Page "Religious studies" Paragraph 32

The sociology of religion also deals with how religion impacts society regarding the positive and negatives of what happens when religion is mixed with society.

Theorist such as Marx states that “ religion is the opium of the people ”-the idea that religion has become a way for people to deal with their problems.

At least one comprehensive study refutes this idea.

Research has found that secular democracies like France or Scandinavia outperform more theistic democracies on various measures of societal health.

The authors explain that " Pressing questions include the reasons, whether theistic or non-theistic, that the exceptionally wealthy U. S. is so inefficient that it is experiencing a much higher degree of societal distress than are less religious, less wealthy prosperous democracies.

Conversely, how do the latter achieve superior societal health while having little in the way of the religious values or institutions?