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Comment by f6v | Hacker News Reader

The benefits which come from scientific advances aren't distributed equally. My take on this is that for many people religion offers the only justification of suffering on Earth. Otherwise people with low education level and socioeconomic status don't understand why they have to live on 1$ a day.

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So why are there so many religious people in the US? Are they all living on $1 a day? It probably also explains the current state of the US, as reason and religion usually don't cohabitate too well.

The question is “what does religion give them that isn’t given by a more progressive social structure?”

Probably because:

- tradition

- because it worked for previous generations: America became one of the best countries to live in while being religious

- I guess some people also shared my experience that it worked, despite how unreasonable it seems. (Yes, this means I am an engineer who discuss evolution with you guys and have studied a tiny bit of astrophysics, but still pray to God and is heavily influenced by what I read. It kind of works like wave particle dualism: I use the model that works for the situation.)

That sounds like ethnocentricity: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnocentrism

Religion is a codified belief system while science is a codified knowledge discovery system. They cohabitate just fine until one is mistaken for the other.

Quality of life is a concern in the us, as is wealth disparity. I’m not sure whether it’s the ones who are poor who are the religious zealots.

Maybe some in the us use religion to explain why they should be in a privileged position compared to others?

Gulf Arabs are loaded and still deeply religious. I don’t really see your point here...

A small percentage are loaded. That wealth isn't distributed evenly.

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