Comment by lazyninja987 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lazyninja987 | Hacker News Reader

I am interested in one more detail. average family income for all church members.

I have observed hindus, muslims, christians, jains. My observation so far is, religious fervor is directly to 2 factors.

1. is that religion a minority in a given state ? 2. whether you grew up in prosperity (not wealth, but above middle class)?

societies which are poor tend towards fundamentalism. religion gives some sort of escape place where poor might forget their harsh reality and usually its provides some sort of alt-reality that their after life is going to be good. rich people who already seen those comforts dont search for such answers.

Also, if that particular religion is minority in a country, the religion offers companionship and keep the group close. also, it forms the main identity of that group which is difficult to get away from.

for the above reasons, In india, there are a lot of atheist hindus, but not many athiest muslims or atheist christians.

I have the impression this does not necessarily apply to the US. There are plenty of examples of... vicious(?) fundamentalists that are rich and of the ethnic majority.

I think that the people about whom you're talking tend to use fundamentalist religion as means to enforce existing power structures from which they benefit; there's a reason that modern American conservatism is so inextricably tied to the evangelical churches, and why Southern Baptism was once used to justify the capture, sale, forced labor, and breeding of human beings with different skin colors.

I guess what I'm saying is that your point is not mutually exclusive with the comment to which you're replying, and that extreme religious values can have multiple "purposes," explicit or implicit.

ketzo is accurate. if a rich person is supporting fundementalism, its mostly to consolidate their power and protect his/her wealth.

Rich hindus allways have means to do so with out resorting to fundementalism.

for example, ambani supported congress (which is anti-hindu), and when congress got weak, he started support BJP (which is pro-hindu). In both cases it is to protect his own interests.

Same is happening in US.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com