Religiosity & social inequality.

BBC 4 has a great discussion program called Thinking Allowed that focuses on the latest social research and where plenty of interesting topics usually pop up. I subscribed to their podcast, and recently listened to a discussion on the relation between religiosity and social inequality (MP3 format) that could be, I thought, valuable to the kids. While I suppose it's not a very politically correct issue to bring up, the fact is that social research clearly proves that those countries where social inequaity is higher tend to be more religious, while societies that have managed to somehow bridge the social gap tend to be more secular. Again, one could like or dislike the findings, but that still doesn't change the facts.

Said that, the problem is, of course, how to interpret those results. Does this vindicate Marx, who famously stated that religion is "the opium of the people"? Why does this relationship even exist? Is it because poor people, especially those who live in a society where other people clearly enjoy a large amount of wealth, need some sort of belief to alleviate their pain? Or, on the other hand, is it something promoted by the wealthy elite, to subjugate and control the less fortunate in their societies? And how do we explain, then, that the wealthy also clearly believe in these supernatural explanations? They obviously have no need to be controlled and subjugated. Even better, is it that higher social inequality leads to more religiosity, or that more religiosity leads to higher social inequality? Which is the cause and which the effect? Or perhaps they are both dependent on a third factor that could cause them both?

These are some of the issues we discussed after listening to the short (about 15-20 minutes) conversation from Thinking Allowed. Basically, my intention wasn't so much to find an answer to the above questions as to teach the kids that social issues are always far more complex than one may think at first glance. The problem is not so much identifying the facts and measuring them as isolating their probable causes.