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Prayer and Partisanship

Posted by ELYAS BAKHTIARI in Politics, Religion.
Dec 10th, 2008 | Comments

Via Secular Right comes this interesting graph suggesting people who pray more tend to be more partisan (or perhaps people who are more partisan tend to pray more). One of Andrew Sullivan’s readers offers up the best explanation I’ve seen: “The more willing you are to “believe” in anything, the more likely you are to “believe” in something else.”

But it isn’t necessarily a lack of belief that makes one a moderate or independent. I don’t think the right analogy is to compare independents to agnostics, for instance. Political agnostics don’t really vote. A better comparison would be people who consider themselves spiritual versus those who consider themselves highly religious. The two may believe in the same God, but the former tends to seek out answers independently and internally, whereas the latter turns to an institution for answers.

What do you think?

Cross-posted at Ablogistan.

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ThurmanHart

My comment - it's a pretty offensive and illogical assumption that both prayer and partisanship are based on someone's ability to be duped.

Elyas

Where did anyone say anything about being duped?

JSpencer

Willingness to "believe" may or may not be a matter of susceptibility to "duping", but that wasn't suggested by the article - or the links. I personally believe there is a relationship between the A.) intensity of ones religion and ones partisanship and B.) the level of ones objectivity and critical thinking, but again, that wasn't suggested by the article or links.

In any case, it's an interesting graph, and not exactly what I would have expected. That said, "prayer" no doubt means different things to different people. I agree with Elyas; the better comparison ( and more interesting) would be spiritual vs. religious, or independent search vs institutional.

AustinRoth

Yes, but weren't most of the Democrats who prayed one or more times a day praying for Bush to get impeached?

:-)

JSpencer

More likely praying it was all just a bad dream. So much for those prayers...

river

perhaps the graph is expressing an inverted bell curve and revealing the degrees of cynicism which occurs for people with their eyes wide open in modern society . . .peaking in the the middle and moving outward???. . . When people pray they usually close their eyes. . . .

river

o

adelinesdad

As both a political skeptic and a religious person, this is something I've noticed in the past. I think it is true that people who are willing to believe in a religion are also more likely to "believe" in other institutions, as you said in the post. But of course the difference between a religion and a political party is that one was established and endorsed by God (or so I believe) and the other by man. That is why I remain skeptical of political parties and ideologies, despite my religiosity. But at times it seems some people fail to make that distinction.

It should also be noted that we're talking about a very small correlation here. It's not like we're saying that all religious people are political extremists, and vice-versa. The graph shows an interesting, but weak, correlation.

AustinRoth

adelin - not trying to be argumentative, but would you at least agree the analogy is closer than that?

Religious institutions are indeed founded on God, and political parties are founded on common principles of governing. However, both, in the end, become tools of men, and are corrupted as such.

As such, in both cases, I make a distinction between the beliefs and underlying tenets, and the institutions that purport to support them.

adelinesdad

AustinRoth,

Sure, the analogy is still good. But I still think there is a subtle difference that at least for me makes a difference. I would be willing to devote myself to a particular religious philosophy if I believed it came from God, more than I would be willing to devote myself to supporting a "common principles of governing", even if I believed them to be good, because even those principles (independent of the political party) still originate with fallible humans.

But I think your point about there being a distinction between the institution and the underlying tenets is a good one.

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