Is the US headed towards a socialist government?

[kandrathe]

I suspect what that is about, and probably what the paper is driving at, given her interests, is social capital. People who are well-connected, social people, with similarly connected families do slightly better at almost everything than those who are not, ceteris paribus. Church is a way of making those connections, whereas there is no similar associative group for the irreligious.

And, I'm not really claiming much different than that. In my experience, the value of "Church" is really as a means of forming social bonds. Most "education" taught at church is superficial or tangential to the salient core theology. Often people are mostly bored or confused by the sermons. There are probably other means of making these social bonds, however, I've never seen anything near as effective as "church" in achieving the task. I have a very good friend who is a UU - Atheist, and goes to church every Sunday. So, he is an Atheist, religiously.