Writers were wise to choose language that would take advantage of the majority religiosity but still remain wholly nonsectarian. It was designed to be acceptable to deists and orthodox alike. (88)
In psychological terms the founders were playing to people's confirmation bias- our innate selection and interaction of evidence to support our existing beliefs. (90)
Do You Need God to be Good?
For themselves, the founders thought their morality was sufficient to guide them and religion was unnecessary. However, some of the founder thought religion was necessary to keep the masses moral. For many founders, religion was not the source of morality, but a substitute for it. Without religion, the masses could not be moral. But the founders were not fussy about which religion filled the bill. Washington and Adams suggested that any religion, not only Christianity, can replace morality.
So the Founding Fathers were elitists. But were they were right about the capacity of large populations to prosper and live morally without religion?
Do Secularists Produce Worse Societies than the Religious?
The short answer is - no. Seidel points out:
Social science now unequivocally shows that the less religious a society, is the better off it is. We now know that religion is not necessary for society to succeed. (49)
Within America the states with the highest murder rates tend to be highly religious - Louisiana and Alabama. States with the lowest rates are the least religious the country, like Vermont and Oregon.
Of the top 50 safest cities in the world, nearly all are in relatively non-religious countries. During the Holocaust, the more secular the people were, the more likely they were to rescue and help persecuted Jews.
The least religious countries:
Have lowest rates of violent crime and homicide
Are the best places to raise children
Have lowest levels of intolerance vs race
Have the highest in women's rights
Are the most prosperous
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