THE ECONOMIC DECODING OF RELIGIOUS DOGMAS Ranking World Religions in Terms of Economic Consistency THE ECONOMIC DECODING OF RELIGIOUS DOGMAS Ranking World Religions in Terms of Economic Consistency BY PAUL FUDULU University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China Emerald Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2017 Copyright © 2017 Emerald Publishing Limited Reprints and permissions service Contact: permissions@emeraldinsight.com No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-78714-536-8 (Print) ISBN: 978-1-78714-535-1 (Online) ISBN: 978-1-78714-966-3 (Epub) CONTENTS List of Figures Foreword 1. The Model 1.1. The General Power Perspective 1.1.1. Weberian Rationalism or the Rationalism of Absolute Wealth 1.1.2. Why Employ Two Megaobjectives? 1.1.3. The Anti-Entropic Perspective on Individual Maximization 1.1.4. From Megaobjectives to Ordinary Interests 1.1.5. The Inverse Correlation between the Hierarchies in Terms of Opportunity Costs and Preferences 1.1.6. Rules and Institutions Defined in Terms of the Megaobjectives’ Opportunity Costs 1.1.7. From the Rationalism of Absolute Wealth to a Rationalism Derived from Two Megaobjectives 1.2. The Specific Models for Analyzing the Consistency of Religions with Economic Performance 1.2.1. The Deep Nature and Cause of Economic Development 1.2.2. The Religious Determination of Economic Performance 1.2.3. The Economic Consistency Criteria and the Steps of the Economic Decoding of a Religion 2. A Short Description of the Great Religions 2.1. Judaism 2.2. Catholicism 2.3. Orthodoxy 2.4. Protestantism 2.5. Buddhism 2.5.1. General Characteristics 2.5.2. Hinayana 2.5.3. Mahayana 2.6. Confucianism 2.7. Islam 3. Consistency Criteria 3.1. Direct Criteria 3.1.1. The Level of Prohibition of Interest 3.1.2. The Type of Preference for General Wealth 3.1.3. The Type of Asceticism 3.2. Indirect Criteria 3.2.1. Having or Not Having a Divinity or a Religion 3.2.2. The Level of Divinity Concentration/Dissipation 3.2.3. The Level of Transcendence 3.2.4. The Kind of Salvation 3.2.5. The Importance of Afterlife 3.2.6. The Level of Obedience to Earthly Authorities 3.2.7. Man’s Relative Power over Woman 3.2.8. The Type of Organization of Religious Activity 4. The Economic Consistency of the Great Religions and its Evolution 4.1. The General Economic Consistency Ranking of the Great Religions 4.2. The Evolution of Economic Consistency of the Great Religions 5. My General Power Theory of Religion Relative to Other Current Theories 5.1. The Becker-Inspired Theories 5.1.1. A Critique of Becker’s Economic Approach 5.1.2. Iannaccone and Others 5.2. The Stark and Bainbridge Theory 6. General Conclusions References Index LIST OF FIGURES Chapter Figure The Logic of the General Power Model Relative to the Influence of Religion on Economic Performance Figure The Logic of the Weberian Model Relative to the Influence of Religion on Economic Performance Figure The Logic of the General Power Model for Analyzing the Economic Consistency of Religions Starting from Religious Rules and Institutions Figure The Logic of the General Power Model for Analyzing the Economic Consistency of Religions Starting from Religious Values Chapter Figure The Level of Asceticism and Hedonism of the Great Religions Figure The Economic Consistency Ranking of Religions Based on the Criterion of the Level of Transcendence Figure The Economic Consistency Ranking of Religions According to the Criterion of the Importance of Afterlife Chapter Figure The Economic Consistency Rankings of the Great Religions for Each Criterion and Overall Figure The Evolution of the Economic Consistency of Judaism Figure 10 The Evolution of the Economic Consistency of Christianity Figure 11 The Evolution of the Economic Consistency of Islam Figure 12 The Evolution of the Economic Consistency of Buddhism FOREWORD The economic theory of religion is a relatively new scientific field However, this research project was not born out of my desire to pursue a new and very interesting research direction The fact that the research communicated through this book has been performed at the beginning of this new scientific endeavor is simply coincidence The study of the influence of religious values and institutions on economic performance has been a natural stage in my long-term, nonorthodox, personal research program Hence, it should be no surprise that the methodology and conclusions derived from this research are quite different from others’ The analytical model I propose in this book is based on my previous studies regarding the formation of preferences and cultural values as well as the nature of rules and institutions All studies were performed within a fundamentally different paradigm This book is the first major test of the general power paradigm — a paradigm for which I have struggled to attain recognition The results are beyond my expectations Through using an analytical model quite different from that of standard economic theory, rational choice perspective and the Weberian model, I proved something that, from the perspective of orthodox social science inspired by Western culture, is hardly imaginable Specifically, religious values, rules, and institutions intrinsically contain direct and indirect rankings of the mega-objective absolute wealth (or economic performance) and, as such, they predetermine the economic performance of communities that embrace those religions Because the level of economic performance determined by a religion is encoded in its dogma, nothing else but religious dogma should be studied or decoded by economists Just the outside, plain aspects of religious activities — like religiosity — cannot but mislead It is equally misleading to study the correlation between dominant religions and economic performance of the corresponding communities This is so because the economic performance of many countries has increasingly depended on economic systems and institutions they have been forced or induced to adopt and which have nothing in common with their own cultures and, as such, their own religions The standard economic models for analyzing religion are not fit to tackle this problem It seems it is impossible to economically decode religious dogmas and derive a solid economic consistency ranking of religions other than from the perspective taken in this book, and by its derivative concepts and correlations representative in Asian countries like India But the concept of culture used by Stark and Bainbridge is not at all fit to separate groups and societies Culture is not a uniform ranking, but rather a hodgepodge of cultural systems and only the latter may have an internal coherence Because for Stark and Bainbridge culture is “that which is learned,” it might be fit to classify the living world by the kind of mechanism used to transmit information between generations, and in this way it might be of great support for biologists At the same time this definition precludes revealing and studying the fundamental differences among the most general models of metamaximization that are fit within various groups and societies, and it is in this sense that solid sociologists and anthropologists (like Hofstede, 2001) use the concept of culture Because the religion of a group is the expression of the culture of that group, without this latter meaning of culture one will never understand what religion does, and this means that one will never grasp in depth what it is Much later in their book, Stark and Bainbridge use the definition of “religious culture” as “beliefs, values, symbols, and practices of the group” (1996, p 126), but although on the right track this time, they are far from a workable definition that is conducive to a sound theory of religion Up to this point I have mostly covered the general principles Stark and Bainbridge used to construct their theory of religion and how well they were implemented Of course, the ultimate test of their theory is its power to explain, and so in the following I shall cover its power to explain dogmas’ components and their evolution This will not only include the accuracy of their explanations for the dogma components they chose to explain, but also point to the dogma components that were left out without explanation The dogma component which seems to be of most interest to them is what they call the scope and number of gods Before assessing their prediction, I would like to make the observation that it is hard to count gods if one does not separate the god-being from the god-personality In some religions the number of god-beings does not signal different-in-kind gods (different personalities), but components of the same kind of god, for instance, in Christianity, components are needed for varying transcendence It is for this reason that Stark and Bainbridge’s assessments of both Christianity and Judaism regarding number of gods are incorrect But let us assume that we not have the aforementioned problem How precise and relevant is this in regard to their prediction: “As societies become older, larger, and more cosmopolitan they will worship fewer gods of greater scope” (1996, p 86)? Consider Judaism If one skips the time of Canaanite influence, Judaism had one god-personality and no change for four millennia The evolution of Judaism consisted of changes in terms of intermediaries and organization, which have their sound logic and corresponding decoding (about which there is not much in Stark and Bainbridge’s book) With regard to Christianity, from the very beginning there was one god-personality and three godbeings, which continued even after the Western Church separated from the Eastern Church, which denotes two “societies” becoming less cosmopolite and smaller And again, when Protestant Churches separated from the Catholic Church, nothing changed in terms of the number of gods However, during the same time there were changes in some dogma components, sometimes remarkable, which signaled significant changes in the level of divine transcendence for which Stark and Bainbridge present no reason, except their reassurance that there must be a reason In the case of Buddhism, first of all Stark and Bainbridge err in assessing the number of gods Buddhism goes beyond polytheism and when the Buddhist monk unites with the universe, it actually equals even more gods and in no way only one god This is the way Buddhism chose to signal the highest concentration of terrestrial relative power And further, it is not exactly correct that Buddhist monks not have any interest in the earthly world The truth is that he aims at much more than power over the terrestrial world or relative power of gods Terrestrial control is too little for them And, once again, time has not changed the number of gods in Buddhism What changed later on in the history of Buddhism was in terms of helpers, which ancient Buddhism did not have This was Buddhism’s way of signaling the movement toward greater relative power equality or democracy on Earth or, more exactly, the move to the possibility that, with help, the laity can attain states previously only reserved for monks This irrelevant level of prediction based on the number of gods results especially from what Stark and Bainbridge say about the “nature” of a society, which later on is conditioned by what they understand by the term “culture.” The nature of a society is defined by its culture in the sense of its specific ranking of megaobjectives as expressed in specific values and rules As such, time can only be an axis that can record some changes, but it cannot determine the culture and nature of a society The nature of a culture sets in right at the time it is created and the mechanism is well determined Furthermore, I think that the many social scholars cited by Stark and Bainbridge as supporters of the idea “that there is an intimate relationship between the nature of societies and the nature of the gods they worship” (1996, p 55) had a different understanding of the “nature” of a society As I have said before, the definition of culture they chose greatly determined the fate of their theory Let me now turn to the way Stark and Bainbridge decode the role of intermediaries in various religions In my theory, intermediaries are related to a divinity’s transcendence and this is then decoded in levels of relative power and preferences for it in the terrestrial societies Further on, these are translated in terms of preferences for the megaobjective of absolute wealth and levels of consistency with good economic performance The great religions I analyzed varied significantly in terms of kind of intermediaries; in some religions — such as Rabbinic Judaism, ancient Buddhism, and most Protestant denominations — there are no intermediaries at all These differences signal proportional differences in terrestrial societies Not even tiny differences remained without consequences for terrestrial societies For instance, the filioque — about which Stark and Bainbridge could only say that it had a reason — signals the higher transcendence of the Catholic God and, supported by other apparently small changes in Catholic dogma, led to the separation of Western Europe from Eastern Europe The great Islamic intermediary Mohammad greatly changed the level of transcendence and, despite the formal pure monotheism of Islam, greatly changed its nature Indeed, Islamic dogma justifies the greatest level of relative power for a terrestrial society among all monotheist dogmas analyzed in my book But all Stark and Bainbridge had to say about this richly informative dogma component is that the norms promulgated by intermediaries may serve both their interests and their clients’ interests (meaning the laity) Questions like interests, how much, and in what way, are not contemplated Regarding the afterlife, Stark and Bainbridge only focus on the relationship between belief in it, and the age of the believer What they completely overlook is the great variation of the importance attached to the afterlife across the various religions Moreover, there are religions that not even contain this concept — such as pre-Rabbinic Judaism — or religions that make it irrelevant — such as Buddhism Stark and Bainbridge’s theory says nothing about any of these concepts There are further important dogma components that Stark and Bainbridge did not touch upon, including the type of salvation, the level of transcendence, the level of asceticism and hedonism, the kind of church organization, and the relative power relationship between man and woman All of these are very richly informative dogma components which must be decoded by a powerful theory of religion One last remark on Stark and Bainbridge’s theory concerns their flawed idea that different religions might have different levels of rationality They make this point when they separate gods who hold both good and bad intentions and gods who hold either of the two: “A god holding either of these intentions is more rational than is a god who holds both intentions” (1996, p 114) I previously noted in this book that Weber was trapped by the same illusion NOTES When Weber talks in his Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism about the relationship between capitalism and its specific rationality, he means a type of rationality which must fit a specific ranking of human objectives Later on in his book, when he comes to comparisons among real individuals, for instance the comparison between Catholic and Protestant believers, he slips to comparing levels of rationality My explanation of this confusion is based on Weber’s failure to conceive of a right taxonomy of human ends, which should have anchored ends on components of individual’s external reality Although many paragraphs of his book are about characterizing the specific capitalistic megaobjective of absolute wealth through expressions which are descriptive — such as “forever renewed profit,” “continuous, rational, capitalistic enterprise,” “profit by the utilization of opportunities for exchange,” and “peaceful chances of profit” — they not have the force of a solid and clear-cut concept This confusion also trapped other important social scholars I am using the version of their theory that was presented in their 1987 book A Theory of Religion, more exactly, the paperback edition of 1996 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS The model which I launch in this book for analyzing the consistency of great religions with economic performance, is fundamentally different from recent orthodox economic models: Stark and Bainbridge’s rational choice model and the Weberian rationalism model Unlike these models, my model looks for the causes of huge differences in economic consistency in the varying importance of the megaobjective absolute wealth as it is encoded in religious dogmas Instead of being singular, this megaobjective has a very powerful substitute — the megaobjective relative power — which has not yet been acknowledged by the orthodox economic theory that stemmed from Western culture As the Dutch social scholar Mauk Mulder, whose stance is similar to that of other important classic or contemporary scholars of social and economic sciences, asserted based on his outstanding field research: “The principle of the ‘economically rational’ human being proves to be wrong, even in our culture” (1977, p 1) My general power paradigm makes it possible to reveal different fundamental correlations which are quite impossible in orthodox economic theory Because religious dogmas consist both of rules and values or preferences, without revelation of an evolutionary mechanism for preferences formation — including cultural preferences — which shows how preferences are formed in inverse relation to the opportunity costs of alternative human actions or objectives, the conversion of values into rules, and of rules into values, would have been impossible As such, it would also have been impossible either to exclusively rank religions in terms of preference for the megaobjective absolute wealth or exclusively rank religions in terms of the opportunity cost for the same megaobjective Consequently, the economic ranking of religions would have been impossible The aforementioned evolutionary mechanism of preferences formation could have been not revealed without the fundamentally different conception on rules and institutions made possible by general power economic theory According to this conception, rules and institutions consist of patterned opportunity costs for the alternative actions — or the goals they are performed for — individuals face while they strive to maximize antientropic control over their natural and human external world This perspective has made it possible, first of all, to explain rules and institutions that have been formed or have emerged without human design — a possibility orthodox economic theory lacks It is within this perspective that it has made sense to approach religious dogmas as specific phenomena derived from individual maximizing activities It is within the same perspective that economic decoding of dogmas makes sense, and thorough decoding is possible The general power paradigm has another unusual advantage By proving that all ordinary human objectives can be squeezed down to only the two all-inclusive megaobjectives of absolute wealth and relative power, it has become much easier to reveal an inverse correlation both between the opportunity costs of the two megagoods as well as between the preferences for them Only in this case, one can start from the opportunity cost or the preference for the megaobjective relative power, draw conclusions about the opportunity cost or the preference for the megaobjective absolute wealth, and further on find the level of economic consistency of each and all components of a religion Those correlations are crucial because most often religious dogmas consist of rules and values directly depicting the megaobjective relative power and not the megaobjective absolute wealth According to the model I developed in this book, determining the preference for the megaobjective absolute wealth is vital The logic of the model is simple and solid: The level of resources that the believer employs for the purpose of economic performance is dependent on the importance for that individual of the megaobjective absolute wealth, and this importance is encoded in the believer’s religious dogma through rules and values Whatever the nature of the resources an individual has — material, time, or rationality — the level of their employment for the purpose of economic performance is determined by the degree of desirability of economic performance It is not the level of available resources which determines the real level of economic performance — the great flawed idea of orthodox economic theory — but the desirability of economic performance determined by the importance attached to the megaobjective of absolute wealth Resources may also be channeled to achieve the alternative megaobjective relative power As Weber rightly pointed out in a rare statement in social sciences, using his wording, it is the spirit of capitalism that produces the capital and not the other way around Because religious dogmas define the preference for the megaobjective absolute wealth in an encoded manner and only the preexistence of such preference determines economic performance, religions not only influence economic performance, but even predetermine it The conclusion of my analysis of the six great religions and one religious substitute, without any proof to the contrary, is this: Each religion has a perfect logical structure; in other words, they not differ in terms of the level of rationality All dogmas were conceived of — and repeatedly checked — by great human minds, and in this way they could become perfectly encoded descriptions of specific terrestrial social systems or approximations of cultures Let me make this clear again: Each religion fits specific rankings of human megaobjectives Each is perfect in terms of its own ranking of megaobjectives From this point of view, the various religions cannot be compared A comparison would make sense only if there was the same ranking of megaobjectives for all religions, which was not the case If Stark and Bainbridge, as well as Iannaccone and others, had a correct model for decoding religions, they would have been forced to accept the conclusion of the perfectly logical structure or rationality of all religions, as I was This is an irrefutable fact Unfortunately, they all lack this fact As such, it is no surprise that more than 10 years after Stark had co-authored the book that I analyze above, and after Iannaccone had published many studies on religion, both co-authored a study with Finke (1998) in which they are still searching for indirect clues to the rationality of religions REFERENCES Adam, K (1954) The spirit of catholicism New York, NY: Image Books Bauberot, J (1996) Protestantismul In J Delumeau (Ed.), Religiile lumii Bucuresti: Humanitas Becker, G S (1976) The economic approach to human behavior Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press Blaug, M (1983) Economic theory in retrospect New York, NY: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge Bulgakov, S (1988) The orthodox church New York, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press Clement, O (1996) Biserica ortodoxă In J Delumeau (Ed.) Religiile lumii Bucuresti: Humanitas De Custine, M (2007) Scrisori din Rusia: Rusia in 1839 Bucuresti: Humanitas De Lubac, H S J (1956) The catholic and his church New York, NY: Sheed and Ward De Lubac, H S J (1964) Catholicism: A study of dogma in relation to the corporate destiny of mankind New York, NY: The New American Library Eliade, M (2000) Istoria credinţelor şi ideilor religioase Bucuresti: Univers Enciclopedic Eucken, W (1950) The foundation of economics: History and theory in analysis of economic reality London: William Hodge and Company, Ltd Fudulu, P (2003) Can we explain economic performance without values? Romanian Economic Review, 48(2), 165–174 Fudulu, P (2007) Teoria economică a culturilor şi instituţiilor Bucuresti: Editura Universitară Fukuyama, F (1992) The end of history and the last man New York, NY: The Free Press Fukuyama, F (2004) Viitorul nostru postuman Consecinţele revoluţiei biotehnologice Bucuresti: Humanitas Geaves, R (2005) Aspects of Islam Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press Georgescu-Roegen, N (1976) Energy and economic myths: Institutional and analytical economic essays New York, NY: Pergamon Press Inc Grieve, P (2006) A brief guide to Islam: History, faith and politics: The complete introduction New York, NY: Carroll and Graf Publishers Guellouz, A (1996) Islamul In J Jean Delumeau (Ed.), Religiile lumii Bucuresti: Humanitas Harvey, P (1990) An introduction to Buddhism: History, teachings and practices Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Heilbroner, R L (1972) The worldly philosophers: The lives, times and ideas of the great economic thinkers New York, NY: Simon and Schuster Herberg, W (1961) Judaism and modern man New York, NY: The World Publishing Company Hillerbrand, H (1968) The protestant reformation London: Harper Torchbooks Hofstede, G (2001) Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Iannaccone, L R (1998) Introduction to economics of religion Journal of Economic Literature, XXXVI(September), 1465–1496 Jacobs, L (2005) Religion and the individual: A Jewish perspective Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Meyendorff, J (1996) The Orthodox Church: Its past and its role in the world today Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press Mulder, M (1977) The daily power game Laiden: Martinus Nijhoff Social Sciences Division North, D (2005) Understanding the process of economic change Oxfordshire: Princeton University Press Robert, J-N (1996) Budismul Istorie şi fundamente In J Delumeau (Ed.), Religiile lumii Bucuresti: Humanitas Rogues, J (1996) Catolicismul In J Delumeau (Ed.), Religiile lumii Bucuresti: Humanitas Sombart, W (1913) The Jews and modern capitalism New York, NY: Collier Books Stark, R., & Bainbridge, W (1996) A theory of religion New Brunswick, NY: Rutgers University Press Vandermeersch, L (1996) Confucianismul In J Delumeau (Ed.), Religiile lumii Bucuresti: Humanitas Veblen, T (1898) Why is economics not an evolutionary science? Quarterly Journal of Economics, 12 Veblen, T (1899/1992) The theory of leisure class New Brunswick, NY: Transaction Publishers Weber, M (1984) Confucianism and Taoism Abridged by M Morishima London: Imediaprint Limited Weber, M (1985) The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism London: Paperbacks INDEX Absolute wealth, 1, 3–5 megaobjectives, rationalism of, derived from, 11–16 production of, 18 and relative wealth, 58–60 Weber’s evaluation, 62 Anglicanism, 39 Anti-entropic movement, 4–5 Asceticism absolute wealth and, 67 behavioral decision, 67 consumption behavior, 66–67 divine realm, 64–65 general power maximizer, 64 hedonistic behavior, 64 humans’ biological determination, 64–65 meaning of, 64 megaobjectives, 65 Puritan attitude, 71 and relative power, level of, 65 religions and logic, 68 religious significance of, 64 transparency of maximandum, 67 voluntary poverty, 69 zero level of, 65 See also Consistency criteria Bar Kokhba revolt, 30 Becker-inspired theories economic approach, critique of, 158–161 economic approach to human behavior, 158 Iannaccone and others, 161–165 See also Religions Behavior, 15–16 Buddhism Buddhist hedonism, and, 69 general characteristics anti-entropic perspective, 41 Buddhist monk aims, 41–42 death and another life, 41 economic performance, 42 external reality, 41 fundamental purpose, 41 nonviolence, 42 prohibitions, 42 realm of politics, 41 relative power, 42 state of nirvana, 40–42 truth about origin of suffering, 40 Hinayana essential ideas, 43 karma, 43 living beings, 43 non-transferability necessitates, 43 Mahayana, 43 Buddha’s transformation into savior, 44 salvation, 44 “Caesaropapism,”, 118 Calvinism, 1–2, 40 Calvinist Protestantism, 31 Capitalism, 1, 13–14 spirit of, 28n14 Capitalist development, 11–12 Catholicism, 33 Catholic Church, 35–36 Catholic dogma, 34, 36–37 Catholic faith, 34 Christianity, component of, 34 communion ecclesiology, 34 confession, 35 filioque, 35 Holy Spirit, 34–35 ignorance, suffering, and death, 35 level of prohibition of interest, 56 Magisterium, 34 male bishops, priests, and deacons, 36 and Orthodoxy, 22–23, 34 political power, 36 Pope’s powers, 34 Trinity, 35 Catholics, 12 “Charismatism,”, 125 Chinese society, 13 cultural preference ranking, 14 personalization of social relations, 14–15 Choosing the Right Pond, 26n5 Coercion, 170 “Coercive exchange,”, 169–170 Communion ecclesiology, 34 See also Catholicism Confession, 35 Confucianism Anglo–Saxon philosophers, 47 behavior, 46–47 Chinese culture and, 44, 46 communication with spirits, 46 cultish practices, 46 divine origin, 44 humanness or benevolence, 47 individual’s role, 46 literati, 44 placing and maintaining, 45 relative power, 45 Consistency criteria direct criteria asceticism, type of, 64–72 general wealth, type of preference for, 58–63 interest, level of prohibition of, 55–58 indirect criteria divinity concentration/dissipation, level of, 74–76 divinity or religion, 72–74 salvation, kind of See Salvation transcendence, level of, 76–80 Dance, fundamental aspects, Economy failure, 15 performance, specific models for, consistency of religions with deep nature and cause, 16–18 economic consistency criteria, 20–25 general power model, logic of, 22 logic of, 19 religious determination of, 18–20 steps of economic decoding of religion, 20–25 Weberian Model, logic of, 20 theory, “Enlightened Ones,”, 51n8 “Entropic feeling,”, 8–9 Fast, 49 Filioque, 35, 114, 120 General power, 5–6 Great Schism, 34–36 Hasmonean leadership of Judea, 31 Hebraic ‘God-idea,’, 51n3 Hinayana essential ideas, 43 karma, 43 living beings, 43 non-transferability necessitates, 43 See also Buddhism Holy Spirit, 34–35 Hostile desert, 129n7 Individual maximization, anti-entropic perspective on, 4–6 Interest, Islamic prohibition, 56 Islam, 47 definitive damnation, 48 divine revelations, 48 divinity, 76 dogma, 50 God’s existence, 48 heredity rule, 50 Islamic monotheism, 75–76 level of prohibition of interest, 56 Muhammad’s vision, 49 Muslim commonwealth or ummah , 78–79 pillars of, 49–50 polygamy, 50 Prophet Muhammad’s words and deeds, 48 Qur’an, 48 and Hadith, 50 sin, 48 Sunni and Shi’a denominations, 48 transcendence, 79 Judaic laws of Torah, 31 Judaism appearance of Christianity, 30 asceticism and hedonism, extremes of, 71–72 belief, 33 believer and political authority, relationship between, 33 Canaanite influences, 29–30 components of dogma, 31 destruction of Temple, 30 Essenian doctrine, 32 God’s slave, 33 Jewish diaspora, 30–31 laws and commandments, 29 level of prohibition of interest, 56–58 main components, 32–33 Mishnah, 32 population, 30 of Judea, 31 power equality, 32 Rabbinic, 30–31 religion, 31 religious activities, 31 religious schools and sects, 31 resurrection and survival of souls, 33 tradition, 29 Laic hedonism, 70 Liberty, 118 Libri Carolini, 120 Literati, 44–45, 73 See also Confucianism Lutheranism, 101–102 Magisterium, 34 Mahayana, 43 Brahmanic philosophy, 53n15 Buddha’s transformation into savior, 44 salvation, 44 See also Buddhism “Maintenance,”, 69–70 Megagood absolute wealth, 18 Megaobjectives’ opportunity costs, rules and institutions defined in terms, 10–11 Mishnah, 32 See also Judaism Monotheism, 75–76 Negentropy, Nicene Creed, 34 Open testimony, 49 Opportunity costs and preference rankings, inverse correlation between, 8–10 Oral Torah, 29 Ordinary interests, megaobjective from, 6–8 “Orthodox economic theory,”, 26n1 Orthodoxy Bulgakov’s assessment, 114 dogma, 37 Holy Spirit, 37 Holy Spirit and God, relationship between, 38 Orthodox Church, 37 and Catholic Church, 38 priests, 37 religion, 70 religious activity, 37 Pilgrimage, 49 Poor-tax, 49 Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 175n1 Protestantism, 1–2, 38 dogma, 39–40 dogmatic differences, 39 God, association with, 40 man and God, terrestrial intercessor between, 39 organization type, 39 pastor, 39 salvation, 40 virtue of indulgences, 39 Purgatory, 36–37 Puritanism, 1–2 Puritans, 12 attitude toward sport, 71 hedonism and asceticism, 71 Rationalism, 12, 25n1 Weberian rationalism, 71 Rationalization of world, 12 Reincarnation, 43 Relative power, 5–6 evolution of megaobjective, maximization, 13 opportunity cost of, 21 Religions economic consistency, 145 evolution of, 149–154 rankings, 146 general power theory, 157 Becker-inspired theories, 158–165 Stark and Bainbridge theory, 165–175 level of asceticism and hedonism, 66 Resurrection and survival of souls, 33 See also Judaism Ritual daily prayer, 49 Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, 34 Salvation afterlife, importance of, 94–98 in Catholicism and Orthodoxy, 84–87 earthly authorities, level of obedience to, 98–109 and human power, 80–84 in Judaism, 92–94 man’s relative power over woman, 109–112 organization, type of Catholic, 118–121 Islamic, 121–124 Orthodox, 114–118 Protestant, 124–127 in Protestantism, 87–91 religious activity, type of organization of, 112–114 Self-absolutisation, 129n15 Soferim, 104–105, 137n46 “Standard economic theory,”, 26n1 Stark and Bainbridge theory, 165–175 See also Religions Taoism, 73 Teoria Economica a Culturilor si Institutiilor, 27n11 Theory of Moral Sentiments, 134n33 The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 27n6 A Theory of Religion, 176n2 Transcendence, 76–80 See also Consistency criteria Transparency of maximandum, 67 See also Asceticism Trinity, 35 See also Catholicism Wealth of Nations, 134n33 Weber’s model, 2–3 Western economic theory, Western organization of social relations, 15 Western rationalism Weber’s idea of, 1–2 Western-type society, 12 power equality, 15–16 Yahweh, 33 Zero-sum game type interactions, 7, 27n10 .. .THE ECONOMIC DECODING OF RELIGIOUS DOGMAS Ranking World Religions in Terms of Economic Consistency THE ECONOMIC DECODING OF RELIGIOUS DOGMAS Ranking World Religions in Terms of Economic Consistency. .. Figure The Economic Consistency Ranking of Religions Based on the Criterion of the Level of Transcendence Figure The Economic Consistency Ranking of Religions According to the Criterion of the Importance... Evolution of the Economic Consistency of Christianity Figure 11 The Evolution of the Economic Consistency of Islam Figure 12 The Evolution of the Economic Consistency of Buddhism FOREWORD The economic