A Tale For The Moment

This may be rich in semantics.

This is NOT a trigger warning.

The statement: religion

The subject: humanity

The intent: education

The material: acerbic

We are alive despite the acknowledgement that, immediately after our birth, we are the most vulnerable species in the family of primates. The possibility of our survival is greatly diminished to none in lieu of postnatal care. As it shouldn't be worth mentioning, no amount of prayer serves in the place of adequate postnatal care. Still, how do we acquire religion, because, just like that infamous acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, religion is acquired and molded into the human psyche. 

The sequence is pretty simple actually:

1. Family

2. School

3. Social environment

It all starts at home, where kids are drilled to learn "prayer and worship" in christian households, with piety being molded into these young brains as a mark of upstanding character. Then it's on to the schools to take care of the rest of the indoctrination by creating mandatory religious education (a case study would be Kenya where the two largest religions, christianity and islam have mandatory elementary religious classes for every child that sits for public examinations). 

Religion is ingrained into the national psyche of such a country, and very tellingly, even there, indicates a geographical disparity. This very nicely leads to the social environment assessment as a determination for religious practices. Where you are born and raised will most likely determine your religious beliefs. This is true for most of the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Central, and Eastern Europe. In fact, with the exception of pockets in Western Europe, Oceania, and North America, much of the world has a dominant religion which very neatly implies geographical factors in religious practices. As is seen in countries such as the United States, religious beliefs by region actually do tangibly dictate politics. Outside of the United States, it is pretty clear that the most religiously controlled countries have extremely draconian social policies. 

Diving into the political hot potato that is abortion, most majority Catholic countries have in their books very restrictive abortion and contraceptive laws, and generally frown upon family planning and sex ed, with often predictably disastrous results. In these countries, abortion rates are usually higher; childcare and maternal care is secondary to "birth enforcement." 

The top 50 countries in the chart of motherhood mortality as of 2020 are all former colonies, extremely conservative and overwhelmingly religious countries.¹ This comes with a caveat though, as disparities are evident within countries. The US has a higher motherhood mortality rate in southern states due to a combination of religious conservatism, system-enforced racism, and plain political stupidity. This will not be elaborated for now, but most of those states refused to implement medicare expansions, thus risking hospital funding, healthcare for the poor and rural communities, all because of "Obamacare." That is all there is to say about that.

On the other end of the spectrum are the largely irreligious countries such as Finland, Iceland, Japan, and Norway. Even once entirely-Catholic Ireland is tending towards this bracket, with the historical abuses of the Catholic institutions not helping their cause to maintain any relevance in the state. All, not most of, but all of these countries have excellent universal healthcare and very generously subsidized public education benefits. Childcare is a priority, education is a priority, and parental wellbeing is a priority. 

In a ridiculous anomaly, the US remains the only developed (loosely in this respect) nation that hasn't codified any form of parental leave in its society. This is a country where 7 of its 9 supreme court justices are Catholic or Evangelical christians (which usually dicates and has dictated public policy for centuries in the US). 

Without going too far into that, a tentative conclusion can be reached that religion and social advancement don't quite gel. It should also be noted that most scientific advances and research have been codified in spite of, and not because of religion.

The science of evolution as an example goes against most, if not all religions present today; as does healthcare in most forms. Lest this doesn't seem to make sense, this author would very much welcome published and peer-reviewed religious research into the power of prayer against carcinomas, gangrene, stroke, ageing, and for the Catholics and Eastern Orthodoxy, incorruptibility of saints and beati. 

A depiction of the Big Bang theory.

Peer-reviewed consensus papers "disproving" the big bang are also welcome.

¹https://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=2223