Derek Thompson

that men who were religious or went to church and then get divorced

often lose their associations with the church because it was the woman in the relationship that was in charge of the social calendar, including, hey, honey, let's go to church on Sunday, which meant that the divorce precipitated the disengagement with religion rather than religion being the thing that dictated the relationship in the first place.

So rather than see these things as a kind of

clean domino effect where it's like first domino, believe in God.

Second domino, get married.

Third domino, make money.

Fourth domino, be happy.

And I'm not suggesting that you're describing something as linearly simplistic as that.

But the way I think about it is rather than this really clean domino effect that starts with a domino of religion, it's more like you said there's a stool metaphor that we can employ here.

It's this complex...

storm cycle of factors that to me keeps touching back on social connection.

What is marriage?

It's a social connection.

What is a religious congregation?

It's social connections.

What is an enormous difference that we observe in the data between people with means with money and people without means with money?

One thing that people with means can do is afford the kind of experiences that are likely to protect social connections rather than stay inside and do a lot of things that are really cheap on your phone and never go outside, lack of social connection.

So to me – and this is – talk about a pastor singing from his own hymnal, Antisocial Century.

To me, it all comes back to the fact that people need people.

And we have a handful of institutions, marriage and religion, that are very good at keeping people attached to people and folks who disengage from religion and marriage.