
Mapping Income Distribution by Religious Belief - shrikant
http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1002/almighty-dollar/flat.html
======
diziet
Here's the original report: [http://pewforum.org/Income-Distribution-Within-
US-Religious-...](http://pewforum.org/Income-Distribution-Within-US-Religious-
Groups.aspx)

And a breakdown of the unaffiliated grouping: (The sample size is said to be
35,000) Atheist: 100k+: 28% 50-100k: 31% 30-50k: 20% <30k: 21%

Agnostic: (whatever the difference in reporting means) 100k+: 25% 50-100k: 35%
30-50k: 22% <30k: 18%

I think in this example, religions affiliation is mostly an indicator of
social and economic class, educational trends and the economic reality of
immigration opportunities (like in the case of most Hindus) rather than the
prevalence of certain religions to earn more. It's also interesting to note
that the makers of the graph choose to include such small groups such as Hindu
and Buddhist (At .4% and .7% of the population) and attribute the atheist and
agnostic population to 1.6% and 2.4%

Further differences in these statistics are the age breakdowns of the
different groups and the cultural and social trends that influence the senior
members to remain working a longer time. There are differences between
religious belief between age groups, and differences in income as well
(generally getting higher with age).

The study goes into detail, comparing the educational levels of the different
religious groups. Compared to the national average of 11% with post-grad
degrees, Jewish and Hindu practitioners are at 35 and a staggering 48%.
Atheists and agnostics are a about tied for fourth at 20%, after Buddhists at
26%. Gender seems to play an issue as well, for example atheists are more than
twice as likely to be men.

~~~
GrandMasterBirt
Atheists: Does not believe in god or gods. Possibly even no belief in the
supernatural.

Agnostic: Does not follow any particular religion, does believe in god or
gods.

~~~
gjm11
Uh, no. There's some dispute about the best place to draw the line between
atheist and agnostic, but no one draws it there.

"Agnostic" means either "doesn't claim to know whether a god or gods exist" or
"claims that whether a god or gods exist is unknowable". Or, occasionally and
when it's clear from context, "doesn't claim to know whether some particular
other thing is true or not". ("I'm agnostic about whether there will be human-
level AI within fifty years", for instance.)

Someone who believes in a god or gods is not agnostic in any usual sense.
(They might be agnostic on particular questions: "I believe there's some sort
of god, but I'm agnostic as to whether it's the one believed in by Christians"
or whatever.)

~~~
alextgordon
Best way to look at it is as a person's view on the probability of any god
existing.

Theists are of the opinion that the probability that god exists is likely, in
say 50-100%

Agnostics are of the opinion that the probability that god exists is
uncertain, in say 33-66%

Atheists are of the opinion that the probability that god exists is unlikely,
in say 0-50%

One gotcha is that, if you account for the greater number of theists, the
distribution is not symmetric. Atheists tend to be less certain (more
agnostic) than theists.

~~~
rue
Why come up with such a convoluted scheme? The "I'm not atheist, I'm an
agnostic" argument always sounds smug and disingenuous.

Theism is belief in god. Atheism is lack thereof. Agnostics claim that gods'
existence is unknowable.

To co-opt Gervais' skiing simile: we have people who go skiing, those who do
not, and then people who maintain it's impossible to know whether skiing
actually occurs.

~~~
DougBTX
I understood atheism as those who do not ski, and insist that there is no such
thing as skiing.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism#Definitions_and_distinc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism#Definitions_and_distinctions)

Looks like my understanding was of "Strong Atheism", while the one Gervais
describes would be "Weak Atheism".

~~~
rue
Sort of, yes. I dunno how many "strong atheists" there really are. The
distinction itself seems borne out of a misconception.

I think the "not skiing"-style example is very illustrative of the actual
mental model atheists have, and importantly works relatively well in most
languages to explain the concept of lack of belief which the "opponent" —
someone espousing a belief — has a hard time understanding.

So most atheists don't really insist that a god cannot possibly exist, merely
that one doesn't _according to available evidence_ , and as such can and
should be ignored. Exactly in the same way I do not take into account
leprechauns when making decisions, they are a non-factor.

 _Edit: mind, I do agree there are some quite argumentative and belligerent
atheists._

------
paolomaffei
How comes the Hindus are so rich? Only the Jewish are comparable, I wasn't
expecting that

~~~
paraschopra
I think this data is for Hindus in US which would be primarily families who
have immigrated from India. Primarily the families who immigrate already in
upper-bracket of income in India and furthermore their education level would
be superior to most Hindus too (think IITs, etc.). I don't think the Hindu
group considered here is representative of global Hindu group.

~~~
borism
_Primarily the families who immigrate already in upper-bracket of income in
India and furthermore their education level would be superior to most Hindus
too_

Yeah, but why does it matter when they come to the US? Shouldn't hindus who
immigrated earlier have an upper hand, both in income and education,
_regardless_ of social status of new immigrants? Maybe it's because
immigration from India to the US is somewhat recent phenomena?

~~~
gnaritas
The word is _regardless_ , please; irregardless is a nonsensical double
negative.

~~~
borism
thank you, I first wanted to use _regardless_ , but for some reason thought
that was incorrect. Nevertheless the issue is controversial
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregardless>

~~~
rue
Technically, there should be no controversy: regard is the base and from there
you get "regardful" and "regardless". Really the only argument should be over
using "regardless" rather than "regardlessly".

~~~
reeses
"Technically", there definitely is controversy.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptive_linguistics>

It's great fun to find out when someone is inclined in one of those
directions, because they go out of their way to justify their perspective.
It's better than C++ vs. Java.

------
chegra
Could I get an explanation as to why the Jews are in the higher income
brackets?

~~~
nazgulnarsil
strong cultural norms that are education and success oriented along with high
IQ's.

edit: before I get people bitching at me
<http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/06/high_iq_does_no.html>

~~~
borism
_edit: before I get people bitching at me_
<http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/06/high_iq_does_no.html>

this is a great link since we had this argument here before with about half
HNers thinking that income somehow correlates to IQ.

however this link doesn't explain why you think jews (as practitioners of
judaism, not as a nationality) have higher IQs?

~~~
endtime
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_intelligence>

~~~
guelo
Wow, I had heard of and thought there might be something to the IQ studies
that show Ashkenazi Jews as smarter but now that I see the supposed evidence
on that Wikipedia page I'm just laughing. If those 4 studies are the best
proof they can come up with then I'm left to believe this is all part of some
jewish propaganda.

------
te_chris
Did no one else notice that this is affiliated to the University of Phoenix?
How can anyone take them seriously, even if Pew is involved

~~~
eru
What's so worrying about that University?

~~~
jarin
Having had a bunch of friends who went there, it's not exactly a bastion of
rigorous study and research. It seems to only exist to allow people to collect
the GI Bill housing allowance.

------
nivertech
They should exclude immigrants and first generation of immigrants. Immigrants
are hungry for success, it's explains why they earn more.

~~~
DougBTX
An alternative to simply excluding people would be to include a "confidence
index", possibly based off the number of people in each group.

The more people in the group in the US, the more likely that that group is
representative of the entire group around the world. (Hand waving: the null
hypothesis is that there are actually no differences between the religious
groups. So, the more people you include in each group, the closer you will get
to the overall average.) When you have lots of people in each group, relative
to the total population, but still see differences, then that is interesting.

This fits with what you are trying to exclude, because your immigrants are
likely a small percentage of their respective religious groups, so we can be
uncertain about the conclusions we draw from a small sample.

------
ez77
FYI: published in January 2008.

~~~
detst
Another FYI after browsing the report: questions were asked in 2007 about
income in 2006.

------
xentronium
Couldn't hide my smile when I saw the Jehovah witnesses' column.

~~~
obiefernandez
I'm guessing most exjws (like me) seeing these stats get some amount of
satisfaction from seeing the fruits of incessant badgering by JW leadership
against formal education put them just above historically black churces at the
bottom of the graph.

Despite calls for reform, college attendance for youngsters is still actively
discouraged in favor of trade school and worse options (such as
homeschooling). All in the name of being able to dedicate greater time
evangelizing. All of us that have left know that the underlying rationale is
to prevent young JWs from being exposed to rational, liberal thought that
almost inevitably destroys their house of cards dogma.

Yes I'm smiling too. The moral upbringing was good. The emotional baggage is
not.

~~~
NathanKP
In what way is homeschooling a worse option? As a Jehovah's Witness I
homeschooled and was able to spend my early life learning not only the basic
high school education but also how to code. I was eligible to enroll for free
at a local community college at age 16, and have received a straight 4.0 GPA
ever since. I feel that homeschooling did me far more good than public or
private school could have.

In my time going to college I have not felt that "rational, liberal thought"
is in contrast to any perceived "dogma" that I have been taught as one of
Jehovah's Witnesses.

Also remember that the chart statistics only use income as a measure of
comparison. This is fairly meaningless because lower income does not
necessarily mean a worse living condition or less happiness.

~~~
arram
Another Ex-Jehovah's Witness here.

I left at 18 when I discovered that evolution wasn't the nonsense I'd always
been taught. There was a period where I searched desperately for any credible
arguments against it, and found none. When I started talking to the people who
had been telling me it was wrong, I realized that they had _no idea_ what
evolution actually was. In some cases, they didn't know the distinction
between natural selection and the theories of the origin of the universe.

People accuse the JW's of being a cult with good reason: members are
discouraged from associating with non-members. They're also told to avoid all
contact with anyone who is 'disfellowshipped' (thrown out).

This means that the penalty for disagreement with the church is losing
everyone you care about. 'Shunning' is a tactic very common to cults.

This also means the price for being intellectually honest with yourself is
very high. That's how smart people manage to continue believing in something
so demonstrably false. For me to give up my faith, strong evidence wasn't
enough - it took _overwhelming_ evidence, and even then it was a very
emotionally trying time.

The reason their income is low is simple: the church has noticed that
education is anti-correlated with membership and so they continually
discourage it. Very much like a corrupt government tries to bury information
injurious to itself.

------
known
if Caste == Religion there is _No Hinduism_. It is better to disclose income
distribution as per Caste.

