Perhaps to believe in God is reasonable? Perhaps this placebo effect works, even if God does not exist?

Translation from English Inna Kaganova and Tatyana Lisovskaya

Original edition: 'The Flame of Reason: Clear Thinking for the Twenty-First Century', By Christer Sturmark (Translate to English by Douglas Hofstadter)-Prometheus, April 15, 2022

In January, the book of the Swedish scientific enlightener Kristen Sturmark “Svetoch of the Reason. Rational thinking in the 21st century ”, written with the participation of the American physicist Douglas Hofstadter . The authors of the book clearly explain how scientific knowledge is arranged, and why our brain is so easily abandoning rational thinking, and also give simple tools that will help to confront manipulations and errors.

With the kind permission of the publisher, we publish a fragment on the alleged connection between the religiosity of society and its social health.

About secularism and social health

But, perhaps, to believe in God is reasonable, regardless of whether he really exists or not? Perhaps this placebo effect works, even if God does not exist? Do people really become kinder, more honest and more generous if they believe in God? Such a causal relationship, probably, can exist in certain individual situations, but the question that we want to study here is how things are with this causal connection at the level of a whole society. In other words, is there a correlation between the shares of believers in this society and the general well -being and health of this society?

About 5 percent of American citizens call themselves atheists. On the other hand, according to the psychologist of Colombian University, Melanie Bryster, only 0.09 percent of prisoners in American prisons consider themselves atheists. In other words, atheists in American prisons are fifty times less compared to the population as a whole. Of course, this statistics itself do not mean that atheists are kinder, honest or more generous than religious people, but, of course, makes you think. Of course, this can be just a statistical fluctuation that has nothing to do with any causal connection, but certainly this statistics in no way confirm the opposite conclusion, namely, that believers in God are more moral than atheists.

We know that societies in secular countries with a higher share of truly unbelievers (and not those who are forced to declare that they are unbelievers) are among the most healthy, educated and most open societies in the world. In addition, in such countries, the level of child mortality and more equality of women and men below.

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