The Ash Twins Blog

The New York Times’ Charles M. Blow notes the striking difference in religiosity between Americans and the citizens of other developed nations. He asks for comments, and I replied:

America’s free religious market forces individual religious organizations to compete with each other for adherents. Modern civilization and technology has provided superior substitutes for religious goods, so now religions have to compete with secular substitutes in addition to the substitutes provided by other religions. Religious substitutes for goods like music, art, psychotherapy, community, medicine, and sex are oftentimes inferior to their secular counterparts, so a popular strategy for making up the difference is for religious leaders to demonize secular substitutes. This demonization contaminates secular goods and lowers their value (and thus demand) for religious believers.  That’s why religious groups that demonize modern medicine can be so effective; if the adherents believe that medicine doesn’t work, then the only way to ward off illness is to “buy” the substitute provided by the religion.