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Editor: Joyce Bates

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P. O. Box 1744

Greenville, SC 29602

August, 2009

The Voice of Sanity

THE NEWSLETTER OF THE UPSTATE S.C. SECULAR HUMANISTS

Visit our web-site for current and back-issues at: www.uscsh.org

e-mail: secularhmnst@aol.com

CALENDAR

Our annual picnic will be held on August 23 at 1:30 p.m. at the home of Elaine and Joe Norwood, 16 Oakleaf Rd., Greenville, SC. Call Elaine/Joe at 864-268-1889 to coordinate your contribution to the picnic. The host will provide hamburger meat and hot dog wieners.

Several years ago, we voted to have an "inside" picnic due to the hot August weather. Formerly, we had rented a shelter at a local park.

Note the time: 1:30 p.m.

Date: August 23.

Place: Elaine/Joe Norwood home.

Hope to see you all there.

Excerpts from “The Age of Reason”

Thomas Paine

“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, of Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind and monopolize power and profit.

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. In fidelity does no consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.

It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the trade of a priest for the sake of gain, and, in order to qualify himself for that trade, he begins with a perjury. Can we conceive anything more destructive to morality than this?

Soon after I had published the pamphlet “Common Sense”, in America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion. The adulterous connection of church and state, wherever it had taken place, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, had so effectually prohibited, by pains and penalties, every discussion upon established creeds, and upon first principles of religion, that until the system of government should be changed, those subjects could not be brought fairly and openly before the world; but that whenever this should be done, a revolution in the system of religion would follow.

Where have the jobs gone?

It was stated in a news report over PBS that the jobs lost nationally for the month of June hovered somewhere around the 450,000 mark. The unemployment rate as of June 28^th this year was 12.1% in South Carolina, and the third highest in the nation. Looking at recent history in South Carolina we see that jobs have been bleeding out of the state for years, starting with textile manufacturing and edging on to more sophisticated software jobs, all going over seas to a more lucrative job market. Lucrative in the sense that the employer could make a product and/or service a product cheaper and have a larger bottom line for net profit.

Things have changed for the consumer, too. Now, we pump our own gas and check ourselves out at the supermarket. If we want someone to service an appliance or fix something around the house we have to take off work to meet him. Otherwise, no one will be home when he arrives, because many families have two working parents. The paperboy could be a retired person or family man/woman working more than one job (the latter probably without health insurance) to make ends meet. The kid down the street that used to cut our grass has been replaced by a landscaping service operated by persons mentioned in the preceding sentence. Nearly all phone inquiries to businesses are automated. A person can eventually get hold of a human being, but it takes a a lot of button pressing and talking in measured abbreviated sentences before the automated voice finally relents and a real voice is heard.

Thus, the job market in the US has shifted. Meanwhile, we are told that our kids need to go to college so they are prepared to go into the skilled work force, but a big proportion of those in college have loans that will take many years to pay back. As for the teens who don’t make it to college, well, they’re not going to be able to get work.

It is difficult to see how the job market and the work population will ever be balanced as we look ahead, but education will probably have everything to do with it.

Joyce Bates

IS RELIGION STILL “THE OPIATE OF THE MASSES”? PROBABLY SO.

Most of the readers of this newsletter are likely familiar with Karl Marx’s characterization of religion as “the opiate of the masses,” describing the dual role of religion in assisting the proletariat cope with the hardships of their lives, while also facilitating their domination, oppression and exploitation by the bourgeoisie of early capitalism.

A 2008 national survey by the Gallup Poll included the question “Is religion an important part of your daily life?” The percentages of 350,000 interviewees responding “yes” to the question are available on a state-by-state basis. A separate data source, the U.S. Census Bureau, provides data on state poverty rates for 2007. Examining the relationships between religiosity (importance of religion) and poverty is one way (obviously not the only way) of testing the contemporary applicability of Marx’s hypothesis.

I have examined both sets of data for the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The following table displays the findings for the top ten most religious states and the bottom ten least religious states:

Most Religious States Percent Religious Percent in Poverty

Mississippi 85 20.6

Alabama 82 16.9

South Carolina 80 15.0

Tennessee 79 15.9

Arkansas 78 17.9

Louisiana 78 18.6

Georgia 76 14.3

North Carolina 76 14.3

Oklahoma 75 15.9

Texas 74 16.3

Least Religious States Percent Religious Percent in Poverty

Connecticut 55 7.9

Nevada 54 10.7

Oregon 53 12.9

Rhode Island 53 12.0

Washington 52 11.4

Alaska 51 8.9

Maine 48 12.0

Massachusetts 48 9.9

New Hampshire 46 7.1

Vermont 42 10.1

It is clear from the data of the above table that the most religious states also have the highest poverty rates. What about the other 31 “in-between” states (including D.C.)? To answer the question about the relationship between religiosity and poverty for all 50 states plus D.C., I have calculated Pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficient ( r ), whose value was .674, which indicates a strong, statistically significant (t = 6.391; p = .0001) relationship. The higher the poverty rate, the higher the religiosity, providing evidence in support of the continuing relevance of Marx’s hypothesis that religion is the “opiate of the masses.” Food for thought.