people from illustrious biological lineages who fall into poverty — Hallucinogen

Well, it may be that some people from "illustrious biological lineages" can fall into poverty (like, not so much as a room and a pot to piss in) and then in subsequent generations become magnates of industry. There is no reason why such a thing can't happen. But then, why do people from "illustrious biological lineages" fall into poverty in the first place if they are so illustrious? Lots of illustrious biological specimens went bankrupt in the Great Depression. It wasn't their fault that there was a depression that wiped out an enormous amount of wealth, but they were swept along to their financial doom. And their great grand children tell stories about their illustrious biological lineage who struck it rich, once upon a time. Meanwhile, the great grand children are living pay check to pay check, as did their parents and grand parents.

We are all products of at least somewhat illustrious biological lineages, because we are here. Really fucked up biological lineages get eaten alive -- go a ways back and that would be literally eaten alive.

Another problem with illustrious biological lineages is defining the thing. What is an illustrious biological lineage exactly? Perfect physical specimen plus very high IQ plus athletic ability, plus incredibly good looks, plus a big dick?

Peter Watson (you wouldn't know him) was an important person in mid-century modern art. What was Peter's biggest asset (besides good looks and a big dick, which he reportedly had)? It was income from a hundred million dollar trust fund. Plus, it was the years at "public school" (AKA private schools) such as Eton and Oxford. It happened that Pete flunked out of Oxford. Still, his family connections, his schooling, and his money gave him automatic entre to places that would tell schmucks like us to take a flying fuck. Peter Watson was smart, very well educated on his own as well as school, fluent in a couple of languages besides English. He knew a lot about art, which he learned on his own, mostly.

But then, there are quite a few people who are multilingual who are not "important people". There are quite a few intellectuals and artists that die poor, or at least, not well off.

There isn't anything here that proves that opportunity isn't roughly the same for all people in America today. — Hallucinogen

You will have to read the book (The Color of Law, among others) to get the evidence on black/white achievement differentials.

I do not disagree with you that personal characteristics play a strong role in success. But group histories and characteristics amplify personal features. Take your high-achieving South and East Asians for example. My guess is that this high achieving group do not represented a cross section of the populations in South and East Asia from which they originated. This would be unlikely for two reasons: #1 immigration quotas in the US favor people who are educated and have skills that are in demand. #2 is that leaving South and East Asia to immigrate and settle in the United States would require considerable wherewithal. These people are successful here because they were successful there.

If you are ready to perform at a high level In technological fields and you settle in Silicon Valley or Boston, one ought to do well. Similarly, if you leave China and can afford to settle in Vancouver, you had to have been a success already. Success begets success.

Success begets success: this is a truth Americans do not love. The popular mythology holds that anyone can be a big success if they work very hard, save their pennies, invest wisely, and so on.

There are a few rags to riches stories that are true. In most cases, those who end up rich did NOT start out with rags. Most successful people started out with advantages: Successful parents with at least above-average incomes; stable homes; good schools; good community environment; good role models; (often) higher education; good health, stable personality.

In all cases of success, the brains and piles of wealth represented by investment banking step in (or not) to make good ideas a success. If the best idea in the world doesn't appeal to the bankers, you'll have to take a begging bowl out to raise funds. Unlikely.

But all that is about a tiny minority of the population--people who belong to the 1%. For people who make it into the top 10%, you will find that far more often than not, they came from the top 10%.
Conversely, people who "make it" into the bottom 10% generally came from the bottom 10% (except the very downward mobile). And on up the line.

Where does the African American fit into this? As a group, they tend to have started out poorer than average and generation after generation stayed poorer than average. Did they like it that way? No, they did not, do not.

Successive generations of poverty create an impoverished culture which imparts to individuals habits that do not lead to success. This is NOT unique to blacks: any group mired in successive generations of poverty (including anglo-saxons) will develop habits that do not lead to success, and they will -- by definition -- not have the resources it takes to leap out of the impoverished culture/comunity/family.

We do not have time to review the history of the United States and the United Kingdom (just for starters) to find all of the major causes of economic success and failure among various groups. But...

Studies (from the UK at least) show that education funding has very little effect on pupil's academic attainment and life outcomes. — Hallucinogen

In the US, education funding is largely a local matter. It may be the case that in the UK education funding is largely a national matter. How funding is distributed would be a factor in examining differing educational outcomes. In the US, the relationship between the average income of a school district (which generally overlap municipal boundaries) is very strongly related to academic performance. Income of households is certainly correlated with (even caused by) the personal characteristics of parents and children. Among any group one can find individuals whose life outcomes are much better (and much worse) than the average. Averages submerge individual achievements and failures.

And what's the evidence that bad health outcome is mediated by low education or poverty?

I can simply claim that people who have the personality factors that cause them to be in poverty are the same ones that cause them to be uneducated and make bad decisions for their health. — Hallucinogen

The evidence is in both case histories and statistically large group outcomes. In the case histories one will find personality factors and bad decisions that resulted in poor health, but these disappear in large statistical groups, and other factors emerge. Being born in "the fried fish belt" of the Deep South, for instance, is indicative of poorer health outcomes. Why? Because of lower income, more smoking, more bad diets (too much fat, sugar), obesity, stress, and so forth. People with low income MUST behave differently than people with high income because their choices are limited by low income.

And the picture looks even better when you start looking at which people in particular succeed and which personality traits they have that predict future success. — Hallucinogen

Of course. If you select people who have succeeded (however success is defined) you will find similarities. If you select out people who have failed (however failure is defined) you will also find similarities. Personal characteristics (conscientiousness, success-producing habits, successful role models, etc.) will be there In most cases.

I was just including you in the loop. one doesn't always know who is reading which posts.

I would suggest that you read about philosophy first. Libraries and bookstores have introductions to philosophy which range from very simple to quite difficult. Pick a book toward the simpler side, and work your way up.

You don't have to read philosophy in chronological sequence -- starting with Heraclitus 2500+ years ago and ending in the present time.

If you are not in a class, then you need a guide (book) that will tell you what the field of philosophy is about.

If you get bored with the topic, don't feel bad. Philosophy can involve a lot of difficult concepts and obscure writing styles. Plowing into a field like Philosophy, English Literature, Russian History, Mathematics, Archeology, and so forth is fine if you are REALLY interested in it and are willing to stick with it until you get good at it. But...

Lots of people find that philosophy is not all that interesting beyond a certain point. Same goes for English lit, Russian History, and everything else.

Loose as a goose. Lose your blues.

I think it's because we now have true equality of opportunity. — Hallucinogen

I can point you to a history book - THE COLOR OF LAW (2017) - that will show that we do not have, and have not had equality of opportunity. We need not go back as far as the 18th and 19th centuries and slavery. Let's go back to the 1930s.

IN the middle of the Great Depression, Roosevelt recognized that the availability and quality of housing in the US was poor. Of course, there were fine houses being built, but across the board, housing stock was deteriorating and was in short supply. In 1934 Congress created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) which was charged with the task of promoting housing construction. One element of the law was that the FHA housing program was NOT TO RESULT IN INTEGRATED HOUSING. Blacks and whites would both be served, but not in the same places.

For white people there was an ambitious program of suburban community creation with tracts of new single-family housing located next to existing cities. For blacks, there was to be a large program of rental housing creation inside existing cities. Before these plans could be rolled out, WWII intervened. After WWII, the FHA program took off.

The quality of the housing was at least GOOD. The urban rental housing was sturdily built, and where they were maintained, FHA buildings remain in use and are in good shape. The suburban housing tracts were semi-manufactured, and were built very rapidly. Still, the quality was at least good. The houses were fairly small, and were situated on (usually) spacious lots. No city or suburban developer ever had difficulty finding urban renters or eager buyers. The housing was affordable but not "cheap".

Over time, the affordable suburban housing was improved by the owners. Rooms were added, landscaping was carried out, and services were upgraded. The value of the homes has, on average, continually appreciated. Some modest houses built in the 1950s now sell for $300,000 to $400,000.

The rental housing built in cities provided good housing, but renters do not accumulate equity. After 10 years of renting, a family is not better off in terms of equity than they were the day the moved in. Suburban families, however, stood to gain equity which they could either cash out, pass on to children, or keep by remaining in place. When they did cash out their property, they might enjoy a very large windfall that could be used for education, purchasing another house, or some other life enhancement.

Many cities had a weak commitment to maintaining the rental housing stock. If it was allowed to deteriorate, a downward spiral could--and often did--begin, which ended up with the rental housing turning into high-rise slums. Chicago had huge rental housing tracts built which were initially good, but ended up being altogether unlivable--owing to urban housing authority corruption and neglect.

The upshot of the FHA program is this:

After 40 years of official segregation, and 70 years of de facto segregation, suburban whites were much better off financially than they were immediately after WWII, and urban blacks were as bad off, or worse off, than they were in 1946.

Since education is organized along community boundaries, suburban communities have generally funded much better education than poorer cities. That's another way that opportunity is not equally distributed. Poor and poorly educated populations tend to have worse health outcomes than more affluent people. That's a third inequity of opportunity.

Bed time. Tomorrow.

You will also fail to unlearn the deceptive and manipulative views that you were indoctrinated with from a young age. — alcontali

And you weren't? Come now... How is it that you and you alone managed to overcome the deception and manipulation that was visited upon you, and that nobody else in the world could overcome?

The reason why the urban poor fail to reproduce, is not because of the survival rate of children. It is because they cannot keep their families together for long enough. — alcontali

The population increase would suggest that somehow the urban poor are managing to reproduce.

Once a woman has a child with one man, it becomes harder for her to find another man to commit to funding a second one. — alcontali

Whatever happened to fathering several children with one woman?

Having a lot of children requires the same nuclear family staying together for all that time. That just does not seem to happen much outside the context of religious communities. — alcontali

Hogwash.

the government will try to ask them to give up resources to pay to retired, middle-class atheists. — alcontali

The government will not merely TRY to make you give up resources for aged atheists, they will be successful in making you pay for the luxurious assisted living and skilled care homes we shall require. So work hard, earn lots of money, cheerfully pay your taxes, and know that you are a blessing to old atheists everywhere.

That may have been an interesting observation possibly a century ago. — alcontali

Actually I was wondering which century you were living in. Seems to be something of a perception-distorting time warp going on here.

I sincerely hope that the current generation of 'click-bait-wise' youth will be more resistant to being dazzled by bullshit than past generations. I am just slightly pessimistic about how well they will resist. Isn't this the generation that spends hours and hours and hours playing on-line games? On-line games designed to hook and keep players at their consoles? A generation seduced to buy as much stuff on line as the elder generation was seduced to buy in brick and mortar stores?

There is always SOMETHING bright and shiny to dangle in front of the masses that the masses will decide they really, really want. AND NEED! RIGHT NOW!

See, all the wizardry of mass merchandizers works on the wizards of mass merchandizing just as well as it works on everybody else. One may be in charge of manipulating the masses for United Consolidated & Amalgamated Retailers of The World and be really good at it, but then, you know, you're walking down the street (or the mega mall) and you happen to look into the window and there it is: the perfectly displayed object, designed to reach into your brain and grab your amygdala by the balls and cause you to reach for your wallet and BUY something you definitely do not need.

Long term it may be better if Trump wins again. Maybe it will force people away from directionless outrage and toward practical solutions? Or maybe it will just enflame the opposition into more silly sensationalist posturing and deepen the the lack of trust the public have for the administrative powers? — I like sushi

Most likely the latter.

I do not know if Donald Trump has an actual strategy. Maybe He is merely acting out his personal kinks. The effect however -- planned or not -- is to derail rational discussion. Why derail rational discussion? Because people won't buy a straightforward, honest presentation of Trumps intentions. Much better for someone who has unspeakable plans is to play games of uproar; to lie, speak nonsense; pursue policies which have no rational basis but which may serve some interest.

Better to make idiotic non sequitur statements, like "The Kurds didn't help us in Normandy" to justify pulling out US troops from a relationship that had (apparently) restrained Turkey. The Turks have invaded northern Syria, and the Isis prisoners held by the Kurds are likely to get loose. Isis emerged from hiding almost immediately, upon the commencement of the Turkish invasion.

Better to fill one's allies with the same kind of extreme nonsense of the sort I heard from some moron at the Texas State Fair on NPR: "There's no point in working with the center, because the only thing in the middle of the road is roadkill." Never mind whether that is the case or not; the point is that compromisers get run over.

Better to make a boogeyman out of Hillary Clinton or Hunter Biden: Or... Joe Blow. Anybody.

Lower the level of discourse long enough (it wasn't stratospheric before Trump decided to run in 2015) and the people will be left dazed.

Zeus or Quetzalcoatl — VagabondSpectre

I believe Zeus turned Quetzalcoatl into a toad. I feel greatly relieved because I never did like mesoamerican religion. Hail Zeus! Hail Jupiter!

There is quite a bit of evidence that affluence is a key factor in people opting to have fewer -- far fewer -- children. The theory is that with high survival rates among their children, redundant children are not necessary -- the ones they have will survive. Further, affluent people don't have to worry about not having children to care for them when they are old and feeble. Affluent people can hire poor people to that sort of work at affordable prices.

I haven't read any stats on atheism being a causal factor for reduced birth rates. Maybe it is, but I haven't seen the evidence.

I think one can make an argument (I don't have any stats for it) that it is affluence that leads to atheism. Poor people need to keep their options open, and one of those options is that a god is going to internet on their behalf, at some point. God is an affordable comfort, too.

This is true. However, 42 was a very good age.

As John Keats said in is poem about some Greek crockery, at the end of the fifth and last stanza,

When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Hmmm, history is so fucking complicated. I'll have to chew this over for a while.

I don't know why I thought you said scripture was the source. Christianity was hatched in Jerusalem, but it grew up under the influence of Athens (and later, Rome). So we are clear on that. Good.

Yes, it’s odd, the extent to which atheists leave one foot in the religious circle ...
— NOS4A2

Though foot prints are not blueprints — 180 Proof

Some atheists, at least, have one foot in the Xian circle because before they became atheists, both of their feet were there. I grew up in a Protestant milieu, and like it or not, I can no more erase that large block of experience than I can forget my mother tongue. So I don't believe that God exists, especially the God that I grew up with. Of course, there is more to religion than the godhead. There is the application of preaching, folk ways, social connections, ritual, music, poetry, and so forth as well.

Bertrand Russel noted that religious deserters who become atheists tend to be the kind of non-believer that they were as believers. So, some atheists are screeching doctrinaire bullies, and others are rather more relaxed about their disbelief and other people's beliefs.

The god that I don't believe in is laissez-faire. If you want a cartoon picture, then "god is in heaven, busy with whatever god does up or out there, and we are here, busy with whatever we do here. It's a long, long way between god - up or out there, and us down here. We are on our own."

I wasn't a screeching doctrinaire Christian and I am not a screeching doctrinaire atheist -- and I don't have a lot of patience with Christians or atheists who are.

many of the fundamental terms of early modern science, which laid the foundations for later science, such as substance, essence, motion, and so on, were all developed in the context of Christian philosophical principles — Wayfarer

It seems that one would have to separate out the philosophical background of Greco-Roman thinking from Christian (or Judeo-Christian-Islamic) thinking. When that is done, what does one have left?

Granted, the Christians who succeeded the Roman Empire (in the West) had other things on their plate: Converting the pagan Europeans (not completed until 1380, the Lithuanians were the last to submit), keeping their scriptoriums from being torched by the Vikings, defending Europe from Moslem armies, plagues, crusades, etc. But it doesn't seem like they really accomplished all that much until the Renaissance, which was stimulated by the new-found texts of the classical period, which were not Christian scripture.

Granted, there were technological innovations every now and then; the medieval period wasn't the Dark Ages. It wasn't as if nobody was thinking about anything but devils behind every bush and angels guarding the faithful. But I'm not sold on the idea that scripture led to the renaissance.

I wouldn't want to brand the Church as the mother of all superstitious nonsense, but it doesn't seem like the opposite extreme is appropriate either.

It's 2:19. I think I should go to bed. It's been great.

Pride is important for women too, but is likely to manifest itself in different terms than for men.
— Bitter Crank

How? — Wallows

Again, things have changed over time, and many women are in something of a bind. They used to stay at home and care for children and do homemaking work. The reason so many women gave up that role and took wage work was that the man's income no longer was adequate to support a family with one job. (This changed, starting in the 1960s). Most families discovered that two incomes were necessary for them to maintain the lifestyle they had, or had lost and wanted to regain.

Women who have gone into hourly wage and salaried work have found it a mixed blessing. Yes, it has produced the kind of income their family needed (husband's and wife's together). But children and homes don't take care of themselves. So, more work.

Plus, women discovered what a lot of men discovered: work sucks. So, women, like men, have to find some sort of validation in their sucky jobs, just like men do. It can be difficult.

Linguistic confusion. — Wallows

What, exactly, do you mean by that? I am confused or you are confused? (It wasn't an attack, so lower your shields.).

And where does philosophy fit in here? It seems like the antithesis, seemingly. — Wallows

I don't know why you would read what I said that way. man (generic human) is first and foremost an actor, one who performs roles in life. How one interprets the roles one has, or the roles that are available is a philosophical task. Even someone doing something "merely mechanical" or menial or unpleasant (like a machinist, custodian, or a sewer worker) can and should place his work in a larger context. That's a philosophical task.

You have meditated plenty on your role in life. Many people here have. If philosophy has nothing to say about how one exists in the ordinary world, then what the fuck good is it?

One can gain pride from a successful assessment which find the true value of one's work in the real world. It can be difficult, but even anonymous paper processors in the back offices of brokerages have a real function in the world. And they are real people functioning in the world, and who may loathe their work. That's worth philosophizing about, I'd say.

People who have been forced to think poorly of themselves because they are homosexual, disabled, black, short, blind, deaf, etc. internalize self-hatred (or at least very low expectations) and suffer more stress and health consequences from stress.

Pride can't be injected like testosterone; pride has to be built up. Pride for the beaten down requires a change process over time in which persons reinterpret themselves as capable, adept, strong, men worthy of respect because of who they are.

Things are better now than they used to be for many people because of pride movements. Gay pride is 50 years old now. Its work was completed for its 1969 generation a long time ago. Subsequent generations of homosexuals experiencing prejudice need a pride movement too. So do blind people, deaf people, wheelchair-bound people, blacks, and so forth.

Years of work by various 'uplift' or 'pride' groups have considerably diminished the sense of inferiority that groups I mentioned experienced. It's what gives confidence for a group of deaf friends to go out on public transportation and confidently sign to each other, go to bars, restaurants, and so forth.

Stop cringing. Performance in terms of all the sorts of life-tasks men engage in: the job, mowing the lawn, painting the house, keeping the car in good shape, his self-presentation before the world (the way we put ourselves together in the morning), his expertise, bravery, daring, risk taking, thinking up topics for this forum. All sorts of things.

What did you think I meant -- skill at fucking? Well, some guys do it better than others.

What's wrong with supremacy?

... pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth.

So where does wallowing fit in here.

So, another kind of pride is "Gay Pride" the feeling and the ideology that being gay and that men loving men is good, and about which no apologies need be made.

Black pride and Gay Pride both seek the redress of past humiliations. So, some kinds of pride have a healing function.

Pride is one of the 7 deadly sins, along with greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth. Pride cometh before a fall. Pride particularly galls the holy church because the upstart proud man is likely to challenge the priestly prick, possibly on his home turf. The church loves humility, which maketh men less troublesome. My advice: Raise a little hell.

there's nothing more central and grounding for a man to feel proud prideful — Wallows

I think this is true. A man should feel proud in his personhood, and his performance should bear some relationship to his pride. So, if a man feels pride in his skill with tools, he should be able to get good work done with his tools. If he is proud of his hunting prowess, then he should be able to bag a deer every now and then. It isn't so important what a man feels proud of, but that he should have accomplishment about which to feel pride.

Boys should be raised to be proud of themselves, and to do something about which to be proud.

Having shame and embarrassment in one's self might sometimes be justified, but usually it is a sign of somebody who has been beaten down.

Pride is important for women too, but is likely to manifest itself in different terms than for men.

As a rock climber, this has become very apparent to me in how I "read" or in fact see a cliff face and its features as ways of orienting my body and its mass and momentum in relation to further features. I see things in a cliff face that a non-climber simply doesn't see, especially ways of gaining purchase by various kinds of oppositions of pressure. I see my body up there. I see my center of gravity in relation to the holds. What it is for the features to be what they are to me is how my body can fit and navigate them under the pull of gravity using Newton's laws (bodily-intuitively understood). — petrichor

This is an excellent example of what embodiment means -- a physical body relating to the physical world in actions.

While rock climbing is not something I do -- and something I won't do -- the bad experiences in attempting to climb rocks were a vivid demonstration of how I (body) do not relate well to basic physical facts, like height, weight, gravity, and ledges that were not exactly where I thought they were. It isn't that I am risk averse -- I have taken plenty of risks in urban settings, where I am comfortably embodied.

Per @StreetlightX Nietzsche's quote, overcoming despising the body has been a long project for me.

I would mention EMBODIMENT by James B. Nelson, which is a book about the theology of being flesh and blood. Since its publication in 1978, we might have made some progress in accepting the enormous significance of being physical beings. It may seem obvious that we are creatures of flesh and blood--meat--but there is a strong tendency (coming out of Christian theology among other sources) to view the really important aspect of our humanity as non physical--spirit, soul, psyche, all that.

Luckily, Trump Is an Unstable Non-Genius
His mental deficiencies may save American democracy. PAUL KRUGMAN

16! That's amazing. I was 16 once, about 57 years ago.

I'm interested in religion, but I'm not religious. My working assumptions about the world are pretty much those of an atheist: The dead stay dead, no miracles, no heaven or hell. I don't expect Jesus to dropkick me through the goal posts of life.

I have picked at philosophy (like one picks over a chicken carcass after dinner) but have not found it particularly helpful. I was an English major in college. Science is good; so are the humanities provided they are taught well and are not larded with Pomo mumbo jumbo.

Why am I surprised? Because shocking facts are always cropping up -- like "the devil is in the details" being a 20th century expression! I thought for sure it was Roman, at least.

Welcome to THE Philosophy Forum. We are several years old here, but we used to be "Philosophy Forum" and had been that for about 10 years. Some of the same people have been on the site for most of those years.

It's a good place to be, and your interest and studies in science will stand you in good stead here.

Yea what nutter came up with that — Fruitless

If you were less limited, you'd know that one leading candidate for the phrase is Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the modernist architect, who phrased it "God is in the details". Flaubert's version is Le bon Dieu est dans le détail.. God, devil, all the same. At any rate, the phrase is not older than the 1960s. The recentness of the phrase gives me unlimited surprise.

Limited joke factor.

Remember that the devil is in the details.

I hate to break it to you, but there are definitely limits. My patience, for example. As far as I know, the speed of light is the fastest that any object can go--not just will go, but can conceivably go. So photons can not travel faster than themselves.

The world (universe, cosmos...) is very detailed because everything is made up of smaller parts down to a certain level--Quarks, is it? Quarks will do for now. Quarks make up sub-atomic particles like protons and neutrons, which make up atoms, and atoms make up molecules, and molecules make up... on up to the parts of the organic cell--there are many parts to the cell--and cells make up tissues, and tissue make up body parts, and body parts make up plants and animals, and plants and animals make a world, and worlds surround stars, and many stars make up a galaxy, and galaxies make up galactic clusters. Beyond that is the whole universe. Then there are black holes, white dwarfs, supernovae, and more besides.

So, Fruitless, no matter what you look at, it is made up of smaller parts -- the details.

No, everyone on earth does not have the same capacity to feel as everybody else, and everybody doesn't have the same brain.

"Feelings" and "emotions" are a product of the limbic system (of the brain) and not all limbic systems are exactly the same. Some people, for instance, are more "emotionally labile" and "emotionally volatile" than others. Some people feel some emotions more intensely than other emotions. So there's quite a bit of variability.

The more or less normal human brain (normal at birth) is put together on the basis of DNA and all sorts of signals. Yes, brains are all very similar, but even at birth some people are likely to be smarter than others, have better memory than others, have better motor skills, and so forth. Then there is the sensory equipment which feeds information to the brain as the person has experiences. As noted by several people, experiences vary and differing experiences lead to more differences in the brain (and emotions).

Putting all that aside, I would say we can become more tuned to the quality of the emotions we have, and we can become aware of, and counter, efforts on the parts of our so called "super-egos" to suppress certain kinds of emotion. I'm not sure whether or not we can dial up the amplitude of our emotions the way we turn up the sound or the heat.

used to believe a welfare state was the mark of a compassionate citizenry. But now I’m not so sure, because why would a government need to assume responsibility for the welfare of the public if the public never eschewed that responsibility in the first place? — NOS4A2

"The public" has never taken on the responsibility of general welfare. Whatever has been done (and for long stretches of time it would be "not much) has been done by the Church, by private institutions (such as orphanages, hospitals, etc), or the government. Institutions can bring to bear donations, private wealth, or taxes. Individuals normally have neither the resources nor the information available to improve strangers' quality of life. Pool resources in the collection plate or tax coffer and enough is available to make a larger difference.

The need for welfare assistance has grown because the population of indigent persons has increased; the complexity of indigent problems increase with the use of drugs and excessive alcohol; the economy which produces great wealth also produces more poverty. Further, built in prejudices have deprived some sectors of the population (blacks, for example) from acquiring the financial stability that many people have obtained.

A rule? Maybe: The government will normally not exceed the generosity of the public. Stingy people elect stingy representatives who pass stingy policies. Generous people elect generous representatives who pass generous policies. That's why benefits tend to be higher in the NE and northern Midwest than in the SE and the SW. People in the NE and Midwest believe in higher levels of collective generosity. People in the SE and SW do not. This principle is also why people in the NE and Midwest tend to be better educated, healthier, and live longer than people in the SE and the SW.

The problem with religion is that it is suitable only for those who can have faith in something for which there is no experiential evidence. — Janus

Not all of religion lacks experiential evidence. Some other reasons people engage in religious activity: They like getting together in church and singing; they like being reassured and praying (which is experiential for the people praying; a listening god is not experiential). They like the experience of ritual, like the eucharist. They like seeing friends. Participants in religion like social events such as common meals which happen in church--pot lucks, funeral luncheons, Advent or Lenten meals and worship, or Christmas parties, and the like. All experiential. Being taught about "that for which there is no evidence" is itself experiential. Sunday school is experiential, even if the subject of the teaching is never manifest.

Religions ALL involve a lot of person to person stuff, which is our human bread and butter.

That's a good question, probably has something to do with the human condition. Psychological bias, racism, you know, those kinds of things.

To that end, you think it's a pathology of sorts, or just human nature? — 3017amen

SophistiCat was asking a rhetorical question.

How about adding "history" to the list, along with "something to do with the human condition. Psychological bias, racism..." The United States isn't "naturally" a more religious country than France, and it is no accident that people of color are poorer than whites. Both the religiosity of Americans and the relative poverty of blacks are the result of a long history of specific religious teaching and economic practice.

The dominance of religion in a given population isn't the consequence of the "overwhelming truth of the religion"; its the consequence of intensive and long-lasting promotional activity. When the intensive and long-lasting promotional activity is withdrawn (especially during periods of rapid change) the number of adherents is likely to decrease.

One of the consequences of the US not having an established church is that every two bit (and $10) religious organization was free to promote its religious views. And they did -- from Anglicanism and Catholicism to Mormonism.