Research On Religion » Bill Maher

Quin Monson on Norms, Religion, and Politics

tonygill — Sun, 31 Dec 2017 09:00:11 +0000

How do people view other religions? Are there norms of tolerance (or intolerance) that Americans hold in common? If there are differences in these norms, do they cut across political affiliation? These are some of the questions that Prof. Quin Monson, associate professor of political science at Brigham Young University, sets out to answer in a paper that he co-authored with his BYU colleagues Christopher Karpowitz and Kelly Patterson. We discuss their recent findings published in the journal Politics & Religion entitled “Who’s In and Who’s Out: The Politics of Religious Norms.” Before that, though, we include a bit of banter about what it is like being a political science professor and having to answer questions about why we can’t seem to predict the outcome of recent elections. Prof. Monson shares some insights here and notes that scholars are trying to rectify some recent errors and are rediscovering some important research from the past.

We then jump into the world of norms and norm enforcement. Quin defines what norms are — the collective consciousness of a community — and provides a few examples of norms and how they operate. We talk about the norm of standing in line and “first come, first served” and how violations of this commonly known rule are enforced. Prof. Monson notes that the more that is at stake with respect to a norm, the more individuals will seek to sanction a norm violator. He also mentions Tony’s recent work on tipping (gratuities), allowing him to post a link to that conversation below! Quin further illustrates the role of norms in politics through an earlier study he conducted on how voters perceive privacy at the ballot box. A field experiment conducted at polling sites, wherein tape was placed around voting booths to signify a private space had an effect on how poll workers interacted with citizens. We then review the difficulty in measuring norms within a quantitative framework.

This conversation on measuring norms leads us into Quin’s recent survey experiment on the religious attitudes people hold and whether they are willing to sanction people with respect to “inappropriate” statements against certain denominations. We briefly cover the history of religious discrimination in American that includes anti-Catholicism, anti-Mormonism, and anti-Semitism. Prof. Monson leads us then through an interesting survey experiment he conducted with the help of the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, a research project involving some 50,000 subjects that can be broken down into 1,000 person modules for specific projects. Quin reviews the pre- and post-test design of the study and explains how he and his colleagues sought to measure religious intolerance and the willingness to chastise other individuals for holding such views. He reads a vignette that was given randomly to respondents which was based off of some comments that comedian and social commentator Bill Maher had made towards religion. They modified this statement to include the religious categories of Catholics, Mormons, Jews, evangelical Christians, Muslims, and Mitt Romney. The latter was added as an interesting control given the 2012 test surrounded the presidential election involving Mitt Romney, the first Mormon presidential candidate. The findings from this study indicated that the level of anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism was relatively low, and that individual respondents were often upset at people holding such views. The largest effect, though, related towards whether or not individuals would sanction comments calling Muslims “weird.” Democrats were more likely to disapprove or sanction negative statements against Muslims, whereas Republicans were not. Quin mentioned that this may be have been a precursor of what happened in the political rhetoric of the 2016 election. We finish off the podcast with Quin’s thoughts on how norms may be changing in society and what things he has most learned throughout his career. Recorded: December 15, 2017.

Rodney Stark on How Religion Benefits Everyone, Including Atheists

tonygill — Sun, 05 May 2013 08:00:21 +0000

Welcome new visitors. Join (and like) us at our Facebook Fan Page for regular updates, and be sure to tune in next week when we talk about Jesus & Gin!

Religious folks would agree that religion is pretty good for them. But is a more religious society good for the entire society as a whole, including non-believers? We take a look at the “positive spillover effects” that spiritual belief and church attendance has on the population as a whole with Prof. Rodney Stark, frequent guest and co-director of Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion. (Disclaimer: Baylor’s ISR is the sponsor of our podcast.) Our conversation begins with a discussion about how religious America really is. Recent students appear to indicate increasing non-participation, particularly among the young, and the newly-defined category of “nones” has become a regular talking point in the popular media. Prof. Stark puts these studies into perspective noting some methodological issues with these studies, but also notes that the “nones” — when examined more closely — actually behave rather religiously, including engaging in regular prayer. Rod mentions that the problem may not be so much as a loss of faith amongst the population, but rather a current weakness among churches to provide an adequate set of services. We then talk about a variety of benefits that a religious, and churched, population brings to society as a whole, including atheists. Our first stop on this journey deals with crime and its flipside, “pro-social behavior.” Despite having an image of a society out of control, Rod points out that “secular” (or “unchurched”) Europe has much higher crime rates in almost all categories except murder. We then discuss how and why religion may help to ameliorate crime by promoting pro-social behaviors, a seemingly obvious notion that has often been overlooked by criminologists. Religion not only decreases crime, but it promotes pro-social behavior such as helping people on the side of the road and donating blood, which moves us into a discussion about voluntarism. Contrary to the oft-cultivated notion that religious folks only provide charity or donate time to their own religious organizations, Rod points out that religious individuals are more engaged in secular organizations than secular folks. This moves our conversation into the realm of civic (political) involvement, and again the data show that religiously-active individuals shine in this area as well, and this includes not only evangelical Protestants, but Catholics, Jews, and members of other faith traditions. Tony then notes that being a “community volunteer” is not the only way to benefit a community, but rather being successful in one’s own chosen profession and not becoming a burden on society is also a way of benefitting the society at large. Rod talks about how religious individuals are, on average, more successful in business than secular individuals and are less likely to become a burden on society. This move us then to the issue of education and how homeschooling, promoted largely by religious individuals, has transformed the educational system to the point where many institutions of higher learning are taking note. Again, this provides a great many “positive externalities” for the local and national community. We then tackle intellectual life by playing off Mark Noll’s famous book about the lack of an “evangelical mind,” and Rod shows — to the contrary of Noll’s assertion — that religious individuals contribute greatly to intellectual life and high culture in the U.S. We finish off the interview with a discussion of health-related issues, including both physical and mental health. Both Tony and Rod share their various outrages at some of the very odd studies that have looked at the interconnection between religion and health. And just to spice things up on RoR, we get into a bit of a discussion about s-e-x, as well as how that relates to a bigger issue facing the Western world — fertility. Recorded: April 30, 2013.

Hunter Baker on Secularism

tonygill — Mon, 28 May 2012 08:00:15 +0000

What role should religion be allowed to play in the public square? With a presidential election heating up, this question will undoubtedly be debated time and time again. Research on Religion jumps headfirst into this debate with Prof. Hunter Baker, an associate professor of political science and the associate dean of Arts & Sciences at Union University. Prof. Baker discusses his recent book, The End of Secularism.

We start with a bit of revealing banter about the cover of that book but quickly turn our attention to more academic discussion of secularization theory and its ideological outgrowth, “secularism.” Hunter defines “secularism” as an ideological position wherein religious practice and discourse must be removed from public visibility, either physically in terms of the display of religious symbols (e.g., creche scenes) or rhetorically in terms of how religious ideas influence policy. He argues that while many people feel that a secular public square provides a neutral ground for persons of all different creeds, in reality such a view privileges this specific ideology of secularism and thereby excluding alternative voices from being heard. Hunger further notes that secularism is often applied selectively depending on what political or economic issue is at stake. This is aptly illustrated with a comparison of how Judge Roy Moore was vilified when he tried to display the Ten Commandments in a courthouse, whereas the efforts of Susan Pace Hamill and Governor Bob Riley explicitly used religious justifications for implementing a progressive tax structure in Alabama.

When pressed as to whether secularism as an ideology is gaining an upper hand in America, Prof. Baker acknowledges that it may be in terms of displaying Nativity scenes on public property, but that attitudes towards rhetoric are changing so as to consider religiously-influenced speech to be more acceptable today than compared to the past few decades. A spirited discussion over whether city hall should display a creche around Christmas reveals some interesting insights, with the conversation then veering into the realm of public education, John Stuart Mill, and school choice.

Prof. Baker then reviews and critiques a number of arguments that have been advanced for supporting a secularist vision of governance over one that has religious mixed in, including ideas that religious conflict gives rise to violence, that science is a much better guide for life than religious faith, and whether or not secularism can generate its own moral code of behavior without relying upon Christian foundations. This leads to a discussion of moral relativism and Prof. Baker noting that those who claim relativism are not as relativistic as they seem. Tony then asks Hunter what a world without secularism as a guiding principle looks like and he answers that we already have a working model of that world here in the United States, which in turn generates an interesting comparison with other nations, most notably Sweden. We discuss education policy and health care mandates along the way to our concluding segment wherein Prof. Baker gives his prognostication about the future of secularism and religious liberty in the U.S. Recorded: May 9, 2012.