Dear Foxy,

It is difficult to get statistics on the number of citizens of modern societies who would utterly deny the possibility of some higher power in the universe,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism is a discussion of the number of atheists. In it is:

“In Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands and East Asia, and particularly in China, atheists and the non-religious are the majority.”

Atheist Marxism guides China. It may be that the parts of the population which believe in a supernatural higher power in that country are hesitant about revealing their belief.

However, belief in a higher power should not be equated with a belief in religion. Not all religions are theistic and involve the belief in a higher power. Most of the different branches of Buddhism deny both a higher power and a soul. Yet Buddhism is a genuine religion with a belief system, theology, ritual, moral code, a founding narrative and the other trappings of religion. A person can be a committed Buddhist and also be an atheist. One can be an atheist and a religious person.

To me it is significant that the atheists in Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Germany are in the majority. Those countries generally are at or near the top in statistical measures of human well-being. It indicates to me that religion is something that those who feel themselves ill-used by society and suffering cling to. Possibly, many of the religious people in those countries may feel losing their religion would be abandoning their religions ancestors. I felt that way.

There is a negative correlation between morality and religion. In general those countries whose populations have greater religious faith also have greater corruption. That does not necessarily mean that religious people are more corrupt. It may mean that desperate people in their desperation are more likely to cut corners and to seek solace in mumbojumbo.

However, if Durkheim is right and religion originates as a social rather than a supernatural need, other ways of bonding eliminate the need for religion.

Scientists are probably the most irreligious group in society. Science serves as a binding force.

Dear David F.,

The following link I think explains things rather
well (at least for me):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-evan-moffic/can-we-believe-in-god-and_b_4734731.html

Dear Foxy,

The title of the article puts me off.

Can we believe in God and science?

The title contains a false equivalence. Science is not something one believes in. Science is based on evidence and reason. If the evidence does not support a scientific hypothesis one abandons the hypothesis. I do not nor does any scientifically literate person believe in science. Either evidence supports a scientific hypothesis or it doesn’t. It’s that simple. There is no need for belief.

However, one does believe in religion. If one has evidence one does not need belief. Religion is based on unproven and unprovable hypotheses. A scientific hypothesis may be negated by evidence. In that case it is discarded. There are no such tests for religious belief. Newton’s Laws of Motion were accepted for a long time. They worked to describe the action of moving bodies. However, at velocities approaching the speed of light they were found to be no longer valid. Relativity took over. The Christian religion has its present dominance through an accident of history. A Roman Emperor declared it the official religion of the Empire and enforced its adoption by the might of the Empire. Henry the Eight wanted a divorce so he broke away from Rome and founded the Anglican Church. That is not the way science is done. No one can force the adoption of a scientific hypothesis if it does not rest on evidence. There have attempts to do so, but, although these attempts may cause great suffering, they will eventually lose. Stalin’s Lysenkoism and Hitler’s racial theories are two examples of trying to make science a matter of belief like religion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

The rabbi has committed the fallacy of false equivalence.

Dear David F.,

Religion is a universal social
institution, it takes a multitude of forms. Believers
may worship gods, ancestors, or totems; they may
practice solitary meditation, frenzied rituals, or
solemn prayer. The great variety of religious behaviour
and belief makes it very difficult to say exactly what
'religion' is. Many definitions have been offered in the
past, but most of the ones we are familiar with have been
biased by ethnocentric Judeo-Christian ideas about
religion.

These ideas are based on a number of central beliefs; that
there exists one supreme being or God; that God created the
universe and all life and takes a continuing interest in the
creation; that there is a life hereafter; and that our moral
behaviour in this life influences our fate in the next.

In cross-cultural terms, however, this particular combination
of beliefs is unusual. As you've pointed out there are many
religions that do not recognize a supreme being, and a number
do not believe in gods at all. Several religions ignore
questions about the origins of the universe and life, leaving
these problems to be dealt with instead by non-religious
myth. Many religions assume that the gods take little interest
in human affairs. Some have almost nothing to say about life
after death, and many, perhaps most, do not link our earthly
morality with our fate beyond the grave. Obviously, religion
cannot be defined in terms of the Western religious tradition
alone.

We can say, then, that religion is a system of communally shared
beliefs and rituals that are oriented toward some sacred,
supernatural realm. The phenomenon is of such universal
social importance that it has long been, and remains, a major
focus of sociological interest.

Emile Durkheim argued that shared religious beliefs and the
rituals that go with them are so important that every society
needs a religion, or at least some belief system that serves
the same functions. The cause of much of the social disorder
in modern societies he contended, is that "the old gods are
growing old or are already dead, and others are not yet born."

Dear Foxy,

It may be a fact that religion exists in every society. However, it is an assumption that every society needs religion. There is no reason to see it as a valid assumption.

It may be a fact that perverts, demagogues and psychopaths exist in every society. However, it is an assumption that every society needs perverts, demagogues and psychopaths. There is no reason to see it as a valid assumption.

There is a gene that causes pernicious anaemia. It stays in humanity’s gene bank because in combination with an allele of the same gene that doesn’t cause pernicious anaemia it promotes resistance to malaria. In areas that do not contain the malarial parasite the gene disappears. Religion serves various needs of both society and the rulers. If those needs disappear so will religion. I do not think that all the needs that religion serves will disappear, but I think many will disappear. Therefore I think that the percentage of religious believers will decrease but not disappear.

Religion serves to provide an explanation for phenomena which are beyond human understanding. Faced with a incomprehensible world religion promotes security and well-being. However, as we comprehend more and more of the world the need for religion becomes less urgent. Birth and death are two phenomena that are difficult to deal with. The death of a loved one is especially difficult. Religion can enhance the joy of birth and soften the grief of a dear one’s death. However, as we know more about the physical process of life and death we can more easily deal with the fact of life and death. Biologists deal with birth and death as natural phenomena.

http://sandwalk.blogspot.com.au/2007/06/evolutionary-biologists-flunk-religion.html

“Taken together, the advocacy of any degree of theism is the lowest percentage measured in any poll of biologists' beliefs so far (4.7 percent).”

Whether or not biologists need religion an overwhelming majority reject it.

Much of the disorder in modern society is caused by believers in one type of religious nonsense in conflict with believers in another type.

Dear David F.,

It is true that some communities or even societies that
are hostile to one another often use religion as an
ideological weapon, emphasizing differences in faith
in order to justify conflict.

A nation at war invariably assumes that its gods are on
its side - even when, as in the case of the two world wars
of this century, several of the warring nations worshipped
the same deity. Wars fought on ostensibly religious
grounds are often marked by extreme bloodiness and
fanaticism, but religious differences are not necessarily
the causes of the wars, even though the participants
themselves may think they are. The medieval Crusades, for
example, appear at first sight to have been a purely religious
conflict in which European Christians were trying to recover
the Holy Land from Muslims. A closer analysis suggests an
additional reason., however, the European nobility launched
the Crusades partly to gain control of the trade routes to the
East and partly to divert widespread unrest among their
peasantry.

Similarly, contemporary conflict between Jews and Muslims
in the Middle East may seem to arise from religious differences,
but the tension is really over competing claims by two different
ethnic groups, the Israelis and the Palestinians, for the same
homeland. In much the same way, the conflict in Northern Ireland
on the surface seemed to be one between Catholics and Protestants,
but its roots lie much deeper in ethnic and class divisions between
Irish of native descent and those descended from British settlers.

Sometimes a group may actually be inspired by religion to
challenge the existing order. The challenges tend to come from
religious movements near the fringes of society, or from dissident
groups within the dominant religion. In many of the highly
unequal and impoverished societies of Central and South America,
for example, the Catholic Church has long been associated with
the military, social and economic elite. Yet in recent years a
minority of priests and nuns have embraced "liberation theology,"
which blends Christian compassion for the poor with an explicit
commitment to political change through class struggle.