Religion vs wealth

Something different than the usual doom and gloom and a warning: Don't let religion destroy you community, town, state, etc..

from The Washington Monthly (source from Pew report)


Basically the more religion in your area or country, the poorer your likely to be. Of course the US is an outlier but let's break that down.

The poor and stupid (from State of the States: Importance of Religion):


The more enlightened who don't pray to an invisible man in the sky:


Now you can wiki the gdp per capita for each state and you'll see the degenerates really do drag this country down.

Another interesting chart although I am looking for something more conclusive:



I was shocked to see that in the state capital, in one of the 4 housing bubble states , pssst it's Florida, right next to the bankruptcy courthouse is..... anyone.... anyone... yes a big ass church. Didn't these people watch George Carlin? God can't create money!! Was the church built as some sort of magical ATM machine; praying would somehow alleviate them of their debts??

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1) During bull markets, people "worship" money.
2) During bear markets, people pray to "God" for money........confirmation of the obvious.

 

Ever think it could be the reverse? The poorer they are the more likely to be attracted to the hope salesman. And why not, they haven't got much to lose.

 

Speaking of the salesman,

Believers Invest in the Gospel of Getting Rich

At the convention, the preachers — who also included Jesse Duplantis and Jerry Savelle — sprinkled their sermons with put-downs of the government, an overhaul of health care, public schools, the news media and other churches, many of which condemn prosperity preaching.

But mostly the preachers were working mightily to remind the crowd that they are God’s elect. “While everybody else is having a famine,” said Mr. Savelle, a Texas televangelist, “his covenant people will be having the best of times.”

“Any time a worried thought about money pops up in your mind,” Mr. Savelle continued, “the next thing you do is sow”: drop money, like seeds, in “good ground” like the preachers’ ministries. “Stop worrying, start sowing,” he added, his voice rising. “That’s God’s stimulus package for you.”

At that, hundreds streamed down the aisles to the stage, laying envelopes, cash and coins on the carpeted steps.

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Wow, condemn prosperity preaching. Any form of prosperity would mean fewer sheep in the seats.

 

John D. Rockefeller -Christian-Wealth in 2007 dollars. -$318 Billion
Henry Ford - Christian - Wealth in 2007 dollars - $188 billion
Sam Walton - Christian - Wealth in 2008 dollars- $128 billion
Carlos Slim Helu- Catholic - Net worth $35 billion

Some of the richest people in the world (at different time periods as you can see) have religion.

Your implication that religion and wealth counteract each other is false. You can check and see that a country(or state) is poor because of corrupt political leaders and/or bad policies and really does not have anything to do with religion. The corrupt political leaders can send wealth to the places where they live and not to other places. All those states you mentioned are places where our leaders are sending money because they live in those states or their business partners live there. There are not really any major campaign contributors in the poorer states so they stay poor.

And heck...just for fun, lets look at a place like vatican city. 100% Catholic there. Revenues of 371 million dollars per year and a population of 826 people. Thats a per capita income of $449,152 per year! About 10 times higher than that of the US! I guess being religious pays well after all!

Nice try though to try and force your athiest religion down our throats.

 

Which comes first. Does despair spread religion or the other way around?

 

No doubt.

 

thanks, i suggest the doubters read Alexis de Tocqueville for a nice synopsis of what we are talking about.

surf

 

"Buffett has described himself as agnostic when it comes to religious beliefs."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett#Personal_life

"In his religious views, it is likely that Gates is an agnostic or an atheist. Asked by a Time interviewer whether he believed in God, Gates replied "I don't have any evidence on that."

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Bill_Gates

Of course, executives at Time Warner are used to this sort of trouble from Mr. Turner. He has compiled a long list of verbal, public offenses. Among them: He once called Christianity ''a religion for losers''; he referred to the 1997 suicides of 39 people in the Heaven's Gate cult as ''a way to get rid of a few nuts''; he made a derogatory remark about Poles and the pope; and he called opponents of abortion ''bozos.''

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/19/business/mediatalk-aol-sees-a-different-side-of-time-warner.html

"BILD: Do you believe in God?
Brad Pitt (smiling): “No, no, no!”

BILD: Is your soul spiritual?
Brad Pitt: “No, no, no! I’m probably 20 per cent atheist and 80 per cent agnostic. I don’t think anyone really knows. You’ll either find out or not when you get there, until then there’s no point thinking about it"

http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/bild-e...terd-star-on-angelina-jolie-and-six-kids.html

 

you can find many examples on both sides. they are meaningless, as you can find the poorest of the poor with the exact same beliefs. i would say there is no correlation between religion and wealth of the individual, but there is clearly a correlation between the type of religion and the wealth of a society.

surf