Economic Icons of Religious Beliefs

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What do the Temple at Abu Simbel, the Colosseum in Rome, the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, and the new Bengals football stadium in Cincinnati have in common? Quite simply, each edifice is an economic icon of its society's religion, where religion is used in the dictionary sense of an "institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices" or a "system of beliefs held with ardor and faith." (A colleague suggested that the Marxist idea of religion as "the opiate of the masses" would be more appropriate to this discussion.) To appreciate this conclusion, it is helpful to understand how a society's economic activity - what it builds -- responds to religious beliefs. …