Added: I am of the general belief that a strict religious structure is actually healthy for society overall as there is less grey area between right and wrong. I rebelled against organized religion in my younger days. But on the whole, I see a great deal of merit in structure. Structure is what our society is lacking. A strict structure allows the government and society to have a less strict structure because the laws are simply not necessary.
I dunno. I'm not disagreeing, but I've seen strict religious structures. Amish, Orthodox Judism, Eastern Orthodox and several Muslim countries.
Amish and OJ communities I saw were not the majorities. I've heard arguments that "I've never seen an Amish try to ban electricity or a OJ try to ban bacon." Erm. Not sure. OJ does try to enforce it's will on non-OJ in Israel. If they were 90% majority maybe, except neither has a strong military tradition. Macing women or shaving beards is one thing. To enforce your will on a population, you need to make pretty lax or reasonable laws, or be willing to enforce your will with an iron fist and plenty of blood. Amish don't tend to want social interaction with Outsiders. They use mostly non-violent practices in enforcing draconian internal rules, primary based around indoctrination and threat of exile.
Plenty of religiously strict communities may have less grey areas, but no less decadence or immoral behavior. They are just more quiet about it. Amish has plenty of domestic violence incidents that are NEVER spoke of. Taliban has a habit of using underage males for recreational purposes. Folks have made jokes about Catholic Church priests and young boys for many years. My guess is both liberal and strictly religious communities have varying levels of decadence or immorality, but one is more open about the matter than the other. I don't think you can claim there is any correlation.
I'd also argue that the religion is a lot less important than the culture. In some places, the two become the same. Others, not so much. My cousins grew up in Japan. Not so much religious, but very culturally strict. My uncle and aunt moved back to the States because "half breeds" were NOT culturally tolerated. Sometimes strict, no ambiguity, black and white views are entirely wrong even if believed by 90+% of the culture. I'm quite sure many Japanese believe this to be a very healthy belief, and glad for the righteous certainty. My cousins are not sub-human, regardless strictness of culture or religion.
