Category: Religion

Rather than answer all the objections put forward to my theism and evolution post let me state the argument in another way which should make it clear that I am (obviously) correct.

Suppose that God came down from the heavens tomorrow in all his glory, throwing thunderbolts, raising the dead, turning water into wine, whatever it takes to convince everyone of his existence.  If this were to occur I have no doubt that even Richard Dawkins, precisely because he is a rational scientist, would say ‘hmmm, perhaps I wasn’t quite right about all this evolution stuff.’  My point in the post is that many religious people don’t need the demonstration – they already believe and in so doing they logically question evolution just as Dawkins would if he came to believe as they do.

Remember the $28,000 grilled cheese sandwich with the image of the Virgin Mary?  The same idiots have bought a Popemobile for $244,000 and it’s not the cool one.

Odds that the next Pope will be named "Damien": 80 to 1.

I assume they are only taking "yes" bets; here is a New York Times link on the relevant papal betting markets.

The ever-provocative Will Wilkinson opines:

In a fit of Beckerite rational choice reasoning, I decided that
theists ought to have higher rates of death by accident. If I believe
that heaven is infinite bliss, then I should be quite eager to join my
maker. Suicide is a disqualification for paradise, but dying in a car
accident isn’t. So, one should expect that theists who believe in
perpetual Miami would take more risks than those who do not so believe,
and that thus, death-by-accident ought to be higher among believer than
non-believers.

My guess is that there is no difference in rates of
death-by-accident among believers and non-believers. If my guess is
correct, then there’s another reason to believe that many people don’t
really believe in God, even though they think they do. Or, at least, there’s a reason for rational choice economists to believe meta-atheism.

My take: Most of all, theists should have stronger reasons to live.  They have their own selfish reasons, plus whatever role they think they are supposed to be playing in God’s plan.  So they ought to take fewer chances; indeed the data suggest that both religious belief and religious participation are correlated with longer lifespans.  And even if theists believe death is paradise, that will come sooner or later in any case.  In other words, heaven brings an "income effect," not a "substitution effect."  We need of course two auxiliary assumptions.  First, theists, given their perceived roles in God’s plan, do not feel a strong impatience to arrive in heaven.  Second, the method of death under consideration should not affect the probability of heaven vs. hell.

That all being said, we don’t have a good theory of how to rank-order infinities (e.g., "infinity plus three" is not mathematically larger than "infinity").  So how can anyone who sees any chance of infinite utility satisfy standard choice axioms?  Even Nick Bostrom can’t answer this question.  (And should theists accept Tabarrok’s Offer?)  But I won’t blame this problem on theism per se.  As Nick argues, atheistic cosmologies can easily have problems with infinite expected values.  And arguably theism could be used to define limits on time, physical space, or the scope of possible worlds.  So both empirics and theory suggest that theists should be more eager to live, and less willing to die (now).

Harvard economist Robert Barro has been engaged in a major project on economics and religion. Here is an interview, outlining what he has learned. Here are some results:

1. Religious participation is negatively correlated with economic growth.

2. For the most part religious belief (as opposed to participation) is not correlated with economic growth. Belief in hell is positively correlated with growth, however.

3. Religious pluralism makes people more religious. In other words, the more options available, the more likely that religion will be found appealing.

4. As a country becomes wealthier, its people tend to become less religious (the U.S. is an outlier here; we are remarkably religious for our level of wealth).

Here is the part that surprised me most:

We look at the consequences of having an established state religion. On net, we find that that is actually positive, both for church attendance and for religious beliefs. To some extent, that goes against what Adam Smith said. Smith stressed that established religion would promote monopoly, poor service, and decreased service attendance. He particularly inferred that from looking at the Anglican Church in England.

We find, however, that the net relationship is actually positive, and we think that is basically because state religion tends to be accompanied by the state subsidizing religious activity in various ways. I think an economist, particularly Adam Smith, would generally accept the idea that something that is subsidized will tend to occur more often than something that isn’t. It’s the same as saying that something that is taxed will tend to occur less often.

Here is Barro’s home page, with links to many of his writings. Here is a plug for my colleague, Laurence Iannaccone, who works on related issues and has been conferring with Barro.

Thanks to the ever-excellent www.politicaltheory.info for the link.

Addendum: Here is a recent Barro lecture, thanks to Andrew Grossman for the tip.