Patterns In Data Realization: Maps Depicting Social Ills Look Eerily Familiar

Update (8/27/13): 
The website PornHub has just released a trove of data on America's porn habits. I couldn't help but notice that, once again, it's THAT MAP. I have added the map to the bottom of this previously-published post.

I'm fascinated by data realizations in map form. They say a picture's worth a thousand words.

I'm not going to make any statements about cause and effect, as we all know that correlation does not imply causation. But there certainly is much to be gleaned from correlation.

The below map has been making the rounds recently. It depicts the largest participating religious groups by county in the United States -- basically which religions are most represented in each county.

As fascinating as it is, it probably doesn't come as much of a surprise:

See that large swath of red across the South? That's the Bible Belt. It has a lot in common with many other maps (some of which have been discussed here before).

Here's a map depicting life expectancies for females, by county:

And here's the same for males:

Here we have a map of religiosity in America, with the darker green depicting the most religious areas:

Here we have a map depicting well-being in America. The lighter areas indicate those areas in which residents report a lower sense of well-being.

Here we have a map depicting poverty in the US. Darker portions of the map indicate higher rates of poverty.

In the below map, we can see the divorce rates for men by state (darker colors indicate the highest rates of divorce):

Here we have the same map for women:

The following colorful map depicts the state of same-sex marriage in America. The darker red states are those which are most hostile towards gay-marriage (see key).

And here we have teen birth rates:

Noticing a pattern here?

Here we have a map of active hate groups:

The following map shows the treatment of evolution in schools, by state:

How about the states accepting abstinence education funds (those in orange denied federal abstinence education funds)?

What about high school diplomas?

And here we have the 2008 presidential election red state/blue state map:

Here's a map showing which states spend the most time on PornHub, the third largest porn video site on the internet. Could it be that the most religious, most conservative, most anti-gay, most anti-evolution, most pro-abstinence education states are also the states spending the most time viewing hardcore pornography?

Again, there are many, many factors that play into each of these maps. There are certainly many complex correlations and causations (and some factors perpetuate others). For example, we know that areas of high poverty will likely (for obvious reasons) experience less well-being, lower rates of education, and lower life expectancies.

The religious and political correlations, however, are more curious.

Do lower levels of well-being and lower life expectancies cause higher rates of religiosity?

Are blue-leaning states more likely to deny evolution? Or are evolution-deniers more likely to vote conservative?

Does abstinence education lead to higher teen pregnancy rates? Or do high teen pregnancy rates lead to more abstinence education?

Are hate groups more likely to be comprised of religious conservatives?

Do lower rates of high school graduates play into higher rates of religious conservatism?

Would an increase in graduation levels decrease the number of religious conservatives, evolution denialists, and hate groups?

Is it offensive to ask these questions? If so, why?

Do you have the answers? Please share.

Jesus: Anti-Welfare, Randian Capitalist?

I get into conversations. A few of these recently have not done much to paint modern Christianity as a belief system characterized by compassion, empathy, and charity.

One such conversation revolved around the American tax system and social welfare. A group of (mostly) Christians were complaining that they are tired of paying higher tax rates than their less fortunate fellow Americans. They are tired of having their hard-earned money taken from them while so many do not pay, or pay very little. They are tired of watching lazy good-for-nothings take it easy while on the 'government gravy train.' While these are not a uniquely Christian gripes (nor do all Christians have these gripes), this chorus has been growing louder in Christian circles, and has has been elevated by religious right leaders, pundits, and authors, as legitimate Christian concerns.

Many Christians seem to believe that Jesus did not condone involuntary redistribution, but rather voluntary acts of charity. While this is not entirely off-base, it is far from accurate.

Gregory Paul, writing in The Washington Post's On Faith column last week, wrote about this bizarre shift from a socialist Jesus to a capitalistic Christianity:

A truly strange thing has happened to American Christianity. A set of profound contradictions have developed within modern conservative Christianity, big and telling inconsistencies that have long slipped under the radar of public knowledge, and are only now beginning to be explicitly noted by critics of the religious and economic right.

Here is what is peculiar. Many conservative Christians, mostly Protestant but also a number of Catholics, have come to believe and proudly proclaim that the creator of the universe favors free wheeling, deregulated, union busting, minimal taxes especially for wealthy investors, plutocrat-boosting capitalism as the ideal earthly scheme for his human creations.

He continues to describe yet more bizarre shifts, including the religious right's growing love affair with hard-line atheist and anti-Christian Ayn Rand. As Paul writes, many of these "Christians who support the capitalist policies associated with social Darwinism strenuously denounce Darwin’s evolutionary science because it supposedly leads to, well, social Darwinism! Meanwhile atheists, secularists and evolutionists are denounced as inventing the egalitarian evils of anti-socially Darwinistic socialism and communism. It’s such a weird stew of incongruities that it sets one’s head spinning."

Indeed it does. How has this happened? How can such Christians reconcile their anti-welfare, capitalistic ideology with a religion based on a man who urged his followers to sell their possessions and give to the poor? Paul states, "A basic point of core Christian doctrine is that the wealthy have no more access to heaven than anyone else (and in fact may have less), offering hope to the impoverished rejected by cults that court the elites."

In scripture, Jesus provides continuous encouragement for the poor. He warns the wealthy that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

Chapters 2 and 4 of Acts state that all “the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need… No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had…. There were no needy persons among them. From time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.”

That's about as far from the Objectivism of Ayn Rand as one can get. That, my friends, is socialism and welfare in a nutshell.

As for those who claim that Jesus's socialism was voluntary, it is important to note that in Jesus' time, we did not have complex societies comprised of millions of people. In simpler times it was not uncommon to welcome traveling strangers into one's home for a meal, a bed, or to have a wound or sickness treated. We relied on the charity of others because societies were not advanced enough to have, or need, safety nets for the suffering. Today, not many would take a stranger into their home, and very few have the time, or energy, in our modern, frantically paced society, to provide hands-on assistance to those in need.

In addition to Jesus' own words, we also have numerous depictions of pro-socialist ideology in The Gospels.

Writes Paul (again from the above-mentioned Washington Post piece):

To get just how central collectivism is to Christian canon, consider that the Bible contains the first description of socialism in history. Anti-socialist Christians also claim that the Biblical version was voluntary. Aside from it being obvious that the biblical version of God was not the anti-socialist Christian capitalists commonly proclaim he was, some dark passages in Acts indicate how deeply pro-socialist the New Testament deity is. Chapter 5 details how when a church member fails to turn over all his property to the church “he fell down and died,” when his wife later did the same “she fell down… and died… Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.”

Dear readers, does this not sound like a form of terror-enforced-communism imposed by a God who thinks that Christians who fail to join the collective are worthy of death?

Part of the reason why the current pro-capitalistic, anti-socialistic ideology has infiltrated the religious right is due to the dominionist ideology that has been championed by the far-right over the past 20 years.

It is no secret that the religious economic ideology found in the influential Christian book, America's Providential History by Mark Beliles and Stephen McDowell has infiltrated the Republican Party Platform and was partly instrumental in informing many of George W. Bush's Administration policies. This ideology is also echoed in the the policies of many current Republican lawmakers, including most of the 2012 GOP hopefuls. There is a clear relationship between the "dominion mandate" described in the textbook, and the ideology of the religious right.

Beliles and McDowell write:

"Scripture makes it clear that God is the provider, not the state, and that needy individuals are to be cared for by private acts of charity."

"Ecclesiastes 5:19 states, 'For every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, He has also empowered him to eat from them'...Also in I Chronicles 29:12, 'Both riches and honor come from Thee.'"

There has been much made of the Dominion mandate and the fact that Bachmann and Perry have close ties to the Dominionist movement. Many of the supporters of Perry's 'Response' prayer rally are aligned with the New Apostolic Reformation and Seven Mountains Dominionism. We have yet in our nation's history seen such a dangerous mix of religious and political ideology.

It must be said that this ideology is not new. Gordon Bigelow, writing on the evangelical roots of economics (Harper's Magazine v.310, n.1860, 1may2005):

At the center of this early evangelical doctrine was the idea of original sin: we were all born stained by corruption and fleshly desire, and the true purpose of earthly life was to redeem this. The trials of economic life—the sweat of hard labor, the fear of poverty, the self-denial involved in saving—were earthly tests of sinfulness and virtue. While evangelicals believed salvation was ultimately possible only through conversion and faith, they saw the pain of earthly life as means of atonement for original sin...Evangelicals interpreted the mental anguish of poverty and debt, and the physical agony of hunger or cold, as natural spurs to prick the conscience of sinners. They believed that the suffering of the poor would provoke remorse, reflection, and ultimately the conversion that would change their fate. In other words, poor people were poor for a reason, and helping them out of poverty would endanger their mortal souls. It was the evangelicals who began to see the business mogul as an heroic figure, his wealth a triumph of righteous will. The stockbroker, who to Adam Smith had been a suspicious and somewhat twisted character, was for nineteenth-century evangelicals a spiritual victor.

Paul, in the Washington Post, cites many other contributions to this Bizarro Christian Capitalism:

In the early Protestant Netherlands, Switzerland and England capital became the dominant economic driver. Of course members of a religion want to think that God approves of what they are up to. So many (but not all) Protestants began to cherry pick those Biblical passages that could be massaged to seemingly support laissez-faire markets while pretty much ignoring those that clearly don’t. This works because, as surveys show, most Christians don’t actually read the bulk of the Bible, and people are mentally skilled at dismissing the awkward passages they do come across. Christians really took the theory that God is pro-capital to its extreme in what has be come the least socialistic and most Jesus-following of the advanced democracies, the USA, where many see the nation as an exceptional, God blessed “Shining City on the Hill” they think stands as the exemplar of Godly capitalism to the world.Christians really took the theory that God is pro-capital to its extreme in what has be come the least socialistic and most Jesus-following of the advanced democracies, the USA, where many see the nation as an exceptional, God blessed “Shining City on the Hill” they think stands as the exemplar of Godly capitalism to the world.

This ideology flowered with the emergence of evangelical and Pentecostal Prosperity Christianity and the modern corporate-consumer culture. This culture was further integrated into politics promoted by the likes of Ayn Rand, William Buckley, Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan, and the alliance between Reagan and the religious right. It has gained more steam in recent years with the advent of the Tea Party, the recent Rand revival, and the rise of politically minded Christian right organizations and figures, many with close ties to 2012 GOP candidates.

Even if one could successfully argue that Christianity is pro-capitalism, where is the acknowledgement of Adam Smith's argument for a progressive taxation. Adam Smith, widely cited as the father of modern economics and capitalism, and author of the classic treatise on capitalism, The Wealth of Nations, wrote the following:

“The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor...The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. . . . It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.”

"The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. The expense of government to the individuals of a great nation is like the expense of management to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged to contribute in proportion to their respective interests in the estate. In the observation or neglect of this maxim consists what is called the equality or inequality of taxation."

And while Adam Smith truly believed in the promise of capitalism, even he warned us of the dangers of excess and greed:

“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.”

Clearly, both The Father and the father of capitalism are preaching the same thing: It is our duty to contribute more than our less fortunate neighbors (in proportion to our abilities and wealth), for the greater good of society. It really couldn't be any more explicit.

As a non-believer who often finds himself in conversations with devout Christians, I find it strange, and a bit disturbing, that I am often the one who ends up preaching the Christlike messages of compassion and charity. Where have these ideals gone? This strange brand of Christianity fails to address the issue of human suffering, a staple of Christian theology. In this Bizarro World, it is the successful, employed Christian who is the one suffering, while the welfare recipient is reaping the spoils of capitalism. This is upside-down thinking, and is precisely where religion fails.

Humanists adhere to a code which not only rejects scripture as a moral guide, but which requires that we act with the goal of reducing suffering. Whereas we understand that we are not always capable of reducing the suffering of people at all times, we support the funding of organizations which are equipped to address the problem of suffering on a mass scale. Are there flaws in some of these services? Is there waste? Do some people abuse the system? Sure. But they are successful in reducing suffering in most instances, and working to improve these services is preferable to tearing them down.

America is somewhat unique in the way its social issues are so deeply intertwined with religious ideology. (Even It is the mix of religiosity and political conservatism that has bred this new brand of Christianity where our wealth is smiled upon by God and we ask the sick and the poor to pick themselves up by their bootstraps or suffer the consequences.

In different times, it might be the Christian accusing the atheist as being selfish, smug, and lacking in compassion.

Funny how things change.



(NOTE: The characterizations in this post describe a particular brand of Christianity -- I know many Christians who are some of the most generous and compassionate people I know.)


Images from Tea Party Jesus, a Web project "putting the words of Christians in the mouth of Jesus."

The More Money Americans Make, The More Jesus Digs Capitalism

Throughout the history of religion, people have found ways to reconcile views that might be at odds with their religious doctrine.

According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus said, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." (Matthew 19:21)

He followed up with, "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (Matthew:19:24)

A new Public Religion Research Institute survey reveals some interesting things about American's ability to reconcile their love of Jesus with their love of money.

Overall more Americans believe that Christian values are at odds with capitalism and the free market than believe they are compatible. This pattern also holds among Christians. Among Christians in the U.S., only 38% believe capitalism and the free market are consistent with Christian values while 46% believe the two are at odds. Religiously unaffiliated Americans look similar to the general population and to Christian Americans, with a plurality (40%) saying capitalism is at odds with Christian values, compared to 32% who say they are compatible; 14% say they do not know. There are significant differences by gender, party and income.

Some interesting findings:

• Half (50%) of women believe that capitalism and Christian values are at odds, compared to 37% of men. 
• A majority (53%) of Democrats believe that capitalism and Christian values are at odds, compared to 37% of Republicans.

The most interesting finding, in terms of illustrating our amazing ability to find ways to reconcile religious views with personal views, was the following:

• Nearly half (46%) of Americans with household incomes of $100,000 a year or more believe that capitalism is consistent with Christian values, compared to only 23% of those with household incomes of $30,000 a year or less.

It's understandable that those with very little would agree with Jesus' words in the Gospel of Matthew. It's also understandable that those who are well off would find ways to interpret those words differently, or deem them as irrelevant in a modern society where we have charities and government programs to assist the less fortunate. (Rush Limbaugh seems to know precisely what Jesus would do.) At the end of the day, these surveys say more about human nature than anything else.

A few other findings worth noting:

• Overall most (61%) Americans disagree that most businesses would act ethically on their own without regulation from the government. Less than 4-in-10 (37%) believe that they would. This holds true across political and religious lines, with the lone exception of those who identify with the Tea Party movement (53% agree).

• Nearly 6-in-10 Americans (58%) believe that the federal budget is a moral document that reflects national priorities while 41% disagrees.

• Overall most (61%) Americans disagree that most businesses would act ethically on their own without regulation from the government. 

There is a problem with static documents such as holy books and founding papers in that as the centuries go by, we find ourselves confronting an increasing number of ideas, conundrums, and complexities that the original writers could not have imagined in their wildest dreams. (Those who believe that The Bible is the infallible word of God would certainly disagree.)  We can no more imagine what the Founding Fathers would think about the regulation of agriculture biotechnology than we could imagine what Jesus would think of corporate tax loopholes. And when we attempt to distill the essence of a text for application in our complex modern world, we end up with wildly differing extrapolations. These extrapolations most often are self-serving and at odds with the basic philosophies exhibited in the text. 

While we can certainly look to founding documents and sacred texts for guidance, there comes a point where the text is limited by its place in time, and we start making our own rules to validate our own actions and desires.  Often a shoehorn is involved.

The PRRI media release can be found here (PDF).

Religion and Well-Being

The New York Times has just published an interactive map detailing the well-being of Americans, according to a 3-year poll conducted by Gallup.  The map provides an overview of well-being, by congressional district, and can be manipulated to show individual criteria that Gallop used to create their composite.  Among the individual categories are: obesity, stress, exercise, job satisfaction, depression, diabetes, nighttime safety, and inadequate food. 

Anyone with an interest in national polls and state-by-state comparisons, will notice that the maps revealed by the Gallup Well-Being poll have a lot in common with some other maps related to the American mindset.

For starters, here is the composite map detailing Well-Being in America. The darker states are those reporting a higher well-being index, whereas the lighter states are those reporting a lesser sense of well-being.

Now let's take a look at a map illustrating the results of another Gallop poll from 2009 which identified the most religious states in America. The darker states are the most religious, whereas the lightest states are the least religious.

Although the maps are not identical, one can clearly identify the Southeast US as being, by far, the most religious areas of America.  A quick look back to the map of American Well-being, we can clearly identify the Southeast as being the front-runner when it comes to a lack of perceived well-being. 

Another map of interest is a breakdown of the 2008 presidential election results. 

Again, we see some similarities.  Almost all of the states defined by the Gallup religion poll as being "Most religious" or "More religious" went to McCain in the 2008 election.  And with the exception of North Carolina, all states that were defined as "Most Religious" went to McCain.  The very same states with the lowest sense of well-being.  This map, although not an indicator of well-being, does raise some interesting questions, since a ballot often provide insight into the wants, needs, and hopes of the electorate.

Or how about poverty?

While there are countless ways to slice and dice the data provided by polls, surveys, the census, or election results, the correlation between religiosity and well-being, poverty, and political ideology is hard to ignore.  And certainly, just as we know that no state is truly a red state or a blue state (they are actually different shades of purple), we know that there are certainly pockets of highly religious people in less-religious states, and vice versa.  I  am quite aware that I have picked only a few maps here for comparison, and that there are many others out there that may tell other stories, but these came to my mind instantly upon viewing the New York Times Well-Being maps.  But looking over these maps it's hard not to ask some of the following questions:

Are people more religious when they are less happy (or lacking in their sense of well-being)? Or, conversely, are people less happy because they live in more religious areas of the country?

We see that conservatives tend to be concentrated in more religious states, and that is not surprising.  Yet, when we look at the well-being index, one might ask why are those who are less healthy and poorer supporting ideologies that are largely against health care reform and universal coverage?  (One might argue that supporting the conservative, religious values of conservative candidates is more important to these folks than supporting the less religious candidate who wants to provide assistance.)

Why are some of our least religious states like New Hampshire, Washington, Connecticut, Vermont, and Alaska reporting some of the higher instances of well-being?  (North Dakota and Utah are the outliers here, as high well-being indexes and high religiosity -- high concentrations of Lutherans and Mormons, respectively.)

If we were to look elsewhere in the world, we would find that the top four happiest countries in the world, according to Gallup, are Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden. Also according to Gallup data, Sweden, Denmark and Norway were the second, third, and fourth least religious states in the world (Estonia beat them all).

Sociologists have long theorized that, as societies modernize, they become more secularized.  Many scholars state that, as societies learn to answer life's mysteries through the advancement of science and the gaining of knowledge, the need for religion decreases.  This is certainly an area of fierce debate, but as we continue to pore over the expanding ocean of data, we will continue to ask questions about religion's relationship to our well-being.