Why is religion stronger in economically unequal societies?

July 22, 2011

In other words, in economically skewed societies, both the rich and the poor are more religious. In fact, they found that, for nearly all of the measures of religiosity, when societies are more unequal, the richer people become more religious than the poorer people (this association was positive for all 12 measures of religiosity and was statistically significant for four).

This last finding is important because it bears on two hypotheses about why unequal societies are more religious. The first, called the “deprivation theory,” is that in economically unequal societies, poorer folks turn to religion for reassurance and comfort. This is certainly the hypothesis I believed before I read this paper. The second hypothesis, which is the authors’ theory, is called the “relative power theory.” This holds that as societies become more economically unequal, richer people become more religious so they can disseminate religion to those who aren’t so fortunate. As the authors note:

… many wealthy individuals, rather than simply allowing redistribution to be decided through the democratic process as such median-voter models assume, respond to higher levels of inequality by adopting religious beliefs and spreading them among their poorer fellow citizens. Religion then works to discourage interest in mere material well-being in favor of eternal spiritual rewards, preserving the privileges of the rich and allowing unequal conditions to continue.

Their findings thus suggest that both the deprivation and relative power theories are needed to explain the data. In economically unequal societies, rich people promulgate religion to keep their own place in the hierarchy, and, rather than fighting for more equality, poor people accept religion as an easy form of solace. Granted, the relative power theory sounds a bit weird to me, but the deprivation theory can’t explain why the upper classes become more religious when their societies are more unequal.

Members of a society with extreme disparities experience powerful cognitive dissonance, and cannot justify it. So, they use ‘faith’ to justify it and pretend that everything is exactly how an omni-benevolent ’god’ wants it to be.

(Source: azspot)

9:58am | URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9TnQy7OV5h9
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(Notes: 192)