CBS News97%
Author argues religions thrive when demanding more from participants 96%
4/22/2026, 12:51:01 AM
BS Summary: This video contains 28 faulty reasoning types, including Post Hoc (False Cause), Appeal to Authority, and Appeal to Emotion, with Framing Effect as the most egregious example at 26% saturation with 157 hits. Analysis detected 1,757 faulty-reasoning hits from 603 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 93.4% and a BS Rank of 96% (772 of 16,813 videos). This video is worse (more manipulative) than 95.40% of the video peer group.
New data shows young men are showing a renewed interest in religion.
A Gallup poll out this week shows 42% of men ages 18 to 29 said religion was very important to them in 2024 and 2025.
That's up from 28% the previous 2 years.
29% of young women said religion was very important to them, which was down from 32%.
We're also seeing religious figures in the headlines after President Trump criticized Pope Leo for speaking against the war with Iran.
The renewed focus on religion got us thinking about what's driving this trend.
My next guest writes a piece in for the Wall Street Journal that religions thrive when they demand more of their participants.
Quote, "The demand religion places on its members aren't barriers to participation. They are the mechanism by which participation becomes valuable."
Let's bring in Roland Fryer.
He is a CBS News contributor and professor of economics at Harvard University.
Thank you for being here.
So, let's start with your piece.
Unpack this idea that successful religions have a higher cost of entry.
Well, it as I said in the piece, it it makes them more valuable once you're in them.
And you think of it as mutual insurance or assurance.
And so, in your time of need, what are the types of people that are going to be there for you?
And so, religions with higher levels of commitment, what it takes to be in that religion, have a group of folks that once they're in, provide more assurance,
more more a better community for you. And in fact,
what's interesting is that there have been natural experiments of this, right?
When the Catholic Church lowered some of its barriers to entry, what was interesting interesting is that participation actually went down, not up, which you know, for a lot of economists was a bit of a an anomaly.
And you mentioned that countries benefit economically if there is a widespread religion.
What's that correlation?
Yeah, it's interesting. So, some colleagues of mine at Harvard actually did looked at data and they looked across I don't know, 60 or so countries and they demonstrated that belief in heaven actually correlates with economic growth of a country.
And what was interesting about it was that it was participation
was actually not correlated with economic growth once you took into account religious belief.
In other words, sitting in the pew didn't matter as much as the actual behaviors and attitudes, integrity, honesty, commitment, those types of things in workers tends to lead to economic growth.
Do you know why people are seeking out religion now?
I think it has a lot to do with the fact that so much of our time is spent online and that the generations that the folks that you discussed at the opening from 18 to 29
years old, that's that's those are some of the loneliest generations that we've ever had.
And so, it doesn't surprise me that they're seeking something more,
some something different than their ex-following.
Before we let you go, were you surprised at how much this Pope Leo and President Trump story took off?
>> [laughter]
>> When it comes to the president we have right now, I'm never surprised that things take off, but but yes, I thought this was a new level to have a
a battle of words between a a sitting president and a sitting pope.
Well, Roland Fryer, thank you for coming to the Daily Report.
Looking forward to seeing you again.
Thank you.
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.