I found SAMs graph on the correlation between suicide and religion interesting. Another article on this (more recent) is here:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/108625/More-Religious-Countries-Lower-Suicide-Rates.aspx
Data from a 2005-6 Gallup poll bear outs SAM's data. But is religiosity the real factor? Findings:
1. Suicide rates are slightly higher in wealthier countries, but the correlation between religion and suicide is stronger than the correlation between wealth and suicide.
2. More religious countries may tend to underreport suicides. However, even when only less religious countries are counted, suicides tend to be higher in the less religious of those countries.
3. Greater social capital (community feeling etc.) could be hypothesised as responsible for lower suicide rates. However, if this was true, we might expect
homicide rates to be lower in more religious countries. In fact,
homicide rates tend to be
higher in more religious countries.
4. Findings on a national level may not translate to a personal level. For example, in 2002, statistician Sterling Hilton and colleagues showed that among young men who were actively involved in the Mormon church, suicide rates were three to five times lower than those of either non-members or less active church members.
5. Religious people are much less likely than the general public to believe that suicide is "morally acceptable."
The article concludes that it is possible that religion serves as an antidote to the lack of purpose that can make a desperate act such as suicide seem appealing. Believing in something bigger than oneself may allow some people to hold onto life in a world where people without such a belief sometimes give up all hope. Another possibility is that some religious people may believe that committing suicide jeopardizes their security in an afterlife. Alternately, the human connections that people typically forge in religious groups may serve as a buffer against suicide. Whatever the reason for the religion-suicide link, these results suggest that leaders who wish to understand the well-being of a country must look beyond traditional economic indicators. When it comes to well-being, spiritual concerns may be at least as important as economic ones.
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SAM's argument in this thread was that religious education is good because it reduces suicides, so children should be spared an evil "secular" education to protect them from suicide.
My argument, in reverse, could be that religious education is bad because it leads to an increased murder rate. Children should be spared evil religious education systems, because that way their chance of being murdered will be decreased.
What seems clear to me is that the kind of simplistic argument put forward by SAM needs a lot more research and support.
