in that domain, and strangely to LENR denial, and other science bubble or anti-bubble there is an article of Roland Benabou ( http://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/papers.html) that explain how religious beliefs is related to the more general "belief in a just world" ( http://www.nber.org/papers/w11208)
International surveys reveal wide differences between the views held in different countries concerning the causes of wealth or poverty and the extent to which people are responsible for their own fate. At the same time, social ethnographies and experiments by psychologists demonstrate individuals' recurrent struggle with cognitive dissonance as they seek to maintain, and pass on to their children, a view of the world where effort ultimately pays off and everyone gets their just deserts. This paper offers a model that helps explain: i) why most people feel such a need to believe in a "just world"; ii) why this need, and therefore the prevalence of the belief, varies considerably across countries; iii) the implications of this phenomenon for international differences in political ideology, levels of redistribution, labor supply, aggregate income, and popular perceptions of the poor. The model shows in particular how complementarities arise endogenously between individuals' desired beliefs or ideological choices, resulting in two equilibria. A first, "American" equilibrium is characterized by a high prevalence of just-world beliefs among the population and relatively laissez-faire policies. The other, "European" equilibrium is characterized by more pessimism about the role of effort in economic outcomes and a more extensive welfare state. More generally, the paper develops a theory of collective beliefs and motivated cognitions, including those concerning "money" (consumption) and happiness, as well as religion. Note also that the vision of US about atheist is very different from europeans. Here some even says that atheist are more Christian=humanist than religious fan... and if we have Quakers here, they are not Christian. And if we have Taliban/Ayatolah, they are not Muslim nor even religious. Some other studies show that buying organic food, or green labeled product, make you more nasty at the cashier queue... the well known moral compensation principle... In developed countries, active religious practices is correlated with social dysfunction (crimes, abortion, early pregnancy), not knowing if it is the cause of the proposed cure, or like Bebanou system can say, if it is a common consequence of a symmetry breaking... so atheism/belief is not a result of being gullible/denialist or not, but a strategic and thus cultural choice. the way people practice and interpret their beliefs to justify their acts, is much more dependent on their personality... autonomous or heteronomous, empathic, sociopath, paranoid, rebel, intellectual, obsessional... Also depending on the place, on religious and moral landscape, the same religion imply very different behaviors and values. Being catholic in France or in Indonesia does not mean the same thing, and I imagine that in Miami, Montreal or New-York it is very different... Religion is not the good cutting to understand people behaviors. 2012/8/22 Axil Axil <[email protected]> > We engineers want to believe in the magic fix to the unknown. > > http://phys.org/news/2012-08-atheists-bargain-unknown-outcome.html > > Atheists and believers alike will repeatedly sacrifice large portions of > their income to unresponsive entities in the hope of a better outcome, a > new study suggests. > > Cheers: Axil >
