The Christian Blessing Debunked

[Newest Reality]

Are Christian countries better off than secular countries? Does God bless Christian nations and curse atheist countries? Or are the secular countries better off when we measure wealth, prosperity, happiness, and well-being?

[NurseJackie]

1. Interesting data...

... I guess I'm just too old to appreciate the slightly-goofy/silly and off-key presentation style. But I did learn something (even though it tried my patience to make it to the end.)

[TomVilmer]

2. It is hard to find any data contradicting this...

... so the video is just documenting the obvious, as much research has done before. Religion is most able to thrive in seriously dysfunctional societies (The United States is a contradiction or a symbol of this), though secularisation seems to precede economic development, and not the other way around.

Secularisation only leads to economic development when it is accompanied by a greater respect for individual rights. While research does not demonstrate a causal link between lack of godliness and economic development, it suggests that wealth is not in itself the cause of secularisation.

- God-fearing countries are among the least wealthy.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-a-countrys-views-on-god-affect-its-prosperity-2018-07-20
- Secular Societies Fare Better Than Religious Societies.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-secular-life/201410/secular-societies-fare-better-religious-societies
- Countries Get Wealthier as They Become More Secular, Study Says.
https://www.newsweek.com/less-religious-countries-more-prosperous-study-says-1032778
- Non-religious countries experience greater economic growth.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/religion-economic-development-wealth-gdp-bristol-university-a8453386.html

I think to focus on a dominant religion or the absence of it as the cause of suffering or wealth is the very wrong path - it is just a symptom, not the cause!

[Buckeye_Democrat]

3. Growing economic power is closely linked to...

... improvements in infrastructure, including schools.

It's something that Republicans have ignored or actively opposed for many years, especially from their evangelical allies.

Even the growing power of Europe compared to the nearby Muslim world long ago can be linked to better education and knowledge of their masses. The gap grew wider after more books were printed in Europe, whereas it didn't happen so easily with Arabic because their written language was very difficult to print using individual characters.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

4. More...

A to Z: How Writing Changed the World (PBS, Nova)
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/a-to-z-how-writing-changed-the-world/

Excerpt:
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AHMAD AL-JALLAD: If you could have had affordable and mass produced Korans, I think you would’ve had a huge market for that. The trouble is they had to meet a certain quality. You could not print a Koran like this. This does not reproduce a manuscript, it does not reproduce the format of the Koran that the faithful were used to seeing. So, the most widely read and the widely appreciated Arabic book was never printed using movable type, and that took a huge part of the market out. Whereas Gutenberg printed the book, the Bible, that basically everyone in the Continent would have wanted.

NARRATOR: So there’s an irony. Printing took off in Europe in large part because Gutenberg could produce with movable type a book that looked as if it had been written by hand. And that was possible because he was printing the Latin alphabet. If he’d been trying to print a different script, he might never have succeeded. That simple fact lies behind a thousand-fold increase in the availability of information, an explosion of ideas that led directly to the European Scientific Revolution, the Industrial Revolution that followed, and the world we live in today.

Pen and paper, ink and alphabet, these things are so familiar as to be almost invisible, but these are world altering technologies. Our history has been shaped by the shape of the letters we write, and the means we use to write them. Remember that, next time you pick up a pencil.
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