{"id":2474,"date":"2012-01-06T07:57:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-06T07:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/01\/has-religion-made-the-world-less-safe.html"},"modified":"2012-01-06T07:57:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-06T07:57:00","slug":"has-religion-made-the-world-less-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/01\/has-religion-made-the-world-less-safe.html","title":{"rendered":"Has religion made the world less safe?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

By Steven Pinker<\/span>
Washington Post: On Faith<\/span>

<\/span><\/p>\n

The Bible depicts a world that, seen through modern eyes, is staggering in its savagery. People enslave, rape, and murder members of their immediate families. Warlords slaughter civilians indiscriminately, including the children. Women are bought, sold, and plundered like sex toys. The world of the New Testament is little better: kings carry out mass infanticide; thieves and activists are punished by being nailed to a cross.<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Though most of the events narrated in the Bible almost certainly never happened, historians agree that they reflect the norms and practices of the era. We live in a world that is indisputably less violent than that of our ancestors. Savage practices such as human sacrifice, chattel slavery, blood sports, debtors\u2019 prisons, frivolous executions, religious persecution, and punitive torture and mutilation have been eliminated from most of the world. Less obviously, homicide rates have plummeted over the centuries, and during the past sixty-five years that the rate of death from war has fallen to historically unprecedented lows.<\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Steven Pinker Washington Post: On Faith The Bible depicts a world that, seen through modern eyes, is staggering in its savagery. People enslave, rape, and murder members of their immediate families. Warlords slaughter civilians indiscriminately, including the children. Women are bought, sold, and plundered like sex toys. The world of the New Testament is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nHas religion made the world less safe?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"By Steven Pinker Washington Post: On FaithThe Bible depicts a world that, seen through modern eyes, is staggering in its savagery. 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