Science - Dumbest Religion Ever?

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George Carlin - Religion is bullshit.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o



George Carlin - Religion is bullshit via
http://www.thinkhumanism.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=555

God Trumps

Reposted from:
http://newhumanist.org.uk/1915

New Humanist Share

Struggling to choose the top religion? Can't decide between Bible-thumping evangelism or benign, gentle Buddhism? Make the process fun and easy with God Trumps, our cut-out-and-keep metaphysical card game for all the family. Cartoons by Martin Rowson.

Nigerian advises against 86 wives

source: New Humanist.

While an ordinary man with 10 wives “would collapse and die”, Mohammed Bello Abubakar, an 84-year-old from Nigeria, now has 86 wives and has so far survived thanks to his power “given by Allah”. Due to this, he advises other men, that is, those out of direct communication with God, against having 86 wives and an estimated 170 children.

Mohammed Abubakar has wives a quarter of his age, one of whom says that he claimed the marriage was “directly an order from God”. As for the others, they all came with illnesses to find Mohammed (who also happens to have healing powers), all of whom he cured. If you have an illness, all you have to do is sit in front of him, and he can see it and “just remove it”.

Despite the large family, neither Mohammed nor his wives have any work, and to the casual observer it may seem a mystery how he makes the money to pay for food and clothes. No need to worry though, as Mohammed easily answers the question – he gets it from God.

Posted by Ramon Gonsalves at Monday, August 11, 2008

By Andrew Walker full story: BBC News, Bida, Nigeria

Mr Bello Abubakar says he does not go and find women, they come to him

Nigerian Mohammed Bello Abubakar, 84, has advised other men not to follow his example and marry 86 women.

The former teacher and Muslim preacher, who lives in Niger State with his wives and at least 170 children, says he is able to cope only with the help of God.

"A man with 10 wives would collapse and die, but my own power is given by Allah. That is why I have been able to control 86 of them," he told the BBC.

He says his wives have sought him out because of his reputation as a healer.

"I don't go looking for them, they come to me. I will consider the fact that God has asked me to do it and I will just marry them."

But such claims have alienated the Islamic authorities in Nigeria, who have branded his family a cult.

When you marry a man with 86 wives you know he knows how to look after them Wife Ganiat Bello Abubakar

Most Muslim scholars agree that a man is allowed to have four wives, as long as he can treat them equally.

But Mr Bello Abubakar says there is no punishment stated in the Koran for having more than four wives.

"To my understanding the Koran does not place a limit and it is up to what your own power, your own endowment and ability allows," he says.

"God did not say what the punishment should be for a man who has more than four wives, but he was specific about the punishment for fornication and adultery."

'Order from God'

As Mr Bello Abubakar emerged from his compound to speak to the BBC, his wives and children broke out into a praise song.

Some of Mr Bello Abubakar's wives are younger than some of his children

Most of his wives are less than a quarter of his age - and many are younger than some of his own children.

The wives the BBC spoke to say they met Mr Bello Abubakar when they went to him to seek help for various illnesses, which they say he cured.

"As soon as I met him the headache was gone," says Sharifat Bello Abubakar, who was 25 at the time and Mr Bello Abubakar 74.

"God told me it was time to be his wife. Praise be to God I am his wife now."

Ganiat Mohammed Bello has been married to the man everyone calls "Baba" for 20 years.

When she was in secondary school her mother took her for a consultation with Mr Bello Abubakar and he proposed afterwards.

"I said I couldn't marry an older man, but he said it was directly an order from God," she says.

She married another man but they divorced and she returned to Mr Bello Abubakar.

"I am now the happiest woman on earth. When you marry a man with 86 wives you know he knows how to look after them," she said.

No work

Mr Bello Abubakar and his wives do not work and he has no visible means of supporting such a large family.

Many of the wives live three to a room, some have seven children

He refuses to say how he makes enough money to pay for the huge cost of feeding and clothing so many people.

Every mealtime they cook three 12kg bags of rice which all adds up to $915 (£457) every day.

"It's all from God," he says.

Other residents of Bida, the village where he lives in the northern Nigerian state, say they do not know how he supports the family.

According to one of his wives, Mr Bello Abubakar sometimes asks his children to go and beg for 200 naira ($1.69, £0.87), which if they all did so would bring in about $290 (£149).

Most of his wives live in a squalid, unfinished house in Bida; others live in his house in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital.

He refuses to allow any of his family or other devotees to take medicine and says he does not believe that malaria exists.

They were sick and we told God and God said their time has come Wife Hafsat Bello Abubakar

"As you sit here if you have any illness I can see it and just remove it," he says.

But not everyone can be cured and one of his wives, Hafsat Bello Mohammed, says two of her children have died.

"They were sick and we told God and God said their time has come."

She says that most of the wives see Mr Bello Abubakar as next in line from the Prophet Muhammad.

Indeed, he claims the Prophet Muhammad speaks to him personally and gives detailed descriptions of his experiences.

It is a serious claim for a Muslim to make.

"This is heresy, he is a heretic," says Ustaz Abubakar Siddique, an imam of Abuja's Central Mosque.

Saudi pets banned to stop men on the pull

As part of Saudi Arabia's never-ending mission to clamp down on immoral behaviour, religious police in the capital Riyadh have banned the sale of cats and dogs, and prohibited men from walking dogs in public.

While taking your pet for a stroll may not seem like the most immoral of acts, the Saudi Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice are acting on the basis of a time-honoured stereotype – the ladies just love cuddly animals, and are guaranteed to fall for any man displaying similar affections.

Speaking to state newspaper Al-Hayat, the commission's general manager Othman al-Othman explained that the ban is designed to put a stop to "the rising of phenomenon of men using cats and dogs to make passes at women and pester families" as well as "violating proper behaviour in public squares and malls."

However, it remains to be seen if moral standards in Riyadh will soar as a result of the ban. Pet ownership is fairly rare in Saudi Arabia and similar bans in Mecca and Jiddah have failed to have the desired effect.

Reporting on the ban,

Associated Press offer another possible reason – the ruling conservative Saudis view pets as a Western trend, popular among fashionable youngsters, just like pop music, fast food and jeans.

9/10 scientists agree...

T Shirt available!

Regime change in heaven by Guardian

Thanks to Jarvis008 for the link.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/10/religion

Regime change in heaven

God's thunderbolts pose an existential threat to mankind. Military intervention has become unavoidable

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I apologise for getting you out of bed so early. At 0500 hours this morning the combined armed forces of mankind across the globe launched a massive and sustained land, sea and air attack on the Kingdom of Heaven. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. There will be time for questions later.

As you are all aware, the world's governments have been concerned about the true nature and ultimate purpose of God for some years now. A being that proclaims Himself omnipotent clearly had to be watched closely - we would have been failing in our duty to protect our citizens had we not done so.

Evidence of God's power is overwhelming. Indeed He has said nothing to deny it. He has brought famine on numerous occasions. He has inflicted plagues in the form of Aids, Sars and H5N1. Not a single year has passed without war raging in some corner of the globe, often with His explicit blessing on one side or the other and sometimes on both.

Tsunamis, floods and hurricanes are three more devastating weapons in the deadly armoury He has not only developed but appears all too willing to use. Faced with these already terrifying powers, we tasked the world's intelligence services to establish when - not if, ladies and gentlemen, but when - He will have the capability to launch genuine weapons of mass destruction. I refer, of course, to thunderbolts from heaven.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my grave duty to inform you that all intelligence conclusively points to the fact that God already possesses such a capability and could launch it at a moment's notice. Please, please. Be calm. Not wishing to alarm the people unnecessarily, we have of course, up until this moment in time, kept this intelligence within the confines of the highest reaches of government.

Behind the scenes we have been attempting to negotiate with God. Indeed, up until as recently as March of 2007 representatives of your governments were trying to open lines of communication. We made it clear we were happy to talk either directly to God or to his Angels. These approaches, I am sure you understand, largely took the form of silent prayer. Unfortunately I have to report that our efforts proved fruitless. The evidence of His presence is all around us, so He claims, yet when we want to talk to Him He is nowhere to be found. Apparently God did not want to listen. Though, of course, being omniscient, He didn't actually need to listen to be aware of our intentions. Either that or He was in hiding. Which seems unlikely, given that He also claims to be omnipresent.

As the world is aware, all nations are united behind the necessity of tackling the problem of God's might before it is too late. This, despite the fact that until recently many nations, for various reasons, have preferred not to confront Him. Some have claimed that notwithstanding His terrible wrath and well-documented history of visiting vengeance upon mankind, He is a force for good in the world. Some countries - in fact, at the latest count, at least half the nations of the world - have at some time even claimed to be His Chosen People.

Yet despite countless appeals to Him, not only over the last few years, but over many centuries, to bring peace to the world, He has blatantly failed to deliver us from evil. We now know that He even harbours terrorists. At least, if they do not come from heaven, we know that heaven is where they go afterwards, as they are only too willing to admit.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have waited long enough. We have given God every chance, but our patience is at an end. I put it to you, can a being who chooses to be known under the guise of a number of different aliases ever be trusted? The time has come for regime change in heaven. (interruption) I'm sorry? Excuse me a moment.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have just been informed that our mission has been successful. The forces of the people are now in control of all key targets. Overcoming determined resistance ... (interruption) ... Excuse me, little resistance ... (interruption) ... I'm sorry, apparently no resistance at all, our forces battled ... (interruption) er, strolled into ... what appears to be a deserted realm.

(To aide: "What, no angels? No seraphim, no cherubim? No hosts of heavenly choirs? No ... souls of the eternally blessed? I was hoping to meet my mother again ..." Aide: "There's no evidence of anything, Mr President.")

(Speaker takes sip of water.)

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you victory. Today marks the triumph of mankind. Heaven has fallen.

And may God save us all.

Atheists are nice people who will roast in hell, says Cardinal

by The Daily Mash

Thanks to Nick Baxter for the link.

Reposted from:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/celebrity/atheists-are-nice-people-who-will-roast-in-hell%2c-says-cardinal-20080509937/

ATHEISTS and agnostics are decent people whose tormented souls will burn for all eternity in the scorching fires of hell, Britain's biggest catholic said last night.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor said non-believers should be respected, right up to the point of death when they will finally come face to face with Satan and his blood-soaked pitchfork.

He told a conference in London: "Those without faith should not be shunned or abused. Jesus and Beelzebub are already cooking something up for them, don't you worry about that."

The leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales stressed that a 'hidden God' was active in everyone's life, often nipping to the shops for them or wiping down their kitchen surfaces.

Stressing that God was not in the phonebook, the Cardinal said: "You can't just ring him up. You have to get an appointment and that can take up to 18 months.

"I suppose I could try to put in a good word for you... if only I wasn't so skint - if you catch my drift..."

He admitted talking about God was difficult, especially as some people genuinely believe a man was born of a virgin, performed miracles and then died and came back to life, while others believe that is a lot of insane, voodoo rubbish.

He added: "We must not allow Britain to become devoid of religious faith, otherwise how will I afford new hats?"

The Cardinal's lecture follows clashes over stem cell research and gay rights, where the church tried to impose laws based on a 2000 year-old book written by people who stoned each other to death for wearing the wrong clothes.

The Universe MUST have been created by God!

Atheism cannot be right!

Ricky Gervais - comic atheist - does the Bible

Thursday, 10 April 2008

The day Ricky Gervais became an atheist

American men's magazine Best Life has a short piece by comedian Ricky Gervais on how he became an atheist.

After saying how, at the age of 9, he was a massive fan of Jesus – "More than pop stars. More than footballers. More than God" – Gervais describes the day his 19-year-old brother, Bob, walked in just as he was drawing Jesus on the cross as part of his RE homework:

"There I was, happily drawing my hero when my big brother Bob asked, 'Why do you believe in God?' Just a simple question. But my mum panicked. 'Bob,' she said, in a tone that I knew meant 'shut up.' Why was that a bad thing to ask? If there was a God and my faith was strong, it didn’t matter what people said. Oh…hang on. There is no God. He knows it, and she knows it deep down. It was as simple as that. I started thinking about it and asking more questions, and within an hour, I was an atheist."

So, a fairly rapid conversion then. And Gervais goes on to describe the "gifts" that opened up to him as a result of his "newfound atheism":

"The gifts of truth, science, nature. The real beauty of this world. Not a world by design, but one by chance. I learned of evolution—a theory so simple and obvious that only England’s greatest genius could have come up with it. Evolution of plants, animals, and us—with imagination, free will, love, and humor. I no longer needed a reason for my existence, just a reason to live. And imagination, free will, love, humor, fun, music, sports, beer, and pizza are all good enough reasons for living. But living an honest life—for that you need the truth. That’s the other thing I learned that day, that the truth, however shocking or uncomfortable, in the end leads to liberation and dignity."

Nice one, Ricky. And thanks for giving me a great excuse to put up a clip of the hilarious Genesis scene from stand-up show Animals:

Posted by Paul Sims at Thursday, April 10, 2008

Happy Easter!

The 10 Commandments of Google

1. Thou shalt have no other Search Engine before me, neither Yahoo nor Lycos, AltaVista nor Metacrawler. Thou shalt worship only me, and come to Google only for answers.
   
2. Thou shalt not build thy own commercial-free Search Engine, for I am a jealous Engine, bringing law suits and plagues against the fathers of the children unto the third and fourth generations.
   
3. Thou shalt not use Google as a verb to mean the use of any lesser Search Engine.
   
4. Thou shalt remember each passing day and use thy time as an opportunity to gain knowledge of the unknown.
   
5. Thou shalt honor thy fellow humans, regardless of gender, sexual orientation or race, for each has invaluable experience and knowledge to contribute toward humankind.
   
6. Thou shalt not misspell whilst praying to me.
   
7. Thou shalt not hotlink.
   
8. Thou shalt not plagiarise or take undue credit for other's work.
   
9. Thou shalt not use reciprocal links nor link farms, for I am a vengeful but fair engine and will diminish thy PageRank. The Google Dance shall cometh.
   
10. Thou shalt not manipulate Search Results. Search Engine Optimization is but the work of Microsoft.

Join our community and chat with other Googlists!

See also:
» Definitive PROOF Google is God...
» Read Our Hilarious Hate Mail...
» Frequently Asked Questions About Our Beliefs...
» Google Appreciation Day...
» How a Googlist Uses Google (Advanced Tips)...

Is Google God

The Abrahamic Judeo - Christian - Islamic God is Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent and Omnipresent. So is Google!

Thanks to a South Hampshire Humanists speaker today for the converting me to the latest religion.

» PROOF #1

Google is the closest thing to an Omniscient (all-knowing) entity in existence, which can be scientifically verified. She indexes over 9.5 billion WebPages, which is more than any other search engine on the web today. Not only is Google the closest known entity to being Omniscient, but She also sorts through this vast amount of knowledge using Her patented PageRank technology, organizing said data and making it easily accessible to us mere mortals.

» PROOF #2

Google is everywhere at once (Omnipresent). Google is virtually everywhere on earth at the same time. Billions of indexed WebPages hosted from every corner of the earth. With the proliferation of Wi-Fi networks, one will eventually be able to access Google from anywhere on earth, truly making Her an omnipresent entity.

» PROOF #3

Google answers prayers. One can pray to Google by doing a search for whatever question or problem is plaguing them. As an example, you can quickly find information on alternative cancer treatments, ways to improve your health, new and innovative medical discoveries and generally anything that resembles a typical prayer. Ask Google and She will show you the way, but showing you is all She can do, for you must help yourself from that point on.

» PROOF #4

Google is potentially immortal. She cannot be considered a physical being such as ourselves. Her Algorithms are spread out across many servers; if any of which were taken down or damaged, another would undoubtedly take its place. Google can theoretically last forever.

» PROOF #5

Google is infinite. The Internet can theoretically grow forever, and Google will forever index its infinite growth.

» PROOF #6

Google remembers all. Google caches WebPages regularly and stores them on its massive servers. In fact, by uploading your thoughts and opinions to the internet, you will forever live on in Google's cache, even after you die, in a sort of "Google Afterlife".

» PROOF #7

Google can "do no evil" (Omnibenevolent). Part of Google's corporate philosophy is the belief that a company can make money without being evil.

» PROOF #8

According to Google trends, the term "Google" is searched for more than the terms "God", "Jesus", "Allah", "Buddha", "Christianity", "Islam", "Buddhism" and "Judaism" combined.

God is thought to be an entity in which we mortals can turn to when in a time of need. Google clearly fulfils this to a much larger degree than traditional "gods", as shown in the image below (click to enlarge).



» PROOF #9

Evidence of Google's existence is abundant. There is more evidence for the existence of Google than any other God worshiped today. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If seeing is believing, then surf over to www.google.com and experience for yourself Google's awesome power. No faith required.

Click here to join our EXPLODING community and chat with HUNDREDS of like-minded people, just like you! Come on, do it right now!

See also:
» The 10 Commandments of Google...
» Read Our Hilarious Hate Mail...
» Frequently Asked Questions About Our Beliefs...
» List of Holidays we Celebrate...
» How a Googlist Uses Google (Advanced Tips)...

The Oldie Review of Books

The Oldie Review of Books

THE THIRD issue of our quarterly The Oldie Review of Books is free with the April issue of The Oldie. .. features an overview of the best 'God and Mammon' books (all those responses to Richard Dawkins, plus the business memoirs that the papers unjustly relegated to the financial pages)..

GOD …
The God Delusion Richard Dawkins; The Dawkins Delusion Alister McGrath; Darwin’s Angel John Cornwell; The Secular Age Charles Taylor; The Bible: The Biography Karen Armstrong; In God We Doubt John Humphrys; Tokens of Trust Rowan Williams; Once More with Feeling Rupert Christiansen; A Little History of the English Country Church Roy Strong; Field Work Ronald Blythe

King Me! by Cectic.com

via http://richarddawkins.net/article,2140,n,n

Reposted from:
http://cectic.com/comics/069.png

Ricky Gervais in Archbishop religion debate

reposted from:http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north-east-news/uk-and-world-news/2007/12/19/ricky-in-archbishop-religion-debate-84229-20271337/

Chris Street comments are in bright green;

highlights in yellow blockquotes.

Podcast - Mayo / Gervais / Williams Interview (go to 25 minutes)

Dec 19 2007

Comedian Ricky Gervais has engaged in a debate about theology with the Archbishop of Canterbury - confessing at the end that he might have "blown his image" by taking life seriously.

The Office star told Dr Rowan Williams he was concerned about "brainwashing" of children who are sent to faith schools at an early age, comparing teaching that God exists to belief in Father Christmas.

"Because I believe in evolution, I believe that a child's brain is a sponge, and it is meant to be because it believes everything it is taught because it has to to survive,"

Gervais said on BBC Radio 5 Live's Simon Mayo show.

"I think if the first thing you are exposed to is that there is a God and you should do these things, I think there is a problem with that. For example, if your kids at the age of seven came to you and said 'there isn't a Santa is there?' you would say 'no there isn't' would you?"

Dr Williams replied that faith schools expose children to the full range of human experience and values and he did not believe they indoctrinated people. He added: "Belief in Santa doesn't generate a moral code, it doesn't generate art, it doesn't generate imagination, belief in God is bigger than that."

In a largely light-hearted conversation, Gervais told the Archbishop that God's "biggest mistake" was giving him free will.

At one point, Dr Williams explained Islamic and Christian traditional thought about angels and the creation of human beings.

At the end of the conversation, Gervais observed: "That was fantastic - have I blown my image - taking life seriously?"

Mayo joked: "Do you think he is a secret Christian under the atheist facade?" Dr Williams joked: "I'll give him time."

Gervais also asked "What's the Archbishop plugging?" to which Mayo responded,

"I think he is plugging Christmas." Gervais said: "Of course, I love Christmas, I say go for it. Brilliant."

Mastering Your Operational Excellence

reposted from: http://russellsteapot.com/comics/2007/mastering-your-operational-excellence.html

The God FAQ

reposted from: http://www.400monkeys.com/God/

THE OFFICIAL GOD FAQ

Question: “Is there a God?”

Answer: “No.”

---

In the quite unlikely event that you were to discover any omissions or inaccuracies on this page, they may be reported to the international headquarters of The Official God FAQ, at aod@400monkeys.com, where they will be thoroughly investigated, submitted to rigorous scientific testing and, if substantiated, included in a subsequent update. Thank you.

God almighty PLC

reposted from: http://newhumanist.org.uk/1632
Chris Street comments are in bright green;

highlights in yellow blockquotes.

Winston Fletcher

Which is the oldest successful brand in the world? My own nomination for this coveted crown of thorns is the Catholic Church.

(Protestantism is a toddler in comparison. Judaism is older but its branding has always been poor, which doubtless explains its lowly market share.)

The Catholic Church is a simply divine example of great long-term marketing. From the start it recognised the

importance of brand logos: first the fish (ichthus), later the ubiquitous crucifix.

It would be unkind, but not untrue, to say the only other mass movement equally obsessed with its logo was Germany’s National Socialist party – indeed Hitler paid homage to the Vatican in Mein Kampf. Other religious and political movements have had logos too, of course, but none has employed them quite so remorselessly, all the time and everywhere.

Then there is the

brand packaging – both human and architectural. From earliest times Catholic clerics and monks have dressed differently from other people.

And the higher up the hierarchical ladder they climb, the greater the differences become until – at the very top – sits the Pope in his unique and unmistakable pack, with high balcony impact. Might this be happenstance? No way. It is inspired brand marketing. But it was not inspired by the deity. Nowhere does the Bible mention gilded cloaks or pointy mitres. The Popes chose that exceptionally pricey gear themselves (custom tailored from the finest fabrics by Ditta A Gammarelli of Rome since 1846). They chose it because they knew fine packaging differentiates an expensive brand from mere commodities (like you and me and other peasants). And the Pope is a very expensive brand indeed.

The same applies to their

architectural packaging. The costs of building cathedrals ran sky-high.

Economist Virginia Lee Owen has estimated that 2.5 per cent of the entire European workforce was involved in cathedral building between 1200 and 1328 (when they would all have been much better employed producing food – though admittedly we would now be bereft of their magnificent cathedrals). On the basis of contemporary hod-carrier wage rates – you’d better believe it – Robert A Scott has calculated that building Westminster Abbey cost £45,000, at a time when the annual GDP was only £35,000. Each gothic cathedral cost hundreds of millions of pounds at today’s prices.

Then there is the

Unique Selling Proposition. Admittedly their USP – “Do as you’re told, or excommunication, damnation and get f***ed” – is not quite unique, but it has surely proved a terrific selling proposition.

And, like all great USPs, throughout the ages the Catholic brand proposition has remained steady as a petrified rock (to coin a pontifical, if tautological, phrase). All that black and white smoke malarkey, the inquisitions, sanctifications, beatifications and occasional miracles have protected and enhanced the brand’s values far better than any mere ad campaign could.

So we are talking serious, cost-effective marketing here. But if this analysis sounds slightly distasteful, even to fully paid-up New Humanists, think again. Catholics have no problem at all with a businesslike view of their faith. In the Spectator, July 2005, Damian Thompson, editor of the Catholic Herald, wrote: “The Pope is a CEO, not a chairman, and as such has two priorities. The first is to make sure that staff and services bearing the label ‘Catholic’ are what they say they are ... [His] other priority is to improve the quality of the Church’s greatest service, the liturgy of the Eucharist.”

Thompson did not mention

the Catholic CEO’s third priority, to keep his business in funds.

The Catholic hierarchy – every religious hierarchy – has always known it cannot achieve its aims, cannot even keep afloat, without filthy lucre. It is not only mercenary Maharishis and crackpot American evangelists who milk their followers dry. Every religion, like all other economic organisations, must trade at a profit to survive.

Running a top religion costs a packet, and unless revenue exceeds costs, assets soon dwindle away.

Nobody understood this better than Adam Smith. Smith discussed the economics of religion at length in The Wealth of Nations, and he saw through it all with a characteristically beady eye: “In the Church of Rome, the industry and zeal of the inferior [equals low-status] clergy are kept ... alive by the powerful motive of self-interest. The parochial clergy derive a very considerable part of their subsistence from the voluntary oblations of the people; a source of revenue which confession gives them many opportunities of improving. The mendicant orders derive their whole subsistence from such oblations. It is with them, as with the hussars and light infantry of some armies: no plunder, no pay ... They are obliged, therefore, to use every art which can animate the devotion of the common people”.

After Adam Smith, the study of the economics of religion fell into desuetude, though Karl Marx, Max Weber and RH Tawney touched on it indirectly – focusing not so much on the economics of religion as on the impact of religion on capitalist economics. It was not until 1975 that the subject was resurrected, by Corry Azzi and Ronald Ehrenberg, in their study of the economics of church-going. Azzi and Ehrenberg showed how religions that are less time-intensive grow faster than those that are more time-intensive, at least in the USA. (I doubt this would apply to Muslims – indeed I suspect the reverse.) This study had an important catalytic effect on other academic research into the economics of religion, which has burgeoned in recent years.

Economics is the study of the allocation of resources, built on supply and demand, buying and selling. This raises the fundamental question regarding the economics of religion: what is being bought and sold? Max Weber believed religion gave legitimacy to the pursuit of wealth and power: “The most general term for the service is legitimisation which religion has had to accomplish for the external and inner interests of all ruling men, the propertied, the victorious, the wealthy” (Major Features of World Religions).

Weber’s point is well made, but is obviously not the whole story. The most common view of economists is that the principal product religions sell is cerebral solace – by explaining existence and by providing an afterlife (preferably a glorious afterlife, but any old afterlife is better than none). This is the view of economists Ekelund, Hébert and Tollison in their recent book The Marketplace of Christianity. They write: “No urge, primal or modern, is more fundamental than the desire to explain existence.”

Religion, they argue, satisfies this primal desire. Once again the point is well made, but is far from the whole story. The selfish gene’s primal urges are the survival of self and the survival of the species. “Explaining existence” is an intellectual pastime in which Homo sapiens only indulges when it has sufficient food, shelter and sexual fulfilment to leave time for metaphysical musing. Nor is the belief in an afterlife a crucial aspect of religiosity.

Several religions pay little or no heed to the existence of an afterlife – and Christians’ patent distaste for death suggests that few of them have much faith in it themselves.

That is why – however selfless and ascetic clerics like to portray themselves as being – few are content to rely solely on joy in the world hereafter. They want it now. That is why abbeys and monasteries are beautifully built in beautiful places. That is why senior clerics, in all religions, enjoy considerable privileges and live in grand houses, not to say palaces. That is why they need to keep the money rolling in, and that in turn is why they need to keep up their marketing – even if that word would be anathema to them.

Returning from Rome to home, last year the Church of England’s running costs totalled some £1,000 million – three-quarters of which came from members’ contributions. (They still know how to “animate the devotion of the common people”, in Adam Smith’s plangent phrase.) Most of the remainder came from the investments in the Church Commissioners’ immensely wealthy portfolio.

The economics of religion are big business. And the CEOs of God Almighty PLC have never doubted it.

This about says it all to me by middle-aged-atheist

reposted from: http://middle-aged-atheist.blogspot.com/2007/09/this-about-says-it-all-to-me.html