« Symbols of Delusion: Chambliss, Cao, Boehner, and the Future of the Republican Party
Dutch Government Refuses to Follow Bush’s Lead on Iraq “Regrets” »
Prayer and Partisanship
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.
opinions powered by SendLove.to
11 Responses to “Prayer and Partisanship”
[...] Bakhtiari has an interesting observation picked up from Secular Right. It seems that prayer and partisanship have rather strong correlations [...]
My comment – it's a pretty offensive and illogical assumption that both prayer and partisanship are based on someone's ability to be duped.
Where did anyone say anything about being duped?
Willingness to “believe” may or may not be a matter of “duping”, depending on the circumstance, but that wasn't suggested by the article – or the links. My personal feeling is that there is a relationship between the A.) intensity of ones religion and ones partisanship and B.) the level of ones objectivity and critical thinking ability, but (once again) that wasn't suggested by the article or links.
Yes, but weren't most of the Democrats who prayed one or more times a day praying for Bush to get impeached?
More likely praying it was all just a bad dream. So much for those prayers…
perhaps the graph is expressing an inverted bell curve and what is really being shown is degree of cynicism from the middle moving outward???. . .
perhaps. . . the graph could be read as an inverted bell shaped curve that is picking up the degrees of cynicism from the middle moving outward???. . .
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.
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.
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.