Bill Hobbs emailed me a link to another article (in addiction to the one in my previous post)on the the religiosity of America (is that a real word?) based on a study by the University of Michigan. The researchers have some data, and they attempt to explain what they see as some of the underlying causes.
About 46 percent of American adults attend church at least once a week, not counting weddings, funerals and christenings, compared with 14 percent of adults in Great Britain, 8 percent in France, 7 percent in Sweden and 4 percent in Japan.Fair enough. Why?Moreover, 58 percent of Americans say that they often think about the meaning and purpose of life, compared with 25 percent of the British, 26 percent of the Japanese, and 31 percent of West Germans, the study says.
Some possible reasons cited for the results: (1) Religious refugees set the tone long ago in America; (2) religious people tend to have more children than non-religious groups; and (3) the U.S. has a less comprehensive social welfare system, prompting people to look to religion for help.(Numbers mine.) The first 2 seem like valid possibilities to me, and (2) and (3) are particularly interesting.
“Secularization has a powerful negative impact on human fertility rates, so the least religious countries have fertility rates far below the replacement level, while societies with traditional religious views have fertility rates two or three times the replacement level.” As a result, those with traditional religious views now constitute a growing proportion of the world’s population.This is well known, and many people have written that religion is an advantageous trait in social evolution for this reason, among others (such as promoting group loyalty and cooperation). As I've written before, free-riding problems tear apart all known social contract scenarios, and perhaps religion is advantageous because it warps the cost/benefit analysis of believers.
As for (3):
Another possibility for the high degree of religiosity in the U.S. is that the nation has a less comprehensive social welfare safety net than most other economically developed countries, leading many Americans to experience the kind of existential insecurity and economic uncertainty characteristic of highly religious populations.Ha, right. America is the richest nation in the world; we export charitable giving all over the planet, and just because we don't have a "comprehensive social welfare safety net" (read: socialism) doesn't mean that anyone's going hungry. You can eat in America for less than $1 per day.
What's interesting is that the article doesn't address any of the costs of religion, which may not be strongly felt in America but which can be powerful disincentives in other parts of the world. For example, hundreds of thousands of Christians are killed around the world every year because of their faith. (Ok, I'll try to find a source to support that, later.) Perhaps America is more religious because we have more religious freedom and tolerance than other industrial nations?
Michael,
I would agree that a person can avoid starvation on less than a dollar a day, but if you can recommend to me a diet for that little on which my health will be preserved, I'd like to hear about it.
Joel-
Why should you expect a full balanced diet for a dollar a day? I don't believe Mike was suggesting that to be the case, but rather that the lack of a socialist structure has not caused the rampant starvation that might be seen in other parts of the world.
Well, you can eat bread, drink water, and take multi-vitamins. A bottle of vitamins can cost $5 and have 100 pills, so 5 cents a day won't break the budget.
You could also probably catch and eat pigeons for meat. They're fat, slow, and docile.
Perhaps America is more religious because we have more religious freedom and tolerance than other industrial nations?
- That may well be the case. The last 2,000 years of European history is filled with christianity, but not neccessarily religous freedom. This lack of freedom may have led to the backlash of rationalism and secularism that is still prevalent today.
- As a nation, we are more religious than most of Europe, but less so than many other nations... North Africa, South and Central Asia to name a few regions. It's interesting to note the contrast of our "exports" (charity and liberty) against the exports of those regions; poverty and terrorism.
- It would seem that the betterment of mankind is not just found in the presence of religion, but rather in the presence of a particular religion.
- I would also note that our exports also include immorality (via hollywood and internet porn, etc.), but these are products of our secular american culture. That secular culture mistakes our great liberty for license, and is perhaps as destructive (not in a physical or economic sense, but in a moral/spiritual sense) as the Islamicist threat.
I guess my concern is a frequent misuse of Christ's words "the poor you will always have with you." It says to me that the poor have no concerns if they aren't starving. It points to the paradox that Michael and I are both Christians even though we don't believe in the same Christ. We are Christians because the same Christ believes in us.
(Ok, I'll try to find a source to support that, later.)
'It's not occupied territory, it's Israel'
Jihad Against Lebanese Christians
AIDS AND MUSLIMS THREATEN THE GLOBE
And this one too:
France's Rushdie Affair
S3: Thanks, I'll take a look at those.
Joel: I'm not sure what you mean about us believing in different Christs, &c. As for poverty, Christ always helped the poor and sick as a means to spreading his word, not as an end unto itself. It's obviously good to help someone in need physically, but it's best to then try to help them spiritually as well.
Joel,
Well at $1 per person/per day it's actually quite doable although not work free here in Texas. One way would be to actually cook instead of depending on quick meals, box mixes, or dry cereals.
When we were very short of income I could buy in bulk and at local grocery store sales, freeze meals in a garage sale freezer, and our dinner cost was an average of $4 per evening for a family of 7 including entree, veggies and usually we had left-overs. (The baby was nursing however)
With $3 dollars per day left over, breakfast and lunch are indeed doable if one makes eggs/bacon, oatmeal, pancakes, muffins, breakfast rolls etc. for breakfast and has a combination of left-overs, homeade soup, or sandwiches for lunch.
In the event that one has access to a farmer's market it's even easier to pull off. From 1986-1994 I fed a family of 4-7 on a grocery budget of $40 per week that including paper goods, laundry and cleaning supply needs as well. In the $7 per day per person scenario, I was actually short an extra $9 bucks and it didn't all go toward food.
The downside to this is obvious. Once the business began to show a reasonable profit and I didn't have to cook this way everyone in the family was so spoiled with homeade food that they refused to eat anything from a box except Kraft Mac & Cheese because it tasted awful.
Come to think of it, I fail to see how my family was harmed. They had yummy food 24/7!*g*
I lived on Raman noodles for months as an undergrad, for about $0.15 a day. Plus vitamins.
Michael,
No need for that! Yuck! Unless you can't cook?*g*
It seems to me that the study's authors are confusing cause and effect with their last speculation that the U.S. may be more religious because it lacks a comprehensive social welfare system. It seems to me that if a society does not share religious values, then it needs to erect surrogate powers to worship, and to make them feel safe. The truly religious society will care for its poor because it is the right thing to do, and will do it without state coercion. Without religious values, a society must construct a coercive state apparatus to enforce charity.
A recent ranking of states by charitable giving as a percent of income is an example. The study, which I'm sure you have seen, is conducted by the Catalogue for Philanthropy, and the results reproduced here.
The most charitable states are generally the "Red States," and I think the ones that one would consider to have populations that are on average more religious than the nation as a whole.
Joel,
The garbage cans of America are full of food.
If you want steak tonight go to the garbage cans of any steak house. There are quarter eaten and totally uneaten meals there.
Now admittedly sanitation may be a problem but if you knew where your meat came from you might wonder how we survive at all. The immune system is a wonderful thing.
And try supermarkets for vegetable that need trimming but is uneconomical to keep on the shelf.
Add in our massive free food program and no one need go hungry in America. And not just no starvation. Thriving.
I'm just squeamish enough not to hit a restaurant dumpster, altho the fast food "hot sack" is known for wrapped burgers which sat under the lights for half an hour.
I do however have plenty of energy bars and beef jerky tossed by the food broker for passing the "sell by" date. Before I went on my diet, I also stopped by the vending company and scavenged chips and candy bars with the same status. When I had twelve people in this house instead of two, we took part in a neighborhood food surplus ring, and got day old baked goods and salad fixings in sufficient quantity that we passed a half a ton (actually a little over 1100 lbs before we stopped getting weighed reciepts) to the rescue mission.
M. Simon,
That's a nice touch of "royal" attitude toward the peasants. No wonder there have been revolutions.
Revolutions aren't generally fostered by attitudes between classes, but rather by actual oppressive actions.
One of my favorite quotes is by a guy named Rick Rescorla:
You should be able to strip a man naked and throw him out with nothing on him. By the end of the day, the man should be clothed and fed. By the end of the week, he should own a horse. And by the end of a year he should own a business and have money in the bank.
That's capitalism.
Michael,
I support capitalism. What I don't support is exploitation of some of the poor by some of the rich. What I don't agree with is this assumption that anyone who is poor is poor because he or she is lazy.
Joel-
- I'm rich. What poor person did I exploit?
My view that some of the rich exploit some of the poor comes straight out of the Bible. Now, as to whether any specific rich person is an exploiter, I would have to know what stocks they own, which companies they head, etc.
It is not without substantial reason that Jesus said, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven."
The beauty of capitalism is that it's much harder to exploit anyone, even poor people. Everyone is free to work at the wages and job they desire (as long as their expectations are realistic and they can find someone to pay them). Unlike other economic systems, no one tells you what job you have to do, no one owns you, everyone is free to own land, &c. So yes, there is some forcible/coercive exploitation still (tobacco companies, perhaps, and alcohol), but for the most part capitalism is exploitation-free.
Not all poor people are lazy, not at all. My grandparents were poor, but they worked really hard, and my parents are middle-class. So am I, and I'm working really hard and someday I may be upper-middle or something like that, who knows. It takes more than just hard work to get rich generally, it takes a bit of luck, but hard work can position you to be in the right place at the right time.
Anyway, rich, poor, none of that is really of any eternal importance. Jesus was poor. The most important thing is to be about our Father's work.
I agree that capitalism is the best system, but the amount of fraud and dishonesty in our system is staggering. From price-fixing, to savings and loan scandals, stock scandals, insider trading, HMO/Medicare fraud to false energy trading, exploitation is a very real problem. It wasn't just due to Gray Davis' corruption and incompetence that Californians paid so much for electricity and suffered rollings blackouts. Corrupt energy trading companies manipulated prices, as well.
Oh, did I mention business espionage? That is rampant in our country.
Upward mobility is often touted by conservatives as an excuse for paying low wages and benefits, but if you look at studies, upward mobility is more theory than reality.
...the amount of fraud and dishonesty in our system is staggering. From price-fixing, to savings and loan scandals, stock scandals, insider trading, HMO/Medicare fraud to false energy trading, exploitation is a very real problem.
- You offer these issues as examples of the rich exploiting the poor, (which I oppose on biblical grounds as well), but I can counter these with examples of the poor exploiting the rich. Tax-dodging, check kiting, welfare fraud, insurance scamming, not to mention outright theft. I don't mention this to dispute your point that there is a whole lot of exploitin' goin' on, but rather to point to the true source of that exploitation- sin in the heart of man. Whether rich or poor, a man's sinful nature is going to seek it's own advantage over the inerests of others. That's why God has established governments with their various systems, to counter the self-serving nature of sinful man and to provide for the general welfare of all, regardless of economic station. Unfortunately, these governments and systems are still populated by sinful people, and are certain to be used for selfish gain by some at all levels.
gaw: Well said.
Unfortunately, there will always be fraud and graft in the system. It's because we let humans into the system. Damn the humans with their human nature.
Policies that redistribute income to support generous social welfare systems do not in and of themselves reduce "fraud and dishonesty." In fact, all else equal, these policies increase the opportunity for fraud and dishonesty. Why? Because of the agency problem: Politicians and people working for the institutions that do the redistributing have their own individual agendas, and their own propensities for fraud and dishonesty.
Worse, they are redistributing other people's money. As Milton Friedman points out, when I spend my money on another person, I am motivated to spend it wisely. When I spend YOUR money on another person, I am less inclined to be wise or frugal. Another wise man pointed out long ago that a man cannot serve two masters.