Around the globe, savvy politicians are starting to wear religion on their sleeves. In the last US election, the two leading contenders for the presidency used their professed faith in Christianity as a way to snare the moral vote. Yet, according to a new Internet research study, none other than the founder of Christianity would condemn many of their economic and social policies.

The economic and social policies of these politicians are firmly grounded in free-market economic theory. Free market economics, in turn, is grounded in the idea of self-interest—essentially in the belief that greed is good. So, you have the strange situation where politicians regularly invoke the name of God, and in the same breath announce policies based on a belief condemned as one the greatest evils by the very faith they profess.

The research, based on an attitudinal study, provides a score for a series of questions relating to many current issues. The higher the score, the greater is the deviation from fundamental Christian beliefs. The researchers used the Internet and expert sources to model the responses of key political and religious leaders to estimate a score for comparison purposes.

The results graphically expose the hypocrisy of some of the world’s church-going political leaders. At one end of the scale you have Jesus Christ with a score of –151 and at the opposite end you have George Bush with a score of +145, Tony Blair with a score of +127 and John Howard with +132. Other leaders surveyed included the Dalai Lama with a score of –62, Gandhi with a score of –120 and Pope John Paul II with a score of –125.

The survey also bears out the long-held suspicion that the radical religious right, as represented by Pat Robertson of CBN fame, is more about political and economic power than about religion. Pat Robertson registered a score of +141.

The research is being conducted by author George Matafonov in collaboration with Dr. David Smith, a psychologist with over 20 years experience in executive psychological evaluation. The attitudinal survey is now open to the public and available online. The researchers invite people to test their own beliefs and see where they stand on the same scale.

The initial survey was conducted earlier this year and the researchers received over 3,000 responses from people around the world, from different age groups and different religious and political persuasions. The average score was a surprising +120, and the results showed a remarkably consistent and uniform attitude to most issues. In other words, whilst there is debate and disagreement about the war on terrorism and globalisation, there is virtually no disagreement when it comes to the core beliefs of free-market capitalism. The results to date suggest that most people have come to believe Margaret Thatcher’s conclusion, “There is no other alternative.”

According to Matafonov, the Western civilization is in danger of falling into groupthink. This happens when certain beliefs become so prevalent that they are no longer open to question and become the “reality” of the majority. Anyone questioning this reality is ignored, ridiculed or both. The result is an all-pervasive worldview that blinds its citizens to both the real problems and the obvious solutions. He suggests that this is the reason why all the problems facing our small planet seem so intractable. “This is why, in an age of abundance, the majority of the world’s population is starving and without the basics of life. This is why we continue to consume the world’s resources at a rate we know will bankrupt future generations. This is why we continue to destroy our biosphere, seemingly oblivious to all the danger signs. This is why all political parties are starting to look the same. This is why continue to kill each other in greater numbers than ever, despite all the lessons of history.”

In his book, Economics of Greed Antivirus, Matafonov sites Nazi Germany and Japan during World War II as examples of how dangerous an all-pervasive worldview can be. Numerous documentaries show interviews with Germans who lived through the period. In the main, they turn out to be ordinary, decent people who now realize they were taken in by a worldview, which at the time they accepted without question, even with enthusiasm.

Matafonov goes on to say the “Germans had to be bombed out of their worldview, and the Japanese had to suffer the devastation of two nuclear bombs before they let go of their ‘reality’. We, in the Western world, are being bombed right now, literarily and morally, and will, in all probability, continue to be bombed, until one of two things happens. Either we, like the Germans and the Japanese, will be bombed out of our worldview, or we accept living in an Orwellian police state, on permanent terror alert. Either way we all lose.

We should never give in to terrorism, however, we should also not shy away from asking the question what if elements of our “reality” are as wrong as the “reality” that the Germans held onto unswervingly, even as the bombs rained down. We may just discover that a third alternative exists.”

You can participate in the survey and view the survey results at http://www.economicsofgreed-antivirus.com