This “study” that came out last year claiming to demostrate that religion is a bad influence on society, was widely discussed and largely discredited at the time.  There are all sorts of methodology problems, as well as underlying assumptions, etc.  However, I recently came across this post, also about a year old, that I think deserves some comment.

The post makes a huge mistake, it confuses atheism with a lack of religion.

All believers learn that God holds them responsible for their actions. So far so good, but for many, belief absolves them of all other responsibilities. Consciously or subconsciously, those who are “born again” or “chosen” have diminished respect for others who do not share their sect or their faith. Convinced that only the Bible offers “truth”, they lose their intellectual curiosity and their ability to reason. Their priority becomes not the world they live in but themselves. [emphasis added] 

Note the fallacy there?  There are many non-diestic religions, Buddihism, and Japan’s prevailing Shintoism being the one’s that leap immediately to mind.  We’ll return to that in a minute.

The other fallacy in that analysis is a complete misunderstanding of what precisely it is that faith teaches us.  Consider this bit of scripture shared by creedal and Mormon Christians alike:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

At least to Christians, the other is, in fact, a much higher priority than the self.

But let’s return to the non-diestic Shintoism for a moment.  the post says:

Top of the class, in both atheism and good behavior, come the Japanese. Over eighty percent accept evolution and fewer than ten percent are certain that God exists. Despite its size – over a hundred million people – Japan is one of the least crime-prone countries in the world. It also has the lowest rates of teenage pregnancy of any developed nation.

I will agree that Japanese culture functions better in the ways described than ours, and while atheism may hold, the kind of societal cooperation that marks that nation is deply rooted in their non-diestic religion and the very deep affirmation of those cultural values that that religion provides.  Conclusion: when it comes to societal functioning (setting aside for a moment issues about higher truth, etc.), the values are what matter, religion’s role is to provide non-coercive reinforcment of those values.

Thus, it is possible for a religiously pluralistic society to function at the same level, provided the religions present affirm the same essential values.  For a purely societal viewpoint, the role of religion is not truth, or salvation, or any other idea that may be important to the religion, no from a societal viewpoint, the role of religion is to affirm and reinforce values that allow the society to function.

So, when it comes to a democratic society such as ours, and the particular religious affiliation of a candidate, the issue should never be that particular religious affiliation, but the values proported and affirmed by that religion.  Thus, creedal Christian and Jews should be able to readily vote for each other - they share virtually the same ethical/value code.

And so too does the CJCLDS. From the book “How Wide The Divide” I quote Stephen Robinson, the Mormon scholar half of that book’s authorship:

The eigth article of faith, written by Joseph Smith in 1842, states that “we believe the Bible to be the word of God,….”

The value structure of the CJCLDS calls upon the same sources as does traditional Judeo/Christians.  While there were historical deviations from current Judeo/Christian ethical thinking in the CJCLDS, those have been changed in the last 100 years, and from the best of my study, no significant deviations remain. 

I find it fascinating that a blog post designed to discredit the role of religion in society can actually lead to points in favor of the role of relgious plurality on societal functioning.  But there you have it.  It is often what we don’t know, or misunderstand that creates the problem.  Not what we believe.

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