Europe increasingly right wing

@teinosuke said
My hypothesis: On average, all other things being equal, there will be less crime in a devout poor country than in a secular poor country. On average, there will be less crime in a devout rich country than in a secular rich country.

Thousands of years of terror and torture committed in the name of religion by devout people refutes that.

@vivify said
Do you support doctors refusing to vaccinate people based on "moral" beliefs not backed by science? Should Catholic doctors be allowed to deny people birth control because of their faith?

This is the foolish rabbit hole of allowing unscientific beliefs like faith dictate medical treatment or politics. It's also one of the many consequences of Europe becoming increasingly right-wing.

Do you support thousands of people starving to death when you could do something about it. Because every day you do.

Hypocrite

Edit: Ah ha, I figured it out, you want to tell other people what to do, you want to force other people but when it comes to you, ummm, different story right.

@divegeester said
Sure I’m hung up on it, it triggers the rise of extreme right-wing activists.

As I’ve explained, poverty and austerity does.

Immgration isn’t a problem when everyone’s doing well.

@teinosuke said
Is the motivation declining birth rates or is it religious doctrine? The answer doesn't make restricting abortion any better but it does affect whether doing so is left or right wing.

You see, the trouble with this (and the other example you proffer) is that it shifts the definition of what is "left-wing" and "right-wing" from matters of actual policy (which are ...[text shortened]... if the personal intervention is essential in order to save the life of a woman in imminent danger."

You do know that crime was completely rampant in the 18th and certainly the 19th century? Much worse than in the more secular 20th century?

@shavixmir said
As I’ve explained, poverty and austerity does.

Immgration isn’t a problem when everyone’s doing well.

The welfare state distorts and corrupts immigration with false incentives and punishments for existing citizens.

Someone on $3.50 a day in Haiti can get healthcare, housing, unemployment benefits, education at the expense of others, yep they're going to do it, corrupting themselves at the same time as taking from something they have not contributed to.

@vivify said

Should Catholic doctors be allowed to deny people birth control because of their faith?

Patients shouldn't need to visit a doctor to get birth control. They should be able to buy contraceptive pills from a pharmacist without prescription.

This is the foolish rabbit hole of allowing unscientific beliefs like faith dictate medical treatment or politics.

Christian belief is one motive for anti-abortion sentiment, but not all pro-lifers are religious. I don't see why someone who believes that an unborn child has a right to life, whether on secular or religious grounds, should be required to act against their conscience.

When abortion was legalised in West Germany in 1974, the Federal Constitutional Court struck the law down because it infringed on the right to life of the unborn child. There was no reference to religious dogma in the decision; the judgement was reached on human rights grounds. It found that:

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/germandecision/german_abortion_decision2.html

"The State's duty to protect forbids not only direct state attacks against life developing itself, but also requires the state to protect and foster this life", that "the obligation of the state to protect the life developing itself exists, even against the mother," and that "the protection of life of the child en ventre sa mere takes precedence as a matter of principle for the entire duration of the pregnancy over the right of the pregnant woman to self-­determination."

The German court considered the reasoning of the then very recent Roe v. Wade judgement, and explicitly rejected it on the grounds that it was inconsistent with constitutional guarantees of the right to life.

It's also one of the many consequences of Europe becoming increasingly right-wing.

In the same period when laws restricting abortion were tightened in Hungary and Poland (i.e., within the last five years), they were relaxed in Ireland, Cyprus and the Netherlands. The picture's much more complicated than you suggest.

@shavixmir said
You do know that crime was completely rampant in the 18th and certainly the 19th century? Much worse than in the more secular 20th century?

As far as recorded crime rates go, there was much less crime in the late nineteenth century than in the late twentieth.

Crime was rampant in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, when Britain was governed by a secularised elite and saddled with a complacent clergy. Crime rates fell steadily over the course of the nineteenth century (falling by about half over the course of Queen Victoria's reign), and the change can be correlated with a phase of nonconformist and Anglican evangelism, more regular church attendance and especially with childhood Sunday school attendance.

Crime in Britain remained low through the first half of the twentieth century, while church attendance remained frequent and education retained a broadly Christian cast. Crime rates began to increase slowly in the slightly less devout 1950s, but exploded as secularisation became dominant in the 1960s. In 1990, recorded crime rates in Britain were ten times their nineteenth century peak.

@vivify said
Thousands of years of terror and torture committed in the name of religion by devout people refutes that.

No, it doesn't, since terror and torture have also been committed in the name of secular ideologies. While life in theocratic Iran would be extremely unpleasant, I'd rather live there than in Mao's China or Stalin's Russia.

I stand by my original point. It's safer to walk down a street in Egypt than in Brazil.

@teinosuke said
As far as recorded crime rates go, there was much less crime in the late nineteenth century than in the late twentieth.

Crime was rampant in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, when Britain was governed by a secularised elite and saddled with a complacent clergy. Crime rates fell steadily over the course of the nineteenth century (falling by about half over the ...[text shortened]... in the 1960s. In 1990, recorded crime rates in Britain were ten times their nineteenth century peak.

Not according to proper research:

https://www.vrc.crim.cam.ac.uk/system/files/documents/manuel-eisner-historical-trends-in-violence.pdf

@shavixmir said
Immgration isn’t a problem when everyone’s doing well.

So what you're saying is that immigration is fine, but only in a society that can guarantee perpetual economic stability and ensure that everyone will do well forever?

@shavixmir said
Not according to proper research:

https://www.vrc.crim.cam.ac.uk/system/files/documents/manuel-eisner-historical-trends-in-violence.pdf

From the very article you cite:

Before 1637, during the era of frontier violence, Roth finds that the homicide rate in colonial New England stood at over 100 per 100,000 adults. It then dropped to about seven to nine for the next four decades, which—assuming some underreporting in the English assize court data—may have been quite similar to the rate that probably prevailed in southeastern England. It fell again at the beginning of the eighteenth century and reached a low of about one per 100,000 adults at the end of the century. Examining the causes of this massive decline, Roth argues that the sudden decline correlated with increased feelings of Protestant and racial solidarity among the colonists.

The essay also credits "the increased religious zeal following the Reformation movements" as one of the "independent sources of the disciplining process in the early modern age."

And its time frame, as the abstract notes, traces a decline in interpersonal violence until the early twentieth century, which is precisely what I argued. Crime increased markedly, at least in Britain and America, after World War II.

Do you have any sources that don't support my argument?

@teinosuke said
So what you're saying is that immigration is fine, but only in a society that can guarantee perpetual economic stability and ensure that everyone will do well forever?

Nope. That's not what I'm saying.

@teinosuke said

Do you have any sources that don't support my argument?

Uh, yeah, like I have time to delve into hundreds of different sources to find the exact information you're looking for.

Which centuries had the most murders and theft per percentage of population.
There you go.

@shavixmir said
Which centuries had the most murders and theft per percentage of population.
There you go.

Irrelevant. Would those centuries have had more or less crime if they had been more or less religious?

The point is, both crime and religious belief are more common in poorer and less educated societies; this clearly doesn't show that religion causes crime. Rather, it shows that in a poor, high-crime society, there's a more urgent need for religion as a form of social control.