i agree. I think good evidence for that is comparative. Why do surveys reveal that USers are far more likely to believe in angels. (heh. caught George Carlin mocking that one last night. Dennis? I was thinking about something you'd said about comedians being nasty people. What do you mean? Nastier than most? Insecure people who kick the dog to deal with insecurity? People who are basically angry at the world, who deal with their anger with humor? Some combo?)
>Doug
As an undergrad, I took sociology of religion, where I met my very best girlfriend in the whole world (i miss her!).
The prof asked about "relative deprivation" -- something like, "can we explain falling in love as the result of feeling relatively deprived?"
My friend, J, busted out with, "Oh, hell yeah...." :) and everyone busted a gut laughing.
The point at issue, though, was whether we could explain the rise of (what was then referred to as) fundamentalism and the 'new christian right' by assuming that people did so because they felt relatively deprived and turned to religion to compensate. It was a standard thesis in soc of religion and it usually hinged on the perception that it was mostly poor, uneducated people who turned to religion because educated, better off USers didn't believe in that silly stuff.
BUT, even by the late 80s, it had been debunked by growing evidence that the people turning to conservative religions were not stereotypically "white trash". They were, instead, more likely to be from the 3 br, 2 ba, 3 cg middle, uhm er, class, and a good number of them from the professional-managerial, er -- okay -- strata.
"We live under the Confederacy. We're a podunk bunch of swaggering pious hicks."
--Bruce Sterling