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Wherever Religious Belief is Waning the Society Is In Decline Also

It's only a recent historical trend that most of those countries have become irreligious. It could easily be argued that the base of their current prosperity is at least partially their history of religion and religiously inspired government and institutions.

The dirt poor religious countries are ****holes regardless of religion, so that's not a real indictment of religion. But for religious institutions providing some modicum of relief service these places might be even more miserable.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
Well, instead of us all analyzing your statements about "No really, I read it in a book" why don't we actually look at the data and see what it says:

The LEAST religious countries on the planet: (Percentages are those who have no religion)
Sweden 88%
Denmark 83%
China 82%
Estonia 78%
Norway 78%
UK 76%
France 74%
Hong Kong 74%
Czech Repub.72%
Japan 71%
Finland 69%
Belgium 68%
Australia 67%
New Zealand 67%
Netherlands 65%

With the exception of China and Estonia, I wouldn't mind living in any of these countries. They're world leaders in happiness and standard of living.

Now let's look at the top 15 MOST religious countries:
Central African Republic 1%
Comoros 1%
Indonesia 1%
Malawi 1%
Sierra Leone 1%
Yemen 1%
Burundi 2%
Ecuador 2%
Guinea 2%
Kuwait 2%
Mauritania 2%
Niger 2%
Nigeria 2%
Sri Lanka 2%
Thailand 2%

There isn't a country on this list I would like to live in. They are all poor and miserable.

So let's make a summary from the data we have:
It seems like the more religious a country is, the poorer, more uneducated, and more miserable it is, the EXACT OPPOSITE of what you've been saying.
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It's not valid to compare countries in which the cultures are so different. And you are forgetting that the US is much more religious than most Western countries. Also, I wouldn't call European Western culture exactly vibrant and growing. Their traditional ethnic groups are falling in population fast and their economies in some cases are barely growing, going the way of Greece.

The facts clearly show that the more we abandon religion, the better our society becomes.
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Abandoning religion, at least in the lower class American whites, is associated with cultural degeneration across all spheres of life including the decline of marriage, of the work ethic, and of respect for the law. I see no evidence out of Europe that increasing secularism has improved the cultures. Quite the opposite, in fact, as they seem to be fading away, increasingly replaced by the much(!) more religious non-Western peoples who they imported to do their dishes and laundry. The same is happening increasingly in Japan, in which the population will soon start falling if trends continue. If an ethnic group can't even be bothered with procreation then it is surely doomed. The same process is happening in the US to a lesser degree. The minorities rapidly increasing in population here, soon to out pace whites, are much more religious than whites.

By the way, Murray's findings for whites hold true for other ethnic groups in terms of class division.
 
LowDown said:
It's not valid to compare countries in which the cultures are so different. And you are forgetting that the US is much more religious than most Western countries. Also, I wouldn't call European Western culture exactly vibrant and growing. Their traditional ethnic groups are falling in population fast and their economies in some cases are barely growing, going the way of Greece.



Abandoning religion, at least in the lower class American whites, is associated with cultural degeneration across all spheres of life including the decline of marriage, of the work ethic, and of respect for the law. I see no evidence out of Europe that increasing secularism has improved the cultures. Quite the opposite, in fact, as they seem to be fading away, increasingly replaced by the much(!) more religious non-Western peoples who they imported to do their dishes and laundry. The same is happening increasingly in Japan, in which the population will soon start falling if trends continue. If an ethnic group can't even be bothered with procreation then it is surely doomed. The same process is happening in the US to a lesser degree. The minorities rapidly increasing in population here, soon to out pace whites, are much more religious than whites.

By the way, Murray's findings for whites hold true for other ethnic groups in terms of class division.
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LOL, keep cherry picking. You're either incapable of, or too lazy to present any data, so I guess we're done here. Fact is, it's your OPINION that our society is being "degraded by atheists". Frankly it sounds like the ramblings of a christian who's afraid that so many people have decided they simply don't need his god.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
LOL, keep cherry picking. You're either incapable of, or too lazy to present any data, so I guess we're done here. Fact is, it's your OPINION that our society is being "degraded by atheists". Frankly it sounds like the ramblings of a christian who's afraid that so many people have decided they simply don't need his god.
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I think most reasonable people would say I've presented data, specific percentages, trends, and proportions in fact.

No, it's not my opinion that society is being degraded by atheists. Not at this point, anyway. I have shifted to pointing to the overall phenomenon of cultural degeneration of which irreligiousity appears to be a part, possibly as either cause or effect but most likely as effect.

I don't care what anyone believes but I do care whether the society I live in, and my children will have to live in, is falling apart.

After the last election I've become convinced that the nation is circling the drain, destined to follow California down the path of the blue model of governance. And once the money runs out what will happen next? Possibly the politics of force and violence.

Hopefully it will take a long time to for everything to unwind.
 
LowDown said:
I think most reasonable people would say I've presented data, specific percentages, trends, and proportions in fact.

No, it's not my opinion that society is being degraded by atheists. Not at this point, anyway. I have shifted to pointing to the overall phenomenon of cultural degeneration of which irreligiousity appears to be a part, possibly as either cause or effect but most likely as effect.

I don't care what anyone believes but I do care whether the society I live in, and my children will have to live in, is falling apart.

After the last election I've become convinced that the nation is circling the drain, destined to follow California down the path of the blue model of governance. And once the money runs out what will happen next? Possibly the politics of force and violence.

Hopefully it will take a long time to for everything to unwind.
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Our economy is unwinding because of horrifically irresponsible actions by our politicians, whom are almost entirely composed of devout religionists. Your claims hold no weight when they aren't backed by facts or data.
 
StillBallin75 said:
What I see here from the pro-religion-makes-societies-powerful side is a bunch of conjecture and no actual evidence of a causal relationship. ****, i'm not even sure if there is evidence enough here to demonstrate a correlational relationship, much less a causal one.

These aren't the droids you're looking for, move along, nothing to see here.
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Pretty much. It's another one of Lowdown's stupid threads that try to pass off his opinion as fact without actual evidence.
 
LowDown said:
I think most reasonable people would say I've presented data, specific percentages, trends, and proportions in fact.
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Your definition of reasonable people is extremely suspect.

Especially since you've completely refused to deal with counter arguments and comparisons of countries by religious strength and economics.

All this is, is another one of your dumb threads trying to argue your opinions are facts when you have little but speculation.
 
LowDown said:
It's not valid to compare countries in which the cultures are so different. And you are forgetting that the US is much more religious than most Western countries. Also, I wouldn't call European Western culture exactly vibrant and growing. Their traditional ethnic groups are falling in population fast and their economies in some cases are barely growing, going the way of Greece.
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Actually, no country in Europe is going the way of Greece. None of them have the same problems as Greece, from rampantly corrupt governments, massive overspending, massive cultures of tax evasion and poor exports. It helps to actually understand what you are talking about before you talk about it. Maybe if you did that, you wouldn't have so many of these dumb threads you make backfire on you so often?

And you just hit about something far more important. It's not religion that matters. It's culture. The Islamic world is the most religious of all and their economies for the most part are jokes. Australia is fairly irreligious and they are doing quite well.

Abandoning religion, at least in the lower class American whites, is associated with cultural degeneration across all spheres of life including the decline of marriage, of the work ethic, and of respect for the law.
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If that was so true in America, why are you running away from the Detroit-San Francisco comparison?

Lowdown, these threads of yours are becoming more and more pathetic.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
Our economy is unwinding because of horrifically irresponsible actions by our politicians, whom are almost entirely composed of devout religionists. Your claims hold no weight when they aren't backed by facts or data.
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Lowdown wants to believe that what he believes is true. That's why he'll never address counter arguments as to why he's wrong.

This isn't a place for discussion for him. It's a soapbox.
 
LowDown said:
I've already posted the evidence. I'll find some quotes directly from Murray's book later in the day.

Atheists have done quite a number on the public by misrepresenting themselves.
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Is that why you keep running away from dealing with comparisons that show very different outcomes then what you claim to be true?

Explain these away:

Detroit & San Francisco in the US.

Nigeria and Liechtenstein globally.

Oh wait. I forgot. You can't
 
LowDown said:
A choice that is to the determent of the community.
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And this is a problem because...? You not want them to have choices?

Of course they are factual. They did surveys of populations as defined in the book and then gave those populations fictional names. Otherwise they are factual.
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I can say anything is based on true events​, etc. that doesn't make it so.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
Our economy is unwinding because of horrifically irresponsible actions by our politicians, whom are almost entirely composed of devout religionists. Your claims hold no weight when they aren't backed by facts or data.
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But they are backed by facts and data, which I presented.
 
obvious Child said:
Your definition of reasonable people is extremely suspect.

Especially since you've completely refused to deal with counter arguments and comparisons of countries by religious strength and economics.

All this is, is another one of your dumb threads trying to argue your opinions are facts when you have little but speculation.
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No, I dealt with those arguments quite well, I think.

Are we not allowed to offer opinions here?
 
LowDown said:
No, I dealt with those arguments quite well, I think.
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Running away from them is not dealing with them well.

Are we not allowed to offer opinions here?
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No one said you can't. But you should not expect us to refrain from shredding your poorly conceived arguments.
 
obvious Child said:
Actually, no country in Europe is going the way of Greece. None of them have the same problems as Greece, from rampantly corrupt governments, massive overspending, massive cultures of tax evasion and poor exports. It helps to actually understand what you are talking about before you talk about it. Maybe if you did that, you wouldn't have so many of these dumb threads you make backfire on you so often?

And you just hit about something far more important. It's not religion that matters. It's culture. The Islamic world is the most religious of all and their economies for the most part are jokes. Australia is fairly irreligious and they are doing quite well.



If that was so true in America, why are you running away from the Detroit-San Francisco comparison?

Lowdown, these threads of yours are becoming more and more pathetic.
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I'm not aware of any threads that have backfired on me at all.

How was I supposed to have dealt with the Detroit - San Francisco comparison? I presented data from general surveys of the country; individual cities don't trump that. Or, in other words, an exception doesn't necessarily invalidate a general rule.

Please post in good faith.
 
obvious Child said:
Furthermore, China's resurgence of religion has frankly nothing to do with its economic growth. The bulk of Chinese economic growth in the past twenty years occurred when religious growth was minimal.
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Source?
 
jwzg said:
Source?
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Google. China's resurgence in Christianity and Buddhism has only really been in the last decade and much of China's growth has been over the past 30.

In the Northwest portion of China, where Islam is a major religion, they are dirt *** poor. I've been there. It's not good. And many Han Chinese are more irreligious then Europeans. Tibet is also highly religious...and highly poor.
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
And this is a problem because...? You not want them to have choices?



I can say anything is based on true events​, etc. that doesn't make it so.
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Spoken like a true believer.
 
LowDown said:
I'm not aware of any threads that have backfired on me at all.
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You should go through your history.

How was I supposed to have dealt with the Detroit - San Francisco comparison? I presented data from general surveys of the country; individual cities don't trump that. Or, in other words, an exception doesn't necessarily invalidate a general rule.
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General surveys on one country at one point in time doesn't prove your arguments. Furthermore, other people have cited a list of countries by religious strength and compared them to their economic power. Your argument does not hold up. The argument that decline in religion is the reason for decline in society and economics is essentially destroyed by my Nigeria-Liechtenstein comparison.

On one hand you have a highly religious country that is flat up poor. And then you have another who's has been getting less and less religious yet richer and richer and richer. How does your argument explain that? It doesn't. You can't even attempt to.

And we can simply do regions. The West Coast of America has seen its economic pick up far faster than the Bible Belt. The Deep south, when you remove hydrocarbons from the economy cannot even begin to match the economic power of the North East. Based on your argument, the MORE religious an area is, the worse its economy is.

Please post in good faith.
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I am. But I frankly cannot expect that of you.
 
obvious Child said:
Google. China's resurgence in Christianity and Buddhism has only really been in the last decade and much of China's growth has been over the past 30.

In the Northwest portion of China, where Islam is a major religion, they are dirt *** poor. I've been there. It's not good. And many Han Chinese are more irreligious then Europeans. Tibet is also highly religious...and highly poor.
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FWIW, I did Google it but didn't find a lot that was from objective sources. Having lived and worked there from 2000-07, I saw quite a bit of growth the entire time. Friends who were there from 1994-2000 also witnessed remarkable growth. I'll leave it to you to figure out what we really did there.;)

Societal decline is defined differently depending on political lean and world view, but if we could come to an agreement on what constitutes "decline" I'd be game.
 
jwzg said:
FWIW, I did Google it but didn't find a lot that was from objective sources. Having lived and worked there from 2000-07, I saw quite a bit of growth the entire time. Friends who were there from 1994-2000 also witnessed remarkable growth. I'll leave it to you to figure out what we really did there.;)
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I'm having trouble finding real data. Nominal is easy, but that doesn't mean squat. There's no question that China had massive growth in the last ten years, but it also had massive growth in the preceding twenty. Real growth in the past 10 years struggled to hit above 11%, but in the preceding twenty years had plenty of 12+% growth in real GDP.

China's gross domestic product (GDP) growth

Societal decline is defined differently depending on political lean and world view, but if we could come to an agreement on what constitutes "decline" I'd be game.
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That is true. Some people would argue that today's richer lifestyle is actually a decline in society.

I'd argue the otherwise, that increased longevity, increased personal free time, higher divorce rates (let's be honest, abusive marriages are not a boost to society), lower death rates for infants and during childbirth, greater variety of foods, and technology has lead to a boost to society.

If we look at some of the highly religious societies, they have low longevity, low personal free times, sometimes divorce is illegal, women are little more than property, high infant and child birth death rates, low variety in foods, and technology is limited to the elite. Is that a better society?
 
obvious Child said:
Where did I do that? You yourself admitted you can't deal with comparisons that blow your argument out of the water.

I have misrepresented nothing. How about you own up to the fact you got nothing?
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I'm afraid you are going to have to explain exactly how your comparisons "blow my arguments out of the water" because I don't see that at all. It seems like so much bluster on your part, actually. Cherry picked comparisons of countries or cities don't address data derived from general surveys of the American population. It's apples and oranges.

I'm sorry, but you simply have not taken the arguments and facts that I've presented on at all. You've presented a bunch of irrelevant stuff and have stood on top of it crowing that you've blown me out of the water. It's ridiculous.
 
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