Of monkeys and men...

An eye-opening report published in a United States academic publication titled the Journal of Religion and Society has caught the eye of a major newspaper in the UK, but not - as far as I know - any coverage from the major US newspapers.

According to The Times from London, researchers compared "the social peformance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution" and found that "religious belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide."

I have yet to find a link to the actual report but once I do I'll update this post. For those of us who have followed the so-called debate on "intelligent design" as it reaches the courts of this country (read the latest on the Pennsylvania trial here) and gasp incredously at how creationists even managed to get the issue into a court of law; see the eroding wall that supposedly protects the separation from church and state; and watch religious conservatives such as the Reverend Pat Roberstson call for the murder of other heads of state; it is hard to figure out how the United States will disengage from this mad rush to fundamentalism.