I live in an area that is the border between rural and sub-urban. As I drive around the small towns nearby I have noticed something interesting.
An example of it can be seen in Dutzow Missouri. This small town was joked about. It had 2-3 bars per church.
Today it has 2 churches for every bar.
Is this change in ratio that corresponed with the strengthening in conservative politics a coincidence, or is it politically signifigant.
Are Democrats bar owners and Republicans church goes?
Or is it that as the Conservatives sober up and attend church, they become more politically active.
Or is it that as the Conservatives gain power, more of their neighbors follow them to church instead of to the bar?
I don't know, but believe that a $12.8 million grant would enable me to come up with the appropriate answers.
How does one go about getting such a Grant?
(For a follow up, I could do a comparison between liberal political power and the strength of Star Trek franchises.)
Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
I'm more interested in seeing your follow up, because the Federation seems rather Communist, or at least Socialist, when you really look at it. Are the Ferengi the last bastion of capitalism in the universe?
--Enigmatic
Posted by CStroman (Member # 6872) on :
I think in the south the bars are the churches aren't they?
(bad joke I know).
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Detroit has a church on every block, and overwhelmingly votes Democratic.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
I'd like to point out that churches tend to split from time to time. I've seen this on every level, from the schism between Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic to the split between the members of Mountain View Baptist Church.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I suggest reading a paper entitled "Why Strict Churches are Strong" which sheds some light on this issue peripherally. Basically, there's a tendency for new churches which succeed to be "strict" (that is, requiring those involved expend something moderately substantial as part of their membership, be that time, money, effort, or something else), and for established churches to become less and less strict. Also, different sorts of people attracted to each sort of church.
In areas with a substantial population interested in more liberal churches, combined with a decent "seed' population interested in stricter churches, the number of churches would be expected to be high -- the seed population would be regularly moving to newer, stricter churches (these wouldn't necessarily be the same people, they'd likely be generational moves), while the existing churches would be kept alive by the substantial liberal-interested population, up to a sustainability limit.
There are many other influences, of course, but this general tendency is fairly well substantiated.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote:New York also has far more churches per square measurement than any other place I've lived, and votes overwhelmingly Democratic (unless the Republican is a liberal).
Oh, I don't think so. I lived in Central, SC, a town of two thousand. It had twelve churches!
-o-
Kat, I think that gets into the difference between black churches and white churches.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
To do this right, we would need to compare churches per capita to bars per capita, adjusted for income.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
These are all good points, which will be delved into, in detail (as will the flavor of bars--your basic corner bar vs fern bars, gay bars, and yuppy bars and their role in this phenomenon) as soon as I get my 12.8 Million dollars that would afford me to do the research.
Now how do I go about getting that grant money again?
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Well, for starters, you wait for a democratic administration to be in office. Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
I've lived in a dry county that voted close to right down the middle between Democratic and Republican over the years.
Of course, in a rural dry county, they tend to develop some really, really good moonshine.
(The Jack Daniels distillery, if I recall, is in a dry county, or was until recently.)
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Now, now, Icarus, the Bush administration has been more than happy to approve pork-laden budgets with lots of projects like this. In fact, a study about churches would likely be particularly easy to receive approval for, though some modification may be necessary.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Oh, I'm not saying that the Bush admninistration is unfriendly to pork. But this project sounds like it would be predisposed to draw unfavorable conclusions about religious conservatives.
Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
I propose that to fully study the situation we need to spend a lot more time in the bars in question. Yeah, okay, probably in the churches too, but only if they've got some good communion wine.
--Enigmatic *hic*
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
You can have lots of churches in a dense area, and still have a lower proportion of churchgoers.
I don't know what makes urban and rural different politically. I know that the rural environment requires more involvement with the non-human world (and thus independence) and less with the human world (and thus less interaction with institutions, and strangers). But I don't think the difference is that big.
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