How Religions Compete for Money, Power, and People
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- Опубліковано 11 жов 2024
- The Michael Shermer Show # 474
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Religion in the twenty-first century is alive and well across the world, despite its apparent decline in North America and parts of Europe. Vigorous competition between and within religious movements has led to their accumulating great power and wealth. Religions in many traditions have honed their competitive strategies over thousands of years. Today, they are big business; like businesses, they must recruit, raise funds, disburse budgets, manage facilities, organize transportation, motivate employees, and get their message out.
Economist Paul Seabright argues that religious movements are a special kind of business: they are platforms, bringing together communities of members who seek many different things from one another-spiritual fulfilment, friendship and marriage networks, even business opportunities. Their function as platforms is what has allowed religions to consolidate and wield power, which can be used for good and for harm.
Paul Seabright is a Professor of Economics in the Industrial Economics Institute and Toulouse School of Economics at the University of Toulouse, France. His new book is The Divine Economy: How Religions Compete for Wealth, Power, and People.
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Love the Michael Shermer shows. Been a follower since his writing in Scientific American. He allows his guests to talk.
From the perspective of the receiver, using public taxes to help people in need is actually more libertarian than private charity. You give struggling people money and then leave them the hell alone; if they recover then they can contribute once again. Private charity almost always comes with conditions: if they make an investment in you they want something back for themselves personally and it's frequently some form of control.
Any peer-reviewed studies to back up that claim?
@@matthews5137 I was giving my opinion, not attempting to make a scientifically verifiable claim. Why don't you tell me which claim you're talking about?
@@cyberiad I was being kind. Private charities only give with conditions and to control? What are you talking about? When governments give, it's with endless conditions. See the U.S. welfare system. If anything, you've confused Privately charities with governments. Maybe that's what you meant to say.
@@matthews5137 The US government appears to be run in the in the interests of private corporations and not its citizens; so I can definitely see where you're coming from. If your government is rotten then it's understandable to prefer small private charity. I'm lucky enough not to live there.
I didn't decide to be a skeptic, i became one after being lied to again and again.
Good topic! Great interview ❤
one of the interesting aspects of religion is its need for embodiment which we call spirit. I believe this is related to the need for a origin of moral authority which can not be derived by laws of state.
Love your content, but, the link to ask a question "Is not available in your country" - Israel. Why?
It should work… sorry about that! We’ll look into it first thing Monday morning.
i would love to see a law that made public all gross earning and the taxes paid by all entities people or otherwise
And political parties. At least conservatives.
Well, it's like Jesus always said, "Follow me, boys, let's go start stacking that paper!"
Hi Michael! Please take a look at "Elaine Thorpe" ("trance medium") on the Jeff Mara Podcast which is a fairly large podcast for gullible people. Would love to hear your opinion on this. It's like James Van Praagh on steroids! The interview with "her" was posted 12 days ago.
1:14:23 Being a Pastafarian, I don't understand they have a problem with it.
My definition of religion is a bit more general than Mr. Seabright's definition. For me, a religion is a world view based on superstition and wishful thinking, rather than observation and science. Most religious world views include ideas of spirits, but not necessarily all of them.
nO, WHAT is the target for the use of themoney. I don't care whether it is the gov. or tithing. I want a greaaaaaater guarantee for the trust I have in the applicaton of the donation/tax
Good luck. On some level your never going to get a garuntee of anything. At the end of the day the staunchest skeptic has to have faith in some things, i put mine in tangible places.
The great thing about religion is that God works everyone of them - for free. And he is a really crappy customer service rep. II think he should be fired. But you can always report him at the BBB.