in comparison to the enlightened, well educated and wealthy atheists/agnostics. Or is it because God hates you people?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danie...affiliated_b_3146894.html?utm_hp_ref=religion
Why are atheists and agnostics so much more economically advantaged than their unaffiliated counterparts? Older scholarship pointed to the role that higher education plays in undermining traditional religious beliefs, but recent research has found that higher education mostly affects religious participation, not belief. A more recent theory, developed by Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, proposes that populations with a greater degree of economic uncertainty tend to have higher rates of religious observance. Norris and Inglehart argue that "societies where people's daily lives are shaped by the threat of poverty, disease, and premature death remain as religious today as centuries earlier." The authors were primarily interested in making cross-national comparisons, but the theory can be applied to subnational communities as well.
Although it raises interesting questions, however, it would be premature to conclude that higher socioeconomic status is the catalyst for religious apostasy or non-belief. It is possible that the relationship is mediated by intervening experiences. For instance, prosperous parents often adopt differing parenting styles than those of more modest means. Affluent parents tend to stress values of individuality, creativity and autonomy, while less well-off parents tend to embrace more authoritarian approaches that emphasize the value of conformity and control. Some scholars argue that authoritarianism has been shown to be strongly associated with religiosity.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danie...affiliated_b_3146894.html?utm_hp_ref=religion
Why are atheists and agnostics so much more economically advantaged than their unaffiliated counterparts? Older scholarship pointed to the role that higher education plays in undermining traditional religious beliefs, but recent research has found that higher education mostly affects religious participation, not belief. A more recent theory, developed by Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, proposes that populations with a greater degree of economic uncertainty tend to have higher rates of religious observance. Norris and Inglehart argue that "societies where people's daily lives are shaped by the threat of poverty, disease, and premature death remain as religious today as centuries earlier." The authors were primarily interested in making cross-national comparisons, but the theory can be applied to subnational communities as well.
Although it raises interesting questions, however, it would be premature to conclude that higher socioeconomic status is the catalyst for religious apostasy or non-belief. It is possible that the relationship is mediated by intervening experiences. For instance, prosperous parents often adopt differing parenting styles than those of more modest means. Affluent parents tend to stress values of individuality, creativity and autonomy, while less well-off parents tend to embrace more authoritarian approaches that emphasize the value of conformity and control. Some scholars argue that authoritarianism has been shown to be strongly associated with religiosity.
