The economic decoding of religious dogmas : ranking world religions in terms of economic consistency / by Paul Fudulu.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fudulu, Paul, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Religion--Economic aspects.

Religion.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (204 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Bingley : Emerald Publishing, 2017.

Summary:

This book proves that each religious dogma, in any of their components, contain in an encoded manner a specific ranking of human comprehensive mega-objectives, implicitly, a specific preference for absolute wealth or, in a more common parlance, for the objective of economic performance. In turn, that specific preference, under ceteris paribus condition, determines the share of believer's general resources which is channeled to economic performance. An in-depth or correct understanding of a religious dogma, which makes sense for terrestrial social realities, is impossible without a specific model of decoding. Additionally, such a model is simply impossible within an orthodox Western, that is, non-transcultural perspective. There is no accident that all Western efforts to decode religions, economic or non-economic, have failed. Understanding religion based on its face story is very precarious, if not even dangerous.

Contents:

Front Cover

The Economic Decoding of Religious Dogmas

Copyright Page

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

Notes

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

3.2.4.1. Salvation and Human Power

3.2.4.2. Salvation in Catholicism and Orthodoxy

3.2.4.3. Salvation in Protestantism

3.2.4.4. Salvation in Judaism

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

3.2.8.1. The Orthodox Type of Organization

3.2.8.2. The Catholic Type of Organization

3.2.8.3. The Islamic Type of Organization

3.2.8.4. The Protestant Type of Organization

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

Note

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.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Print version record

ISBN:

9781787149663

1787149668