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Economic Religion Geekery
By bk | December 26, 2007 20:30
I’m a bit of an econ geek in addition to a general science geek, one of my favorite econ blogs, Organizations and Markets has a post on a few papers applying economic analysis to aspects of religion. Some very interesting stuff, and an instructive way of thinking about why religion has persisted so long despite how damaging to society it appears. One interesting (to me) excerpt:
‘The present study analyzes the decision of church authorities in the early fifth century to reject the doctrine advanced by Pelagius in favor of the position taken by Augustine. Accounts of the controversy reveal two self-interested motives for the church hierarchy to reject the Pelagian doctrine: (1) the Pelagian view would have undermined the authority of the church hierarchy; and (2) by making greater demands for moral conduct, it would have raised the “cost” of being a Christian and thereby discouraged growth in church membership, particularly among the Roman upper class.’
You may need to be really geeky to love this stuff.
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