Organized dialogue 4 (Teams B and C).

April 27
Thesis: Religions currently promote social development.

Against

Catholic, evangelical, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, and all faith-based organizations work daily for
the most disadvantaged. In Argentina, for example, a country where the policies were
implemented, which caused the poverty figure to rise from 33 to 58% of the population in 12
years, and much of the middle class was economically destroyed, Caritas, the church's vigorous
solidarity organization, protecting anos 3 million people based on 100,000 volunteers, and the
AMIA central institution of the Jewish community has deployed an extensive social safety net that
helps one in three families in that small-class crisis-torn community. In Benin, the World Bank
(2000) says, "Church-affiliated entities probably represent the most visible and extensive network
of protection in existence." Similar situations are repeated all over the planet. Religions are not
only present in the daily lives of the poor, but in various cases have been actively incorporated into
the global discussion on globalization, and its economic and social impacts and on the desirable
development model.

Against

For a long time, social science scholars have sought to investigate the relationship between
religiosity and economics.

This interest is natural because, being an essential component of culture, it is expected that
religion will influence economic performance. In turn, by increasing access to goods and services,
development can change religious attitudes.

Hence, the causality between religion and progress can, in principle, occur in both directions.
Among the theories postulated over the years, two have predominated that correspond to the
aforementioned angles.

In the first sense, almost a century ago, Max Weber, one of the fathers of sociology, noted that the
Industrial Revolution had emerged thanks to the spirit of the Protestant Reformation, which had
instilled traits such as saving, work spirit, honesty and tolerance.

In Favor

A first aspect is to identify the determinants of the different levels of religiosity observed in the
world. Many prominent thinkers suggested that economic development, accompanied by
advances in education and science, would induce less participation in religious activities or beliefs,
and less influence of religious organizations in the political sphere at large. These arguments are
known as the hypothesis of secularization.

On the other hand, religious diversity also responds to government intervention. In some
countries there are state religions or legal restrictions that make it difficult to create new religious
organizations. If the state tries to impose or maintain a monopoly on a certain religion, people
may decide to participate or believe less. On the contrary, if the offer of cults is diverse,
competition between churches induces the creation of quality religious products and levels of
demand as varied as the interests of their believers.

A second aspect to consider when studying the world's religions is to explore the impact of
religious beliefs on economic development. To the extent that religious beliefs affect attitudes
such as ethics at work, honesty, or trust in others, including religion can have an impact on
economic development.