Wealth and Religiosity

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1. ★

   hawkexpress, DiskoVilante, adamthebeerman, 78343040, and 96 other people added this photo to their favorites.

2. 

   Eric Rolph (52 months ago | reply)

   Perhaps not out of cause, but need: collectivism as welfare. Fascinating to see the outliers.

3. 

   TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ (52 months ago | reply)

   It´s always nice to see how people put data together in some special way to make a point. Hahaha... it´s cute.

   "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." :D

   So what do we have to understand here?
   That people who are religious tend to be poorer, and as we easily connect ignorance with income , we should have to conclude that religious people are ignorant ( = poor) or that as "wealthy people = knowledgeable", then knowledgeable people are not religious (cause or consecuence, you chose). I guess that´s the point this graph tries to convey.

   I would also say that we can read it like this:
   People less connected to their spirituality tend to reach out for money and wealth more eagerly as it is all "there is" for them in existance, because their vision is completely flat, and materialistic.

   We can also infer that people whio are more religious need less money to live because they don´t seek comfort in material things. Or see "wealth" as unnecessary or unproper (immoral).

   Also , we can infer that non religious people tend to have less moral values because of this, and therefore they play the savage capitalist game of "I win at your expense => you lose" free of any regret, and that´s why they can make money more easily.

   Personally, I don´t see a point of usefullness in connecting religiosity (as defined for this survey, which is a fairly limited vision) and wealth (also, as defined in this survery, which is a fairly limited vision).

   ps: Interesting the position of the US... sounds so "politically correct" that 1.5 average in the religiosity scale.

   pss: Oh, and measuring income in dollars won´t do globally... a person here in argentina can earn 2 or 3 times less than a person in the US for the same job in dollars, but may have a better REAL income, because of the cost of life here, lot lowers than there, or in the EU. That´s too relative. I wonder how "standarized" that measuring really was...

   Food for thought... thank you, j.

4. 

   ContrastingSounds (52 months ago | reply)

   @TheAlieness

   You must be projecting; the graph is presented on its own without claiming to make a "point". While you are correct about the whole "lies and statistics" thing, that's no excuse for the distinctly judgemental points you make.

   A correlation between two things does not imply one causes the other. We're also talking about national data, so the graph makes absolutely no comment on how two people with similar backgrounds would be richer or poorer as a result of their beliefs (or the vice versa).

   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?

   Measuring average output in dollars is perfectly acceptable. You only have to look at the graph to see there is a correlation between GDP per capita and quality of life. Your focus on cost of living is rather materialistic.

   The point with data is to try to have an enquiring mind about whether anything can be learnt from it. Retreating behind a pile of anti-intellectual rhetoric is a very negative outlook on life.

5. 

   jurvetson (52 months ago | reply)

   GDP was adjusted for price differences between countries

6. 

   TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ (52 months ago | reply)

   @CS: I am sorry, but I don´t like much to discuss with people I don´t know their names by a profile. However:

   The graph has an underlying drive, as any study has, even though is not attached to this post. The scientific method begins with a Hypothesis. What does this survey try to find out? What are the premises it parts from? What is trying to convey? Did they confirm or refute their thoughts? When you put together two varables like that you must be trying to make a point or searching for a pattern. "Is the question that drives us"... you got that phrase, don´t you.

   No rhetorics. Common Sense. I am sorry that you cannot find other words for my post. Rhetorics is this graph for me, if you will. Or your comment. And anyway, what´s the problem with "rhetorics"... what is the negative charge you put to it? Are you one of those "pro-science" extremists? EVERY COMMUNICATIONAL ACT IS RHETORICAL. You like it or not (even "scientific ones", as they try to convince someone about their veracity). There is no "naked data", unintentional speech when delivered by a SUBJECT. Don´t buy that. It´s better to take responsibility for each own´s rhetorics, rather than saying that other's are "rhetorics" and yours are not. I am not claiming any superiority of any sort of poor or religious people over non religious... Projection, you say? Yours. Did you feel touched by my comment? And what is that connection about "pride" and "religion" that makes you think I am an atheist wanting to provoke??? Isn´t that rhetorical, is it? I just showed different possible views -not all- for reading the same "data". LEARN from other people´s way to see things, will you? Do as you yourself say! You contradict yourself.

   "Retreating behind a pile of anti-intellectual rhetoric is a very negative outlook on life."
   whoah! Hahahaaa... yeah, sure, that´s me. People think I have a very negative outlook on life... they tell me all the time. Oh, and "Anti intellectual", yeah, they think that too. You crack me up. You made me remember someone I know. No more comments for me. Bye.

   (ps_ J, you know you can always delete my comments. I am a visitor here, you are the host, it´s all fine for me)

7. 

   nels1 (52 months ago | reply)

   @Alieness: statistics are statistics. it is humans who lace results with emotion. you are correct in saying that the results raise further questions. and you are also right in asking all the questions you have posed, but you come to the incorrect conclusion that because there are too many questions raised, the results are meaningless and we should not investigate further. that is not the scientific process.

   ContrastingSounds is spot on when he states that correlation does not imply causation. that is why it is important to look for other factors that are controlled for in a statistical analysis.

   for me, this result is hardly surprising. there have been many studies done in the past that show an inverse correlation between religiosity and level of education attained. it doesn't take a huge leap to see that higher levels of education are attained by those who live in more wealthy nations that can provide it. (this trend between religiosity and wealth and education is bucked by the U.S though, which is also hardly surprising. however, it would be interesting to study what factors contribute to the fact that religious memes are so strongly propagated and reinforced there in comparison to all the other first world nations.)

   Studies comparing religious belief and educational attainment

8. 

   Happy Tinfoil Cat (52 months ago | reply)

   I find it interesting that the US has the highest Per Capita GDP. I was told Kuwait had an extremely high per capita income, but now, I think there must be a much wider scale of wealth in many of these countries. The graph is interesting, yes, but it shows a trend overall by country. It is still very scattered though. Another interesting graph would be wealth and religiosity on a finer scale; by personal income level not by country. I think the results would be far more pronounced. nels1 may have just provided that.

   Religion and statistics have one thing in common, it's all in how they are interpreted.

9. 

   xGunner (52 months ago | reply)

   Their measure of religiosity is a bit coarse.

   "a +1 if they believe faith in God is necessary for morality;"

   I'd expect this to correlate strongly with education (which of course correlates with wealth). Yet the report states: "in the United States,where 57% say that one must believe in God to have good values and be moral, while 41% disagree." It irks me that my neighbor thinks he is morally superior, while I think he is deluded.

   "+1 if they say religion is very important in their lives;"

   Religion is important to many people merely because that is the way they were brought up and it is more important (for many) to be like minded to your community than it is to be an independent thinker. Or beheaded if you do not follow sharia ;)

   "+1 if they pray at least once a day. "

   I had a spiritual moment today, I guess you could say I "prayed". Though it was not to your god. This last +1 is kinda meaningless.

10. 

    emidesu_2000 (52 months ago | reply)

    I would have to agree with xgunner that their measure of religiosity is rather coarse. And this throws a wrench into it: the definition of religiosity from free dictionary online: 1. The quality of being religious.
    2. Excessive or affected piety.
    I looked it up because I wasn't quite sure which of these two it actually meant; turns out it means both. The question now is which was actually measured?
    Re: the alieness' comments: I could interpret this graph a multitude of ways. One mistake many people make in regard to science is believing that data and results are final and/or prove a point. Science is always ongoing, and any findings serve as a springboard for new research. Alieness, your views are welcome in the scientific community, but they will be better received if you refrain from histrionic outbursts and back up what you say with data.

11. 

    atheistrev (52 months ago | reply)

    There is a reason why the poor flock to Religion....because it is pushed on them. They need hope and those who wish to profit off the poorest are there to use Religion as their ATM.

    Join the Movement at Atheist Revolution

12. 

    pweverka [deleted] (52 months ago | reply)

    @xGunner
    I consider myself a devout agnositic, but score a +2 on the religion scale. Religion is an important part of my life because my family is involved in a religious community. I see it as a means to social action (in my case, a liberal agenda). Like you, I had a spiritual moment today, and if that counts as praying I get another point.
    I see the problem in the graph as its failure to identify religion. The fascinating part of the graph to me, however, was the question it raises as to why the US deviates so far from the norm . . .

13. 

    Todd Huffman (52 months ago | reply)

    What??? I don't believe how low on religiosity Israel is... just counterintuitive....

14. 

    Karim M (52 months ago | reply)

    Yeah, Israel should be a 4.0 for sure. :-)

15. 

    CrazedLeper (52 months ago | reply)

    So are we to conclude that the masses have sold their souls?

16. 

    Jacob Morse (52 months ago | reply)

    Statistical confirmation of the New Testament's claim that money becomes a god as it increases ("You cannot serve God and money").

17. 

    nathanj1023 (52 months ago | reply)

    reminds me of this:
    Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
    —Matthew 19:23-24, NIV

18. 

    monkeytap (52 months ago | reply)

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

19. 

    savagerabbitx (52 months ago | reply)

    Well it reminds me of "a fool and his money are quickly parted".

20. 

    seth_stamm (52 months ago | reply)

    This chart is awesome, shows exactly why you shouldn't devote so much of your existence to something so unreliable and deceitful as religion. People are getting so damn offended by this but it only reflects complete truth. It's not necessarily the religion that's directly related to wealth its that peoples minds are clouded by it and become closed minded to what the world has to offer. I guarantee theres religious assholes out there that refuse to use technology and all that shit but why not? this internet shit is awesome, im using it right now! its great!

21. 

    appaj00ce [deleted] (52 months ago | reply)

    @ Alieness: You spelt consequence wrong.

22. 

    jimrising (52 months ago | reply)

    Todd Huffman... Israel is actually primarily secular, so it's not much of a surprise to see them score as low as they did.

23. 

    orion_blastar (52 months ago | reply)

    All it proves is that Charles Dickens and "A Christmas Carol" are right in that a Scrooge character exists that is wealthy and non-religious and religious people are exploited by them and become poor. Scrooge was an atheist who cared more about money than human beings.

    When you compare a chart of religious people donating to charity or the poor verses secular people, you will see that religious people give out more money to the less fortunate than the secular ones do. Which is represented in that chart as religious people having less money.

24. 

    d5o3 (52 months ago | reply)

    @Todd Huffman

    Israel's an odd bird. They offer all sorts of financial incentives to attract ethnically Jewish immigrants so for many people, especially those from the former USSR, the decision to move there is made out of economic rather than religious concern. The Israelis really aren't a bunch of religious nut-jobs. However, being constantly surrounded by a bunch of religious nut-jobs can make you act a little crazy.

25. 

    glitch1182 (52 months ago | reply)

    @TheAlieness GiselaGiardino

    Actually, it's really quite simple. The point of the graph is to illustrate that regions where religious beliefs are prominent tend to have less wealth than ones where religion may not be as prominent. It is a very interesting correlation and one worthy of further study.

    One could argue that this occurs because religion tends to encourage the idea of wealth being a fortune that is rewarded by a deity, whereas those who live in regions where this isn't the predominant ideology tend to work harder and rely less on luck and "good fortune."

26. 

    monkeytap (52 months ago | reply)

    @seth_stamm

    unfortunately, we live in a world where only the fortunate can be educated in a way to understand religion was once all we had for an answer to our existence...... a man made concept that survived the killing (literally) of thousands of other equally stupid concepts.

    anoter great qoute:
    In dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in a pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide; he knows the roads and paths better than a man who can see. When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind, old men as guides.

    edit: not just fortunate, but willing!

27. 

    garrito (52 months ago | reply)

    @Todd and Karim: I lived in Israel (albeit 30 years ago) and was actually surprised how non-religious it was there. It makes you realize that "Jewish" just might be as much, if not more, a heritage as it is a religion. Me, I consider myself both a Jew and a raging atheist.

    And now, back to your regularly scheduled graph thread...

28. 

    John Hollandsworth (52 months ago | reply)

    I just think this is a great "graphic" example of how much worldview molds how we interpret truth. Most of the comments boil down to: "this graph supports what I already knew to be true." The truth is that it is impossible for a single statistical measure to say anything meaningful about any possible relation between "religion" and "wealth." This is a trap that everyone easily falls into, to use data insufficent to the task to bolster their position. If the data is insufficent, then don't use it at all, just admit it is insufficent.

29. 

    biuku (52 months ago | reply)

    i don't get it; shouldn't each country be represented by its own curve. Ie. the U.S. is not wealthier than Indonesia because of "religiosity," so comparing the two on that is not relevant. But, it would be interesting to see how much one's faith plays a role in their wealth within the United States and within a more secular country with a similar economy, like Canada or France.

30. 

    jaminwicha (52 months ago | reply)

    I was surprised to see that well over half of Europeans are either praying once a day or consider themselves very religious. Well, actually, I don't consider that surprising considering the way I've seen European teenagers act at huge techno concerts! It's a very religious experience for them.

    I think that saying "religion is necessary for morality" as an indicator of higher religiosity is a red herring that this graph was composed by someone with a chip on their shoulder against religion. This marker holds an inherent assumption that the more religious someone is, the more judgmental they are of non-religious people. That is not true.

    As far as any wealth-religion correlations to be found here ... it's hard to draw a conclusion because we're only talking about factors affecting Western civilization in the past 500 years or so. Religious freedom was a major driving force for colonists coming to the US, which may explain why it's so high off the curve. As far as saying Africa is more religious because it is more poor, or more poor because it is more religious, how would this curve change if the Middle East outpaced the West technologically once again, as it has done before in the past?

31. 

    jurvetson (52 months ago | reply)

    @Orion_blastar: not sure if you were joking that religious donations are the cause. Have you seen any data supporting the supposition that religious people are more charitable than non-religious?

    And gosh, you might want to weight the results with the record setting size of the donations ($70B) made by Gates and Buffett (non-religious), not to mention all of the .com founders I know who are non-religious and have pledged the vast majority of their riches to charity.

    From a study of 2000 doctors:
    

    Atheist doctors are more likely to practice medicine among the underprivileged than religious physicians, even though most religions call on the faithful to serve the poor, according to the results of large cross-sectional survey of US medical practitioners published in Annals of Family Medicine. (source)

32. 

    johan&co (52 months ago | reply)

    Good to see Sweden down there. I guess it's best to stay here

33. 

    kd1s (52 months ago | reply)

    This graph is no surprise to me. The U.S. as the out lier isn't shocking either. Consider that the U.S. was initially settled by those zany religious zealots the Puritans, then the Calvinists, Baptists, and other sects.

    Then there's Rhode Island which is overwhelmingly Catholic.

34. 

    r1chlee (52 months ago | reply)

    About where the U.S. is at...
    What would the graph look like if it were split up depending on location (urban, suburban, rural)? The U.S. is wealthy, definitely, but it's also very diverse. Share your thoughts.

35. 

    alchemism (52 months ago | reply)

    Lol, this comment thread should be put in a textbook.

    Just for the record folks, "Alieness" is a Level 3 thinker, the rest of the rationalists in the thread are Level 2 thinkers, and the point of discussion are the Level 1 thinkers that make up the religious.

    A level 2 thinker tried to corral her down onto his level and accusing her of being Level 1, she found it delightfully funny and floated merrily on her way.

    Since then its been Level 2s congratulating each other on their sensible cosmologies. Yay material existence!

    Like I said, save this thread folks. If any of you ever make it to Level 3 (e.g. the character in Sagan's Contact), you'll have a bit of a laugh when you re-read this.

36. 

    jaminwicha (52 months ago | reply)

    I'm a level 60 Warlock

37. 

    iamjustinm (52 months ago | reply)

    @biuku
    You raise a good point. How 'bout it jurvetson? Care to create that graph for us? This is very interesting.

38. 

    insolent86 (52 months ago | reply)

    If by "level 3 thinker" you mean troll attempting miserably to ride a high horse.

    This is only one of many studies which evidence a negative correlation between quality of life and increased religiosity, a piece of a bigger puzzle to which Alieness admitted ignorance. In this case, it leaves many obvious questions open, none of which need to be asked by someone whose food for thought tastes like poison. No need to estrange yourself further, you have already done a tremendous job.

    Back to the study: Saying religion is necessary for morality is actually not loaded against religion at all. I'm not superstitious, but there are plenty of idiots who without threat of eternal damnation or the stress of constantly looking over their shoulder would more easily become accustomed to unethical behavior. On top of that, a great deal of religious people believe that to be a positive thing for religion. That without it, they'd all be crack-smoking, radio-stealing, adulterous heathens and all that other fun stuff.

    I do take issue with the criteria for religiousness and the limited number of conclusions one can come to with data like this, but one point it does make is that praying every day, believing religion is the foundation of morality, and religion having an important place in life, in general, will not bring economic prosperity to your community.

    Which brings me to another point. It's completely laughable that people are saying religion brings less materialism when the most religious countries also have the highest rates of starvation, death by contaminated water, and death by communicable and preventable disease.

    If only they were more into God and spirituality, and less into vaccines, mosquito nets and water filtration systems, the dirty materialistic heathens would be happier with their minuscule life-expectancy.

39. 

    jurvetson (52 months ago | reply)

    so very interesting....

    @Jaminwicha: I had the same thought. But she is a third-stage guild navigator, so she can fold space and all that. I'd bet on her.

    @iamjustinm... At first I thought I couldn't help you, but then I remembered that wealth distribution is a classic power law, so on a non-logarithmic scale, it would be dominated by a handful of super-rich, and the U.S. curve would look something like:

    \___

    
    We know the answer for #1 and #2 (Gates and Buffett are nonreligious and exceed the GDP of many nations). I'll check in on Paul Allen, but he did finance the seven-part PBS series on Evolution. Larry Ellison is an atheist. Anyone know if casino magnate Adelson swears to piety? ;-)

40. 

    fraynelson (52 months ago | reply)

    Most of us belong to the West and read from left to right. That makes us consider the horizontal variable as the "free" variable and to play with it in correlation with time. You detect that in expressions like: "the wealthier, the less religious." In the expression "the wealthier" one is moving along the horizontal axis to the right and therefore regarding religiousness as a consequence of that "free" movement of the "free" variable.

    As Alieness timely pointed out, once you liberate your mind from that spontaneous movement, you can make several others interpretations.

    In particular, you might think of getting wealthier as a explicit statement on "intentionally rejecting religion." Case in point is what has been so widely displayed in these comments; people on the atheistic camp would not only intend to get more prosperous but also, explicitly and intentionally, less religious. In such a situation there is no "independent variable vs. dependent variable." Yet people holding that opinion would regard the information on the chart as if it would may tell us that sort of relation. For it is only when an independent variable influences a dependent variable that you may speak of a true correlation. If a new factor, external to the chart, is influencing both variables, either it should be included in the graph or the population polled has to be clustered according to their intentional correlation on both variables.

    I wonder why atheist folks with a great scientific background have not highlighted this so far in this thread... Are you folks less scientific to examine your own beliefs? :-)

41. 

    aeroculus (52 months ago | reply)

    adding to a couple of the points in this thread re: materialism...it should be mentioned that many of the religious ceremonies performed by the masses in the 2-3 category have at their base the sole purpose of increasing wealth.

    @xGunner: good point on spirituality. I'm spiritual (at times) yet I don't have a religious base pair in my body.

42. 

    rapunzel576 (52 months ago | reply)

    The poor believe in God and they get persecuted for being weak. The rich believe God and they get persecuted for having too much. who is financially stable enough to be allowed to believe in the Father without persecution. is a pastor not allowed to have nice things because he's supposed to be living a life of non-materialism? has no one ever heard of blessings? The Lord doesn't want His children to live in poverty. People who claim to follow the voice of the Lord sometimes they get too religious and miss out on the fact that God wants to bless us. "Delight yourself also in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Psalms 37:4.

    As Christians, its not that we HAVE to live a non-materialistic life, its that we don't put material possessions before the Lord's will. Like a child doing their chores to please their parents, the parents reward them with allowances or presents. Our Father, who has access to everything in this world, doesn't reward his children often times in material things but what matters more. In the verse it says "desires of the heart" such as Love, Peace, Guidance, Purity, Grace, and the most precious gift of all Mercy. Which he delights in giving. God loves giving Mercy, especially to those who persecute Him. This world has become too religous, we gotta break out of religiousness and understand the love relationship that the Father longs to have with us.

    And to the world, stop focusing on stupid details like comparing how much money someone makes to how deep their faith is. that like comparing how much peanut butter someone eats to how much water they drink. that sounds stupid right? so does this census.

43. 

    aeroculus (52 months ago | reply)

    @rapunzel576: bad analogy. eating a lot of peanut butter makes me thirsty.

44. 

    jurvetson (52 months ago | reply)

    @fraynelson: no scientist has commented on your correlation point ("it is only when an independent variable influences a dependent variable that you may speak of a true correlation") because it is wrong. Dependent and independent variables relate to causality. Correlation relates to a relationship between random variables. Wikipedia can put your concern to rest about a third hidden variable. All we have here is some coarse correlation, not causality.

45. 

    rroonnbb (52 months ago | reply)

    @Jurvetson via @Orion_blaster - for what it's worth, there is some evidence of correlation between religiosity and donations: It sounded like something I'd read a few months ago and a quick google turned up this link: www.beliefnet.com/story/204/story_20419_1.htm l

    "The child of academics, raised in a liberal household and educated in the liberal arts, Brooks has written a book that concludes religious conservatives donate far more money than secular liberals to all sorts of charitable activities, irrespective of income."

46. 

    pkphilip (52 months ago | reply)

    Other research has shown that religious people are happier than those who aren't.

    www.webmd.com/content/Article/78/95776.htm

    So how does one put these two graphs together? Can we now way that religious people are happier even though they are poorer?

    This fact along with the other well known fact that the richer nations tend to use up natural resources more than the poorer nations could mean that it is perhaps best for the world that people are more religious and therefore happier (even though they may be poorer).

    Thoughts?

47. 

    fraynelson (52 months ago | reply)

    @jurvetson

    Thank you for sharing the link. I quote from it: "Consequently, establishing a correlation between two variables is not a sufficient condition to establish a causal relationship (in either direction)."

    Jurvetson, don't you think most comments in this thread, mainly those coming from the atheist camp, speak exactly of causality in both directions? Read again Nels1, Atheistrev, Monkeytap, Seth_stamm, Insolent86 and others...

    Anyone suggesting on the line: "let's improve wealth and education and you will see how much religious practice decline..." is affirming a causal relationship.

    ...and there has been a lot of that talk in this series of comments! So please, go tell them about the Wikipedia link.

48. 

    l . e . o (52 months ago | reply)

    @all - As alluded to by some earlier commenters, I think it's possible that the most problematic aspect of this study is their definition of "religiosity," especially given the global scope. A definition of religion is a concept that scholars of religion and anthropology have been struggling with for centuries; today, the commonly-agreed-upon definition is one formulated by Clifford Geertz in 1966 (see "Religion as a Cultural System" in 1973's The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays).

    Geertz defines religion, on a basic level, as follows:

    "...religion is (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic." (http://www.as.ua.edu/rel/aboutrelbiogeertz.h tml for more).

    What I take this all to mean, then, is that "religiosity" as this study has defined it is unacceptably narrow. At a very basic level, the concepts of "praying" and "God" are westernized glosses that reveal little about, say, a Japanese Buddhist's sense of personal religiosity. While I recognize that doing so would be difficult, it seems reasonable to expect that a more sensitive measure of "religiosity" might reveal data somewhat different than what's presented here.

49. 

    alchemism (52 months ago | reply)

    Here's a quote from the Digg link on the problematic definition, from the mouth of a babe (so to speak):

    As a future minister, I only register a 1 on this religion scale. Religion is very important to my life. I pray often, but not everyday. I don't think you have to believe in God to live a moral life -- I know plenty of kind-hearted atheist. I think this "religiousity" meter is flawed -- but then again there is no true measure for that sort of thing. I agree the poor tend to be more religious, but not because of a lack of education or even because of their often desperate situation (3 billion people live on less than $2 a day). It's because wealth can be such a highly corrupting force, and especially if you live in a nation where your wealth is predicated on the exploitation and marginalization of others. To truly walk the religious path (at least in Christianity), you would have to expend your wealth and power for the sake of the poor and needy, not your own self interest. And that's really hard to do.

50. 

    alchemism (52 months ago | reply)

    This one's also a keeper:

    "Lets make a graph showing that cultures which use the hand shake as a greeting are richer than other cultures.

    Atheism is just as much a faith based religion as any other more organized religion - the atheist bets his soul on the belief that there is no afterlife."

    Hmm, hippies hug each other. Hippies have less money than businessmen who shake hands. Correlation!

51. 

    davidmesaaz (52 months ago | reply)

    What this fails to point out is that industrialization in China and Brazil has lead to a religious revival. Historically industrialization in England lead to a religious revival in Victorian age.

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