sparks begin to fly

The Journal of Religion and Society has released a paper called (bear with me) Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies which basically argues that the more religious a nation is, the worse its people behave.

The study compares the hyper-religious USA with its more secular western counterparts, and finds that there is a very strong correlation between religious belief and the societal ills it would supposedly correct, such as STD's, abortion, murder, etc. The rational, secular nations do a much better job, apparently, of keeping social problems in check than the faith-based Christian nations.

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