(See Sunday’s post for details on the accident)

From the Times Online (27 September 2005) :

RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.

According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.

The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.

It compares the social peformance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.

Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its “spiritual capital”. But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills.

The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.

“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.

“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”

Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other research bodies to reach his conclusions.

He compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy.

The study concluded that the US was the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from “ uniquely high” adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.

Mr Paul said: “The study shows that England, despite the social ills it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most indicators, even though it is now a much less religious nation than America.”

He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was compared with other countries, including France, Japan and the Scandinavian countries. These nations had been the most successful in reducing murder rates, early mortality, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion, he added.

Mr Paul delayed releasing the study until now because of Hurricane Katrina. He said that the evidence accumulated by a number of different studies suggested that religion might actually contribute to social ills. “I suspect that Europeans are increasingly repelled by the poor societal performance of the Christian states,” he added.

He said that most Western nations would become more religious only if the theory of evolution could be overturned and the existence of God scientifically proven. Likewise, the theory of evolution would not enjoy majority support in the US unless there was a marked decline in religious belief, Mr Paul said.

“The non-religious, proevolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator.

“The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted.”

My thoughts :

1.  "Christian" states (and Christians generally as well) need to buck up.  Too many, like the US, are giving God a bad name.  (But then again, what’s new ?  If Christians were perfect, we wouldn’t need God.)

2.  If God of Abraham did not reveal Himself to the world, perhaps we’d still be practising hieros gamos and human / child sacrifice on the peaks of ziggurats, and cringing superstitiously everytime the god of thunder sounds a clap.  That sounds a whole lot more civilised than where we stand now.

3.  We should stop giving ourselves excuses to be "Godless".  The fact is (as the report concedes) that both the more religious and not-so-religious societies face social problems, but the former more so according to the report (I have no evidence to dispute or agree with this).  But is the report suggesting that if we completely forsake God, we’ll eradicate all our social problems ?  (I suggest that we at the results of our experiments with Communism for the answer).  I think the right formula is this - if all of us take God and His moral standards a little more seriously, there will fewer social problems.

Had a surprisingly productive night.  I’ve kind of figured out what I want to say about Nehemiah 12.  Unfortunately, it looks rather esoteric in its present form.

Well, Joyce has said before that clarity of thought is not one of my greater virtues.  Heh.

Recently I’ve been rather taken by this song called The Blower’s Daughter by Damien Rice.  So taken, in fact, that I have it playing on repeat mode on my car stereo.  There’s just something about Rice’s hushed, haunting vocals backed by the melancholy blend of his guitar and a string ensemble that I find enthralling.

At one part, Rice repeats the line "I can’t take my eyes off you …" about five to six times, and sounds sincerely depressed and lovesick every time.  He also goes "I can’t take my mind off you …" about eight times elsewhere and everytime, he sounds really, really lovesick.  (Now that’s something I doubt many are able to carry off).  I would like to be able to sing like that …

The other part that really tugged at my heart (at least until I found out what the actual lyrics were), is the chorus where the lady (presumably the object of his love) responds with "did I tell you that I love you …".    Unfortunately, a search for the lyrics on the internet disclosed that the lady was actually singing :

"Did I tell you that I loathe you ?
Did I say that I want to
leave it all behind ?"

Well, uh, back to reality - love or I suppose more accurately free will sucks.  So long as the other person has a free will, he or she can choose to accept or reject your love.

Hey, even God has to deal with unrequited love.  In a weird sort of way, the song actually reminded me of Isaiah 65 : 1 - 2 in which God says -

I revealed Myself to those who did not ask for Me; I was found by those who did not seek Me.  All day long I have held out My hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations …

(The next post will be on how life sucks!)

Traffic on the way home today sucked.  A journey that would usually have taken not more than half an hour took three times as long.  Along the expressways, traffic snaked for kilometres, reminiscent of the scenes of cars fleeing the onslaught of Hurricane Rita.

PIE was congested all the way from Clementi to Eunos.  So I turned out onto Bukit Timah.

Only to find that at the end of Bukit Timah, the ECP was congested all the way from Bugis to Changi.  So I turned into Kallang.

Kallang / Aljunied was also congested.  So I tried to connect to Mountbatten, but had to make a u-turn because the exit was cut off due to the construction work on the circle line.

Even after I (finally) found my way onto Mountbatten Road, there was a congestion at Dunman Hawker Centre !

The weekend sucked, to understate what happened. 

On the way back from church on Sunday, my family (Dad, Mum, Sister & domestic helper) got involved in a car accident along the expressway. 

The news that first trickled in was that my Dad had a cut to his neck (isn’t that where some artery or major blood vessel is ?) and that my Mum was badly hurt in the hips.  Thankfully my sister was uninjured while the maid, who I would say has a rather weak disposition, simply fainted (she told me later that "I thought we had gone to heaven").

I drove to SGH A&E with much trepidation.  It did not escape my recollection that quite ironically, just a couple of days ago, I had written about theodicy.

As it turned out, the "cut" to my Dad’s neck was caused by his seat belt.  And the x-ray showed that my Mum had not suffered any fracture or internal injury in the hip area. 

So thank God that everyone escaped relatively unscathed.  And though the family car is wrecked, this may yet turn out to be a blessing if it teaches the little princesses at home to get by without being chaufferred around by my parents.

I learnt a new word from my colleague recently : "theodicy", which means "a vindication of God’s goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil" (as defined by Yahoo! Education).  My colleague studied Biblical Jurisprudence while doing his masters in law in the US, and in the course of it wrote a paper on theodicy.  Intrigued, I asked to read it.  The following exchange of e-mails followed :

My First E-mail

Hi,

1.  Thanks for enlightening me on Theodicy.  I thought what you wrote was very readable, though the conclusion that we must fall back on "mystery" was rather depressing.  I’ve decided to renounce Christianity … nah … =P

2.  I don’t think I can agree fully with your conclusion and, not for the sake of argument or personal ego but to try and make as much sense of our faith as possible, would like to hear what you think of the following :

A.  At page 10, you wrote about "vast amounts of dysteological evil". 

Hebrews 12 : 6 says that "God disciplines those He loves, and He punishes everyone He accepts as a son", which is in turn quoted from Proverbs 3 : 12.  In the light of this, can we say that suffering or evil that happens in our lives is never gratuitous or senseless ?  That God intends any suffering that we go through to be a lesson for us - maybe as a punishment to correct sin, maybe to mould character, to teach or prepare one for the next stage in life, or to reveal something new about Himself ?  Job himself speaks of this character-moulding purpose underlying tribulation in Job 23 : 10 - "But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold".  Paul too testifies that his suffering - his thorn in 2 Corinthians 12 : 7 - 9 - was permitted by God to keep him from becoming conceited, and to teach Him to rely on God’s grace rather than his own strength.  James 1 : 2 - 4 too says that the purpose of trials is to test faith and develop perseverence, so that we "may be mature and complete, not lacking anything".

If suffering or evil appears senseless, is it because we just don’t get it, ie. are not listening carefully enough for what God intends to teach us ?

B.  In your conclusion, you said (depressingly) that "it is only when we give up any attempt to rationalise the evil that afflicts us, and admit the shortcomings of our human understanding, that God ‘will make it plain’ in His own time, whether in this world or thereafter.  Perhaps, then, we have arrived at a resolution of sorts …", and suggested that this is "an inadequate solution".

I agree that if we approach apparently incomprehensible evil / suffering with a sense of resignation, and place our faith in God’s mysterious purposes only because we feel totally screwed, that this is "an inadequate solution".

I would suggest, however, that the starting point of our faith should be an attitude of humble submission to an inifinite and loving God, whose purposes we must acknowledge we can never completely understand.  (If we could - if we as finite humans can fully comprehend an infinite God - then God wouldn’t be "God").  Our faith would then not be one we place in God because we are forced into a corner, but one which from the outset rests secure in the belief that God in His infinite wisdom, power and love would never test us beyond what we can bear (1 Corinthians 10 : 13), and in all things always works for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8 : 28) even if this good is not immediately obvious.

I believe that this attitude of humble and not resigned submission was the conclusion that Job arrived at in job 42 : 6 ("I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes").

…

And His Reply

Hey Melvyn,

I wrote that paper a long while (or what feels like a long while) ago - that, coupled with my spectacularly bad memory, means that I can’t quite remember exactly what I wrote.

I don’t think though, that I mean that we should resign ourselves to non-comprehension. Maybe what I wrote gave that impression. But I think what I actually meant (or at least what I actually feel) is more of an acceptance that we can’t, and aren’t intended to, understand. I suppose how one wishes to approach that acceptance is up to the individual - it can be a contended acceptance or a resigned acceptance. But I think for the average Christian it is only human nature to dwell on misfortune and attempt at great length and depth to rationalize the reasons for it. I suppose what I mean is that it is only if you’re able to give up that rational examination that you can be at peace with yourself and God. And again, I suppose this applies to a rational examination of the larger problem of evil because I personally don’t think that there’s any rational explanation.

Re your first point that there’s a point to suffering - personally I just don’t buy that. Going by the bible verses you quoted, it would make sense that only Christians should suffer so that their suffering would draw them closer to God/mature them/serve some purpose for God etc. What about non-Christians who suffer terribly and die without anyone knowing; what about animals, even, that suffer and die? Don’t think it can be disputed that there are many of such cases.

…

And My Reply to His Reply

Hi.  Finally found some time (Joyce & Jed are finally asleep … heh) to pen my thoughts.

First the bit about there’s no point to suffering.  I think that unless we are omniscient (which we are not), we can’t validly assume that there are non-Christians who suffer terribly and die without anyone knowing / without any purpose.  It only appears that they have suffered (and died) in vain.  God in fact speaks to non-Christians as well through suffering.  Some examples : the Pharisee Saul (God made him blind, which humbled and turned him to Jesus), Pharoah in Exodus (though he did not repent), King Nebuchadnezzar (God struck the Emperor with insanity as warned through Daniel), and throughout Israelite history whenever they turned their backs on God (which would make them "non-Christian" in a sense, and God sent wild animals, natural calamities and invading enemies to remind them to return to God).

…

And His Reply to My Reply to His Reply

Heya,

I think that it is a safe bet to say that there _have_ been instances of people suffering in isolation, and that mathematical odds are that some of them are non-christian? e.g. when the twin towers collapsed and people burned; i’m sure some of them were non christians and some suffered terribly and some did not have family/friends who were deeply affected/changed by their suffering. and i’m sure that over the eons there have been MANY such innocent sufferers.. though again there’s that famous question - if there’s no one around in the forest, does the tree still fall? I guess it’s a matter of personal belief - but I think personally that there is unecessary suffering.. and that the amount of suffering in the world isn’t quite the lowest amount necessary to bring about God’s requisite purpose; and if God is God and nothing is impossible surely the same message can be transmitted without quite so much pain/suffering/permanent effects? Again, an opinion that is open to debate …

At this point, I decided that a further discussion would not get us anywhere.  Thus ends this episode on theodicy.

I have to share something meaningful from Nehemiah 12 next Sunday (2 October).  Unfortunately this is another one of those really obscure passages which leaves me stumped as to what I can say about it, despite staring at it for weeks.  Today I spent another uninspired four hours looking at the passage without making substantial progress …

One of the radio games that is currently being played on Power 98 is Mars vs Venus.  The game pits a male player against a female player every hour, by posing to each player a question that a member of the opposite sex is more likely to be familiar with.  

For reasons beyond me, the questions (which are not very difficult) almost never fail to elicit the strangest answers.  It was therefore not surprising that the score after a whole day of gameplay yesterday stood only at 0-1 (men vs women), which I suppose says a lot about the quality of the answers given by the contestants (the fact that I find the game amusing might say a lot about my taste in entertainment, but that’s not the point of this post).

The games today didn’t disappoint.  And of all the answers I’ve heard today, this one from a guy takes the cake :

"What is gelato ?"

"Uh … gel ?"

(I’d like to see him put that on his hair).

It rained this morning, so I spent some time reading the Bible instead of going for a run.  In his second letter to the church of Corinth, the apostle Paul - whose love for and dedication to the people of God left a lasting spiritual legacy that Christians continue to benefit from even today - wrote these touching words :

"… I have said before that you have such a place in our hearts that we would live or die with you." (2 Corinthians 7 : 3)

I believe that reflecting this sacrificial love of Christ in our lives, as Paul did, is a standard that Christian leaders should aspire towards.

Interestingly, what I said during Youth Fellowship today echoed these words of Paul.  To illustrate the meaning of "atonement" (ie. substitution of an innocent for a guilty life, so that the guilty person might be pardoned), James was "punished" on behalf of his group - he did the push ups that they were supposed to do because they came in last in a quiz.  Reflecting on Romans 5 : 8, I said that "James demonstrates his love for you in this", by suffering punishment on their behalf.

"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly die.  But God demonstrates His own love for us in this : while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5 : 6 - 8)