Sat, 31 Jan 2004

Research Around the World Links Religion to Economic Development

Methinks this is another of Mark Twain's "damned lies" - Muslim nations are some of the poorest on earth, and the most economically backward, yet thanks to petrochemicals and relatively small populations, they have some of the highest per capita incomes in the world. And they're deeply, often legally, religious cultures and governments. Suppose this could've skewed the results?

India, on the other hand, is a deeply religious country, and is undergrowing a tremendous economic growth spurt. But the majority religion there, Hinduism, has no real concept of hell, in the Western sense. Their "reward" system involves reincarnation and spiritual, not economic, development. In fact, many schools of Hinduism despise merchants and bankers nearly as much as the Muslim countrymen.

Heathens are very much infected with the work ethic - it's not just a Protestant trait. Yet we have no hell in the Christian sense either, nor do we believe we'll be reincarnated as an ant if we screw things up in the here and now.

There's no doubt that culture does play a major role in economic matters: but there are simply too many variables in culture to ever be able to measure it. These people went fishing, and caught a tire. It's meaningless.

Two Harvard scholars have found that what really stimulates economic growth is whether you believe in an afterlife especially hell.

(link) [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

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