THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POVERTY, IGNORANCE, AND RELIGION

        The Science Channel recently aired a controversial and surprising new television program entitled Through the Wormhole. It is a discussion of current scientific issues with the actor, Morgan Freeman, as its host. In one episode entitled “Did we invent God or did God invent us?” Freeman explores the question of whether the concept of God is purely a product of our brains. As part of the discussion, Freeman tells about the ideas of a University of Texas psychologist named Jennifer Whitson. Through experiment, Whitson illustrates how people who feel that they have no control over their lives and surroundings are more likely to look for explanations in something mystical. On the other hand, people who feel well in control of their lives are less likely to believe in mystical or  spiritual beings controlling their destinies.

            One of Whitson’s experiments involved having people try to solve random problems. There were no right or wrong answers to the problems, but Whitson designed the experiment so that some people would feel that they were solving all of the problems while others were made to feel that they were failing to solve any of the problems. As a final part of the experiment she gave each of the people a picture of random static noise such as appears on a television screen. There were no pictures in the static, but the people who had been made to feel that they had failed to solve any of the problems, and who were discouraged with the feeling that they had no control, regularly claimed that they saw a picture of something in the static. Those who thought they had done well with the problems and felt in control said that they did not see anything in the static.

            The conclusion drawn by Whitson was that people tend to look to mystical and spiritual things for help when they feel that they have no control. People who feel totally in control are far less likely to adopt spiritual and mystical explanations. Morgan Freeman said that this might explain why the most religious and superstitious people in the world are in the poor and ignorant populations.

            Poor and ignorant people seem to be far more religious and superstitious than rich and educated people. Religion is basically a form of encouragement, support, and reinforcement. It is a crutch for people who feel they have no control over the world and need something to back them up. Poor and ignorant people want to believe that this is not all there is to life. They want to believe that there is a life after death that is much better than this one and is the best of all possible worlds.

            According to Gallup polls, there is a direct relationship between poverty and the religiosity of countries around the world. In the world's poorest countries -- those with average per-capita incomes of $2,000 or lower -- the median percentage of people who say religion is important in their daily lives is 95%. In contrast, the median for the richest countries -- those with average per-capita incomes higher than $25,000 -- is 47%.

Highly educated people tend to be less religious than people with little education. A poll of those distinguished scientists who are members of The National Academy of Sciences disclosed that 93% are atheists or agnostics.

            The anthropologist Scott Atran says: “In Britain and the United States, the highest measures of religious commitment and the most radical forms of religious affiliation (Pentecostal, Baptist, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists etc.) are registered among the most marginal or underprivileged social groups, especially minorities and persons at the bottom of the socioeconomic totem pole.”

            When you look at it from the point of view of very poor people the world over, belief in God has a rational basis. We are all born with a natural inclination to assume that everything in the world should make sense. Very poor people cannot accept that their lives of want, hunger, crime, infirmity, discrimination, and disrespect, are all there is or will ever be for them. They believe that life should be fair, and that there must be something to balance their hardships.  If you wander in the worst ghettos of American cities, or the teeming, indigent barrios of Latin American cities, or the fetid warrens of India’s slums, you will find people with nothing in the way of material goods, but a great deal of hope for a better life after death.

They need to believe that somehow in the afterlife God will level the playing field and that they are not condemned for all eternity to being poor, backward, inferior, or ignorant. They need to believe that in eternal life there will be no aristocrats and peasants, no intellectuals and simple minds. The poor of America need to believe that in the afterlife they will have everything they want and will get as much respect as if they were millionaires. The poor of the arid deserts of Arabia need to believe that in the afterlife there will be cool rivers flowing through green pastures with plentiful flowers and fruit.

            Religion is not nearly as important to middle and upper class Americans as it is for the poor. For many of the comfortable and educated, there is considerable doubt and lax adherence to required church-going expectations. I have known many middle class people who say that they believe in God but who go to church only once or twice a year. I have found that of those middle and upper class people who are deeply religious, many tend to be less educated or intelligent than others. The more educated and intelligent one is, the more such a person has a curious mind. People with great curiosity tend to be more skeptical. People with great skepticism are more likely to be atheists.