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Robin Hanson's avatar

pdf, I'd say the overall activities of churches can mostly be explained by the motives you describe for "most attendees"; some leaders may want something else, but they don't get much of it.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

How far do the goals of [churches/businesses/agencies] differ from the goals of their [church/business/agency] folk?

Quite a bit, actually. I would say that many (esp. fundamentalist) churches are headed by people whose main goal is a cash cow, or a group of followers. For business, the goal would be a cash cow, and for agencies (not sure what you mean here) political influence.

But churches and terrorist organizations are fundamentally opposed to agencies and businesses in that the former are volunteer organizations, and the latter not. So I'd say the best comparison would be with churches.

And in churches, I think you see the same pattern. Most attendees of church are not very serious at all, and go to make themselves feel better about their spirituality (or their kids') and to use the social aspect of churchgoing to their advantage. These people don't have a huge influence on the directions a church goes, though their donations mean that the church can't ignore their desires.

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