lpetrich

I think that this thread's title is needlessly insulting, as well as unjustified in many cases. So repeat after me, boys and girls:

Correlation != causation
Correlation != causation
Correlation != causation
Correlation != causation
Correlation != causation
Correlation != causation
Correlation != causation
Correlation != causation
Correlation != causation
Correlation != causation

More seriously, I've taken the ARIS religious-affiliation figures and compared them to those indices, and also to a variety of US Census data and to the fraction that voted for President Bush in the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections.

I confined my comparisons to Catholic, Baptist, and "No Religion" (Nones?), because the numbers for other denominations were much lower. US Baptists are very notably fundie, while US Catholics are less so.

And I find that Catholics and Nones have positive correlations with health, wealth, and education level, while Baptists having negative correlations. Also, Catholics and Nones tend to vote Democratic, while Baptists tend to vote Republican. Interestingly, Catholics did slightly better than Nones in many of these indices.

Some representative numbers:

Health Index:
Catholic: 0.51
None: 0.37
Baptist: -0.82

Republican Fraction 2004:
Catholic: -0.59
None: -0.32
Baptist: 0.31

Median household income (log10):
Catholic: 0.45
None: 0.37
Baptist: -0.52

People at least 25 with at least a bachelor's degree - percent:
Catholic: 0.46
None: 0.27
Baptist: -0.43

Infant mortality rate per 1000 births (log10):
Catholic: -0.51
None: -0.52
Baptist: 0.73

Violent-crime rate per 100,000 people (log10):
Catholic: -0.13
None: -0.05
Baptist: 0.36


The Baylor study on American religiosity revealed a similar negative correlation between various indices of well-being and religiosity, with believers in a Distant God or no god being significantly wealthier and better educated than believers in an Authoritarian God.