Matthew effect
The Matthew Effect is a sociological phenomena referring to Christ's commandment that "For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away." (Matthew 25:29) This is an example of biblical scientific foreknowledge, foretelling conservative libertarian economics over 2000 years ago. This scriptural commandment was used by Glenn Beck to justify eliminating progressive taxation in the United States (see tea party), and was quoted by liberal atheists as saying Jesus was responsible for the poverty gap in America.
Internet outreach and the Matthew effect: Atheist websites vs. religious websites
See also: Internet outreach and the Matthew effect: Atheist websites vs. religious websites
Study.com defines the Matthew effect thusly: "The Matthew Effect is a term that describes the concept in society of accumulated advantage. It argues that people who start from a place of advantage, like intelligence, fame, wealth, or skill, will have the opportunity to accrue more of that advantage compared to others. The Matthew Effect is often thought of by the phrase, "the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.""[1] The Matthew effect's etymology can be traced to Gospel of Matthew which declares: "For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away." (Matthew 25:29, RSV).
Because the religious population is larger than the atheist/agnostic populations and raises more money for web marketing budgets than the atheist/agnostic populations, they greatly outperform atheist websites in terms of web traffic. In addition, Google tends to rank large websites with a lot of traffic higher at Google for various search terms - especially high volume searches. So large Christian websites with a lot of web traffic have a big competitive advantage over atheist websites. Furthermore, religious groups often have more evangelistic zeal and also have more international cooperation in terms of web outreach efforts.
As time has progressed the gap between the effectiveness of religious websites vs. atheist websites in terms of reaching larger audiences has widened and will most likely widen further. For example, Christian websites are greatly outperforming atheist websites in terms of their respective web outreaches (see: Internet evangelism: Christians vs. atheists).
For more information, please see: Internet outreach and the Matthew effect: Atheist websites vs. religious websites.
