[Part one.] Saying these one billion people are “irreligious” is important. It seems doubtful to me that the one billion irreligious persons are actively atheists, agnostics, etc. They seem to be not atheists so much as apatheists. They don’t actively disbelieve; they simply don’t care or think about it. It just doesn’t matter to them.
That is what’s so curious about the Richard Dawkinses of the world. According to the numbers, it seems that irreligion is winning the battle of ideas, and winning handily, but without any concerted effort on anyone’s part. America’s irreligious are not rallying around the Falwells of anti-theism for leadership, even if they’re buying their books. And then they read other books. In the end, the Richard Dawkinses don’t matter.
But back to Paul and Zuckerman. After all the numbers and analysis, to what do they attribute the meteoric rise of irreligion? Healthcare.
Yup, universal healthcare is how they explain why the US is not as irreligious as all the other Western democracies. And why the rest of the West is so irreligious. Because not having guaranteed healthcare stresses people out, and a lot of bankruptcies are due to medical bills. If you don’t have healthcare, they say, you turn to Jesus.
It gets better. If you don’t have healthcare, it’s probably because you’re poor. Fair enough. But if you’re poor, they point out, you’re probably not well educated.
Got it now? Those stupid poor people—they still believe in Jesus! Someone should tell the irreligious poor people from the French and Russian Revolutions that they were playing out of character. Or perhaps being irreligious means, though you may be poor, that you’re not stupid, so those old revolutionaries don’t count? No true Scotsman.
Or perhaps it works something like in this Onion article?
No matter what sorts of hardships and illnesses life throws my way, I always count on the Lord to oversee my managed care… Oh, once in a while those folks from P & H Collection Agency come calling, but I know it’s just Jesus testing me. For I know that just as He delivered Lazarus from the tomb, the Lord will deliver me from the $80,000 in unpaid medical costs on my billing statement.
Help me, Jesus, indeed!
I think there may be something to it but they may have mixed the cause and the effect. So many religious people are under the sway of right with authoritarians and are easily convinced of the “evils†of universal healthcare.
[…] for UUs | Making Chutney on Why the gods are not winning #1: What’s the global score?SPS on Why the gods are not winning #2: Jesus loves the unhealthyWhy the gods are not winning #2: Jesus loves the unhealthy | Making Chutney on Why the gods are not […]
It is said that the way to Jesus is a path of righteousness. In the end, however, you shed a physical vessel in which the soul is enveloped; you die. Using some idiosyncratic logic, one could deduce that Jesus *can* deliver his professors from $80,000 in debt. But I would contend that a similar delivery could be made by members of the mafia on uncollected debts. You may as well take your chances and borrow from disreputable sources – you’re more certain of a speedy “delivery.”
Ha!
SPS, right. But lack of healthcare still can’t be that big of a factor for why the US is more religious than the rest of the West.