Religion, Science, and Rationality

Economists have avoided the study of religion, and other social sciences have failed to appreciate religion's rational/economic characteristics largely because the social sciences failed to approach religion as they did other phenomena. For many leading scholars, religion was not so much a phenomenon to be explained as it was an enemy to overcome. In a world of continuing religious commitment and conflict, and in a country where religious institutions remain vital despite decades of unprecedented growth in incomes, education and technology, it is high time that social scientists move beyond the old theories of religious behavior and motivation. Doing so not only frees the study of religion from intellectual baggage that is outmoded, unproductive and embarrassingly prejudiced, it also opens the door to new theories and predictions grounded upon standard social-scientific assumptions, most notably, the standard economic assumptions of maximizing behavior, stable preferences and market equilibrium.