The 10 least-religious nations in the world: Estonia Sweden Denmark Czech Republic Norway Hong KongJapan Netherlands United Kingdom Finland The 10 most-religious countries in the world: Egypt / Mauritania (tie) Sierra Leone Democratic Republic of the Congo Malawi Morocco Somaliland Indonesia Sri Lanka Bangladesh Niger en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_country Some of the countries on the bottom two lists look familiar. I wonder if its because I just saw the same ones on the top two lists.This is no accident. Religion makes societies worse. This is empirically demonstrable. Liberia is one of the poorest countries on Earth, ranking 162nd on the Human Development index, with a GDP per capita of $392, or about $1.07/day. It is also one of the most religious, with approximately 100% of the population self-identifying with a religious tradition (mostly Christianity, also Islam and indigenous religions). Liberia recently went through two terrible back-to-back civil wars, in which about 1 out of 7 people in the entire country died, and unemployment is still around 90% (!), with 85% of the population living below the international poverty line of $1.25/daypurchasing-power parity. Lest readers retort, “Well, I don’t know what $1.25 can buy you in Liberia. Maybe you could live like a king on $1.25/day there,” well, that’s what purchasing-power parity means. In other words, 85% of the population lives on less than what you could buy in the United States for $1.25/day in US dollars ($456.25/year). The most atheistic societies (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, etc) have the least crime, corruption, disease, infant mortality, etc, etc, etc, and the most religious societies have the most. I can’t help passing up two quick examples: South American & Mexican drug cartels, and the Italian mob, both in countries with the largest populations (and proportions of the population) of Roman Catholics in the world. If anything, it appears that the hierarchical example of Roman Catholicism may have taught them how to organize their crime! To demonstrate the absurdity of this claim, I’m could say two words to you that you’ve never heard back-to-back before: “Swedish mobsters.” Exactly. If I have misrepresented your view, please let me know exactly what you meant to say, and I will respond. I hope this has helped you see that religiosity is, actually, a bad influence when it comes to moral, pro-social thought & behavior.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Apr 2014 05:33:56 +0000
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