Wealth and Religion on Flickr [graph] | Hacker News Reader

Wealth and Religion on Flickr [graph]

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16 pointsredorb7 comments

As a religious person, I don't find the graph itself to be anti-religion. The teachings of Jesus recorded in the Christian scriptures repeatedly warn that material wealth can interfere with one's relationship with God, and other (many? most?) religions make similar observations. So one way to look at this data is that it simply confirms this precept.

Anti-religious links come up occasionally on reddit and elsewhere. Reddit commentors aren't a good sample of the population, but they are a good sample of the population that is 1) youngish, 2) professional, 3) media-aware, and 4) intellectually self-conscious.

And their attitude toward religion? Contemptuous, resentful, cheeky, mocking. ...it lends me to believe that the 1-4 things I described above simply raise people to a cynicism that won't tolerate the more obvious fairy tales. Nothing too complicated. You aren't dealing with Spinoza here, but just kids who got out of Mayberry.

Anyway, those same 1-4 things (when present in large amounts) are exactly what produce wealth in society.

>Contemptuous, resentful, cheeky, mocking. ...it lends me to believe that the 1-4 things I described above simply raise people to a cynicism that won't tolerate the more obvious fairy tales.

Not to defend religion, but young people tend to be "Contemptuous, resentful, cheeky, mocking" of pretty much anything that isn't centred around their own world.

Yes, even in Plato's Laws the speakers remark how being an atheist is a young person thing. CS Lewis was an atheist until around his late twenties.

Respondents were given a +1 if they believe faith in God is necessary for morality

Is that really a measure of religiosity? Is someone who believes that necessarily more religious than someone who doesn't?

Make sure you don't miss the US data point.

Causation, correlation, or coincidence?

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