The price of faith

The next chapter of my book was named “The price of Faith”.  I found this chapter interesting as I always previously assumed that religious faiths are close knit in order to help their career prospects by having a easy networking ability to land good jobs and socialize with like minded people, that could potentially be off help to them. As I began to read on it seems that the ultra-Orthodox in Israel earn less than half of what non-Orthodox families do. I learnt that in the mid – 1990s, their fertility rate was 7.6 children per women while the fertility rate of other Jews in Israel was bout 2.3. This would help to improve a family’s lifestyle as a family would have more to invest in fewer children, but I was surprised this only occurred in the Jewish faith in Israel so late in the century. The next piece of information that caught my interest was how certain U.S states can link up religion to fertility and affluence. I learnt that New Hampshire was the least religious state in the Union, where 21.4% of its population are atheist or have no religious beliefs. It is a rich state with a median income per capita of $74,625 and it only had forty-two births per one thousand women. In Mississippi on the other – hand had sixty-two births per thousand and a median family income of $44,769, of this state only 5.8% reported not having a religious belief.


It was noteworthy to read that the happiness gap between those who go to church every week and those who never go are about the same magnitude those between the richest 20 percent of Americans and the poorest living among the bottom fifth. 

            I’ve really enjoyed this book so far I just have two chapters left. I put down five books to read in total but I doubt I will be able to read them all before the end of senior. They are books that I would like to read at some point so I guess I’ll have to put them on my summer reading list!