Do religions really scale?
A lot of talk about the social benefits of Mormonism, Orthodox Judaism and Catholicism talks about the effects of the religion on local communities.
The social “benefit“ of hellfire as a deterrent against crime, in addition to secular punishments like jail or fines should persist on a national level.
Positive effects of Mormon communities extent to their non-Mormon neighbours.
It’s really unclear to me if a belief in the supernatural is necessary to create these benefits, or if the benefits of the beliefs vanish if you’re the only one with them, or if they vanish as a religion becomes the majority in a country.
Religion has one hell of a Simpson’s paradox. The wealthiest nations are also some of the least religious, and poor nations tend to be more religious. But within nations, religion correlates positively with income.
I do not understand this, and I wish I did.
Perhaps they are in some sense less religious, since it is the social expectation that *everyone* be religious in those communities? Whereas in more liberal countries it isn’t just a matter of how religion changes people, but of who comes to religion.
