Hell and Money

Strangest news story I've read in a while...



Believing in Hell Has Its Benefits:

Economists searching for reasons why some nations are richer than others have found that those with a wide belief in hell are less corrupt and more prosperous, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Can you imagine, being at a meeting at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and saying, "Hey, everyone, I've got a great idea for a study..." The story is quite close to what one finds in The Onion, which, incidentally, has some good stories today. I'm going to save the latter of the two for possible use in this fall's first-year composition class. I've found that using an extended example of a "Baby! I've changed! Pleeease take me back!! Remember the time we [...] It could be like that again!" argument is a great and fun way to introduce the rhetorical appeals -- but you have to ham it up. :)

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Reading this, "correlation is

Reading this, "correlation is not causation" popped immediately into mind.

Now, the interesting thing would be to go back and compare belief in hell with other demogarphic information, such as income, education, and so on. Are the people who make up the 71% of the US population that believe in hell the same ones that are both less corrupt and more prosperous?

-Laurie

Interesting.

A friend of mine is an editor in the publications dept of the FRBSTL. I'm going to have to ask him about this. If nothing else, it'll provide me the opportunity to bust his chops a little.

MRBS

True dat.

As my boyfriend pointed out, the countries in question tended to be of Western origin (and therefore more likely to be Christian and thus believing in hell) and there are a lot of much better explanations of why this would lead to greater national wealth than this belief. It's kind of like saying that hairy mammals give birth. It's the mammal part (i.e. historical developments and circumstance) that leads to the end result (giving birth/being wealthy) not being hairy (believing in hell).

And that's if one thinks that a correlation can even be demonstrated, which, given the massaging they had to do to the data, I don't.

Rana

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