No Stupid Questions

Besides some of the other good points brought up here, I'd like to say that it's because communist countries typically were/are anti-religion, so it makes sense that religious leaders in capitalist countries would oppose any form of government that seeks to limit organized religion. So, they support capitalism because it's the opposite of communism.

I can't answer for America, but generally in democracies you get two and only two parties. Anyone taking a middle position cripples the side they're closest to.

Before Socialism was a thing, England had 'Liberals/Whigs' (what yanks would call libertarians, because they've somehow managed to repurpose the word liberal to mean the opposite of what it means) and 'Conservatives/Tories' (king and country and church and don't change things because you'll break them and hurt people).

And of course, like all political groups do, they hated each other.

The Church of England was once known as the Tory Party at Prayer. The Liberals were the radicals, the party of industry and progress and free markets and who cares who it hurts as long as it's the future.

With the rise of socialism/fascism/anarchism/progressivism, a truly radical program to rebuild society on utopian lines and use totalitarian terror to enable even more freedom and progress and human happiness, represented in England by the Labour Party, the 'conservatives' and 'liberals' were squeezed, and combined to oppose socialist thought, which hated them both and wanted to destroy everything they thought was worthwhile in the world.

So there came to pass an uneasy alliance in England between classical liberals and religious loonies, who'd naturally detest each other.

That's the modern Conservative party, who want to use radical social transformation and the power of the free market to go back to the glorious past, and are very much in favour of freedom of speech and thought as long as it's the sort of speech and thought that they approve of.

The Liberal Party effectively ceased to exist, because in its radicalism and desire for progress, it was more sympathetic to socialist thought, and so it got crushed.

Socialism has rather collapsed as an idea after an hundred years of practical experience with utopia, leaving Labour as the party of 'every problem can be solved by stealing more money and spending it on subsidies'. A position which is popular with those who benefit from subsidy, and unpopular with those who get their stuff stolen.

And of course, few of the people in either party actually believe in the causes they publicly espouse. They're not stupid. But public communications have to be simple-minded and rally tribal support.

Obviously this is a terrible system, but it's better than regular civil war, which is what you get in all other systems of government.

I’d recommend checking out “Jesus and John Wayne” it’s a book that digs into a lot of these ideas.

Because religious conservatism has pretty much always been focused on supporting systems of authority, and in the US the system of authority is capitalism.

People would probably be really surprised to see what 'heretical' sects of Christianity were talking about in the first few centuries compared to the version that was green lit by the Roman empire on the notion that political power was divinely intended.

Straight up comments attributed to Jesus decrying dynastic rule (seemingly referred to by Paul in 1 Cor 4), a parable about assassinating a powerful person, discouraging giving any money or rewards to prophets or priests, rejection of prayer and fasting and alms as either useful or necessary, and even discussions around Greek atomism and Lucretius's version of survival of the fittest.

And that's all in only one work/tradition.

But it's one that was buried in a jar for millennia after canonical Christianity was endorsed by the emperor, which followed with deciding what texts to allow and what to ban on eventual penalty of death.

The thing most people in the US believe today is the version that passed the filter of the Roman empire's oversight and involvement, from killing the initial leader to endorsing the eventual version that's probably at odds with the original teachings in places.

It shouldn't be a surprise that it goes hand in hand with boot licking and anti-critical thinking.

I would say that most "MAGA" or whatever equivalent regressive movement exists anywhere is not at all conservative (MAGA supporters attempted a coupe, which is radical, the opposite of conservative), that's just branding. In much the same way as the people's democratic republic of Korea is not democratic, "liberals" in the USA political landscape are usually leftists (typically with a lot of illiberal positions) etc.

It isn't that these people support capitalism (they are often ignorant of what capitalism even entails, the same way they think communism means anything they disagree with) it's that they vaguely support existing power and class structures, though again, from what I've seen they can rarely coherently describe what they support and what they oppose, outside of a few tailor designed talking points like abortion or transgenderism.

Because conservatism is more important to them than religion, essentially.

So I don’t agree with it , but it may have something to do with ‘work’ there is part of Christianity that assigns value to work and that work will be rewarded by god. They are supposed to be works of faith, but some sects of Christianity assigns value to all work.

So they see riches as a just reward from god for being hardworking and honest. They inherently see riches as a reward for good work and poverty as a punishment for lack of ethic. As well anyone can better their position and get rich by becoming more aligned with god. So bring rich is an outward manifestation of one’s reward from God.

This is a simplification and extrapolates out a bunch of things.

Behind the bastards did a 2 part podcast on this

[Behind the Bastards] Part One: How The Rich Ate Christianity 🅴 #behindTheBastards https://podcastaddict.com/behind-the-bastards/episode/137287957 via @PodcastAddict

https://chtbl.com/track/5899E/podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/e5f91208-cc7e-4726-a312-ae280140ad11/bfcbacb2-0c29-4886-ab8a-ae4d00e126fa/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=d64f756d-6d5e-4fae-b24f-ae280140ad36

Religious when it is about gay and trans people mostly.

They dont want to be inconvenienced by their religion.

Because most religious conservatives don't think beyond "what is acceptable to my group" and do that. Or appear to do that. And not rocking the boat is highly valued in those communities, so people who want to abuse others financially find ripe ground for it.

What is the percentage of the Western world that believes in profit motive and private ownership of property, 90%? I don't think it's BECAUSE they are religious conservatives.

I don't think religions are inherently socialistic. There's a socialist reading of the text, but in terms of like the historical role of the Catholic church it was more like a government than a commune. Governments aren't inherently socialistic (unless you're using a pretty broad view of the word). They help the poor and set rules to follow but they're only directly managing their portion (10%-30%) of the economy, the rest can be anything.

This isn't how it is. But it's how they see it. Again, this is from their point of view. Or at least, it's what I heard from them.

Capitalism is about self reliance, "pulling yourself up by bootstraps", getting out there and making your own way with no higher power (as in humans) standing in your way. They see socialism as a government forcing people to give up their own hard earned gains to give to others. The difference with Christianity is because God is telling them to do it. If God tells you to go feed the poor, then it's OK. If you choose to do it yourself, then it's also fine. If the government wants to do it without promoting their religion, then it's bad. Because you're not doing it for God.

I'd start by narrowing the scope of this question to conservative Christians in the US and Europe. India has a larger population that the US and the EU combined, is quite religiously conservative and leans socialist. Even though the Catholic Church issued a "Decree Against Communism" in 1949, that has since been amended and many Catholics around the world embrace socialism. While modern Muslims do participate in market economies, Islam has some fairly strict laws against capitalism; Sukuk is the complex workaround they use in order to get against their prohibition against charging interest.

For Christians in the US and Europe I think there are a few major components.

Christianity has had strong capitalist elements for a long time. In particular, John Calvin argued, among other things, that God rewards good Christians in this life as well as the next. These rewards can take the form of material wealth and therefore material wealth is evidence of God's favor. This philosophy was obviously extremely popular among the wealthy.

After WWII the US government wanted a way to convince people that our erstwhile allies, the USSR and China should now be considered enemies. One obvious element to emphasize was that they were both Communists. An element of Communism was godlessness, "Religion is the opiate of the masses." So the US took the contrary stance and presented itself as a Christian nation. Two of the more obvious results were that "under God" was added to the pledge of allegiance and Congress replaced the unofficial "E Pluribus unum" (out of many, one) with, "In God we trust." Since it was primarily intended to be anti-communist it was, effectively, pro-capitalist.

In the US there was also a deliberate shift when George HW Bush realized that evangelical Christians made up a large part of the Republican base. At the time churches had a fairly strong aversion to politics. They generally considered politics and economics to be part of the profane world and thought it was beneath them. He managed to convince them that the profane wasn't just irrelevant to spiritual health, it was an active threat. By this view, good Christians couldn't ignore politics they had to take an active role to help fight Satan. Since the Republicans were the ones actively recruiting Evangelicals into politics they made sure the message stayed supportive of their policies (including economic policies).