New Books In World Affairs

It is not uncommon for many Americans to believe that morality and order comes from God and religion. A society without these elements would consequently be immoral and chaotic. When Phil Zuckerman traveled to Scandinavia, however, where he would spend the next fourteen months, he found a stable and content nonbelieving population, who often have high scores on the “happiness index”, low crime and corruption rates, and efficient educational systems. His book Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment (New York University Press, 2010)summarizes his qualitative research – mainly in the form of interviews – on the people of Scandinavia, and on their relationship to religion and society. He found that many people he interviewed for example, consider themselves Christian in a cultural historic sense, but do not at all believe in the notion of God – a position that would baffle many Americans. In addition, though many reject the notion of God, atheists in Scandinavia seem to