
Do countries lose religion as they gain wealth? (2013) - rustoo
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/do-countries-lose-religion-as-they-gain-wealth-1.1310451
======
arcsin
> "...it's basically a psychological coping mechanism."

I think this isn't quite right. Religion is a social mechanism. It creates the
right incentives for its members to buy into a kind of insurance program. When
a member falls on hard times the other members will take care of them. Of
course this is more appealing to people in financially or socially unstable
circumstances.

In order to avoid free-loading, there might be something like a tithe where
you actually have to pay money into a shared pool. But if you don't have money
to spare then usually membership comes down to costly signalling, i.e. various
forms of self-sacrifice. Usually the poorer the members the more extreme the
religion.

The idea of divine, absolute laws of conduct and an un-gameable entity that
enforces these laws sounds fantastical but it's very effective at getting
people to cooperate once they've bought in (which is why costly signals of
buy-in are so important). It shifts the prisoner's dilemma payouts away from
defect, toward cooperate. And a strange quirk of the human mind is that the
more socially useful something is, the more it will prevent us from realizing
it's not actually based on something true, and the more socially harmful it is
the more it will prevent us from realizing it's actually true.

As society modernizes, people move away from religion because the costs don't
seem to justify the benefits. Also without strong social incentives to
believe, it becomes too hard to believe based only on the likelihood that it's
actually true. Unfortunately I think we do lose something in the process.
Modern society is more likely to be disconnected. Religiously active people
generally tend to be happier. Looking around a lot of people I know have
nothing like a weekly church meeting where they can socialize with a group of
people that takes care of each other.

~~~
Jedd
> Also without strong social incentives to believe, it becomes too hard to
> believe based only on the likelihood that it's actually true.

Can you clarify what you're trying to assert here please?

> The idea of divine, absolute laws of conduct and an un-gameable entity that
> enforces these laws sounds fantastical but it's very effective at getting
> people to cooperate once they've bought in ...

Would you be able to cite some examples of where this has happened in the past
few millennia?

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simion314
My theory is that the church and priests have a giant fault at least for me an
Orthodox Christian in Romania. When I was a child I become a super believer,
they had a religios cartoon on the only TV channel and the stories were very
nice. But then in school you have the priests(religion teachers) fight a
losing battle against science by supporting the creation and myths instead on
focusing on the more important parts.

I was also into conspiracies and aliens/UFOs and religion also makes sense as
a tool to keep the poor suppressed So IMO when the priests were no longer the
only source of education then the things collapse for the church, the people
in my village are on paper part of the church but in practice based on what
they do and not do the story is different. There are some different
sects/versions that appeared after the revolution in 1989 that do a better job
on converting and keeping their people more engaged but still are talking
about the creation myths so this is invalidating some of my points( and I am
still mystified how people that studied physics in university(including
astronomy) will defend the Genesis as a correct historical thing).

Just so we don't start some mini comment war here, if you are a religious
person I am fine with that and I am honestly happy for you, I never ever start
discussion with people in the attempt to convert them, they start this
conversations and I have to explain where my doubt come from. Also you don't
need to try to defend creation her, it will not work and is not the main point
for me anyway there are more deeper issues , philosophical issues that even a
proof of God existence would not be enough for me to start woshiping him/it.

~~~
skinkestek
I think you are onto something, here in the west we have.

Personally I am a believer but I can discuss astronomy or evolution just fine.

It is kind of like wave or particle: I use the model that works in the
setting.

~~~
simion314
Yes, I found on youtube now, too late probably , priests/monks that are also
scientists and have a better way of talking and focusing on the important
things, IMO this kind of true scientist priests could save the church because
they can combine them and drop the inaccurate biblical history and focus on
the essential part of philosophy.

~~~
madspindel
Yes, christians should really treat the Old Testament as something old.
'Logos' (the greek word describing Christ in the New Testament) means both
reason and faith.

~~~
ghthor
The hebrew letter text of the 5 books of moses is likely a map or a technical
document. See Stan Tenens work from the meru foundation, they've posted all
the lectures hes video tapes to YouTube. The first one from 1989 is still one
of my favorites.

[https://youtu.be/OJGW2UANWRE](https://youtu.be/OJGW2UANWRE)

------
prewett
Looking at religion as a tool for the insecure (financially, emotionally,
whatever) seems to miss the point, at least for the major religions. Buddhism
answers the question "how do I deal with pain". Islam and Judaism answers the
question "what does God expect from us" (at least that's what it seems to me
from the outside). Christianity at its best answers the question "why am I
here", to which the answer is that God made us like him to participate in his
creation-project (see Gen 1). (Gen 3 shows how that got messed up, and the
Gospels show how it got back on track.) More speculatively, it also seems like
religion, at least some of theme, answers questions like "what is my place in
the world", "how did we get here", "why does this exists", "how do I treat
other people", which could maybe be broadly summarized "what is the meaning of
life".

I don't think these questions are going away with wealth. Wealth doesn't
answer the question of purpose or meaning, nor does it answer the question of
why we desire connection with other people but we don't seem to be able to do
it very well. I suspect the West is getting a lot of surrogate religions that
just aren't called by that name, such as "changing the world!!"/activism as an
answer for the meaning of life.

------
muzani
It seems to be missing a whole picture. I suspect places like Saudi Arabia,
Israel, and UAE have both high average wealth and high religiosity. It
highlights places like Bangladesh and Japan, but seems to note the US as an
anomaly. Feels like it's cherry picking data to fit the story.

It would be nice to just see a graph of all the data and see how well the data
really correlates.

~~~
kstenerud
Saudi Arabia and UAE also have high inequality, which breeds uncertainty as
the poor struggle to live.

Israel lives on the brink of war with her neighbors, a great source of
uncertainty.

~~~
muzani
This is not a fair way to compare them. Every country has some form of
uncertainty. Countries like US and Japan have extreme debt. Europe has low
economic growth and poor fertility rates making things worse. China and India
have overpopulation and wealth inequality. Korea is in a similar position to
Israel - strong tech but also nearly at war.

You can stamp the "uncertainty" label on everyone. The idea is to do it in a
proper manner and be transparent about it.

~~~
kstenerud
Actually, it's a perfectly fair comparison. When people are worried if they'll
make it through the year intact, they'll seek some form of certainty to help
them feel less vulnerable to ruin.

China, India, and the USA have high inequality and few working programs for
the poor. They also have high religiosity.

Japan and Northern European countries, on the other hand, have low
religiosity, and low income inequality, and no threat of war or famine. Korea
is in transition, with still fairly high inequality (and also fairly high
religiosity), although that's on the decline.

You can of course stamp the "uncertainty" label on everyone if you want to
play semantic games, but I'm not interested in that.

------
johnnujler
I have a strong feeling that it is not an either/or situation. In the ladder
of unknown, if spirituality is the first step, religion is the final. And I am
seeing a huge increase in spirituality in developed and wealthy countries. It
is as if you drop the current one only to eventually create/adopt a new one.
For all we know it could be a variant of science the way people are appealing
to scientists as high priests. It seems to me that it is too complex a
phenomenon to categorise based on the average proportion at any given point in
time.

Adam Smith has this wonderful quote on why it is difficult to model humans and
societies in the theory of moral sentiments, which I feel holds even today:

> The man of the system. seems to imagine that he can arrange the different
> members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the
> different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces
> upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which
> the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human
> society,every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether
> different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it.

~~~
Random_ernest
The huge difference between spiritualism and religion is that religion is
dogmatic and systemically organised. In my opinion freeing spirituality from
the clutch of religion is the final step, not the other way around. So being
spiritual but not religious is in my opinion not something that inevitably
leads to religion, but if we do it right there is no need for oppressive
religion anymore.

------
mgh2
I wrote a post about this using some data sources:
[https://medium.com/@marcos.g.hung/in-data-we-
trust-2978dacc8...](https://medium.com/@marcos.g.hung/in-data-we-
trust-2978dacc8c22)

~~~
madspindel
Yes, you might also want to take a look at this:
[https://www.economist.com/graphic-
detail/2019/11/23/medieval...](https://www.economist.com/graphic-
detail/2019/11/23/medieval-catholicism-nudged-europe-towards-democracy-and-
development)

------
haecceity
I think this is because churches provide services that governments in
developing countries cannot. People there are more likely to be religious
because churches provide value to them.

~~~
ghthor
Do wealthy communities not have churches?

~~~
haecceity
For wealthy people churches are for socializing. For developing countries
churches can provide health care, food assistance and such.

------
rayiner
> Paul's intention in creating the scale was to challenge the idea that
> religion is universal and innate to the human condition, and to show that
> societies that don't believe in God are not doomed, as some religious
> conservatives would have people believe.

Always an excellent idea to start off a study with an attempt to prove a
preconceived point.

> Religion is highly variable, and therefore we need to ask why is it
> sometimes popular and why it isn't," Paul said. "One thing we do know is
> that it's only popular in societies that … have enough rate of dysfunction
> that people are anxious about their daily lives, so they're looking to the
> gods for help in their daily lives.

A supermajority of people in every western country believe in god or some
higher power: [https://www.pewforum.org/2018/05/29/beliefs-about-
god/pf_05-...](https://www.pewforum.org/2018/05/29/beliefs-about-
god/pf_05-29-18_religion-western-europe-04-00)

No Western European country has more than 20% atheists: [https://www-
pewresearch-org.cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/www.pewre...](https://www-pewresearch-
org.cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/www.pewresearch.org/wp-
content/uploads/2019/12/FT_19.12.03_10factsAtheists_-
atheist_map420px.png?resize=740,1207). France is 15%, Germany is 10%. The US
is 4%. People in developed countries are much less likely to participate in
organized religion or subscribe to some general idea of spirituality, but
atheists are still a small share of the population.

~~~
ChomskyNormal4m
> A supermajority of people in every western country believe in god or higher
> power: [https://www.pewforum.org/2018/05/29/beliefs-about-
> god/pf_05-...](https://www.pewforum.org/2018/05/29/beliefs-about-
> god/pf_05-29-18_religion-western-europe-04-00)

Your link belies what you said. That survey was not in "every western
country", but fifteen western countries. The Czech Republic is west of Finland
(surveyed) and less than 20% of its population is religious.

Also you say from that survey people believe in God or a higher power, but it
does not limit to that, they include people who believe in a spiritual force.
That could be a Buddhist.

~~~
rayiner
I meant to say “western Europe” so as to exclude the communist-influenced
purge of religion from Eastern Europe. Also, most Americans would consider
Buddhism a religion.

------
Konohamaru
A point against religion but a point in favor for the truth of Jesus of
Nazareth's words: "Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your
comfort." (Luke 6:24)

~~~
TomMarius
You know the original bible was lost and written from scratch by the wishes of
the new author at least one time sometimes around year 100, right? The first
schism. Jesus of Nazareth probably never said such thing.

~~~
adrianN
Who said that makes very little difference for this discussion, or am I
missing something?

~~~
TomMarius
The comment I replied to attributes the quote to Jesus of Nazareth, and
presents it as evidence that he was an incredibly timelessly wise, even god-
like being. Normally when people make out a person to be way too incredible,
other people refute that with actual history.

~~~
adrianN
The way I read the comment you could replace "Jesus of Nazareth" with any
other name without changing the meaning of the comment substantially.

~~~
TomMarius
Then it would make you believe someone else is so incredibly wise. Posts can
contribute to the discussion _and_ suggest side points at the same time. If
they didn't want to suggest how much Jesus of Nazareth was wise, they would
simply post the quote without the "truth of Jesus of Nazareth [the name used
for Jesus the historical figure] words" part.

------
wombatmobile
What is "religiosity"?

If the measure of religiosity is "participation in religious services", are we
even measuring the same thing when participation can vary all the way from
watching Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker on TV, to being blessed by the Pope in the
Vatican, to receiving alms from Mother Teresa on the streets of Calcutta, or
completing a Scientology audit graduation on a Friday?

------
SecurityMinded
Is this a serious question. Religion is only there to give hope to the
hopeless. As countries gets wealthier, less hopeless people exists in that
country, in turn less need for the religions. Who can say that I did not move
a finger and god sent me all this wealth ? I mean other than the church
charlatans. People wake up to the truth of "if I work more I get out of this
poverty quicker" very simple premise if you think about it.

------
apta
The fallacy that articles like this fall into is that they group all religions
into a single group and treat them the same. There are many rich Muslims for
example, and they don't feel the need to "lose their religion" after becoming
rich. They know they will be asked how they spent their wealth on Judgement
Day.

------
arkj
I know many (my friends) who are in the process of losing their religion as
they move up the salary scale.

Religion, for many, is a hope to be saved from their economic misery. Once
they are out of penury then religious obligations become a bane on the newly
found freedom that comes with money so the fallout is obvious. The developed
west is a proof of this phenomenon. Software engineers in India would confirm
the hypothesis in the next decade or two.

This quote from Marx is often misrepresented but I think he said it in a
positive sense,

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless
world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people"

------
kstenerud
The less uncertainty there is in your life, the less driven you are towards
the comfort of simple answers to complex problems.

~~~
downshun
Seems simple enough an answer

~~~
kstenerud
And also backed by scientific reasearch.

[https://academic.oup.com/socrel/article/78/2/146/3079315](https://academic.oup.com/socrel/article/78/2/146/3079315)

~~~
ergodicity001
The link only talks about economic uncertainty. Clearly, there is more to it.

For example, I would say every single person is routinely perplexed by 50% of
the rest of the planet (aka the opposite gender). That is a constant source of
uncertainty, but doesn't cause us all to become religious.

Besides, even the richest substrata of economically developed countries just
somehow automatically gravitate towards religion-influenced philanthropy. A
lot of these philanthropy vehicles are predominantly religious in nature, e.g.
a missionary to build schools in Africa. The economic certainty experienced by
the rich folks isn't making them object to the religious nature of these
organizations even if they themselves don't explicitly believe in religion.
They could just stop donating, but something tells them the good outweighs the
(in their view) bad.

I think there is a deep need for people to find meaning in their lives, but it
is also a personal and subjective notion. Maybe richer countries are generally
better set up for this because of the larger number of opportunities for
people to find meaning in the way they define it.

~~~
kstenerud
> The link only talks about economic uncertainty. Clearly, there is more to
> it.

Of course. Economic uncertainty just happens to be the largest source of
uncertainty in many parts of the modern world (unless you happen to live in a
war zone or under an oppressive or corrupt government).

> For example, I would say every single person is routinely perplexed by 50%
> of the rest of the planet (aka the opposite gender).

What an odd thing to say!

> Besides, even the richest substrata of economically developed countries just
> somehow automatically gravitate towards religion-influenced philanthropy.

Religion is historically the driver of philanthropy [1], but in modern times
you also have things like the Gates foundation.

> The economic certainty experienced by the rich folks isn't making them
> object to the religious nature of these organizations even if they
> themselves don't explicitly believe in religion. They could just stop
> donating, but something tells them the good outweighs the (in their view)
> bad.

You haven't explicitly stated it, but it sounds like your premise is that
religious feeling is causing these people to donate, rather than them donating
to any cause that reduces world suffering. In fact, the religious nature of so
many philanthropic organizations is one of the driving reasons for the rise of
secular philanthropic organizations in recent years. More and more people want
to support evidence based help that doesn't also spread a religion.

[1]
[https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137341532_32](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137341532_32)

------
Proven
They don't, they just get new ones (climatism) or choose technocrats and state
to replace priests (statism)

~~~
skinkestek
Maybe bad choice of examples, but it is my opinion too that people

\- worship as much as before

\- believe in things they don't fully understand as much as before, only other
things

------
madspindel
> "There's no situation where you have a really highly religious nation that's
> highly successful socially."

I guess it all depends on how you are defining 'religious'. Without
Christianity, the West wouldn't have universities, hospitals and democracies.
It also looks like the decline of Christianity in modern society leads to
stagnation and mimesis.

~~~
kstenerud
> Without Christianity, the West wouldn't have universities, hospitals and
> democracies

All of these predate christianity.

~~~
madspindel
Some forms, maybe. But the first real hospital for strangers (hospitality) was
by the Roman Catholic Church. That's why all hospitals in the West have the
symbol of Christ.

The first real university was founded by the Roman Catholic Church and the
first real democracy was a Christian nation.

~~~
kstenerud
The first known hospital was founded in 291 B.C. in Greece.

The first real democracy was also Greece.

~~~
madspindel
Healing temple != Hospital.

Women and blacks might disagree with your second argument.

~~~
kstenerud
Temple = bad, church = good. Got it. You may want to take a look at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital#History)

The first "christian" democracies only gave the vote to men of the aristocracy
(even less representation than in ancient Greece). Universal suffrage is not a
christian victory.

