Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Studies have looked into that, and there does seem to be a causative effect, even among identical twins raised together. The Japanese are certainly prosocial, but they are also lonely, atomised and have infamously low fertility. Probably if they were as religious as Americans they'd have more friends and more babies.
The OP was asking why religion is important for a society. Any society with below replacement fertility will eventually be outcompeted by ones with above-replacement fertility. A TFR above 2 the bare minimum for a society to survive, let alone thrive, long term.
Were. The Islamic Golden Age was almost a thousand years ago. Now there are five times as many books translated into Modern Greek (13 million speakers) than into Arabic (400 million speakers). We can speculate why the Islamic world declined so precipitously. My theory is that Islam brought with it cousin marriage, which in turn brought clannishness and (relative) mental retardation. But in any case, arguing that society would be better if we all embraced Islam because it would lead to more learning and knowledge seems fanciful.
More options
Context Copy link