1. The New Atheists on Organized Freethought

Comment #82363 by boris on October 26, 2007 at 6:53 am

Here is the thought:
There is a large number of people deprived of dignity due to subjective/objective circumstances : poverty, unemployment, sickness, addictions etc. Furthermore, those fortunate who are not deprived of their dignity are daily at risk of loosing it. The religion is very efficient in giving it back, moving the responsibility for the situation from the person to a "higher plan" that should not be questioned.
The risk can be kept in check if society as a whole agrees to provide for a decent level of service and welfare, free schools for everybody, free health care, unemployment benefits, public transportation and similar. At the other end it is much greater in places where this services are lacking. Now, without doing a proper research, it seems to me that there is an obvious correlation between religiosity and public service (or better the lack there of). This would also explain why is the USA much more religious then UK and similar puzzling questions (not to mention why is Pakistan more religious than Holland.)
(excuse my english)