Sweden makes the wingmuts heads explode!

Widespread social acceptance of homosexuality may be a pipe dream, but this is precisely why I've been saying that equal rights for homosexuals--including marriage rights and workplace protection--is inevitable, and not that far off. Time and the Grim Reaper are on the side of equality.

"Do you have to believe in God in order to be moral?"

The fundamentalist view is that human beings are born sunk in sin and can be moral only if they follow true Scripture.

The liberal (in the broad sense) view, in contrast, is that humans, while imperfect, do have an inborn moral sense. In recent decades science has been determining that the liberal view is largely correct. See, for instance, Larry Arnhart's book, Darwinian Natural Right, or Marc Hauser's, Moral Minds.

Fundamentalism has, over the centuries, suffered a long series of defeats at the hands of science. This is the latest.

I love it! The Italians have less interest in god than Americans. We're still so fucking backward. Right up there with all the really successful societies in Latin America!

An interesting, even if meaningless, thing to do with these numbers is add them. Countries far above 100 (like the insanely high Brazil) heavily invest themselves in using religion as a source of moral authority and willing to accept homosexuality. I'm not sure exactly what, but I think it says something about their attitudes toward God writ large vs. attitudes toward dogma.

On this same measure, by the way, the U.S. and Sweden come up near the rear despite having very divergent opinions on each of the issues; our attitudes toward homosexuality and our attitudes toward God-as-requirement-for-morality are tied closely together, and so are theirs.

Hey! At least we're not as bad as the Ukraine!

Actually, why is the Ukraine so bigoted?

Latin America is an interesting study in contrasts; Brazil is the most religious and among the most tolerant of gays; Nearby Bolivia is less religious and much less tolerant of gays.

Some of the numbers make me wonder if the topic has not been politicized in those countries the way it has here in the States. As with abortion, for many the issue of gay rights has become a badge representing a culture with which one identifies, not a moral issue. In other words, if you want to own guns and use the military to solve problems then oppose equal rights for gays.

Young people resist ethinic or cultural straitjackets. They are more involved with generational and age-focused identities.

When, I wonder, did Canada become so divergent from the US? Reagan's years? Earlier? Or were we never culturally similar?

It's a little hard for me to trip up to Canada, so could folks who travel cross-border (Canadians to US and Americans to Canada) or who have relatives or close friends across the border, comment on this phenomenon. We share what, five thousand miles of border, yet we're utterly dissimilar.

Also, yeah, it's "wingnuts" in my earlier post. Sorry.

This is very interesting. It is always inspiring to see empirical signs of progress. However, is it worth looking for research into how people become more conservative as they get older?

Actually, why is the Ukraine so bigoted?
Posted by: Dr. Morpheus

Yup. Remember, a lot of the locals were more than happy to round up Jews for execution or deportation during WWII, and since then, after Ukraine became a part of the Soviet Union, there's been a large majority of Russians living there. Belarus, however, is probably the "ickiest" former member of the Soviet Union.

Make that...

generational and *gender*-focused identities.

Also, just my 2 cents. I'm not an actual social scientist. I only play one on Dennis TV.

It's a little hard for me to trip up to Canada, so could folks who travel cross-border (Canadians to US and Americans to Canada) or who have relatives or close friends across the border, comment on this phenomenon. We share what, five thousand miles of border, yet we're utterly dissimilar. Posted by: Greg in FL

We travel to B.C. about every other year. Of the close friends we have in Canada, two are lesbians, one is bi-sexual, and the sister of the bi-sexual has been co-habitating with the same man for about 20 years now. She likes hockey, he doesn't. He hunts, she doesn't. They all say "eh" and none of them attends church.

It's too bad this poll is limited to Christian countries. My guess is that many Muslim countries would show the opposite trend. Although northern African countries like Tunisia and Morocco would probably follow the Western trend. Regardless of the trends, I would think that tolerance of homosexuality is much lower in Muslim countries. As for the moral imperative to believe in God, I really have no idea how Muslims would answer that question. The Quran seems to take both sides on that account by acknowledging that those who do not believe in Allah can be morally upright people, while also insisting that morally upright behavior is not sufficient for salvation. It would certainly be interesting to see what the response would be.

Greg in Fla asked:

When, I wonder, did Canada become so divergent from the US? Reagan's years? Earlier? Or were we never culturally similar?

I think Canada's political culture has always been divergent from the US - remember it was the British loyalists who fled here after the Revolution. That meant at the start of the existence of the US of A, Canada's political ideals were decidedly more "conservative" then its revolutionary counterparts to the south. Over the years, that has flipped to where Canadian political culture has become decidedly more liberal in its outlook - probably due to that old European influence it retained from both its British and French roots.

The results look (at a glance) to be highly correlated with the religiousity of the nations...

So I would guess that the closest interpretation of the results is probably that people believe that one has to think like THEM in order to be moral.

The United States, to our shame, is near the back of the pack, but even here there's a difference of five points between the generations.

The United States is not only "near the back of the pack" overall, its also tied with the Czech Republic (one of the most tolerant on the list) for the least change between the 40+ cohort and the 18-39 cohort on the issue, so its getting farther from the pack.

Again, it's not all the surprising to see that younger cohorts are less invested in God as the sole source of morality than older cohorts are, but still interesting to see how widespread it is.

I don't think that is that surprising; in the U.S., people that espouse secularism also rarely talk positively about "morality"; indeed, they often specifically deny that their moral positions are "moral", providing any of a wide variety of alternative labels. So the message that theism and morality are inextricably intertwined is reinforced from both sides.

Dr. Morpheus: "Hey! At least we're not as bad as the Ukraine!"

Very cold comfort, indeed -- especially to those who are victims of anti-gay violence in America, even in socially tolerant cities like Seattle.

An important definition of "moral" is:

"conforming to a standard of right behavior" from Webster... i.e. morality is what the community says it is.

In Kurdish Iraq, a couple of years ago, a group of highly religious men stoned a young girl to death for disobeying her father regarding an arranged marriage.

I'll be they thought they were moral...

An interesting, even if meaningless, thing to do with these numbers is add them. Countries far above 100 (like the insanely high Brazil) heavily invest themselves in using religion as a source of moral authority and willing to accept homosexuality. I'm not sure exactly what, but I think it says something about their attitudes toward God writ large vs. attitudes toward dogma.

It may be interesting to note that all of the Latin American countries on the list (plus the US!) are above 100 total in both age cohorts, and reach that by being at least moderately high (37+) on each side, not lopsided many European countries younger cohorts that reach 100+ total by being 80+ on one side and in the teens on the other; and that no countries outside of the Americas get to 100+ in any cohort with 30+ on each side in any age cohort except the older cohorts in Germany and Slovakia.

Canada really is another country. The have socialized medicine, use the metric system, and don’t permit handguns. And yet, as a country they function reasonably well.

The real question is whether you can really be all that moral if you believe in God. Self-deception is the worst kind.

As I noted yesterday, this poll shows that as much as USAmericans hate gays, they hate atheists even more.

The real question is whether you can really be all that moral if you believe in God.

An equally interesting, and related, question is: what does it say about your character if it takes the fear of a supernatural being and the threat of eternal hellfire to get you to behave decently?

It's too bad this poll is limited to Christian countries.

It's not. Check out the full report at the link.

They don't have age break-outs, however, for countries not listed on the table above.

An equally interesting, and related, question is: what does it say about your character if it takes the fear of a supernatural being and the threat of eternal hellfire to get you to behave decently?

As I indicated in another thread, keeping such sociopaths reigned in is enough reason for me to support the belief in god(s).

cmdicely: "I don't think that is that surprising; in the U.S., people that espouse secularism also rarely talk positively about 'morality' ..."

Too true. Further, far too many prominent secularists display an unseemly hesitation to acknowledge the significant role that religion plays in most people's lives, even if that role is probably more social than spiritual for many Americans. That hesitation, in turn, is interpreted by many persons of faith, fairly or unfairly, as mockery or denigration.

Thus, another cycle of intolerance perpetuates itself.

I'd be interested in a refinement of this question:

"Do you have to believe in the same God that I believe in in order to be moral?"

but maybe that's not quite right. Rather,

"Can members of a religion different from your own (e.g., Muslim if you are a Christian) be moral?"

I don't think that is that surprising; in the U.S., people that espouse secularism also rarely talk positively about "morality"; indeed, they often specifically deny that their moral positions are "moral", providing any of a wide variety of alternative labels. So the message that theism and morality are inextricably intertwined is reinforced from both sides.

Perhaps, but it doesn't explain the results of the poll, which used the following statement:

"It is necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values"

unless you wish to argue that those secularists that eschew describing themselves as "moral" also don't think that they have "good values" (or that they are logicians that strictly interpret "and").

Interesting, the most authoritarian nations (should we count the US?), especially when political and cultural scope are both included, tend to have the most people saying, you need belief in God to be moral.

Very cold comfort, indeed -- especially to those who are victims of anti-gay violence in America, even in socially tolerant cities like Seattle. Posted by: Donald from Hawaii

I'd take that article with a large grain of salt. First, it's in the PI. While it's generally a more thoughtful paper than the Times, it is a Hearst paper, and seemingly no less prone to sensationalizing various stories than is the NY Post from time-to-time.

A couple years ago, they went off the deep end about how so many area elementary schools had a major problem with lead in the drinking water. While it was true for a few much older schools, it was hardly the problem the PI made it out to be, which went so far as to print the story of a mother on the verge of suing the school district because her 1st grade son had, supposedly, in the space of less than a full school year, become a classroom problem because of lead in the drinking water. As no one ever interviewed the doctor who did the tests on the child or spoke to his preschool teachers to see what his behavior had been before moving up to the big house, there was no way to corroborate the mother's claims.

From time-to-time we get what seems to be a spike in gay bashing on Capital Hill. However, when you find out the details, it always seems to be the case of some drunk yahoo homophobe from Federal Way or Lynnwood who gets arrested, and not a heterosexual resident of Capital Hill.

"Do you have to believe in the same God that I believe in in order to be moral?"

Actually, the worst religious wars have been between people that believe in the same god, but believe slightly different things about him. e.g. Protestant vs. Catholic, Shi'a vs. Sunni. The worst punishments have always been reserved for heretics.

Too true. Further, far too many prominent secularists display an unseemly hesitation to acknowledge the significant role that religion plays in most people's lives, even if that role is probably more social than spiritual for many Americans.Posted by: Donald from Hawaii

Agreed. But then you're not likely to be discussing the religious right, but mainline Protestants, Unitarians or even many Catholics.

forest: "As for the moral imperative to believe in God, I really have no idea how Muslims would answer that question. The Quran seems to take both sides on that account by acknowledging that those who do not believe in Allah can be morally upright people, while also insisting that morally upright behavior is not sufficient for salvation. It would certainly be interesting to see what the response would be."

A good point. That is why in my post I restricted myself to fundamentalists, not religionists in general.

Disputo" As I indicated in another thread, keeping such sociopaths reigned in is enough reason for me to support the belief in god(s).

True sociopaths are only about 2% of the population, and I really doubt religion any significant impact on their behavior.

For a good analysis of Canadian US divergence, read Michael Adams, "Fire and Ice".

The divergence is not static, but increasing.

what does it say about your character if it takes the fear of a supernatural being and the threat of eternal hellfire to get you to behave decently?

I had a community ed teacher who was a Bible thumper and he liked to say "The easy thing is seldom right and the right thing is seldom easy."

That always struck me as particularly wacky. For me the right thing is usually the easy thing. All I could figure was this guy was walking around with a bunch of repressed bad urges. Yuck.

Maybe he had a little devil on his shoulder saying "steal the money" or his dog was saying "kill the students" and he was barely able to resist by grasping the reed of "God says 'No.'"

...what does it say about your character if it takes the fear of a supernatural being and the threat of eternal hellfire to get you to behave decently?

Posted by: thersites on October 25, 2007 at 1:53 PM | PERMALINK

That is the right question.

Very cold comfort, indeed -- especially to those who are victims of anti-gay violence in America, even in socially tolerant cities like Seattle. Donald from Hawaii

Oh I agree completely Donald, I was merely trying to be facetious. My youngest sister is gay and I know all too well how far the US has to go.

The ironic thing is she and her partner had a wedding ceremony and later her partner said that she believed that "gays should not marry" and that she was "only going through with it for the sake of my sister".

Apparently she's inherited her father's bigotry and somehow internalized it. She's also running for a city alderman position as a Republican. Go figure...

Inglehart and Norris, a political scientist at Harvard University, also examined the reasons the United States remains an "outlier" in religiosity among postindustrial nations. "The U.S. was founded by religious refugees who attached so much importance to religion that they were willing to risk their lives in a dangerous new environment in order to practice their religion, and to some extent this outlook has been successfully transmitted to succeeding waves of immigrants," they wrote.

Another possibility for the high degree of religiosity in the United States is that the nation has a less comprehensive social welfare safety net than most other economically developed countries, leading many Americans to experience the kind of existential insecurity and economic uncertainty characteristic of highly religious populations.

From the University of Michigan's The University Record Online.

The conservative goal of shifting risk to the individual, particularly onto the back of labor, should keep the United States more conservative than nations at a similar level of economic development. English-speaking nations tend to be more conservative than other developed nations, if you add greater individual risk to this cultural tendency you get a wealthy nation with third world income disparities, social and economic insecurities along with third world traditional values.

If you want the world to be conservative spread insecurity and oppose risk sharing and stability at every turn.

Your sister's partner is Mary Cheney?

"It's too bad this poll is limited to Christian countries.

It's not. Check out the full report at the link."

Thanks, Disputo. And sure enough, it appears Muslims believe very strongly that one must believe in God to be moral. I guess this doesn't really surprise me, but I was surprised by 84% who answered 'yes' in Turkey. They are a very secular people.

unless you wish to argue that those secularists that eschew describing themselves as "moral" also don't think that they have "good values" (or that they are logicians that strictly interpret "and").

A substantial number of people who aren't logicians will interpret "and" to mean "and" rather than "or" in a poll question (and probably another substantial number will just focus on the first item and ignore whatever comes after the "and" or "or"); if the intent is to mean "or", it is better to use "or" and better still to ask two separate questions.

The conservative goal of shifting risk to the individual...
More Christians ought to read the teachings of their founder.

The findings for Canada are not really a surprise to me. Remember that the base population at the end of the second world war has been incredibly diluted by massive immigration. Its likely that the primitive Christianity of the base population has also been rectified by a huge increase in post-secondary education during the same time period. There are of course still isolated knots of Christian primitives. Some of them can be found in the Dutch Reformed communities which were populated by a special programme for the immigration of poor Dutch farmers in the 1950s. But the big difference between Canada and the United States now is the relatively small size of the primitive evangelical constituency in Canada. Yes there are localities where it is strong but by and large in urban Canada they are just a Barney-the-Dinosaur laughingstock. How to change this picture in the US? Public education, both well-financed and strong in intellectual integrity. The more the better. Sooner or later the vestiges of medieval thought will disappear, either through changing of minds or the dying off of older adherents. Personally I think it would help if, every time you hear someone going off at the mouth about the dubiousness of the doctrine of evolution, or the literal truth of the Bible, or the dire consequences of blood transfusions, you were to break into derisive laughter. The sooner these preposterous delusions are laughed out of existence the better.

Personally I think it would help if ... you were to break into derisive laughter.

You tryin' to get me killed?
The only way I can be around certain family members is with my tongue firmly clamped between my teeth.

True sociopaths are only about 2% of the population

So it's even more of a bummer that we've got one living at 1600 Pennsylvania and another on Observatory Circle. KHAAAAAN!

How to change this picture in the US? Public education, both well-financed and strong in intellectual integrity. The more the better. Sooner or later the vestiges of medieval thought will disappear, either through changing of minds or the dying off of older adherents.

Which is precisely why our elites have tried their best to destroy public education in this country, from their demonization of teachers unions, support of 'home-schooling', property tax limimts on up to vouchers, nochildleftbehind, etc.

limimts = limits

An equally interesting, and related, question is: what does it say about your character if it takes the fear of a supernatural being and the threat of eternal hellfire to get you to behave decently?
Posted by: thersites

You'll be happy to know(?) that lunatic radio host Michael Savage agrees with you. In fact, he believes that the person who is moral without organized religion is the better person.

So, he's got that going for him.

People come to hold increasingly "conservative" views as they age.

Would a poll forty years ago have produced similar percentage difference results with respect to opinions on whatever hot-button issue would have brought out those differences in 1967?

That is, will the younger generation bring its liberal views along as it ages or become more conservative?

Cmd, you seem to not grasp how polls are performed, how people interpret non-technical language, or how people interpret a sentence read to them over the phone.

I suggest you read up on fuzzy logic.

You'll be happy to know(?) that lunatic radio host Michael Savage agrees with you. In fact, he believes that the person who is moral without organized religion is the better person.

Seeing as how he is non-Christian and living in a vastly majority Christian country, that is not all that surprising.

Cmd, you seem to not grasp how polls are performed, how people interpret non-technical language, or how people interpret a sentence read to them over the phone.

Actually, I'm familiar with all three. If you'd like to debate any specific point relevant to any of those, feel free. If you mean to assert that people will reliably and consistently view a question in a poll phrased as "and" as meaning "or", and treat both the earlier and the later of the options separated by that conjunction as having equal weight, then I think you understand none of those things very well, and if that's not your argument, I have no idea why you would post the particular vague attack you just did in this thread.

The numbers for Russia and Ukraine are quite striking. Note, in particular, that homophobia has very little to do with religiosity. That, in turn, makes me wonder how it is that the Christian Right has such a tight hold on the representation of religion in this country. Perhaps fear of atheism has something to do with it. It's too bad that the Netherlands are not listed in this table--I would have loved to have seen their age gap. More than half the country list "no religion" when given the option and the numbers might actually be higher in the older population.

The former communist countries, with the exception of Poland where Catholicism became one with nationalism, were purged of religious belief. The result is that these countries are rather insecure but quite secular in outlook. This is changing but it is unlikely they will became widely religious. More likely they will grow towards a European norm.

But that does not mean that they are not as authoritarian as one would expect in an insecure society. Bob Altemeyer found that the old communists were as 'right-wing' as the wingnuts in North America; they just had a different ideology. It turns out that orientation towards violence towards deviants, followership, and authoritarianism is independent of religion. Religion, the tradition of religion, is just part of the paternal order in most countries. But it could be communist ideology or Objectivism, or whatever you like. The point is the desire to bend the crooked timber of humanity to the one true orthodoxy authorized by the authorities. In the United States and most English-speaking nations the one true orthodoxy is Individualism and political economy.

"You'll be happy to know(?) that lunatic radio host Michael Savage agrees with you. In fact, he believes that the person who is moral without organized religion is the better person."

Wow. This is what I've always said. How on earth did I end up in agreement on a major issue with Michael Savage, of all people? I'm stunned.

I wonder how much these numbers have to do with the fact that the US is the destination of so many immigrants from many non-progressive countries. Even when people are desperate to escape political and economic oppression, they've often internalized those attitudes and are quick to impose them on others. No, I have no evidence to support this theory--just years of personal experience living in a multicultural city full of immigrants (SF). This is the paradox of multiculturalism--not all the multicultural elements want to embrace the tolerance necessary to make multiculturalism work.

Why is there so little acceptance of gays in Russia? I find this particularly striking because I've seen other surveys that show Russians to be much more liberal than Americans on other sexual issues. For example, in one 1998 poll, almost 40% of Russians said that it is sometimes or always OK to have extramarital affairs. No more than 10% of Americans say they feel this way when polled about it.

Your sister's partner is Mary Cheney? Disputo

Ha! Might as well be.

If you've never seen the question before, then this is presumably the first time you've read a Pew report. They've asked it several times before, here for example: http://pewforum.org/publications/surveys/religion.pdf

But they also asked people whether they'd be likely to vote against a person based on their particular religious beliefs or non-beliefs. Atheists won the poll, 50% were less likely to vote for an atheist, with Muslims in second place. This was after 9/11. However, when the term was shifted from atheists to non-believers, the number went down to a more respectable 30+% as I recall. I can't find that survey, but here's an article that references it.

http://www.law.gmu.edu/faculty/LegalTimes_Somin_OpEd.pdf

So I'm not sure where you've been, but Pew's been documenting the strong prejudice against atheists/nonbelievers for a long time.

Given that both these questions seem to move significantly between bordering countries, I think it is good to note that Western Europe and Canada seem to be more open and tolerant as a group, and that Eastern Europe is not too far behind. On these measures, the US lies closer to Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, and Russia than to Canada.

Quelle surprise!

You've got a long way to go, baby.