Religion and Poverty

Started by winkio, September 10, 2010, 01:03:42 am

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The Niche

It is quite impossible to accurately map out anyone's motivations and the causes for them. That is why this debate cannot be closed.
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Quote from: winkio on June 15, 2011, 07:30:23 pm
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Subsonic_Noise

Quote from: Diokatsu on September 11, 2010, 03:55:35 pm
Quote from: Subsonic_Noise on September 11, 2010, 03:08:37 pm
Well, it really depends on what you call "poor". I see a general tendency that people in really poor countries, like africa or burma, tend to be religious (I have been to Burma and haven't really met any people that weren't religious) while there are much more atheists in post-industrial countries. I think it has something to do with the level of education, but I'm once again too tired to finish this arguement, so I pass it on to whoever wants to use it. (not trying to imply that religious people are stupid though)


I know what you mean, but at the same time, I don't think it's poverty but the culture and the exposure to foreign ideas. You can possibly relate poverty to the state of culture and to the lack of diversity, but the link isn't direct and it's not too strong of an arguement in my opinion.

Well there is a pretty direct link between both, but that does involve poverty of the whole country, by which I mean not only poverty in money. A group of people that is struggling to survive will most probabpy not develop the same complex cultural patterns as a postindustrial middleclass society will, and the means of communication are limited by poverty too. The towns in burma I have been in had no way to communicate to other countries at all. And even if they did, to properly understand signals and messages coming from other cultures,  there needs to be a certain level of education.Fuck I need sleep.

Fallen Angel X

I actually agree with Diokatsu. I will also have to disagree with Sub here. Poverty and religion don't have quite a direct relation to each other. I think that it is generally accepted to say that poverty is created by a number of causes. The same can be said of religion. Religion, as several of my mentors have pointed out, is an attempt to understand the things that we can't explain. Religion is also something that people turn to in times of hardship, whether to pray or spite it. Science has decreased the need in faith considerably; we know now that it is not a God of lightning tossing his thunderbolts during a thunderstorm. But even so, there are still people who will turn to faith in post-industrial classes; I'm not very religious but there are still some things in the world that I cannot explain. My point is that poverty does not equal religion but is just a factor in whether a person does or does not choose to be religious and that sometimes it will have no effect whatsoever.

Subsonic_Noise

And I never said that poverty is the only thing that can cause religion, or the other way around. I just said that people in difficult situations such as poverty tend to
be religious.

Daxisheart

when your life sucks, you have a tendency to WANT to blame it on people.
do people like acknowledging their own faults? Would you rather say that it was chance that you life crappily? From there, it's not a far step to reaching a belief that there's a reason for that, and that the reason could make your life better.

Religion is influenced by poverty, but I'd say it's more influenced by the environment around you. When growing up in a environment where it's just accepted as FACT that religion is true, then when something happens you sorta make connections. From religion to poverty and culture.

tl;dr: everything influences everything.
"Oh hey look godless stuff": ShowHide
What is really, really interesting is that while Abrahamic Christians give so much importance to their own free will, by their very definition of their God they deprive Him of free will.
The concept that He is not human and thus not derive the same morals as us really does not work. If his idea of morality, good or evil, is beyond us, is beyond our comprehension, why should we care? If he judges that not saving a woman from being raped a murdered a moral decision, then we should still trust him?
god i am such an atheist asshole.

I am on such a coolkid atheist rampage this week.

Power Hungry Midget

I too have noticed that the poor tend to be more devout. Personally I find religion as an attempt to put you in a box and strip you of your identity, replacing it with that of the religion. So you go from that eccentric chap down the road to the Muslim down the road or the Jew down the road etc. I also think there is a connection between wealth and the church. Wealthy people tend to give more to the church and charities and assume this will make them more pious. (Perhaps that might be an old fashioned thing). Also, poorer people having larger families could be related to religion, although the real reason is that some of the children might die or that the parents want the the government benefit(all dependent on country) or they want an extra pair of hands to increase the family income. Catholics, however or any other religion which forbids the use of condoms for that matter, have larger families due to the lack of contraception.
However it is impossible to say religion is the main cause of poverty. The main cause today is first world countries taking advantage of third-world countries and the world bank sucking countries dry. Poverty within first world countries will always exist even if it is only a few thousand people. Someone has to be on minimum wage and if the economy takes a turn for the worse and jobs are cut, poverty will increase.

The plot thickens......

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