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If there were a strong correlation between Christian conservatism and societal health, we might expect to see some sign of it in red-state America. W… - Sam Harris
" "If there were a strong correlation between Christian conservatism and societal health, we might expect to see some sign of it in red-state America. We don’t. Of the twenty-five cities with the lowest rates of violent crime, 62 percent are in “blue” states and 38 percent are in “red” states. Of the twenty-five most dangerous cities, 76 percent are in red states, 24 percent in blue states. In fact, three of the five most dangerous cities in the United States are in the pious state of Texas. The twelve states with the highest rates of burglary are red. Twenty-four of the twenty-nine states with the highest rates of theft are red. Of the twenty-two states with the highest rates of murder, seventeen are red.
Of course, correlational data of this sort do not resolve questions of causality — belief in God may lead to societal dysfunction; societal dysfunction may foster a belief in God; each factor may enable the other; or both may spring from some deeper source of mischief. Leaving aside the issue of cause and effect, however, these statistics prove that atheism is compatible with the basic aspirations of a civil society; they also prove, conclusively, that widespread belief in God does not ensure a society’s health.
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About Sam Harris
Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American author, philosopher, public intellectual, and neuroscientist, as well as the co-founder and CEO of Project Reason. He is the author of The End of Faith (2004), which won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction in 2005 and appeared on The New York Times best seller list for 33 weeks, Letter to a Christian Nation (2006), The Moral Landscape (2010), Lying (2011), Free Will (2012), and most recently Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion (2014).
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Samuel Benjamin Harris
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Samuel Harris
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Shorter versions of this quote
While political affiliation in the united States is not a perfect indicator of religiosity, it is no secret that the 'red [Republican] states' are primarily red due to the overwhelming political influence of conservative Christians. If there were a strong correlation between Christian conservatism and societal health, we might expect to see some sign of it in red-state America. We don't. Of the twenty-five cities with the lowest rates of violent crime, 62 percent are in 'blue' [Democrat] states, and 38 percent are in 'red' [Republican] states. Of the twenty-five most dangerous cities, 76 percent are in red states, and 24 percent are in blue states. In fact, three of the five most dangerous cities in the U.S. are in the pious state of Texas. The twelve states with the highest rates of burglary are red. Twenty-four of the twenty-nine states with the highest rates of theft are red. Of the twenty-two states with the highest reated or murder, seventeen are red.
Additional quotes by Sam Harris
DEUTSCH: Yes, but you have to distinguish between hardware and software when you’re thinking about how this cognitive closure manifests itself. Like I said, it seems plausible that the hardware limitation is not relevant even for chimpanzees. I imagine that with nanosurgery, one could implant ideas into a chimpanzee’s brain that would make it able to create further knowledge just as humans can. I’m questioning the assumption that if everybody with an IQ of over a hundred died, then in the next generation nobody would have an IQ of over a hundred. I think they well might. It depends on culture.
HARRIS: Of course. This wasn’t meant to be a plausible biological or cultural assumption. I’m just asking you to imagine a world in which we had seven billion human beings, none of whom could begin to understand what Alan Turing was up to.
DEUTSCH: That nightmare scenario is different. It’s something that actually happened — for almost the whole of human existence. Humans had the ability to be creative and to do everything we’re doing. They just didn’t, because their culture was wrong. It wasn’t their fault. Cultural evolution has a nasty tendency to suppress the growth of what we would consider science or anything important that would improve their lives. So yes, that’s possible, and it’s possible that it could happen again. Nothing can prevent it except our working to prevent it.
Honesty can force any dysfunction in your life to the surface. Are you in an abusive relationship? A refusal to lie to others – How did you get that bruise? – would oblige you to come to grips with this situation very quickly. Do you have a problem with drugs or alcohol? Lying is the lifeblood of addiction. If we have no recourse to lies, our lives can unravel only so far without others noticing.
Telling the truth can also reveal ways in which we want to grow but haven’t.
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