https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... ovies.htmlA common theme of items that have been retrieved from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™ is the evils that are done by theists and theism. But what about benefits that the apparently ongoing decline of religion and religiosity seem to offer us? A pair of such potential gains — rape and suicide — forms the subject of this recent Hitchens File entry: Philip Truscott, “Rape, Suicide, and the Rise of Religious Nones,” Journal of Sociology and Christianity 14/2 (Fall 2024): 34-58:
Abstract: One of the most widely quoted concepts in late twentieth century criminology was the general theory of crime which proposed that insufficiency of self-control is the most important predictor of criminal behavior. The presence or absence of social bonds promoting self-control is an important element of this theory. This article argues that the decline of one important societal bond, religious affiliation, is impacting the incidence of rape. Since the 2010s, there has been a positive correlation between the proportion of the population declaring no religious affiliation (the “None” rate) in the 50 USA states and the campus rape rate. This correlation was significant in the four years from 2016 (r=0.464, p.0.001) to 2019 (r=0.393, p.0.005). Beginning in 2018, the None rate in the 50 states also correlates with the rape rate in the general US population (r=.343, p. 0.015) identified by Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Was this due to a variation in actual crimes or in reporting rates?Recent data make the reporting rate explanation implausible. Furthermore, the UCR rape rate is directly correlated with another violence statistic that is not susceptible to reporting error: suicide rates published by the CDC. This research contends that suicide rates are a proxy indicator for male self-control, as three quarters of suicides are male. Rape perpetration is also overwhelmingly male. The correlation of rape rates and suicide rates in the USA rose from 2014 (r=.55, p. = 0.00001) to 2019 (r=.66, p. = 0.0000001). It is argued that declining religiosity is lowering self-control, and that this is a plausible mechanism driving both increased rape and suicide.
He’s obviously shifting his ground from that of linking suicide rates to altitude. Now he’s found a random article that he’s keen to promote. I suspect quite strongly that he hasn’t read anything more than the abstract.
Here’s the author of the research paper bemoaning the fact people haven’t taken him seriously.
https://ussanews.com/2024/11/17/rape-an ... rch-shows/Truscott told The Daily Signal that he found it difficult to publish his results because many academic journals lean to the Left and attempted to poke holes in his research.
How dare they cross examine his research and reject it.
Given the exposure of sexual assaults within Mormonism, and the constant covering up of such offences by the Kirton McKonkie helpline that’s been widely reported, I’m surprised he has the lack of awareness to put this on his blog.
