

Religious Outlier - tokenadult
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/04/opinion/04blow.html

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lotharbot
Keep in mind that a lot of people came to America fleeing religious
persecution [0]. Many of our ancestors chose to cross the globe and start
brand new lives rather than give up their religious beliefs.

Take a nation made up of very religious people with a constitutional guarantee
of religious freedom, add in huge supplies of natural resources and a
legal/property system designed to encourage development and investment, and
after a few centuries you get a prosperous and religious nation. In light of
history, it's not that surprising that the US would be an outlier.

[0] A few select groups: Puritans from England (1630), Quakers (1680),
Anabaptists from Europe (late 1600s-1700s), Catholics from Ireland (late
1800s), Christians from Russia (1917), Jews from Germany (1939).

~~~
wnoise
You can say that the Puritans fled religious tolerance in England. But the
first groups went to the Netherlands. There, they eventually couldn't stand
how their neighbors were socially influencing their kids to be more tolerant.
They felt they were blending in and losing their identity. When they then went
to America, in a sense what they were fleeing was religious _tolerance_.
(There were other groups that went directly to America, of course).

~~~
leot
Interesting -- the fact that the US is physically large may thus have
contributed to religiosity: people could more easily choose to raise their
children "free" from the nefarious influences of people who were different.
(c.f. "group polarization" <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_polarization> )

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Dove
The opposition between wealth and spirituality is well known and ancient. In a
Christian context, you see it in such biblical remarks as "It is easier for a
camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the
kingdom of God" (Mark 10:25) and "You cannot serve both God and money." (Matt.
6:24). Vows of poverty are widely practiced throughout Christendom, from the
severe vows taken by monks to the more lax popular view that the heavy pursuit
of wealth is sinful or at least misguided. I don't know how other religions
view wealth, but I would be surprised if the opposition was uniquely
Christian.

The wealthy tend to reject religion. That's well-known among the religious.

Why do the poor tend to embrace it? Well, I can give one answer. Apparently .
. . it helps. <http://papers.nber.org/papers/w13369>

    
    
       This paper examines whether participation in religious 
       or other social organizations can help offset the 
       negative effects of growing up in a disadvantaged 
       environment. . . . Overall, we find strong evidence 
       that youth with religiously active parents are less 
       affected later in life by childhood disadvantage than 
       youth whose parents did not frequently attend religious 
       services.

~~~
Herring
The opposition between education & spirituality is also well known, as we see
in the story of the garden of eden (genesis 1-3). Or in the lower levels of
belief among college graduates.

------
10ren
Just some thoughts I've had on USA vs. Europe R&D.

I've noticed that computer science research/development in Europe tends to be
more theory-based, as if the goal is to create a little world where everything
makes sense; like the courtly protocols of a medieval sovereign. I'm thinking
Dijkstra (who wanted a respectable profession), German academics I've known,
and strikingly in some French papers and software I've come across.

Whereas work in the States seems to be more outcome-based and pragmatic.
There's Edison, BASIC and Microsoft, and also Ethernet (which is deliberately
non-deterministic.)

Of course these are just statistical patterns, and every individual person
will exhibit both tendencies.

So, my theory is that, culturally, not having a sovereign or a court gave
people the freedom to do whatever works, without it looking elegant. But it's
also scarier to live that way - hence, religion.

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jeromec
Now compare that chart with most/least violent countries:

[http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-
murde...](http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-
capita)

The least violent countries appear to be less religious.

~~~
dhs
Indonesia, one of the poorest and most religious countries, is also one of the
least violent (#57; USA: #24).

~~~
jeromec
That's a good point. Interestingly, that religion is Muslim. But if we compare
countries with similar GDP the U.S. is put to shame. Even Germany beats us for
being less violent, and less religious.

~~~
jacoblyles
You're working very hard here to twist the world into your preconceived view.
Are you sure it fits?

I'm an atheist too, but I still believe in good statistics.

~~~
jeromec
No, I'm the last person to "twist the world" to my views. I believe in
observation and evidence. Do I have a theory that there is a correlation
between religion and violence? Yes. Have I explored that correlation beyond
glancing at a few charts? No.

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tomstuart
Without meaning to imply anything, I'd also be interested to see how both of
these variables correlate with quality of (public-funded) education.

~~~
philh
Small negative correlation:
<http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/603536>

(I have the full text of the paper, but I've not actually read it.)

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groaner
Strange that Russia is listed under "other" -- last time I checked, the
Russian Orthodox Church was still cited as the dominant religious institution
there, despite decades of repression under the Soviets.

I'm also surprised that Israel would rank so low on the vertical scale,
considering how polarized the population is in terms of ethnic and religious
differences. Maybe the survey respondents are trying to compensate for
something?

~~~
samstokes
Polarisation doesn't require a high percentage of the population to give a
damn; just for those that do to be really really loud about it.

There are also a lot of people who identify as ethnically Jewish (and are
passionate and vocal about it) but not religious.

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michael_dorfman
I wish they had included Norway; it is literally off the chart in terms of GDP
(they'd have to extend it to the right), and I suspect that the religiosity
measure would be similar to Sweden and Denmark-- but as I said, I'd like to
see the results to be sure.

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annajohnson
Australia and New Zealand are not on the list but I suspect they'd come down
in the bottom right quadrant. If you took the U.S. off the chart I would
certainly suggest a causal relationship. In very general terms: the wealthier
the society, the more educated and independent-minded the people, and the less
likely to embrace religion.

I wonder how the chart would look if you separated out all the U.S. states.
I'm not from the U.S. so I'm not sure about this, but I wonder if there are
distinct differences between where the various U.S. states would fall on the
chart. In other words, is the correlation between the wealth of a given state
and its religiosity?

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jacquesm
Allright, that' settles it. I'm moving to Hong Kong.

~~~
adolph
I'm not sure who in HK they asked, but just about every shop and restaurant
there has a tiny altar and they build giant holes in buildings for the purpose
of allowing dragons access to the water. It seems way more religious in
everyday kind of ways than the US.

~~~
msie
C'mon do they REALLY believe in dragons? Or is it more like how people hang
horseshoes above their doorways?

~~~
Tichy
How do people hang horseshoes above their doorway? Not because of
superstition?

~~~
msie
Yes, but I believe there exists a half-hearted superstition. It doesn't hurt
to hang a horse-shoe above the doorway IF luck really exists.

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lionhearted
I can't speak for Europe, but maybe I can shed some light on Japan.

Christianity had started to spread to Japan by 1600 from the Portugese, but
after Hideyoshi Toyotomi unified Japan, he made Christianity illegal. After
Toyotomi died, the Tokugawa government cracked down even harder, and
Christianity was basically eliminated from Japan by 1700, leaving the hybrid
Japanese Buddhist/Shinto religion where the Emperor was God-on-Earth as the
sole major religion.

After Japan lost WWII, part of the surrender terms was that Emperor Hirohito
had to admit he's not a god. During the occupation of Japan, MacArthur's team
scrubbed away a lot of the traditional power and prestige of the Japanese
native religion, leaving the country largely secular and atheist. They do have
strong cultural values and ethics though, which serves some of a similar
function that traditional religion does.

~~~
steveklabnik
This statement sounds really horrible, but every time I hear about what good
things have happened to Japan after losing WWII, I'm kinda almost sad we
didn't lose.

They certainly don't have a crazy, out of control amount of military
spending... not that Japan doesn't have a lot of its own problems. But it
seems like they've really had lemons turn into lemonade.

~~~
randallsquared
For both Japan and Germany, losing WWII led to an economic miracle, but it
might be worth pointing out that losing to the Allies was almost certainly
very different than losing to the Axis would have been.

~~~
philwelch
Japan and Germany's economic success was to the benefit of the Allies in the
long run anyway.

~~~
randallsquared
That's what usually happens when you go a little out of your way to be nicer
than you could have been: it turns out that, just by coincidence, some of
those times come back to help you later. :)

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nezumi
I'd be interested to see how the US would appear on this chart divided up by
state.

~~~
fhars
Not exactly the same variables, but similar enough:
[http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2007...](http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2007/11/religiosity_and.html)

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cdavid
The US outlier may be explained by other variable. For example, church
attendance may be positively or negatively correlated with wealth, depending
on the state, which suggests a more complex relationship, at least in the US.

Besides being a very rich country (at least globally), the US have other very
particular features, like multi culturalism, etc... There was also an
interesting article in the economist about the more competitive market for
religion in the US compared to other countries - I unfortunately cannot find
it back.

------
known

       Americans: For the sake of America
        British  : For the sake of Queen
        Muslims  : For the sake of Quran
        Hindus   : For the sake of Caste

------
adolph
This is a weird piece of chart-junk. Where is the giant China ball on the
graph? Why is Hinduism grouped under other? Why separate out Catholic and
Protestant?

~~~
akgerber
I would guess:

-China didn't allow the Gallup survey.

-Hinduism is predominantly practiced in just a few countries, and India has a lot of non-Hindus.

-Because it was responsible for a lot of historical conflict & indicates a significant difference in religious structure. Also an American paper is more likely to Eurocentric.

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henrikschroder
It's similar to this chart, the world value survey:

[http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_publish...](http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/article_base_54)

Northern Europe in a corner, and the U.S. an outlier among the western
countries.

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nanairo
I am not convinced there is a such a strong pattern though definitely there is
correlation: I would have preferred it a bit more if he drew a best fit to
drive home his argument.

That said there is no doubt that USA is extremely religious among rich
countries.

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ars
I don't see an outlier - aside from a muslim cluster at the top left corner,
the rest of the data looks quite random.

------
known
"Religion was born when the first con man met the first fool." --Mark Twain

Wish this is wrong for USA

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hristov
They got Russia wrong. As usual.

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narkee
I hate plots that don't have labeled axes.

~~~
fhars
What has that got to do with the chart in the article which has clearly
labeled axes?

~~~
narkee
Haha, I see it now. My fault for missing it, although in my defense they're
put in a non-standard location.

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tomjen3
But the US is poor - sure the normal person may have a lot of money, but that
isn't the same as being rich, since they still have the mindset of poor
people. You can see that in the amount of stuff people buy - you are apt to
buy more if you feel your station in life could fall at any given time, as a
hedge against future problems.

It is not so strange that this mentality is so widespread, even if it is
divorced from reality, because the US was founded by the absolute low of the
lower classes from Europe, and it isn't old enough that most people have lost
their roots.

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TGJ
Why not also point out in the graph, most Muslim countries are poor. Muslim
countries also seem to have a greater muslim influence in the government too.
In the US we've kept the church out of government but tried to keep at least
some of the morals at the same time.

This guy definitely has an angle going on. Perhaps instead, the US is a good
example of how a moral system based on a higher power instead of man, natural
rights, can help create a government and country better than the rest as long
as it keeps the church (in my mind the political arm of religion) away from
government. Instead of being an anomaly, we are the goal.

~~~
diego_moita
> the US is a good example of ... a government and country better than the
> rest

> Instead of being an anomaly, we are the goal.

:-D

As a non-American I think this is just hilarious. But as an American you
probably think that all non-Americans are anti-Americans and, therefore, you
don't give a shit.

~~~
Ayjay
I think he was just pointing out an alternative conclusion. I think it is an
interesting point that the world's only superpower is also unique in the
relgion-to-wealth factor. I'm not convinced that's what causes it, but it's
certainly possible.

Australian, btw.

\-- Ayjay on Fedang

