In this week’s original content, we profile SPI Fellow Ian Morris as he and his team of researchers examine the dropping rates of participation in religion throughout the world, and the factors that may be causing it.
Ian and his fellow researchers theorize that there is a direct correlation between the rise of moralizing religions and increased economic development, population sizes, and political complexities in ancient cultures. However, in our modern day, this same theory supposes that the increase of affluence has resulted in the decrease of religious participation.
Moralizing was brought to bear by wealthier upper classes against the poor, keeping their pace of work, sexual reproduction, and other actions in line to a specific and controlled pace.
Now, as more and more individuals realize economic freedom, religion has begun to lose its luster, and to the extent that the researchers believe religion may soon go the way of the dodo.