Is more religion the answer for Papua New Guinea?

This is a question that many Papua New Guineans would automatically assume that they know the answer to. Let’s investigate this question a little further. The issues in this country are very complex and finding effective solutions to these problems, in my humble opinion, will never be as simple as just saying this country needs more god or religion. In fact, I would go so far to say that if religion was the answer to PNG’s woes then Papua New Guinea would already have reached a status of Super Power.

And whilst on the subject…

The three things that irk me about religion in PNG:

1. Street preachers : with their red eyes almost bulging out of their eye sockets – they rant and rave like lunatics, angry-like and with a look of fanaticism on their faces. Be careful of fundamentalism no matter what the faith!
2. The late night and loud crusades : music blaring and preachers screaming over poor quality and cheap chinese made loud speakers. With absolutely no respect nor consideration for decent neighbours trying to get some rest or a good nights sleep after a hard day at the office.
3. Hypocrisy : I was raised a Christian – the “H” word and the “C” word are synonymous. Look good and pretend to be the most devout on a Sunday (or Saturday) and then – on weekdays… well that’s another story all together. What happened to walking the talk!!

Fellow blogger “Tavurvur” published an article a few days ago titled: “The Rise of Islam in PNG“.

According to the report, PNGeans began converting to Islam in the early 1980s and there are now more than 4,000 followers in the country with recent reports of entire villages converting at the same time.
Why the gradual increase in PNG Muslim numbers?

Heaven forbid! Could this possibly lead to a change one day in PNG’s constitution?

The article towards the bottom of this page was originally published on this blog back in November, 2005. I’m a firm believer that some things are worth two posts or even three. In my books this article is a classic and will probably end up upsetting many religious folks out there. My apologies in advance however – we do live in a society that not only allows for but encourages freedom of expression. Besides – this is my blog and for the better or worse it just has the one author!!

I once heard said that the difference between religion and spirituality is: “Religion is for folks that don’t want to go to hell and spirituality is for folks that have been there”.

And in my own words: “Most folks that display strong spiritual traits in their lives are probably not religious and occasionally you will meet a person proclaiming to be religious whom is also spiritual”.

What really confounds me is how any one person or group of persons can lay claim to having a monopoly on truth. I reckon that if all the great spiritual masters that have walked this earth since the dawn of time ever had the opportunity to gather and have a round table discussion they would inevitably agree on most items. There would of course be some differences but these would only be trivial points. In essence all spiritual teachings since the beginning of time have much more in common than not.

If you would like to view or download the scanned copy of the following article just [drain file 18 url click any where here] and follow the instructions.

The Times

BY RUTH GLEDHILL, RELIGION CORRESPONDENT

RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards , high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.

According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.

The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society. It compares the social performance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.

Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its “spiritual capital”. But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills.

The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”

Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other research bodies to reach his conclusions.

He compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy.

The study concluded that the US was the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from ” uniquely high” adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.

Mr Paul said: “The study shows that England, despite the social ills it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most indicators, even though it is now a much less religious nation than America.”

He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was compared with other countries, including France, Japan and the Scandinavian countries. These nations had been the most successful in reducing murder rates, early mortality, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion, he added.

Mr Paul delayed releasing the study until now because of Hurricane Katrina. He said that the evidence accumulated by a number of different studies suggested that religion might actually contribute to social ills. “I suspect that Europeans are increasingly repelled by the poor societal performance of the Christian states,” he added. He said that most Western nations would become more religious only if the theory of evolution could be overturned and the existence of God scientifically proven. Likewise, the theory of evolution would not enjoy majority support in the US unless there was a marked decline in religious belief, Mr Paul said.

“The non-religious, proevolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator.

“The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted.”

Remember what Karl Marx once said:

“Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”