Society without God

What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us about Contentment



Society without God is a book by sociologist Phil Zuckerman that looks at the perennial question: what will mankind be if we had no religion?

Religious figures have consistently made the point that without the remembrance of God, society would plunge into lawlessness, immorality and social disorder. However, Zuckerman pointed out that Denmark and Sweden, two countries with the lowest level of religiosity amongst its people, enjoy strong economies, low crime rates, high standards of living and social equality when pitted against its more religious neighbours. According to Zuckerman, this is reason enough to question the status quo of countries and communities which have made religion as their focal point.

To his credit, Zuckerman has made compelling arguments to ruffle the feathers of religious fanatics who have stubbornly refused to budge from their entrenched belief systems.

But Society without God would have been more credible if the author had at least fleetingly identified the spurious personalities that he claimed to have ‘interviewed’ for the book. There are at least several dozen characters mentioned in this book, but sadly none of them seem to suggest even the faintest clue of authenticity. Take for example the character he calls Jokum, a 36-year old head of a small congregation in “a little village outside Aarhus”. As with almost all other persons featured in the book, there is no way to verify if these research subjects are actual persons or just fictitious personas that Zuckerman created in order to support his atheist agenda.

Other than that, the work could have dwelled deeper into other communities within the countries where he conducted his research for the work. Society without God focused too much on counter-claiming the Christian-right that it seemed to have forgotten the current rise of Islam within those very nations. Could the current spate of peace and harmony within these countries have a direct correlation with the increasing number of modern Muslim professionals in the country who are now making their presence felt? These possibilities are not sufficiently explored.