I just saw this graph in Atlantic magazine. It comes from the Pew Global Attitudes Project, a survey of over 45,000 people.

Yellow is South and Central America; Green is the Middle East; Purple is Asia.

In the full report, they also compare the results to five years ago. Venezuela and Germany had the greatest increase in religiosity, whereas Ukraine and India the greatest decrease. And the consensus of 46 out of 47 countries is that religion should be kept separate from government policy.

Definition: Religiosity is measured using a three-item index ranging from 0-3, with 3 representing the maximum religious position. Respondents were given a +1 if they believe faith in God is necessary for morality; and +1 if they say religion is very important in their lives; and +1 if they pray at least once a day.

[edit: sad to see the mouse over notes blanketing the graph lost in the latest flickr format]

108 responses to “Wealth and Religiosity”

  1. Brian O'Mahony Photography Avatar
    Brian O’Mahony Photography

    Personally I think it’s a load of Bollocks!! Excuse my French…

    Seen in One Hundred Thousand Club (100,000 Photostream Views) (?)

    Reply
  2. Drift Words Avatar
    Drift Words

    About 87.5 % of the negative reaction to this graph has come from a basic misunderstanding. The word Religiosity means "excessive religion". It is not a synonym for Religion, Spirituality or Morality.

    That taken, the 3-point operational definition of Religiosity makes more sense as a series of indicators of excess, rather than, as some have assumed and taken issue with, indicators of religious culture in a more general sense.

    I do wish people would think as quickly as they typed!

    Reply
  3. l . e . o Avatar
    l . e . o

    @Drift Words –

    As "religiosity" is a word very closely related to "religion," it has an equally muddy definition. It’s frequently glossed as "the quality of being religious," but if one examines that idea at all it’s seen that in order to give any meaning to the term "religiosity," one must have defined what one means by "being religious" and, as such, "religion."

    Given that relationship, I think the same problem I outlined above holds true for the operational definitions used in this study: instead of measuring "religiosity" in a generic sense (which I would argue is impossible, on a global, cross-cultural scale), they are in fact measuring western religiosity.

    Reply
  4. Yellowhammer Avatar
    Yellowhammer

    one could look to anthropology for answers to this

    Reply
  5. amaragraps Avatar
    amaragraps

    Whatever the correlation (if any), I think the main point is that the US is an outlier. Again. This plot brings to my mind Anders Sandberg’s plot of Freedom (from the Heritage Freedom Index) against its number of imprisonments (from World Prison Brief numbers), where the US is again a most striking outlier point: "The Best Prisons that Money Can Buy" I think its worth examining why the US is such an outlier in these cases, and what can one learn for the (beneficial/ nonbeneficial) development of these cultures in the future?

    Reply
  6. Victor1 Avatar
    Victor1

    "Who would Jesus trash?"… well he criticized the ‘rich’ a lot too actually… but who’s so ‘cool’ that they’re trashing anyone, even religious people? What is wealth if it still has need…the need to diminish other people?

    "Blessed are the poor, for they shall see God" – Jesus

    So ‘scientifically’, this thread is one sided, as this thread has no poor people to argue their perspective, just the ‘wealthy’ (we all have computers right?) frolicking in definitionism and diminishing those with ‘less’… without knowing what those people ‘know’, which Jesus argues above, is more: the trans-material perspective one achieves when they have no materialism to distract them and their ‘true’ nature is more apparent, as well as that of god when understood from that perspective. So its all wealth, just different kinds with different meaning in different phases of development.

    Enjoy the wealth – every kind you can, and if materialism gets old, or someone shuts off the electricity for long enough, you too may find the ‘more’ in the ‘less’, although frankly, non-buddhist religions haven’t done the greatest job of conveying the spiritual (energy) insights that originated their system and fallen prey to their own ‘materialism’ – the entanglement of words, associations, power maneuvering, politics… all to their detriment. So the subsequent loss of respect (see most of what’s written above) should not be surprising to them.

    Reply
  7. silas miller Avatar
    silas miller

    I wonder if Scientology was factored into this? 🙂

    Seriously though. Religion and money in my mind tend to be a form of mental security. There is peace of mind for the poor in religion and there is peace of mind for the rich in money. They both offer happiness and a way out of the toughest binds.

    More interesting to me would be a plot of happiness against each as well. For what is money or religion without the ability to enjoy either?

    I imagine that the poorest nations may have a higher latent happiness level. This goes with my take on people in western cultures being taught to constantly desire objects as goals and milestones of their lives. It seems to create a void that cannot be filled. In the town I live in there are many refugee families with children living in near squalor. They somehow have this radiant joy about them, even when playing with nothing but sticks and their imaginations. Just across town rich suburban kids with every toy in the world are bored and soured to the point of vandalism by their apathy and angst. And while wealthy people should have more opportunities to pursue happiness, I think less may actually go after an outside passion such as rocketry, music, the art, hunting, sailing or whatever it is that brings you closer to that mindless state of joy and awe some call enlightenment. It is refreshing to see people that can break free from such predictions such as Steve, who obviously has wealth and happiness.

    I also imagine that it is possible that the more religious people are the higher their latent happiness is. Perhaps religion can teach us to look for joy in the world around us, instead of at Walmart. As such maybe people with religion in their lives would be generally happier than those without. Yet I do feel that the same qualities can be instilled through a good healthy dose of spirituality and wonderment without constricting doctrines and dogmas. Evolution is more amazing to me than the notion of a supreme being. The grand unifying theory is a form of god to me, and the wonder I hold when thinking about the power of my god could perplex me forever. However those that hold no wonder or joy in looking at the world whether through scientific eyes, or religious ones can never truly be happy, wealthy or not.

    It does makes sense to me that as a nations wealth rises that its religiosity would fall, but more important to me, and hopefully others, is whether religion or money are allowing people to find joy in their everyday lives.

    Reply
  8. jpctalbot Avatar
    jpctalbot

    Belief is stronger than reason because :

    1. There is more cerebral cortex dedicated to the social network than the analytical network.
    2. When the brain fires up the network of neurons that allows us to empathize, it suppresses the network used for analysis.

    References:
    1. Neuro Image (2012) Oct – A.I.Jacka, A.Dawsona, K.Beganya, R.L.Leckiea, K.Barrya, A.Cicciab, A.Snyde; fMRI reveals reciprocal inhibition between social and physical cognitive domains
    2. EurekAlert – Empathy represses analytic thought, and vice versa

    Reply
  9. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    yes, a memetic tragedy

    Reply
  10. Brad Pennock Avatar
    Brad Pennock

    “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”

    – Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Seneca the Younger), Roman philosopher, 4BC – 65AD

    http://www.godisimaginary.com

    Reply
  11. liondart Avatar
    liondart

    Nice to see number of atheists vs. theists in prisons on the US.

    http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm

    @TheAlieness: Statistics are not ultimate proofs for nothing, but certainly are useful to refute of enforce theories. You may read about epistemology and cientific methods.

    @jpctalbot: Simplistic argument you have there. I could say it the other way round, but I prefer to argue that belief is stronger than reason because fear is stronger than reason, and belief is no possible without fear.

    Reply
  12. AGrinberg Avatar
    AGrinberg

    What an interesting graph! and what an interesting discussion! Certainly should make one think, no matter what your predilections are.

    Reply
  13. r_is_for_ROBOT! Avatar
    r_is_for_ROBOT!

    I have a hypothesis for why Alieness so dislikes this graph:
    She doesn’t want it to be true.

    Also, she neglected to mention another possible explanation for why the poor tend to be more religious: Lacking power over many things in your life, wouldn’t you tightly cling to an institution claiming to be in contact with The Ruler Of The Universe?

    Did any of you mention this obvious interpretation?

    Reply
  14. Lawrence Peregrine-Trousers Avatar
    Lawrence Peregrine-Trousers

    Jacob Morse halfway up the page has it right if you ask me… but so does r.robot above…
    I’m not a believer in any religion myself, but I think the Hindus understand it better than any of the the Abrahamics…

    I’m never sure whether I’m a pantheist, or just a god fearing atheist!!
    ;o)

    Reply
  15. Lawrence Peregrine-Trousers Avatar
    Lawrence Peregrine-Trousers

    Victor1…. I’m on a hand-me-down free computer, and ripped-off wi fi..
    Do I count as ‘the poor’???

    Reply
  16. r_is_for_ROBOT! Avatar
    r_is_for_ROBOT!

    @ContrastingSounds

    It is interesting that all your proposed inferences assume that people with more religiosity are in some way superior. Such pride is hardly becoming of a religious person – I take it your are an atheist intending to provoke?

    Yeah, man! Those atheists are always inventing motives for their philosophical opponents! Not like the modest, thoughtful religious people!!!!!111!

    Reply
  17. Lawrence Peregrine-Trousers Avatar
    Lawrence Peregrine-Trousers

    Someone was telling me today abourt an episode of ‘The Simpsons’ in which a giant meteor is heading to Earth..
    At the last minute, everyone in the pub runs to the church, and everyone in the church runs to the pub!

    :o)

    Reply
  18. sh4keer Avatar
    sh4keer

    Next you should do wealth and bourgeois triumphalism or secular self-righteousness

    Reply
  19. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Love the deeply hypocritical humor nested in there. thanks.

    r-robot: maybe too obvious

    Reply
  20. mattpa Avatar
    mattpa

    So increased wealth is poorly correlated with decreased religion.
    No surprises there.

    Reply
  21. therealshawnshawn Avatar
    therealshawnshawn

    Hi, I’m an admin for a group called Political Art Now, and we’d love to have this added to the group!

    As opportunity is allowed to flourish in a society, people believe less in God and more in themselves since they have the chance to improve their own lives. In entrenched societies, the lack of opportunity rises people’s belief in God to search for a reason they don’t succeed despite following the societal rules.

    ShawNshawN

    Reply
  22. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    I just finished Sam Harris’ new book, The Moral Landscape:
    “While most developed societies have grown predominantly secular, with the curious exception of the United States, orthodox religion is in florid bloom throughout the developing world.

    religiosity is strongly coupled to perceptions of societal insecurity.

    In addition to being the most religious of developed nations, the United States also has the greatest economic inequality. The poor tend to be more religious than the rich, both within and between nations.

    And on almost every measure of societal health, the least religious countries are better off than the most religious.” (p.146)

    "few things make thinking like a scientist more difficult than an attachment to religion." (p.176)

    Reply
  23. aeroculus Avatar
    aeroculus

    Amen! (spoken metaphorically, of course)

    Reply
  24. vennettaj Avatar
    vennettaj

    guess what comment made me fav this 😛

    Reply
  25. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    "Belief is stronger than reason"?

    Reply
  26. vennettaj Avatar
    vennettaj

    it is… but it’s just Gi’s…no matter what she says 😀 … style is stronger than evidence(? i guess this means nothing..have to think of better wording)..or whatever.. it’s like reading data and then somebody starts singing something super cool..where your attention goes..haha..something like that
    —–
    i should add: sometimes believe seems to be stronger than reason ..and there is perhaps reason for that 🙂

    Reply
  27. johnthomaspierce Avatar
    johnthomaspierce

    I really love this pic… do I have permission to use it on my blog?

    Reply
  28. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    I look at it a bit differently. I find it disappointing when someone assumes that atheism needs a reason or justification whatsoever.

    It’s perhaps baggage from history and semantics. If we called it "non-theism" (a purposely awkward “lack of theism”) it might be less obvious why someone should not feel any need to explain or defend a lack of irrational belief. Do we ask what the reasons are for non-astrologers or non-flat-Earthists to walk among us? We do not even have labels for these reasonable people who lack particular beliefs.

    Rather, we should ask why people believe absurd things, like a specific religion, and rarely do we find good reasons, other than that they were told to do so (usually inculcated by their parental figures in a critical period of their youth).

    johnthomaspierce – sure, but I don’t see the connection to workplace dating. =)

    Reply
  29. abrasive education Avatar
    abrasive education

    Belief in religion is an abdication of self, and the subjugation of your mind to the corruption of the religio-politic. Atheism is not a faith, never has been and never will be! To believe in mythologies is dangerous to humanity; And as for American, and, western governments to be pushing religion down the throats of vulnerable children, and destroying any chance of them attaining a grip on reality – that is naught but corruption in the extreme.

    Reply
  30. jgury Avatar
    jgury

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/scorriesisland] "Atheism is not a faith, never has been and never will be!" Oxymoron as an emphatic statement of a faith based credo in negation.
    Not as good as the Penn Jillette atheist creed where he uses his own close mindedness as an example of a virtue, but still amusing. This is one basic problem for beliefs that lack necessary and sufficient conditions defined by negation both semantically and psychologically. I am confidently atheist -without god, gods and all facsimiles thereof including voodoo, tantra, native great spirits and everything else Deepak Chopra can write about – are delusional, lead to violence and rejection of science which is what I use for all values.

    Reply
  31. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    A lack of belief is not a belief. A lack of faith is not a faith. A lack of delusion is not a delusion. It’s pretty simple.

    I like the definition of "faith" in the built-in Apple dictionary:

    "strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof"

    Nice. Atheism is not a faith. Jobs smiles upon petrafjord from the other side. =)

    Reply
  32. jgury Avatar
    jgury

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson] Just lack of delusional belief has some problems like just using a literal semantic of atheist as merely without god. That leads to things like newborn infants, jungle tribes, and general aliens as atheist by default. Delusion and the lack of it is not really relevant. Some positive cognition and choice is involved or else you get every sentient being in a default condition of atheism. Plus, almost everyone is atheist with respect to being delusional most of the time. Some Christian believers would be valid atheist with respect to Gog and Magog, free of that delusion, but then having others like proof of salvation by snake handling. Likewise even the most militant atheist can get occasionally tired of endless flatland disputes and want to go into a state of intentional deluded intoxication or comfort zone of dogmatic certainty. You can do a general positive atheist statement as an "I aspire to be free of delusion" except that it is impossible, and puts you in the reality definition business as well as dismissing things like Deism as delusional along with 100s of millions of Buddhists. Plus you have modern fatal nihilist existential despair embrace to counter any optimism you have for science, reason and ethical behavior. They are bonafide true atheists just like the Marquis de Sade after all. Faith and credo of Marquis de Sade is a really good one too. At least that he left an overall positive historical impression of how to enjoy an alternative atheist lifestyle; but a flawed argument against putting guys like him in positions of authority. He would be preferable to Sara Palin et. al. in other words.

    Reply
  33. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Oh, I don’t mean to imply that atheists are somehow immune to delusion. Remember, the argument is just that lack of faith is not a faith in itself.

    I am finally coming to understand that you say things with the primary goal to provoke a response, not to be internally consistent or compelling. It is a hoot to read that the logical problem of these semantics is that infants are born atheist by default. Of course they are. Nobody is born Catholic. Someone has to teach them this stuff!

    It reminds me of the British bus ad campaign that was trying to get that very point across:

    Reply
  34. jgury Avatar
    jgury

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson]
    The argument is that you define your own faith and not let the clergy or anyone else do it for you. If I wanted to be provocative I would post some of my De Sade originals with nuns and clergymen. He and Voltaire used to hide out at the family farm in Gury France when they got in trouble. Regardless, atheists should not just concede major humanist things like faith to a theist semantic any more than they should allow a theist domination of charity and hope. This is not just basic rhetorical logic on my part either but I think should be obvious and in fact the truth. The logic of faith = religion = all bad! is as sophomoric as insisting that religion poisons everything. Likewise I find it absurd when atheists by default concede all spirituality and transcendent knowledge to the realms of theist superstitions. Not only concede it but up the ante with equivalent dogmas in a fight game that has been studied and won for centuries by the best minds in history. That is just the intellectual level. Not to mention best human beings in history period, influential or otherwise. Do I really need to go over the MLK civil rights leadership models, revolutionary abolitionist priests and missionaries, Christian martyrs, Chinese temple masters, and more? This trend where you simplify a complex event like 911 to a matter of pure religious fanatic motivations (Sam Harris) or cast Zen religious practice as motivations behind Japanese behavior in WWIII (Hitchens) or bring up Hitler Christian statements in Mein Kampf (Hitchens again) is pure pop culture caricature nonsense and really a display of ignorance of history and culture.
    Re. child labeling, looks like I agree with Richard Dawkins…
    "What I think may be abuse is labeling children with religious labels like Catholic child and Muslim child. I find it very odd that in our civilization we’re quite happy to speak of a Catholic child that is 4 years old or a Muslim of child that is 4, when these children are much too young to know what they think about the cosmos, life and morality. We wouldn’t dream of speaking of a Keynesian child or a Marxist child. And yet, for some reason we make a privileged exception of religion. And, by the way, I think it would also be abuse to talk about an atheist child." – Richard Dawkins
    http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Dawkins_Richard/Athiest_Dawkin...
    http://www.salon.com/2007/12/19/john_haught/singleton/
    Justine is a best of all time entertaining atheist classics if you have not read it. Beats having to deal with Nietzsche
    http://www.investigatingatheism.info/atheistamoralism.html
    They did not include Beckett and Camus hmmm Cambridge who knows?

    Reply
  35. jgury Avatar
    jgury

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/24270806@N06] Don’t forget the Sonny Boy Williamson belief toleration criteria: Believin’ is alright just don’t believe in the wrong thing

    Reply
  36. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Mostly good points this time. What happened? =)

    Do you think any successful religion would let people voluntarily choose as adults? They depend on inculcating children in a critical period of their development. If not for that, we would not have a religion problem.

    "Theist domination of charity and hope"…. except for the hate and despair parts that go hand in hand, and the nagging problem of atheists giving more than Christians

    Reply
  37. jgury Avatar
    jgury

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson] If atheists are in fact more charitable per capita then traditional counterpoint is all those atheist charity hospitals, university clinics, missions, homeless shelters, etc. The Catholic church alone is bigger than all global atheists even if they get Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Paul Allen and everyone in California to shell out 20% or whatever the current tithing rate is. I’m just glad they don’t feel a need to possess WMDs. They don’t need them as they already have their own nation states. Plus, you can’t put $ values on human capital given those kinds of numbers combined with a geo political structure. They don’t suffer from problems of cat herding either.
    Let’s see, without child programming and inculcation Religion- make it problematic as a fundamental attribute- would vanish or at least be doomed to insignificance. Not likely and China is a one big case in point where they have tried doing that at multiple times in history, some of it in my lifetime. From atheist perspective China would be a good sense example where they do view many religions as serious threats to modern state power. Of course not the seasoned power broker pros like Catholics and Protestants – traditional white devils, business is business- but the homegrown stuff like Falun Dafa, Taoists, Buddhists, and they are really rough on ethnic Muslims. Also from atheist perspective by contrast to China, the US would be taking the lead as the nonsense example vis-a-vis religion in politics and society, contrary to the founding principles.
    Here is a typical Richard Dawkins statement that I find so revealing: " People brought up to believe in faith and private revelation cannot be persuaded by evidence to change their minds." ORLY?
    That would include people like Presbyterian heretic Mark Twain as a good single counter example. Again, faith and revelation are mutually exclusive anathema to this kind of atheist dogma which are very clear statements of absurdity.
    http://www.salon.com/2005/04/30/dawkins/

    Reply
  38. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Good point – China is a fascinating case study. Do you have any data on the prevalence of religion there? The key vector, of course, is parents not government. Presumably many of the children who end up religious are in the same religion of their parents/caregivers. We take it for granted that it is rare for an individual to do some research and choose a religion that they were not exposed to as a child. Sure strikes an outsider as odd…. Compare that to political or academic or career choices where one sees much more cognitive flexibility. With this context in mind, I’d love to see data for what % of religious people actually chose their religion. How much less than 1% would it be?

    Dawkins quote – do you have a pointer for the context? Your last two quotes from him are peculiar, and sound like wordings that he himself would quibble with. Obviously, a religious mind can heal, but it happens so rarely as to be frustrating.

    When you look at institutional charity, Catholics claim they are the largest in the world, but from what I can find online, it does not compare. (Oh, and church activity should be excluded from charity and education, as it is a negative on both fronts =)

    Don’t dismiss the Gates and Buffett pledges (both of them atheists). $600 billion is a mighty big number. I spoke with Gates about the donors that make up that total. He was shocked at the pattern that emerged — in general, Christians did not agree to give, and Jews and atheists did.

    So while you don’t seem surprised that atheists give more per capita, perhaps this minority group gives the most, in total. It would be interesting to see that analysis, and it would not be very hard given the power law in the distribution of amounts (the top donors exceed the rest of the world combined, and you don’t have to go very far down the list to account for the majority of donations). The top 10 list of global donors is dominated by atheists.

    On your pain and suffering point, it’s a cost benefit analysis. Imagine if astrologers went on killing binges from time to time to purge us of Capricorns, or instituted strict marriage laws, or other such nonsense. We might not tolerate it as a culture. We might not be apologists for the insanity.

    Rather than ourselves, consider the plight of the majority of people on this planet (women and gay men). Religion has not made it easy for these people, especially in the Muslim world today. Consider 100,000 "witches" killed in the upheaval of the reformation. Today "over a 1000 women are murdered in Egypt every year because they are not virgins, by the groom or his relatives. Islam forbids fornication, or sex outside of marriage. A woman’s virginity is linked with family honor and is, in fact, the main cause of the majority of honor killings." (article).

    And then there is the big stuff, of which you just mention a few examples…
    Harris p26
    Harris p27

    (from Sam Harris, End of Faith, a good read.)

    Reply
  39. jgury Avatar
    jgury

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/24270806@N06] Sam Harris would not rank the role of coffee delivery boy for a group like the committee on social thought at U of Chicago. Pop culture pulp like Harris produces is fertile content for undergrads to render for the group so they can have funny, outrageous and shocking examples of abject stupidity and nonsense to show at scholarly conferences. How do I know this? How is your ESP?
    socialthought.uchicago.edu/

    Reply
  40. jgury Avatar
    jgury

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson] Key vector? Yes, parents transmit religion just like numerous other infectious pathogens such as language, social and cultural values.
    I’ll make sure to mention the important point that Sam Harris makes about the conflict between India and Pakistan being born out of an irrational embrace of myth next time I drop by Wendy Doniger’s office in South Asian studies. She really likes to keep track of these cutting edge insights into the real causes of conflict in the region. I should be there later this month as I need to do some serious research about how concessions to faith in political discourse were key factors in WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam.
    http://www.china-mike.com/facts-about-china/facts-religion/

    Reply
  41. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    great. Please do ask any scholar of the region if religion plays a role in inter-generational conflict.

    (can anything be more obvious?… but ask anyway =)

    Reply
  42. jgury Avatar
    jgury

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson] South Asian inter-generational conflict? Like in Hesse’s Siddhartha? His parents wanted him to forget religion and just run the family business. The core generational conflicts in the Bhagavad Gita? Mongol invasion leadership problems with generational power conflicts inherent in Islamic religion and culture? Be specific. What exactly do you think South Asian scholars study?
    Re. China, Religionem expellas furca, tamen usque recurret is accurate. They will also discover that Christianity can be just as militantly subversive and powerful as any Shaolin temples. However, it is true that Kung Fu masters have an unmatched style and panache which now even includes all types of Christian clergy, laity, prelates and nuns. "Father Mickey has discovered the secret of purple Yin? He must die!"

    Reply
  43. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Whoa, we are talking about India-Pakistan. You specifically cite that example when you wrote "I’ll make sure to mention the important point that Sam Harris makes about the conflict between India and Pakistan being born out of an irrational embrace of myth next time I drop by Wendy Doniger’s office in South Asian studies"

    Reply
  44. jgury Avatar
    jgury

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson] I suspect there might be more to the conflict between India and Pakistan than religious differences based on "irrational embrace of myth" which Dr. Harris (Ph.D. neuroscience UCLA ’09 ) suggests. I mention Prof Doniger, an expert scholar in South Asian mythology, since I think she would be surprised by that statement. Indeed, if the only reason India and Pakistan are different countries is that the beliefs of Islam cannot be reconciled with those of Hinduism then top scholars, diplomats, and historians need to made aware of this ASAP.
    Oh yes. Harris just laps up and regurgitates on trivial points that Richard Dawkins has already made well before he wrote the epic "End of Faith"
    "The grotesque massacres in India at the time of partition were between Hindus and Muslims. There was nothing else to distinguish them, they were racially the same. They only identified themselves as “us” and the others as “them” by the fact that some of them were Hindus and some of them were Muslims. That’s what the Kashmir dispute is all about. So, yes, I would defend the view that religion is an extremely potent label for hostility. That has always been true and it continues to be true to this day"
    http://www.salon.com/2005/04/30/dawkins/
    If you are promoting Harris as some kind of intellectual heir to Dawkins then you got big problems because he makes any number of numbskull statements and is simply not all that bright. To see a him up in front of a seminar with a guy like Neil deGrasse Tyson asking him serious questions is laughable. Likewise, putting up a whacko like Chris Hedges (just look at his youtube-hey man, that’s Chis Hedges up there!!!!- "we must arise!" bombast in front of OWS protesters if you doubt my character assessment) is also laughable. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oywOMOcFqk8&feature=related

    Reply
  45. jgury Avatar
    jgury

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson]
    I think this should answer your query about Sheldon Adelson.
    http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/analysis/a-man-of-compassion-...
    If the hypothesis is that really rich guys become atheists then that needs a bit of work. It would be better if all the super rich were atheists as that would be evidence in favor of Satan. I like the corollary of all scientists lose creative power and are marginalized once they decide dininity is responsible for something they don’t understand. That effect does not seem too prevalent in the arts like music. Handel’s feeling divine inspiration just destroys the output of his musical genius. Beethoven’s personal message of divine universal origins just ruins his 9th symphony too. Handel in particular is someone where the divine inspiration is really strong. Oh, that’s right, he was delusional, suffering from manias like so many other great artists. You play some basic stuff from Handel that was by all accounts no big deal for him and you practically get zapped off the piano bench by how divinely inspired the talent is. Yes, that is how strong the delusional viral memetic is. It exists in music along with images and words, even in nature itself. Those poor men think how much better they would have performed if they did not believe all that nonsense.

    Reply
  46. jgury Avatar
    jgury

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/gi] EVERY COMMUNICATIONAL ACT IS RHETORICAL? Get the butter.

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  47. Steve Bolton, Esq. Avatar
    Steve Bolton, Esq.

    America as an outlier connected to income inequality:
    newhumanist.org.uk/2220/who-needs-god

    "Why is the USA so religious, despite being the epitome of modernity? Well, largely because of the higher levels of stress faced by its citizens, compared with the relatively worry-free lives led by people living in the bosom of the European welfare state. It also helps to explain the blossoming of religion in Russia and other parts of the old Soviet bloc, which occurred against the backdrop of a sharp decline in living standards and the crumbling of the old certainties provided by the monolithic communist state."

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  48. jgury Avatar
    jgury

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevebolton] Stress in the US? Hmmm. Here is another global study and more uptodate. China is the citadel of global atheism but then honest survey answers there are a bit biased in the direction of the official state religion. Oh, but of course we all know it is not a religion but a way of life. Except where some US courts like the US Supreme Court have given atheism de jure stature as religion vis-a-vis the 1st ammendment.
    redcresearch.ie/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/RED-C-press-re…

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  49. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    and so it will be interesting to see if religion takes root in China now that income inequality is spiking there (but with a bit of geographic separation from urbanization). Or maybe if they teach all of their children to think, they have a mild cognitive vaccine in place…

    When Kevin Kelly was traveling in China in 2006, he found that every elementary school in every village had a sign over the door in Mandarin with the following guidance:

    LOOK UP TO SCIENCE.
    CARE FOR YOUR FAMILY.
    RESPECT LIFE.
    RESIST CULTY RELIGION.”

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevebolton] — Thanks for the link. The graph there is interesting (I would eyeball a steeper slope on the coarse correlation, which would highlight South Africa as the outlier, not the U.S.):
    Rees-Graph

    If you exclude Western Europe (dropping below the line), I think the correlation would be more striking. Jgury – has Europe had the longest time period to build up an immune response to the especially viral religions? (I am thinking of an analogy to the differential immunity to new pathogens afforded to cultures that were early in domesticating animals).

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  50. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    I like to skip…

    …through the leitmotif…

    Reply

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