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Because correlation it is. Compared to most other countries, Denmark is rich and benevolent, and the same goes for the rest of Scandinavia. As has been shown a number of times before, the more secular countries are, the richer they are, with some exceptions, like the US and Kuwait. → → →
Phil Zuckerman: In secular countries the core values of human right are being more successfully implemented than in religious countries.
Here's what Tom Rees concludes, blogging about his own paper, Is Personal Insecurity a Cause of Cross-National Differences in the Intensity of Religious Belief?
Nations have choices over how to look after the people at the bottom of the social pile. Those nations that choose to make this a priority, which inevitably involves shifting money and resource from the rich to the poor, lower the overall levels of stress. And when you remove the stress caused by their social situation, people tend to lose interest in religion.In other words, Tom suggests that removing stress makes a secular nation, and giving from the rich to the poor, you remove stress.
On a personal note, I can vouch for the stress that having no money brings, but not that it leads to religion. But then again, I have a whole internet chuck full of people helping remind me that religion is not the answer. If only they could also send money.
The nice thing about Tom's take on it is that it explains the outliers. The US may be ridiculously prosperous, but your average American lives with a much higher level of insecurity and uncertainty than their European counterparts, due to the resistance to the word "socialism" in this country (even though 100% of modern prosperous nations, including the US, are a blend of socialism and capitalism -- but don't try and tell the Teabaggers that!) I believe similar issues apply to places like Kuwait.
ReplyDeleteAs far as financial insecurity not working on you and me... obviously, some people are better at dealing with uncertainty. In fact, I would argue that the SBNR phenomenon is in many ways a manifestation of people who aren't so insecure that they need conventional religion, but are still bad at dealing with uncertainty and insecurity. The reality of a vast uncaring universe can actually make life quite beautiful if view from the right perspective, but it requires one to embrace uncertainty and independence. If that's too scary, but you are also too secular to become a sectarian, then you wind up SBNR -- believing that the whole universe cares about your personally, without attaching a bunch of silly dogma to it.
Okay, wild speculation over. In any case, as much as I'd like to believe Zuckerman's theory, I think Tom's is the dominant factor in this correlation. Just my opinion.
Denmark ranks 43 among suicide rates as per 2008 World health organization statistics. On the other hand, Jamaica ranks 99th, almost no suicide.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how one could explain the secularism, peace and wellbeing proposed by Phil Zuckerman in terms of citizens taking their lives, if there is no stress and all seems perfect.
You think people commit suicide because of stress. Or poverty? Or a longing for the god that isn't there?
ReplyDeletePeople mainly commit suicide because they are psychologically ill, in some way or another. Denmark does not rank much higher than many other northern countries, and it has been proposed before that high suicide rates have something to do with depression caused by long hours of darkness.
Why Jamaica has so little, I don't know. However, for the umpteenth time regurgitating the suicide rates as a counterargument is getting a little on my nerves.
Also, Phil is making a point, and therefore emphasizing the good things. That does not meean that he, or anyone else who has been to Denmark (apart from ET-Oprah), would say no one there is stressed or unhappy, nor that everything is perfect. We have homelessness, conservative bigots, and creationists, too.
Suicide's an interesting one. There are factors other than unhappiness that affect whether people commit suicide. Partly it's cultural. It's also infectious (you get a spike in suicides whenever they're reported).
ReplyDeleteSo people living in religious cultures (where suicide is taboo) may have not option for suicide as a response to distress.
Religion also helps people to cope with distress and give their lives meaning even when their environment is atrocious. Which of course is the point - religion is a response to fear and uncertainty.
So people living in religious cultures (where suicide is taboo) may have not option for suicide as a response to distress.
ReplyDeleteReligion also helps people to cope with distress and give their lives meaning even when their environment is atrocious. Which of course is the point - religion is a response to fear and uncertainty.
Of course. It could be argued reasonably that people in Jamaica (and other countries in which fundametnalist-style religion is prevalent) are afraid to commit suicide because they've been indoctrinated from birth to believe they'll go to hell if they do so.
In any case, I'd much rather live in a Western European socialist democracy, even if it resulted in depression, than in the predatory capitalist/Christofascist theocracy the US is rapidly becoming.