A new study claims that more religious societies generally have higher rates of violent crime, sexually transmitted diseases, abortion, and suicide. I don’t doubt that religious practice that teaches tolerance, love, and mutual respect can have a strong influence for good. However, most ferevent religious believers teach that their path is the only righteous one and that non-believers should be pitied, converted, shunned, or even destroyed. When religion promotes intolerance, hatred, and disgust, not to mention when religion demands its adherants defy basic logic and scientific principles, I can see why it would cause great ills in society.