Crossposted from Dameocrat Blog
I know I am on everyones shit list because I dislike kos, but I do cover issues hardly anyone else gives a shit about. Here is just one issue that I think the Democrats should prioritize that is absolutely not on the kossack or mainstream Democratic agenda. For years the republicans have been able to undercut social programs by portraying the poor as morally inferior. They have even gotten mainstream economics departments at Universities to put out this kind of stuff. The mainstream news often reports these kinds of “spun” statistics without recongnizing that they are really carefully disguised op/eds, rather than careful research.
ABC News: Church-going boosts economic well-being: study:
“‘Doubling the frequency of attendance leads to a 9.1 percent increase in household income, or a rise of 5.5 percent as a fraction of the poverty scale,’ Jonathan Gruber of the economics department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology wrote in his study.
‘Those with more faith may be less ‘stressed out’ about daily problems that impede success in the labor market and the marriage market, and therefore are more successful,’ Gruber wrote in the study, which was released by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
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Could it be the opposite is true? Maybe a 9.1 percent increase in household income, or a rise of 5.5 percent as a fraction of the poverty scale actually leads to a doubling of church attendence. Maybe less stress in one job and marriage and more personal success also leads to more church attendence.
Living in a community with complementary ethnic groups that share the same religion increases the frequency of going to a house of worship, he said in the paper titled ‘Religious Market Structure, Religious Participation, and Outcomes: Is Religion Good for You?’
According to this study you also need to strenuously avoid contact with other religious and ethnic groups to be successful, particularly if you are white.
Such visits correlate to higher levels of education and income, lower levels of welfare receipt and disability, higher levels of marriage and lower levels of divorce, the study said.”
Could it be that higher levels of education and income, more wealth and better health, not to mention better marriages also lead to more church attendence?
This appears to be one of those “the rich are morally superior to the poor spin jobs” that often masks itself as hard science. It is sad MIT is subsidizing it.
Pretty standard correlation does not imply causation problem. Sure, people who go to church tend to be richer. But perhaps that’s because the particular segment of the population the US’s current economic system is biased toward is more likely to buy into the sheep-think propaganda of “major churches”?
Correlation does IMPLY causation, but correlation alone does not PROVE causation.
I would guess that cronyism has something to do with it, too. Church members do business with one another because they don’t want to do business with people who are different than they are. This is where the sheeple get the edia that cronyism is AOK.
In large swaths of the country – like anyplace that was “red” in the last election – if you don’t attend the “right church” with the “right people” you are viewed with suspicion as somehow morally inferior or ethically dubious – and thus likely to be first to get laid off, or far less likely to be offered that useful tidbit of business information:
“Did you hear about Joe’s plans to build a new office tower? He’s accepting bids for subcontractors, I hear. And wasn’t today’s sermon inspiring?”
“I’m not supposed to say anything, but I know I can trust you: There’s a new project coming next week, and those that don’t end up being selected to work on it will end up being laid off in six months. So you might want to go drop in on Sally and show her you’re an enthusiastic team player. By the way, I thought your daughter was sooo cute as an angel last Sunday in the nativity play.”
Don’t try telling me that kind of thing is illegal – so is discrimination, and it also goes on all the time in those red places.
What this has to do with feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned, and helping widows and orphans is beyond me. One reason I “shook the dust from my sandals” and left them.
It’s the same behavior/mindset that results in Miers being nominated for the Supreme court, and Halliburton making out like the thieves they are the last five years – only written in a smaller font. It stinks written big and it stinks written small.
Me, too. I only go to churches for weddings and funerals now.
The one thing that I am glad about for having gone to church regularly in the past is that I gained insight into the operation of a mass propaganda mechanism. It is truly fascinating in a macabre sort of way.
I don’t have anything concrete to base my statement regarding this study, but in general I’d say-what a crock of shit. And going just by a lot of my own emperical evidence over the years I’d say a lot more low income people go to church as a way to hold on to something than rich people do..but that’s just a quick first response to this so called study.
Seems like this study had an outcome they wanted and tried to fit ‘facts’ to suit conclusion?..
That does smack of the classic post hoc ergo post propter hoc fallacy.
I don’t suppose the comfortably well-off academics at MIT considered the possibility that lower income folks are more likely to be working nights and weekends.
My experience has always been that the poor are lamentably more religious than the middle class and rich. It’s such an old and well-known correlation that Karl Marx made his famous “opiate of the masses” remark about religion and the working classes.
You are right, StrayRoots, it is just as likely that the economic factors precede the religious factors. Or that a third or fourth or fifth factors are involved in linking income and religious activities.
Correlation does NOT imply correlation. I’d stake my extensive coursework in statistics on that premise. There can be many intermediate factors that explain both things. In Gruber’s study (which I have not read beyond his summary, I freely admit), he does say that he does not know the mechanism behind the connection between religious activity and income.
Actually, much of his study has to do with density of co-religionists surrounding his target subjects. This makes me think that what is at issue is segregation of research subjects by income, which is a common characteristics of urban and suburban areas in the U.S. People of the same income level are able to afford similar priced housing, andso they buy homes or rent housing the same areas. That they also choose places heavily populated by the same religious groups is not surprising. Different religions and sub-types of religions also covary by income, and thus by where people live. His statements do not sufficiently account for these other possible factors, in my hurried reading of his explanations.
And finally, how the media deals with such research is not likely to show any degree of understanding of what the research findings actually are.
Anti-religious people tend to be so smug, but they just don’t know that they don’t know. Some of the posts above are just so damned “kneejerk.” Being anti-church doesn’t make you cool and it doesn’t define the left.
I’m not sure whether showing up at church ever week boosts economic prosperity, although I suspect it does due to the fact that going to church regularly tends to put things into a healthy perspective.
However, I’m quite sure that tithing (giving 10 percent of net income to church and charity) boosts economic prosperity. It’s a mystery. People often think that one’s economic condition follows simple arithmetic rules, but in fact it does not. A few years ago my wife and I started tithing to our Catholic church and to other charities…that’s a big bite, well over $10,000 a year. Ever since we started to do that, things turned around dramatically in our financial situation. Instead of three new good legal cases a month, I’d get six, and so forth. Before we tithed, we were constantly living week to week, ducking bill collecters, etc. After we started giving away 10 percent of our money, we got rich (at least by our old standards).
I don’t buy the so-called “prosperity gospel” that so many Protestant preachers preach. We don’t tithe in order to get rich, we do it out of a sense of duty and love of God and our fellow humans. But I swear to God, within a few months of our starting to do that, the turnaround was absolutely dramatic. And the effect has persisted now for more than seven years.
This won’t convince any diehard atheists, but people on the fence might find it interesting testimony.
I am not an atheist. I just don’t like this moral superiority shit. I also don’t believe high percentages of Americans any longer fit into traditional religion. Religion is for people who are married with children and middle class.
I’m not sure from your short comment, but it seems you might be denouncing my note for “moral superiority.” I’m sorry if that’s so. I really don’t feel morally superior and I’m sorry if anything I write comes across that way. I’ve been poor most of my life. I was born poor, have supported myself since age 16, paid my own way through school, have never inherited a dime–and I don’t think my relative success is based on my own superiority. I think it’s all–miseries and wonders–a blessing.
You think religion is just for middle class married people? Well, that was never my experience. My religious spark used to burn the brightest when I was really down and out and single. FWIW.