Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment

[dtotire]

Learning from Secular Nations

In 'godless' Scandinavia, people are content. Is that enough?

Lisa Graham McMinn | posted 2/02/2009 10:39AM


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Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment
by Phil Zuckerman
NYU Press, October 2008
227 pp., $28.00

Scandinavians are content, caring people who don't worry too much about what happens after they die. And they aren't a tad bit religious (well, maybe a tad, but just barely). Phil Zuckerman, sociologist and author of Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us about Contentment (NYU Press), spent 14 months in Scandinavia and witnessed a compassionate way of life and societal well-being. He contrasts Danes and Swedes with the marginally less-contented and less-charitable folks in the United States, who nevertheless show great religious zeal. He asks, "Is a society to be considered moral if its citizens love the Bible a lot (as in the United States), or rather, if its citizens virtually wipe out poverty from their midst (as in Scandinavia)?"

Highly secularized Scandinavian countries consistently rank high on international well-being and life-satisfaction indices (though so does the United States, a point Zuckerman fails to make). Zuckerman rarely saw a police officer during his 14-month stay, because people are just so dang nice to each other there. (Mostly, they just steal each other's bicycles.) He acknowledges that elderly people sometimes die alone in old-age homes, alcohol consumption can be too high, and racism and even murder make the newspapers occasionally. But he was mostly met with overwhelming friendliness and a sense of societal goodness that ran deep in the hearts of Scandinavians. The great social ills of the United States—failing schools, child abuse, domestic violence, systemic poverty, and inequitable health care (to name a few that Zuckerman highlights)—are largely absent in Scandinavian countries. Zuckerman marshals his observations, international well-being rankings, and interviews with Danes and Swedes to counter popular opinion that a nation has to be religious to be good, and that people have to be religious to be content. (And, contrary to popular perception, Scandinavian countries do not have unusually high suicide rates; they are only marginally higher than U.S. rates.)

While Zuckerman attributes the differences between Scandinavians and Americans largely to the presence or absence of religion, he acknowledges they might be related to other variables. A stronger explanation comes from the social, political, and economic realities that shape our values and inclinations. While the U.S. and Scandinavian countries blend capitalist and socialist ideals, Americans have put more faith in the market and individual freedom to meet human needs, while Scandinavians have entrusted government with this responsibility. In both cases, values are shaped by our cultural histories. If we are less attentive to the poor than are Scandinavian countries, it may come from our established belief that people should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps rather than expect the government to do it for them.
And here is the point that makes Zuckerman's book worth, well … worth checking out from the library. Zuckerman proposes what he calls a "socio-religious irony." The world's great religions speak of caring for the sick, the poor, and the orphaned, and of practicing mercy and goodwill toward fellow humans, yet these traits are often more evident in the world's least religious nations. Maybe that's so, at least as reflected in governmental policies, but Zuckerman does not effectively explain why it might be so. Nor does he say how U.S. Christians might respond to this irony.\

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February 2009, Vol. 53, No. 2
more:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/february/13.57.html

[trotsky]

1. Wow, that must have set a record for number of logical fallacies in a book review.

Of course you can't really expect a complimentary review of a book like this from Christianity Today. Naturally, despite the high standards of living, lower crime rates, high contentment rates, these godless Scandinavians are MISSING something!

If people are content but no longer care about transcendent meaning and purpose or life beyond death, that's not a sign of greatness but tragic forgetfulness. Their horizon of concern is too narrow. They were made for more.

Beg the question much? Maybe if Christianity had, over the past 2000 years, been able to establish any of this as reasonable cause for worry or at least concern, the reviewer might have a point. But as it is, she's just asserting, exactly as her pastors and priests have over 2 millenia.

"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." -- A. Einstein

[Evoman]

2. The reviewer is a massive tool.

He does bring up some good points, but it's overshadowed by his religious douchiness. He also doesn't seem to notice that maybe if you spent less time navel-gazing, speaking into air, and worrying about a next life that doesn't exist, you can probably spend more time thinking about your life here.

[StillHopingForChange]

3. This quote explains why I lost my religion.

The world's great religions speak of caring for the sick, the poor, and the orphaned, and of practicing mercy and goodwill toward fellow humans yet these traits are often more evident in the world's least religious nations.

Too much eye for an eye, not enough turn the other cheek.

[ZombieHorde]

6. My step-father used to tell me,

people have enough religion to hate each other, but not enough to love each other.

[SidneyCarton]

10. You raise an excellent point, hypocrisy is both appalling and discouraging.

Is it the doctrine, or the practitioners thereof? (In the case of some, I suppose it is both.)

[sinkingfeeling]

4. It numbs my mind to read something like this statement ....

"If people are content but no longer care about transcendent meaning and purpose or life beyond death, that's not a sign of greatness but tragic forgetfulness."

If there were a creator of our lives then wouldn't that creator be endowing us with the greatest gift: life? And why shouldn't we then set out to make the most of our lives, gain contentment, help out others less fortunate than ourselves, and not give a single thought to 'life beyond death'?

[Occam Bandage]

5. I agree with this bit:

"While Zuckerman attributes the differences between Scandinavians and Americans largely to the presence or absence of religion, he acknowledges they might be related to other variables. A stronger explanation comes from the social, political, and economic realities that shape our values and inclinations. While the U.S. and Scandinavian countries blend capitalist and socialist ideals, Americans have put more faith in the market and individual freedom to meet human needs, while Scandinavians have entrusted government with this responsibility."

Scandinavia is a good counterargument to the claim that religion leads to better societies, but isn't a good argument for non-religiousness leading to better societies.

[SidneyCarton]

7. Does Scandanavian happiness have to do with their irreligiousity,

or does it have to do with a secure social safety net? And how much do other particularly Scandanavian cultural habits, (diet, work rhythms, family life) play in this. Religion is one factor in a dense web of factors surrounding these people, and Americans as well. I doubt that happiness is dependent on only one variable.

[laconicsax]

8. The question is whether high religiosity is a necessary component of societal happiness and health.

It would seem that it is not.

The argument is always put forward as, "religion is necessary in sustaining a society" and the health of these non-religious societies contradicts that claim. I don't think anyone's arguing that eliminating religion is necessary to sustain a society.

[SidneyCarton]

9. I see what you're saying, and I don't disagree.

The point I was making is that there is more to Scandanavia that is unique than irreligiosity. To truly understand Scandanavian happiness, (or at least contentment) one has to look at all the variables. That said, the results of this research are intriguing, and that a majority of professed believers is likely unnecessary to achieve happiness, at least in Scandanavia.

[Silent3]

11. The important thing is that lack of religion clearly couldn't be very harmful...

...which is a very powerful counter-argument against those who try to blame the ills of American society on things like the lack of officially-conducted public school prayer or tolerance for gays, who rant and rave about how, if their religiously-driven agenda is not instituted as the Law of the Land, then surely crime and chaos and untold ruinous hardship shall ensue, either as a consequence of, or punishment for, "turning our backs on God".

As for "other particularly Scandanavian (sic) cultural habits", while it wouldn't be fair to attribute all of them to lack of religion, surely those cultural habits don't exist in total isolation from attitudes towards religion either.

[SidneyCarton]

12. That it is a counter argument I do not disagree.

But many of these cultural habits are far older than Scandanavian secularism, so while they may not exist in isolation from attitudes toward religion, they do not necessarily stem from them either.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. It might be that the USA's religiosity is caused by its lack of state social support

Possibly, people turn to religion because they don't see social support from elsewhere. It's more or less the 'opium of the people' argument, but on a more practical level.