A new study by Gallup indicates that nearly one in five Americans say they don’t have enough money for food. At the risk if being dismissed as a socialist, I express my deepst sorrow at this level of poverty and inequality that is affecting us collectively.
But what is striking in the following graph is the solid band of dark green spanning the entire South. It is like God is deliberately trying to make matters worse where Southern Baptists live.
Of course I do not believe that people living in the South are being punished for worshipping the wrong god, or that god is acting in mysterious ways and is somehow showing his love for them. On the other hand there is plenty of evidence suggesting that excess religiosity can be secondary to societal dysfunction: religion grows when things are bad, and this is just one example. I hope to make this a central theme of my future writings.
