"Contrary to recent media reports suggesting that the country's economic troubles have led to higher levels of church attendance, a Pew Forum analysis of polls by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds that while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has shed over half its value since October 2007, there has been no increase in weekly worship service attendance during the same time period."Pew Research, March 13, 2009
I just had to laugh at this graph, because I know all to well the joy some believers have that when finally the economy goes to hell, then perhaps the ungrateful will turn to the Lord. "No Atheists in an economic foxhole" and so on. But it's apparently not happening.
(In fact, if you look closely, the latter half of the church attendance graph is more below the 40 line than the first half.)
5 comments:
I will be using this info in my next lecture. Thanks for posting it. The fundy's seem to almost cheer for disaster so they can have their appocolypse. Take a look at my new book The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture. I'll be in NY City talking to NYC Atheists at the end of this month as well as CFI.
I think it's because this is a false relationship. There is a positive relationship between wealth and education and an inverse relationship between education and religion. But education doesn't go down just because the Dow Jones sank. I would think that it would take at least a generation for a sinking economy to reflect on religious adherence in any way...
Or possibly fear is not the only reason people turn to God.
Shows that America yet has a chance to stand up to the emotional tactics of religious bigotry. :)
I'd wager (pun intended) that a closer related data-set would be that of the economic down-turn and that of gambling.
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