[Peace-discuss] RE: Are religious societies better than secularones?

[Dan Schreiber]

>  When I have more time tomorrow, I'll
> write about
> some methodologies that could help get at the question of whether
> religion
> is correlated with crime rate, etc.
>

I would guess the religion in question here is a particular kind of
conservative, fundamentalist or even nationalistic Christianity, of the kind
that justifies exclusion and an agressive intolerance (against its founders
intent, in my opinion).  If so, it isn't hard to imagine a correlation
between that and other social ills.

At the same time, it is a historical fact that many of the major leaps
forward in human rights have been accomplished by people who were fervently
religious, but got it right (see slavery,  civil rights).  In fact, pacifism
itself has been overwhelmining a religious stance until very recently in
history.

So, I think it is important to identify which kind of religion contributes
to worse (or better) societies.