Freedom, Personal Freedom And Freedom From Religion Encourages Economic Advancement

I have taken the following article in full from here.  Its a short article.  Do read it. My comments at the end.

We have known for decades that secular countries tend to be richer than religious ones. 

Finding out why involves unpicking a complex knot of cognitive and social factors – an imposing task. So my small research team thought we’d ask a more straightforward question: was it the secular chicken that came first, or the economic egg?

Our recent paper in Scientific Advances shows that, in the 20th century, secularisation occurred before economic development and not the other way around. Although this doesn’t prove secularisation makes a country wealthier, it does rule out the reverse. The arrow of time points in one direction, so economic performance cannot be expected to influence people’s opinions in the past.

Global Gallup surveys give us a clear view of the relationship between secularisation and economic development – that the world’s poorest countries are also its most religious. 

But before the days of modern surveys, the steam-powered scholars of the early 20th century had already noticed that industrialised societies tended to be less religious than agrarian ones; though they disagreed on the interpretation.

The early 20th century French sociologist Emile Durkheim believed that economic development came first. He saw religion as meeting society’s practical functions, such as education and welfare. But when prosperous societies started to meet these functions all by themselves, religion was pushed to the margins. 

On the other hand, a few decades later, the German sociologist Max Weber argued that religious change came first. He wrote that the Protestant Reformation unleashed a stampede of productivity and economic improvement because of the “Protestant work ethic”.

Only one of them can be correct. For decades, economists and political scientists, armed with modern computers and advanced statistics, have tried to find out whether it was Durkheim or Weber. Some studies found that secularisation came first, some found that development comes first, and still others found they occur at the same time.

Diving deeper into history

My colleagues and I think one major shortcoming preventing us from getting to a solution has been a lack of historical depth. To measure a complex concept like “secularisation”, comprehensive surveying is required. But this has only been possible in the majority of the world for just a couple of decades, since 1990. However, for the first time, we have found a way to dive deeper and cover the entire 100 years of the 20th century.

This temporal periscope presents itself when we bring together evidence from anthropology, political science and neuroscience: people’s beliefs and opinions form and harden during the first few decades of their lives.

Therefore, despite a lifetime of ups and downs, a person’s religious belief will always reflect their formative years. They unwittingly carry a fossilised version of how secular the society of their childhood was, right into the modern day. So if you want to know how religious the world was in the 1950s, then just see how religious the people are who came of age during the 1950s.

We did this by collating answers from the European Values Survey and the World Values Survey, which have asked people around the world about their religiosity since 1990. By pooling data for people who came of age at different decades of the 20th century, we were able to create a new secularisation time line.

• We compared this with 100 years of economic data. 
• The image below shows that, in Great Britain, Nigeria, Chile and Philippines at least, the red secularisation line leads the blue economic development line. 
• And our statistical analysis shows that this is the case in all of the 109 countries we measured.

How secularisation (red line) and economic development (blue line) have changed during the 20th century in Great Britain, Nigeria, Chile and Philippines. Image: Ruck, Bentley and Lawson

Individual rights set countries apart

The message is crystal clear: secularisation occurs before economic development and not after it. 

This means we can rule out Durkheim’s functionalist model, but we cannot declare victory for Weber. Any human society is a cacophony of tangled causes, effects and dynamic emergent phenomena. To seek a single cause for anything in this arena is a mug’s game. So we checked if something else offers a more convincing explanation.

For example, a respect for the rights of individuals is the moral triumph of the humanitarian revolution and might provide the “leg up” that societies need to reach economic prosperity. 

A respect for individual rights requires tolerance and we showed that secular societies only become prosperous once they have evolved a greater respect for these individual rights.

If we zoom in on different regions of the world, we see some rich countries that are religious and some poor ones that are secular. Countries like the US and the Catholic countries of Europe have become economically prosperous, yet religion remains important.

Conversely, the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe are some of the most secular on Earth, but have middling economic performance. 

It turns out that it’s a respect for individual rights that separates the rich from the poor – despite the law sometimes being slow to catch up with people’s opinions in some countries.

Though we shouldn’t ignore the role of religion. It’s easy to see why individual rights flower once religious influence has withered. 

That said, there’s no reason why individual rights can’t exist in a religious world. If religious institutions can become less of a conservative force and embrace modern cultural values, then they could provide moral guidance for the economically prosperous societies of the future.

My comments :  I have said this before already - quite a few times. The most important thing that human beings need to advance and survive as a species, as societies and as countries is freedom. Especially individual, personal freedoms. 

Whenever you mess with freedom, what happens is first you become stupid. After that you become poor.  Stupid first then followed by poverty. Then everything else will also come along - tribalism, sectarianism, racism, jealousies, hatreds, violence and war. 

For those who have not been idiot proofed yet, laws to prevent people from committing murder, robbery, rape, crying FIRE in a crowded cinema, observing speed limits on the highway etc are not curbs on human freedom but they are there to protect peoples' very lives (and hence their freedom).

Religion most certainly curbs human freedom. Without exception religion is the greatest evil man has hoisted upon his own shoulders.  (You want proof : Anyone of you 'religious types' getting angry when you read this? Thats my proof.)

If I say "Without exception science is the greatest evil man has hoisted upon his own shoulders" will you get angry? No. You will say I am being silly.

If I say  "Without exception logic is the greatest evil man has hoisted upon his own shoulders" will you get angry?  No. You will say I am being illogical.

You cannot simply say wild stuff and then insist that you are being logical. Thats not how it works.  

There are so many gods that humans have created.  Here is a simple question : Why does your particular god decide to exist? This is the famous 'why' question. 

The word 'why' is made up of just three letters but this 'why' question can be extremely 'subversive'. (meaning of subversive :  seeking or intended to subvert an established system or institution).

Maybe the next time you meet them,  you can ask your gurus and religious experts to answer this 'why' question. 

Why does your god want to exist? 
Why does your god have to create ? 

Whatever they answer, just ask them again and again, why? 
Do not stop asking 'why' until they cannot answer anymore.

Unless of course you are afraid that they will get angry with you. 
Or you are afraid your wife or husband will get angry with you. 
Which then proves my point above about religion being evil. 
It makes people angry. 

If just asking a simple question 'why' can make you angry, you seriously need psychiatric help. You are a mental case. You qualify for medication.  Maybe Lexopro.

Ok back to the study above that shows a correlation between religion and poverty.

I have used this phrase for about 30 years now - NO MONEY NO RELIGION.

Somehow religion always involves money. You have to pay the priest, you have to pay the people who run the place of worship, you have to pay for the 'sacrifice', you have to pay for food, you have to pay for the prayer services, you have to pay, pay, pay. NO MONEY NO RELIGION. 

So religion already makes you poor. 
Or poorer. 
Everytime religion is involved you have to pay money.

The Quran clearly forbids asking for payment or wages for teaching or spreading the message. There are TWELVE verses in the Quran that talk AGAINST accepting or asking for wages to spread the message. Here are TWO :

Surah 68:46  "Or is it that you  ask them for a wage, that they are burdened?"

Asking, hoping for, accepting, receiving, taking any kind of wage, reward, appreciation, compensation in the name of spreading the message will only impose a burden on the people. If you ask or accept or receive  50 sen it will burden those who do not have 50 sen to spare.

Here is another verse on the same subject :

Surah 6:90  Those are the ones whom Allah has guided, so take an example from their guidance. Say, "I ask of you for this message no payment. It is not but a reminder for the worlds."

So you should not ask for money. 
Tak boleh minta duit. 

It goes without saying that you also cannot accept money (derma ikhlas etc). 

So there goes 'NO MONEY NO RELIGION'.  

Then to cover up the fact that they do not have the intelligence or the thought processes to make people rich, we hear the religious types trying to fool the people that being poor is good. 

Tin Sadin was good at this. He conned the Kelantan people not to mind being poor.  In the next life they will be rich !!  A low IQ trick especially for the low IQ.

The Quran says the exact opposite.  Here is Surah 2:268 

Transliteration : al shaytaanu ya iddu kumu al faqra wa ya' muruukum bil fahsha wal laahu ya 'iddukumu maghfiratan min hu wa fadhlan wal laahu waa si-un 'aleemun.

Here are FOUR different English translators of Surah 2:268:


Khalifa The SATAN promises you poverty and commands you to commit evil, while Allah promises you forgiveness from Him and grace. Allah is Bounteous, Omniscient.

Arberry Satan promises you poverty, and bids you unto indecency; but Allah promises you His pardon and His bounty; and Allah is All-embracing, All-knowing.

Palmer The SATAN promises you poverty and bids you sin, but Allah promises you pardon from Him and grace, for Allah both embraces and knows.


Rodwell Satan menaceth you with poverty, and enjoineth base actions: but Allah promiseth you pardon from himself and abundance: Allah is All-bounteous, Knowing.

Here is the Malay translation :

"Syaitan itu menjanjikan kamu dengan kemiskinan dan kepapaan, dan ia menyuruh kamu melakukan perbuatan yang keji; sedang Allah menjanjikan kamu keampunan daripadaNya serta kelebihan kurniaNya. Dan, Allah Maha Luas limpah rahmatNya, lagi sentiasa Meliputi PengetahuanNya.

Allah promises you 'fadhlan' or bounty / abundance.
Satan promises you faqra (fakir) which means poverty.

So poverty is the work of satan.  It is not a good thing to be poor.

(Remember satan is NOT that two horned creature with a pointy tail that you see in Hollywood movies. Itu syaitan Hollywood lah. Satan is not a creature. SATAN literally means one who goes against things, for example banging your head against the wall would be literally 'satanic'. So is butting heads with anything and everything that is good. It will certainly make you poor.)

If you are poor generation after generation, decade after decade, century after century with no end in sight to your poverty it simply means you are locked up in a satanic syatem. Satan rules over you. 

Or you are part of a satanic system.  Poverty is satanic.

Again to cover up their own incompetence, the religious people often tell stories about how poor the prophet was.  One story says that the prophet was so poor that at the time of his death the prophet's armour was in the pawn of a Jewish pawnbroker.

This is not what the Quran says.  There are no such stories in the Quran.

Other than Surah 2:268 above here is another verse that obviously refers to changing the prophet's status from poor to becoming rich :  

(Transliteration : wa wa jadhaka 'aa ilan fa 'aghna)

Surah 93:8  And He found you poor, and made you rich

In Malay :  93:8  Dan didapatiNya engkau miskin, lalu Ia memberikan kekayaan 

He found you poor and then he made you rich. There was a transformation - from being poor to rich.  This is the Quran's guidance. 

Any guidance must make you achieve a good life. 
Surely Allah's guidance must guide you to wealth, health and happiness. 
Otherwise what is the purpose of guidance?

Not everyone can buy a super yacht. 
Not everyone wants to buy a super yacht.
But everyone can easily avoid being dirt poor and donkey stupid.