Episode 25: Qur’an Burning, Religiosity vs Prosperity, an Interview with Guy P. Harrison

The disgusting suggestion that the Qur’an should be burned in protest on 9/11 is discussed, as is the prospect of higher prosperity among non-theists, and our very own Daniel sits down for an interview with author Guy P. Harrison, who wrote 50 Reasons People Give For Believing in a God and has a new book out entitled Race and Reality.

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OkCupid profile data

OkCupid, while not the most praiseworthy place to draw data from, has some correlating data that some might find surprising (or not?). What causes this discrepancy? I would venture to guess that since people who read more often are better readers and writers, those people would have read more about religion, life, culture, science, etc. and have a ‘weaker version’ of their faith — that would also explain the discrepancy between the stronger non-believers and their abilities. This would especially make sense if one assumes that the atheist position is closer to the truth, and that somehow from reading and writing, humans get closer to the truth. Even in education, which involves higher amounts of reading and writing “those with graduate degrees were the least likely to believe in the afterlife or the Bible as the word of God” (http://sda.berkeley.edu:8080/quicktables/quicksetoptions.do?reportKey=gss04%3A1, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence). I want to avoid being Glenn-Beckean and note again emphatically that OKCupid is not necessarily representative of all populations and that the data is correlative, though it is deserving of explanation. Perhaps this also lends credibility to the notion of vague Buddhism not being that close to other religions?

Prosperity versus religiosity

In a recent blog post a fellow contributor posed the question: “what is the relationship between democracy and religiosity?” There at least seems to be a relationship between per capita GDP and religiosity. In a NYTimes Op-Ed column, Charles M. Blow plotted a graph based on per capita GDP and religious adherence.

The data is drawn from a recent Gallop poll. Mr. Blow also notes that “[s]ixty-five percent of Americans say that religion is an important part of their daily lives. That is compared with just 30 percent of the French, 27 percent of the British and 24 percent of the Japanese.”

Religious extremism and anxiety

According to ScienceDaily, ‘[a]nxiety and uncertainty can cause us to become more idealistic and more radical in our religious beliefs….” In the study, participants underwent stressful activities such as math problems:

…struggling with a confusing mathematical passage caused a spike in radical religious extremes.”

Some further interesting aspects of the study state that:

“[r]esearchers found that religious zeal reactions were most pronounced among participants with bold personalities (defined as having high self-esteem and being action-oriented, eager and tenacious), who were already vulnerable to anxiety, and felt most hopeless about their daily goals in life…” Concluding that “Taken together, the results of this research program suggest that bold but vulnerable people gravitate to idealistic and religious extremes for relief from anxiety.”