THE GODLY, FINANCIALLY FREE WHEELING AMERICAN WAY IS NOT THE ENVY OF THE WORLD – HOW WE KNOW THAT, AND WHY THE USA IS SO BAD AT TRANSFORMING WEALTH INTO SOCIETAL AND ACTUAL HEALTH
(HINT — PARTLY BECAUSE THE SLAUGHTER OF TENS OF BILLIONS OF KIDS MEANS THERE CANNOT BE A WISE AND LOVING CREATOR)
TO BEGIN WITH
We are hearing it all the time these days. That the American economy is now the envy of the world. Wages are higher in the poorest state and very red, Mississippi, than in progressive Canada, with per capita income in the USA leaving that of most of the rest of the west in its wake. It is a notion that the likes of even oft conservative bashing Bill Maher is touting, that the USA looking to the other more secular and socialistic democracies for a better life is no longer operative. That the American Way that has long beein exceptional in combining the most free market economy in the world with being the most religious among 1st world nations, is pulling ahead of the prosperity pack.
To a great extent it is an illusion. Lifespans are about 81 in Canada, 71 in Mississippi, and a few years longer north of the border than the USA as a whole. Americans live shorter lives than in all the other prosperoous democracies. And if Canadians are so envious then why are they saying no no no to fulfilling Trump’s dream of the USA extending without break from the Mexican border to Greenland, much less flooding south to the American Shining City on a Hill? Same for why are the Nordic peoples not flocking to the Land of Opportunity to the perplexment of POTUS. Same for the French. And if worship of the wise creator is the divine key to societal success, then why is the American economy going gang busters as church going and Bible literalism are rolling down a steep hill while American atheists are ballooning?
Here is something I am pretty sure you don’t know because the religion industy and media theistic and mainstream are not interested in your knowing. Surveys show that majorities in the USA and abroad do not — repeat do not – opine that religion offers solutions to today’s problems (https://news.gallup.com/poll/245651/religion-considered-important-americans.aspx; https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2017-10/GlobalAdvisor-Religion-2017.pdf).
The low opinion of theism is despite the theoindustry and the news media conducting another, related cynical coverup. Since the 2000s it has been established by scientific methods combined with common decency that theism does not produce good societal results for two reasons. Abundant statistics, much published in the peer reviewed literature, have left no doubt that more democratic atheism correlates with better over societal conditions. I was the researcher who did the most to initate this field of research, the results of which have never been countered because it is not possible to do so. The follow up question is what is the cause and effect – does lots of popular theism create lousy socioeconomic conditions and if so why, or does societal success inevitably drive down popular theism, or are both operative?
The theism problem is far far far worse than has been realized. Another item the religious industry et al. do not want you to know. How many children have died as kids to date. Don’t know do you? It is a shameful indecency and dishonor to the lost children that such a vital piece of moral information is not common knowledge and was not even published. Until the 2000s when I placed it in a theological journal. A truth that theism has dodged for centuries and no one seems to cae all that much about. Time for that to change.
Of late theosupernaturalism has been experiencing a historically unprecedented contraction. While most true in advanced democracies where theism often counts for little, it is also going on in the second and third worlds (Inglehart 2021; Paul 2023 and refs therein https://americanhumanist.org/what-we-%20%20do/publications/eph/journals/volume31/paul; Lesage et al. 2025). That said, the evidence free opinion that at least one wise if not flawless deity exists, and that worshipping such is vital for human well-being and to avoid societal decline if not outright chaos, continues to play an enormous role in much of the world. Including as is a component of the rising right wing illiberal movements regimes – even in irreligious Europe the hard right claims to be defending the continent’s Christian heritage. This is the godly-religion socioeconomic hypothesis. The competing secular-democratic socioeconomic hypothesis contends that pragmatic, real world based secular progressive policies not involving theosupernatural speculations produces superior cumulative results. Also under consideration is the individual freedom centered, ideology based libertarian economics socioeconomic hypothesis that posits that minimal government, low taxes and regulation, private charity and unrestrained capitalism constitute the social Darwinism that are the keys to maximal societal success. That is in opposition to the social democratic socioeconomic hypothesis that sees hybrid economies that combine extensive capitalism with extensive government assistance as producing the best practical overall results. (Not considered is the communist socioeconomic hypothesis which has proven nonviable.) Which if any is most true and why? That is what this examination of the data is about.
Investigations of the above hypotheses tend to focus on either the non/religion side while downplaying or excluding the economic, or the latter set without the former. This compartmentalization leads to seriously incomplete analyses because the one is tightly intertwined with the other and vice-versa. They cannot be understood without considering the interaction between popular speculative supernatural opinion and the material world. There is also a tendency to treat theism with deferential kid gloves which prevents thorough, objective enquiry. That mistake is not made here.
COMPETING GLOBAL INDUSTRIES – THE BUSINESS OF CELESTIAL FANTASY VERSUS THOSE OF EARTHLY REALITY
To get a grip on why mass religion has not worked out that well, and why it is incurably obsolete, it needs to be understood what it really is. The common mythos promoted by religion is that theism is a popular movement striving to connect the worldly with the divine. That is disinformation designed to mislead.
God centered religion is intrinsically an ancient and widely distributed mass revenue
generating, self-perpetuating industry involving organizations, infrastructures and cash flows from small to enormous, sometimes rivaling that of small nations. The often fiercely competitive sects of which only one or less can be true are brands and subbrands. Clergy and theologians are industry reps. Lay adherents are billions of divine deal making consumers that provide the mass financial base on a transactional they-hope-to-get-something-in-return-from-their-deity-of-choice basis. The scheme is often government subsidized. The primary product is inherently nonobjective, rumor based, dogmatic, inspirational advocacy propaganda that makes big promises — including the godly-religion socioeconomic hypothesis — without a record of actual success. There are no money back guarantees. To put it another and blunt way, the primary product is speculative grand fantasy. Over millennia no effort to produce a comprehensive data set to test the truth of their grand propositions has appeared — if the results proved contrary the business would be in grave danger (similar to how when faith-based Alcoholics Anonymous commissioned a rigorous study they then suppressed the bad results). For the same reason theologians make no effort to explain how a creator that denied the lives of billions of tykes is not deeply evil, and that worshipping such is not an ensuing evil prone to produce suboptimal societies. Opinions on the power and morality of the gods vary greatly, with some deities promoted as super potent and wise. Nor is there an industry consensus regarding the truth of the libertarian versus the democratic socialistic hypotheses — conservative Prosperity Christianity (largely but not entirely Protestant) favors the first, the Catholic hierarchy and many theobrands are skeptical if not in downright hostile to the deep materialism it involves. The incurious dogmatic ideological product is primarily designed to at least retain or expand the customer-cash base. Lacking supporting data, the industry often resorts to often nonsensical but frequently effective scare tactics including fear of death, conspiracy theories, and sociopolitical weaponization of issues and vulnerable peoples atheists included (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-do-americans-still-dislike-atheists/2011/02/18/AFqgnwGF_story.html) to push their consumers to stick with a given sect, most extensively among right wing brands. Professionals who engage in these propaganda campaigns are promoted as persons of extra moral status beyond normal criticism pay no attention to their many scandals. Elite clerics may achieve kingly, sometimes godly status. To comprehend the great scale of the industry that operates places of worship, teaching facilities up to universities, media outlets, health care establishments, charities, other infrastructure and employees to run them follow the money – in the US alone the revenue flow in the religious economy is over a trillion dollars (Grim and Grim 2016), globally it is a few times that. Millennia’s worth of extensive propaganda advertising has oft been effective, yet the scale of the theoindustry is inconsistent. There is no major Chinese God because there never has been much theism in the ancient civilization. The absence of high levels of popular religiosity when the local religious business is not well developed indicates the first is dependent on well-organized theism – it is the theoindustry that keeps the deific show going – but the recruitment and retention system is not always efficacious.
A product of modernity, science is a new, sophisticated industry involving organizations, cash flows and infrastructures from small to enormous, sometimes rivaling that of small nations. The complex is frequently government subsidized. The ideal primary product is curious, objective analytical results concerning the nature of reality based on the principle of objective investigative data gathering and processing, with the intention at arriving as close to the truth as feasible, subject to change as necessary. Pragmatism rules over dogmatism. Speculative opinions based on hopes are rejected as nonfactual unless documented otherwise. While it is hoped that most or all will accept this relatively flexible product, it is not designed to be manipulated to do so, that being a violation of the critical driver of revealing reality rather than pleasing a cash generating consumer base. Lacking the crucial priority of mass recruitment, science does not heavily engage in invented scare tactics. It can invoke large scale fears when the results do indicate the existence or approach of serious real world problem that requires addressing, such as natural disasters, and adverse items science and its consort technology have or are contributing to such as environmental degradation, nuclear war, AI. Science does not engage in much paid advertising, the industry is widely popular because it has actually delivered an array of amazing actual miracles that the promises of the theoindustry have failed to match. The scale of the science industry is broadly comparable to that of religion, being in the area of 2.5 trillion on the global stage. Although not crafted to be so, the science industry is a potent and chronic threat to the theoindustry having eliminated the explanatory need for a supernatural creator that the godly-religion socioeconomic hypothesis requires to actually be true, while being able to disprove the existence of a moral creator and the supernaturalistic hypothesis rests upon, and directly test the hypothesis with sociological analysis. But fearing the popularity and corresponding power of the religious industry which has not been a leading concern of the science industry (other than the creationist subbrand), there has been little scientific effort to test the competing hypotheses – essentially none prior to the turn of the century. Nor has there been much effort regarding the libertarian and democratic socioeconomic hypotheses. That said, the statistical efforts that have been conducted since have provided definitive results. These will be presented below.
Dwarfing the prior two industries is another result of modernity, the capitalist-corporate-consumer-commercial industry that sees well over a hundred trillion in global cash flow per year. Sometimes government subsidized, this self-perpetuating scheme is an economic power house of sheer materialism churns out vast amounts of genuine products and services. Quality varies but is often good, frequently being backed by guarantees and warranties. The scheme can be intensely internally competitive in the survival of the fittest Darwinian sense that is often the market place, but monopolies can suppress this dynamic. A driving goal is mass recruitment of billions of consumers that form the great financial base by fashioning a craving in individuals – achieved in part via relentless advertising — for worldly goods well in excess of those needed to live a basic comfortable life. The big fear factor is failure to keep up with the Joneses. Some plutocrats have accumulated so much wealth that they are comparable to the larger religious brands. The mercantile elites are more atheistic than the general population and therefore indifferent or worse to theism, others are theism friendly to favoring degrees. The libertarian economic socioeconomic hypothesis is popular within corporate capital, although there is considerable discomfort and dissent among those who benefit from the scheme Because modern industry has produced so many material miracles it is highly popular and competitive with comparatively speculative theism. Not promised by business or science at this time is immortality. The science industry is integral to the business industry that depends upon the former for the technological advances that help fuel the never ending expansion of commerce. Of marginal practical use to capital is the theoindustry, its product being fantasies of limited financial value that sometimes interfere with commercial materialism.
The real world results oriented industries could hardly be more different than the divine dream business. Science is a reasonably honest effort to sort out the truth and apply the results, which in collaboration with commerce has produced the modern world with childhood mortality rates in the low single digits – while severely damaging the planet. The other is entirely a fantasy promotion in which actual truth is not of importance, and archaic thinking is the oft vaunted norm.
THE PECULIAR ALL AMERICAN EVANGELICAL-CORPORATE ALLIANCE
The New England colonies were established by hardline right wing Protestants that – far from searching for religious freedom as the anti-Woke theocon clique pretends — wished to establish a rigid Puritan-Calvinist theocracy. That did not work out, instead the United States developed a very atypical free market of theism (the once popular theory that this led to the unusual high religiosity of the nation has not borne out). Dour Calvinism remained the leading American religion into the late 1800s. Being wealthy was considered acceptable – despite Jesus being skeptical of earthly riches — but for that reason not to be too ostentatiously celebrated. This became a cultural problem. As the US achieved unprecedented corporate-consumer-industrial prosperity in the 1800s this was seen as confirmatory evidence that the United States was especially God-Blessed, and material achievement the more flamboyant the better was becoming the exhilarating top tier American norm. How to reconcile this contradiction? Devise the modern illusion that the Holy Trinity favors his followers enjoying material success in abundance. Thus the American religious market invention of Prosperity Christianity in its assorted guises. This is frequently in association with Bible literalist, science skeptical Christianity especially when it comes to deep time and bioevolution Fundamentalism. The advent of a Godless Bolshevik regime that accepted Darwinian bioscience while rejecting social Darwinism to an extreme, in which fanatical incompetents with no experience in running countries violently applied a speculative academic theory to a nation with disastrous results, led horrified it could happen here American Christoconservative elites – among them cash flush Texas-Oklahoma oilmen (see https://secularfrontier.infidels.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=42792&action=edit) — to begin to pump large monies into the American religious right. In the form of colleges, print publications, radio, TV, megachurches, politics and so forth, forming a well-funded theocon brand unique to the nation. Ministers getting rich off their flocks became de rigueur. The Red takeover of much of Europe and China led to Cold War Christianity that equated being American with being Godly and vice-versa, a theme of the Eisenhower presidency that occurred at the peak American of national church going. If not for the existence of the Communist Bloc the American religious right would likely be considerably less than it is while progressive atheism would be more common. And democratic socialism more prevalent in the states. At the same time, the same theoconservative elites adopted social Darwinistic, free-wheeling, individual responsibility, small government, anti-tax and regulation economic libertarianism concocted by largely atheist academics and commentators with no actual experience in running businesses much less countries. So while many theocons are economic libertarian, so are many atheists, with the latter likely outnumbered by the former. As part of this arrangement the gun industry is given a pass to sell rapid fire weapons to the public with little in the way of restrictions Paul (2023b). That being in accord with the old religious right thesis of God, the gun and the Bible.
As a result, the USA is the only country that sports a large religious right branch of the divine fantasy industry — mostly but by no means entirely made up of born-again, socially traditionalist, family values Protestants — that has formed a long term, large scale alliance with the corporate industry that promotes hedonistic mass materialism — if you think that strange it is. Under the aegis of the Republican Party. In no other nation does such an amalgam exist. For that matter no other prosperous nation has a large Christian right. Nor in any other country is there a major clique of conservatives that advocate economic libertarianism. Theism in general and laissez faire economies declined in the rest of the west starting in the 1800s and accelerating in the 1900s. Japan secularized suddenly after the disaster of the last world war and the denial of divinity by the emperor. Although the New Deal/Great Society USA is not the full blown libertarian heaven it was before FDR and some are working to remake it into, it is the most economically libertarian major nation in the world.
MEASURING AND COMPARING SOCIETAL SUCCESS VERSUS FAILURE IN THE MODERN WORLD – WHAT ACTUALLY WORKS AND WHAT DOES NOT
Until of late no nations were socioeconomically truly successful because the inadequate technologies of the times left most impoverished, and levels of non/theism had limited effect. (the one means to compare the beneficence or otherwise a/theism over history up to today is via examining casualty tolls from war and genocide which I do at https://secularfrontier.infidels.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=42795&action=edit — the results are not good for the theoindustry). That no longer being true, how are the wide variations in theism now seen across the globe relating — if they are — to varying degrees of societal and economic success or failure? Abundant socioeconomic data is available to compare the gross levels of societal success at global, first world, and state levels. Also on hand is data on their differing levels of popular non/religiosity that can be correlated with individual and cumulative socioeconomic factors.
For details of the methodology, data sourcing, and other details plus extensive references for those who are interested in deep diving the subject and (that skeptics need to check out before being critical) see Paul (2009 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/147470490900700305); and Paul (2023 https://americanhumanist.org/what-we-%20%20do/publications/eph/journals/volume31/paul.) contains additional and updated information and sourcing. The basic, standard model scientific procedure is as follows. If in the end there is little in the way of correlations between levels of popular non/religiosity and socioeconomic conditions between societies, then both the godly-religion and the secular-democratic socioeconomic hypotheses are refuted. If instead higher levels of religion and less nonreligion are more often than not statistically associated with over all better conditions, then the godly-religion socioeconomic hypothesis is verified and the competing secular-democratic socioeconomic hypothesis is sunk. It can then be argued that yet more popular theism is likely to generate even better results. If the opposite is true, that the more atheism there is in a population at the expense of theism in increasingly successful societies, then the secular-democratic socioeconomic hypothesis wins out over the godly-religion socioeconomic hypothesis. Yet more atheism is then a viable option. The same procedures apply to testing the libertarian economic and democratic socialist socioeconomic hypotheses. If the first of those two hypothesis bears out then further reductions of government can be called for, if not then a more libertarian nation is ill advised.
To wit. If the God Blessed American Way of lots of Christian belief right wing especially, combined with the most free market economics on the planet, has resulted in the thriving and happy citizens Shining City on the Hill that the rest of the world envies and aspires to be, then the US should be at or near the top in most socioeconomic factors, and in the SSS total. If it is not, then American Exceptionalism is not all it has been cracked up to be by the right, and is seriously dysfunctional as is oft claimed by the secular left.
Whatever hypotheses proves valid if any does, the potential reasons for the observed patterns will then be examined.
We start by looking at the most successful of planetary societies, the most prosperous dozen and a half countries that constitute the first world (Fig. 1). This observational limitation to peer nations has the scientific advantage of comparing socioeconomic apples to apples by minimizing disparities in income. That leaves it easiest to see what the large variations in the non/religiosity of these prosperous democracies is related to when it comes to two dozen core measures of socioeconomic health. The factors are combined to construct the Successful Societies Scale which is a cumulative score that measures the overall socioeconomic performance of each prosperous nation relative to one another. These are contrasted with levels of non/belief in the supernatural realm. The USA has long been the most pious western nation, although it is possible that this is now more true of a few other first world countries as America has rapidly secularized since the turn of the century (Inglehart 2021). The USA sports an enormous (20% of the global economy with 5% of the population), innovative, usually vibrant and growing economy. So how is American wealth and religion translating into societal health compared to the less theistic and libertarian peer nations? Let’s find out.
Figure 1. First world relationships between levels of overall religiosity amd major measures of socioeconomic success measured by the cummulative Successful Societies Scale. The value in lower left of plots in this and other figures are Pearson correlations, a higher value from 0 (no correlation) to 1 (perfect correlation) shows a greater relationship. Contents in this and Fig. 2 in part from Paul (2009, 2012, 2023).
Figure 2-1. First world relationships between levels of overall religiosity and key measures of socioeconomic success. Pandemic high for homicide is indicated by vertical line but not included in Pearson’s correlation (see Fig. 1).
Figure 2-2. First world relationships between levels of overall religiosity and key measures of socioeconomic success, and economic factors.
Figure 2-3. First world relationships between levels of overall religiosity and key measures of socioeconomic success, and economic factors.
Beginning with the most henious crime, intentional homicide rates remain far lower in secular prosperous democracies than the United States, which has long been a far outlier in this regard (Fig. 2-1). Although only a small fraction of the death toll, mass shootings have become an American norm occuring on a subweekly basis, leaving no one safe in any public context and traumitizing the country. In contrast, with only 1 in 500 deaths attributable to murder, the lowest homicides rates seen in the secular democracies may represent the minimal levels achievable in human societies. With nongun homicides are broadly similar in the peer nations, it is gun murders that elevate America above the first world standard (see Paul, 2023b https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/z93jm). The available data indicate that nonlethal crime is often common in the nations examined, with America being a high crime nation albeit not extremely so. Zuckerman (2008) notes that the modest crime rates in some secular democracies are achieved with minimal police presence, and the recent declines in American murder appear to be more dependent upon the application of effective secular methods of addressing the problem (Pinker, 2011; Paul, 2023a) than upon the popularity of theism that being in decline. The extreme rate of murder American Style can be entirely attributed to correspondingly extreme levels of private gun possession, which are pushed by a gun industry that is avoiding financial ruin only as long as rates of murder remain high (Paul 2023b), supported by the Christoright wing of the American Theoindustry. Low and/or declining levels of theism are not correlated with more murder here and abroad, nor are mental illness (Fig. 2-1), entertainment violence, socialistic policies (Fig. 2-1&3), or lesser law enforcment. Instead, incarceration has soared in the United States to the degree that no other country, even China, has more prisoners in absolute terms, and America is about a dozen times higher than the Western norm in proportional rates (Fig. 2-1), although Yankee imprisonment has declined some of late. The US prison population is strongly skewed toward minorities, to the degree that the Black male population of inner cities has been seriously impacted.
Although all first-world countries enjoy very low juvenile mortality compared to historical norms as detailed later, a two-fold variation remains, with higher rates correlating strongly with greater popular religiosity, the lowest losses being in the most secular nations sampled (Fig. 2-1), while they are the highest in the US. The US is the only developed democracy in which firearms are the leading cause of death for children. Also exceptionally high in the US is prenatal mortality. While all advanced nations enjoy long cumulative life spans, America again is embarresed in number one in having the shortest within the group. The United States is losing ground in regard to this factor, and life spans have actually been decreasing. The covid pandemic does not entirely account for this pattern, created in part by the opioid epidemic which did not occur elsewhere where government run health care complexes get addictive pain med use in check. America also performs poorly in time lived in good health, and suffers atypically high levels of illicit drug use(Fig. 2-1). The United States used to exhibit typical suicide rates, but is now number one in this category – note that extra high suicide rates in the irreligious, socialist Nordic nations were never true.
Regarding alcohol consumption, marriages, fertility, and employment, large correlations between lesser religiosity and better conditions do not exist, and/or the United States performs typically or well. Among the latter factors is America’s high per capita income. But that is not as much a positive as many believe it is, much of the wealth being concentrated towards the elites resulitng in exceptionally high income disparity (Fig. 2-2). Add to that much higher much higher health care expenses per citizen (and as a percent of national income), reduces that advantage. America is normal in life satisfaction, while Nordic peoples are exceptionally happy. The United States used to score typically in corruption, but revelations of massive financial manipulations primarily responsible for the Great Recession have lowered its ranking to near the bottom of Western nation which is not being improved with MAGA in power, and the nation is mediocre when it comes to trust. Moderate to large correlations between lesser religiosity and better conditions do exist regarding abortion, sexually transmitted disease infections, and teen pregnancy outside of marriage which have all been improving in parallel with increasing nontheism, and resource exploitation. The United States performs poorly in the just-listed factors, often being the worst off, sometimes by very large degrees. It is of special note that America is seriously dysfunctional in upward socioeconomic mobility — in direct contradiction to the common claim of being the land of opportinity (Fig. 2-3) — high work hours, child well-being (Fig. 2-2), and gender equality (Fig. 2-2). The last is an notable failing because more gender equality tends to favor greater personal and socioeconomic health. America’s nonsuccess is being paid for in part by one of the worst national debts as a percentage of the economy (Fig. 2-3) – Christian frugality has not stopped the US from having as much debt as the combined rest of the advanced countries. Ergo, most of the other socialistic nations are not achieving their superior circumstances with higher deficit spending (Fig. 2-3).
With the most atheistic, proevolution, and progressive socialistic democracies scoring well in so many measures of societal health, it is not surprising that the highest ranking countries on the Successful Societies Scale are all among the most secular, science oriented and socialistic. They are far from suffering ungodly social chaos. In contrast the United States is exceptional in suffering the lowest overall score of about 3 (Fig. 1). All other broad based cross-national comparisons—including the Happy Planet Index and Human Development Report—have produced broadly similar rankings of socioeconomic dysfunction, with the theistic and comparitivley economically Darwinian libertarian US not scoring well (see Paul 2023 for an extensive list of references https://americanhumanist.org/what-we-%20%20do/publications/eph/journals/volume31/paul). It is of equal importance that no scientific examination matching the scope of the SSS has refuted its and similar conclusions – this is despite repeated challenges by yours truly to defenders of the Godly and libertarian socioesconomic hypothesis to either pruduce comparatively broad scale contrary results, or admit that the hypotheses are wrong. So far neither has occurred. The United States is the most second worldlike nation of the first world countries socioeconomically and religiously, to the degree that its first world status is marginal in many regards.
It follows that the God worshipping, Cowboy economics American Way has not been the most Successful Way. If anything the ongoing suddent ascent of the American MAGA right to national power is resulting in chaos here and abroad not seen since the Great Depression.
Making these social failings yet more perturbing is that the US is chronically atypically inefficient in translating its vast wealth into societal health. Something is gravely seriously wrong – Americans of all ages are literally dying prematurely in big numbers. Please cosndier that America is not even the leading “opportunity society” being near the bottom in upward income mobility espcecially from the lower class to the middle (Fig. 2-3). That the unusually high income disparity that is resulting from the Godly American Way of libertarian finances is a major factor in this inefficiency (Fig. 2-2; Piketty 2013, Stiglitz et al. 2019) is in line with how lower income disparity and poverty and better upward mobility correlate strongly with both lesser religiosity and with superior societal conditions, including deadly malfeasance (Fig. 2). Disproving the pay no attention to the actual evidence, never ending right wing thesis theistic and secular that socialisitic policies prodcue bad results, the higher taxes and government spending are, the better off the citizens tend to be (Fig. 2-3 which also shows this is not at the cost of larger deficiet spending). Also negatively correlated with societal success is the private chariatable giving (Fig. 1-3) touted by the American religious and financial right as superior to inefficient government aid. This is not a surprise. It is well documented that charities spend much of what they take in trying to get more contribution, lack the enormous financial resources and infrastructure needed to provide the comprehensive assistance that the government can offer, are often over competitive with one another in addressing popular causes, and are vulnerable to internal graft. The relatively poor health of Americans is all the more disconcerting since the nation has long spent much more per person on health care while obtaining inferior results (Paul 2023 contains extensive references, https://americanhumanist.org/what-we-%20%20do/publications/eph/journals/volume31/paul). The American Christoright is a leading element in the movement to prevent the US from adopting the universal health care that has proven so effective in keeping costs down while delivering markedly better overall results (critics often claim that socialized medicine leads to longer waiting times for non urgent procedures, neglecting that is produces longer lives over which to wait).
The propaganda proposition of fundmentalist/creationists that Godless evolutionary science adveresly impacts populations that accept Darwinian biology is scientifically refuted by the superior societal conditions enjoyed in the most proevolution countries (Fig. 2-2). But while the Christoright is a leading power in advocating archaic faith-based policies that appear to be dyfunctional, it is of very interesting import that fundamentalist (including creationist), moderate and liberal theism all correlate about the same with inferior circumstances, atheism (including acceptance of evolution) with better environments (Figure 3). The common center-left conceit that “moderate” brands of the theoindustry can be associated with sound societies is also falsified — the question is why.
Figure 3. First world relationships of fundamentalism (as measured by Bible literalism, moderate-liberal theism (as measured by belief in god less Bible literalism), and atheism with the cummulative socioeconomic success. For nation identification see Figs. 1 or 2. Pearson correlations in favor of atheism and disfavor of differing theisms are similarly significant.
Immigration levels and population diversity are not to blame for America’s troubles because they do not correlate significantly with levels of socioeconomic dysfunction, including lethal crime, in part because the United States is no longer exceptional regarding these factors (Paul 2009, 2023). Nor is the United States atypical in having a frontier past that compelled “cowboy” individualism to the detriment of the greater society, because Canada and Australia also have had expansive low population frontiers without similar effects.
The first-world pattern generally applies within the United States (Fig. 6). Social pathologies such as lethal crime, STIs, out of wedlock teen pregnancy, divorce, poverty, and premature mortality tend to be elevated to a lesser or greater degree within those regions and subpopulations – such as the Bible Belt and inner cities — of the United States that exhibit higher levels of theism compared to the most European and Canadian like portions of the country, the northeast and the west coast where circumstances are often simlar to those seen in secular democracies (supporting references in Paul 2023a). The only theistic states doing well are those with low populations and exceptional fossil fuel resources that raise per capita incomes – which is a reason Christoconservatives favor the use of energy sources formed over hundreds of millions of years even if they do not believe in geological deep time.
Figure 4. Interstate relationships between Gallup Wellbeing scores and measure of religiosty, and PEW acceptance of scientific creation.
Shifting from the early 21st century socioeconomics snapshot to decadal trends in the same, levels of lethal and nonlethal crime, STIs, youth pregnancy, and abortion rates have generally improved as the United States secularized towards first world norms over the last few decades.That suicide has been getting worse in parallel with increasing atheism has caused some to blame the latter, but that the more secular societies have lower self dispatch levels contradicts that thesis. Others blame the increase on gun possession. The pandemic resulted in temporary boosts in dysfunctions that have since alleviated. The recent state bans on abortion have resulted in a nationwide uptick in the procedure.
On the global scale more atheism and less theism again tend to correlate with better living circumstances (Fig. 5). China is notable for being a partial outlier that combines little theism and creationism with mediocre socioeconomics; this is partly the result of China recovering from the depths Mao left it in, and the fast improving country has considerably outperformed the more religious India, despite the latter having been a fairly stable democracy at least until recently. The economy of Turkey is currently suffering under the leadership of an increasingly autocratic Islamic nationalist regime. Hard right wing regimes are unable to produce long term positive results – the Nazis economic miracle was an illusion funded by massive deficiet spending that required conquest of neighboring economies (Overy 1994; Abt 2017).
Figure 5. International relationships betweeen United Nations Inequality Adjusted Human Development Index and measures of religiosty and science of creation. Religion data from World Values Survey and Ipsos.
So all large scale comparisons agree that the more pragmatic, progressive secular mixed economies are producing superior overall societal circumstances compared to America’s more faith-based laissez faire capitalism and private charity scheme. At the earthly level, the absence of a full blown libertarian country means the ability of the untested libertarian economic socioeconomic ideology to produce the best results is barely better than the godly-religion socioeconomic hypothesis. Because the most capitalist nation is so dysnfucntional, expecting that yet more lassiz faire policies will make things better is nonscientific. While religion does have its social positives, capital runs the modern world, and socialism can be taken too far, the mass of data from the international level on down strongly supports the rational based secular-democratic and democractic socialist socioeconomic hypotheseis at the expense of the dogmatic, supernaturalism based godly-religion socioeconomic hypothesis, as well as the ideology theory based libertarian economic socioeconomic hypothesis. Popular religion from hardcore right to liberal left is in total largely maladaptive for one reason and/or another. The next task is to uncover the factors religious and secular that are producing the actual real world results.
WHY SUCCESSFUL SOCIETIES CAN NEVER BE HIGHLY RELIGIOUS OR DEEPLY LIBERTARIAN
Modern Societal Success Automatically Excludes High Societal Religiosity
It is well documented that superior societal modern conditions are seriously detrimental to high levels of popular theism. That is because religion is not as mentally potent as most presume. The widely held mythos that humans are automatically prone to be pious for divine spiritual and/or genetic selective reasons cannot be true when so many are irreligious, including some hunter-gatherer cultures (Paul 2012, 2023, https://americanhumanist.org/what-we-%20%20do/publications/eph/journals/volume31/paul) and great civilizations such as China. The hypothesis that spirituality is as central to the human psyche as language, tool making and use and art when those are consistently well developed in all societies, while religion has sharply dropped in many populations starting in the 1900s, is patently false. Spirituality is much more sociopsychologically optional to human minds than the above activities, and is correspondingly less likely to be highly practiced in the first place, and is consequently vulnerable to mass collapse.
Observed patterns show that theism is popular only when daily lives are sufficiently dysfunctional that most opt to employ belief in a hoped divine helping hand, and in many cases a future mind savior, to try to alleviate their intense anxieties by petitioning a potential supernatural power for magical earthly aid and perhaps a marvelous after life. Many religions have offered the former but not the latter, the ChristoIslam that does is so popular because access to an eternal paradise is promised to dutiful adherents. Thus religion is a massive mental placebo to billions promoted by the theoindustry that benefits from the problem, much as the often problematic supplements industry lives off medical difficulties. But it is fragile situation. Repeatedly and consistently, when a large middle and higher majority of a population achieves historically unprecedented levels of secure prosperity and education, they no longer feel the need to seek the aid and comfort of mysterious archaic supernatural powers whose existence has not been verified by centuries of science, and do not have the common decency and honesty to establish their existence in a manner that is firmly convincing to most – being “mysterious” is not being forthright. So many of not most drop, often casually, the supernaturalism despite the counter efforts of the aghast religious industry. It is no accident that the very few societies that have seen a resurgence of religiosity of late are seriously dysfunctional states such as once atheistic Russia that is unable to produce manufactured goods for export as the Orthodox Church enjoys major government monies.
In parallel to the above the capital-corporate-consumer-industrial-complex that has delivered the never before seen mass prosperity is demographically trashing mass piety as a side effect of generating vast revenues. In their endless search for profits it is a casual yet critical goal of laissez-faire capital to convert pious, traditionalist, spiritual, tight-fisted churchgoers into modernistic, irreligious, materialistic, hedonistic, deep pocket consumers who go into interest generating debt to satisfy their earthly desires without the actual assistance of divine powers. This when as big as the religious industry is, it is dwarfed a couple dozen fold by corporate interests and is hard pressed to compete. Thus Sunday morning crowds hit Wal-Marts owned by the theoconservative but profits seeking Walton family rather than church as church membership plunges down a ski slope (https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx). The destructive impact on popular theism since the 1800s by corporate capital is immense. So it is a supreme irony that out of political expedience the American evangelical right wing of the religious industry that promotes divinity based traditionalism while opposing Darwinian evolution has formed an alliance with the very free market forces of radical materialism – and social Darwinistic libertarian economic ideology promulgated by notorious atheists such as Spencer, Rand, Hayek — that are inevitably suppressing popular piety. That when the Biblical economy is not especially free market, and it is warned – correctly – that the more money one has the less likely one will be properly pious.
To this secularization stew add mass electronic communications starting with broadcast TV (Paul, 2025a https://secularfrontier.infidels.org/2025/03/the-leave-it-to-beaver-effect-how-tv-has-helped-bash-popular-religion-without-trying-all-that-hard) and now digital social media that has gutted once abundant social groups (as per Putman’s “Bowling Alone” thesis) including theistic – this factor is also preventing the perpetually small nontheistic groups from expanding along with the rapid demographic growth of their cohort. To that add the nonscientific yet spectacular rise of belief in Ancient Aliens from around zero in 1960 to over a third (Paul 2025b https://secularfrontier.infidels.org/2025/03/how-ancient-aliens-are-trashing-and-bashing-popular-religion-without-even-having-existed-then-again-
neither-have-the-gods) that asserts the “gods” were actually extraterrestrials is a big factor. This major factor in the suppression of popular theism has gone unnoticed by all sides. Note that in most but by no means all cases personal loss of religion is casual, rather than deeply thought out. The origins and decline or popular theism is fundamentally psychological, shallow, and fragile.
That is why there are no known major exceptions to the Socioeconomic Security Threat to Theosupernaturalism driven secularization pattern. Because religion cannot thrive in socioeconomically successful societies, the latter are literally unable to be highly theistic, rendering the combination too psychodemographically impractical to be possible. Ergo, religion cannot be the solution to societal problems, because alleviating those problems automatically suppresses the theism. This helps explain why the nature of the religiosity is not demographically particularly important, with theoliberalism correlating no better with societal success than theoconservatism — all the variants take it on the popularity chin.
The Toxic Downsides of the Religious Industry
That well run societies invariably ruin popular theism does not automatically mean that it not an important contributor to societal failings it thrives upon while pretending it does not. A feedback system is at least possible. To assess the balance requires taking a look at how worship of the gods is likely to produce bad results. Much of this question has been long discussed and will be touched upon below. To be followed by the little known proof that worship of a creator is too evil to produce good societies.
Dysfunctional Doctrines —
The ways that popular worship of the gods is probably not a particularly good societal idea are legion. There is how people who magically think that imaginary divine means from an at least very well-qualified if not perfect deity are on hand are at substantial risk of not opting for trying out pragmatic secular means and seeing if they work or not. And if they do work deny that and resist applying them when they violate rigid religious dogma. Same for many thinking it is not important to solve earthly matters when it is the afterlife that is of import/ and/or only the return to the planet of the creator can set matters right. There are deep issues with theological dogmas and scriptures that are likely human inventions to start with, and even if supernatural in origin serve to prove that the divinity or divinities responsible exhibit grave moral defects. The Greco-Roman gods are if anything less ethical than your average human being. The Mesoamerican deities had a big thing for mass human sacrifice including via divine war. The all wise Abrahamic God kills humans, children included. like flies by destroying cities and flooding an entire planet. The creator tells Moses he will pull a fast one on Pharaoh by manipulating the latter to not come to accommodative terms while the former slaughters innocents including nonHebrew children and slaves – Exodus is not about slavery being autoevil. Hence the Abrahamic Commandments oft promoted as divine perfection do not forbid slavery, or promote democracy, free speech, religious freedom or women’s rights including not being raped. Chattel slavery is repeatedly endorsed in all three primary Abrahamic texts including viciously punishing and killing the hapless victims, and the son of the morally immaculate God is fine with the institution (as was the Holy See in 1866). After (the probably fictional) Moses delivers the ban on murder he promptly follows Godly instructions to first slaughter the Jews who had returned to paganism which was their human right, then all of a peaceful tribe pregnant women among them; except the virgin girls who were enslaved sexually and otherwise. And finally conquer via a brazen land grab via relentless mass ethnic cleansing the peaceful Canaanites by wiping them out down to the last suckling. Extreme personal punishments are to be doled out for minor infractions. Casual moral relativism abounds, famously with King David being an ethically very flawed person chosen by the sagacious creator to wisely rule Judea – thus reprehensible Trump as the modern kingly personality sent by our morally confused creator to save the nation and the world. Widely promoted as the Prince of Peace, Jesus stated he did come to earth to bring that, but instead the sword and division between peoples. That his entourage entered Jerusalem as an armed party with his approval leading to the injury of a person is known and cited by American gun rights supporters. And he fashioned a terror weapon (whip) to commit a sacrilegious assault on the temple grounds (that would have gotten him killed by the armed guards immediately or promptly executed). As an example of very low expectations Jesus lauded for his healing ministry as the Son of God who is God ignores that half the children are dying from the diseases the divine cynic crafted. And how about how the creator who loves all his human creations barbarically tortures those who fail for whatever reason to adhere to his demands for eternity. The Quran commonly promotes military action and death to enemies. I could go on but there are space limitations. Religions do generally contain a body of useful ethical guidance that is common to many societies, but this is mixed with very bad items that produce exactly the psychological moral confusion that generates adverse societal consequences (Bushman et al., 2007). This helps explain why the Crusaders after launching a holocaust against European Jews and then those in Middle East, and sacking Christian Constantinople, literally ate Muslims (Rubenstein, 2008) as part as a successful terror tactic which continues to be brushed aside by some morally challenged Christian academics (Stark 2009). And why many American Christians embrace deeply venal Trump as being a new David sent by God – their low ethical standards are literally scriptural.
While scriptures very probably written by Bronze and Iron Age misogynist males of low ethical standards grievously injure the morality of the religions based upon them, the actual test of the good versus evil status of a putative creator rests on the hellish condition of the planet we dwell upon.
The Ultimate Holocaust That Absolutely Disproves the Good God That People Think About Little If at All, The Massive Death of Children —
It is the obvious moral necessity of a competent and capable mind to strive to do all it can to protect the innocents, children most of all. Christians especially emphasize the love and care of the Holy Trinity for the vulnerable little children he fashions and favors. Most creator deities are credited with the power, up to absolute, to ensure the safety of every single one of the children that He dispatches to Earth in order to undergo a free will test of their desire to dwell in his perfect eternal utopia, and their suitability to do so – can’t have souls that did not choose to without any deviance worship their maker there, or are too defective to do it properly of course. It’s Free Will Theodicy, the standard apologetics trying to explain why the perfect God assembled a planet that while it has many positives, everyone loves those sunsets and hot looking people — sucks in so many ways. Fortunately, the God is really, really good hypothesis is easy to test and come to an absolute conclusion on. It is a scientific and moral combination of statistics, logic — and common decency. These matters are discussed in detail in Paul 2007/09, 2020, 2021)
All sources agree that the number of H. sapiens born to date is about 100 billion give or take 20 billion or so. That is fairly well known – with the number born before the beginning of Christianity is about half that. What has gone shockingly unaddressed is how many of those have died while still kids. One would think that a figure so central to the human experience would have long ago been calculated and the world informed. But I could not find the number so I did it myself and was the first to publish it, in an academic religious journal as cited above. It was easy enough to do, prior to the advent of modern medicine in the mid 1800s juvenile mortality was about half, so that is in the area of 50 billion tykes who have died. There is no evidence that the creator has ever lifted a divine finger to protect a mortal child.
That right there means it is absolutely impossible for a powerful creator mind to be anywhere close to having a minimal level of moral competence and decency. At best a creator is absurdly incompetent in its power – we mere mortal but truly child loving humans have driven their mortality rates to a few percent or less — and cruelly inept. If a potent creator exists then it can only be seriously evil to have allowed such a pitiless catastrophe that stripped tens of billions of the comfort, safety and the mature free will to decide their eternal fates (see Law 2010 for parallel views). If a deity of immense power cannot take good care of children then turning to it as a source of societal guidance is inane with a healthy dose of insane. To contend that a power that has tormented and wrecked billions of families is the source of true family values is cynical hypocrisy of the highest order. The wise Good God that we should be looking to for sage advice on how to run our affairs while overseeing a habitat that is toxic to children does not exist, being no more plausible than a breeding population of apes lives in North America (disproven by the absence of any actual trace of them including no trace of DNA, which cannot happen if the creatures are wandering about).
By far the top kid killers are a vast host of cruel, relentless, torturous, virulent diseases – malaria and smallpox that alone are responsible for tens of billions of deaths, pneumonia, tuberculosis, plague, rabies, tetanus, yellow fever, typhus, dysentery, diarrhea, cholera, diphtheria, measles, mumps, chicken pox, monkey box, botulism, meningitis, influenza, rhinovirus, Chagas, croup, anthrax, dengue, encephalitis, leprosy, sepsis, STDs, elephantiasis, schitosomiasis, Zika — that Behe (2007) says a creator had to carefully craft to kill peoples as per intelligent design theory, or it allowed to deevolve because of the sins of adults according to fundamentalist creationists (inconsistent with IDT in which all organism have to be meticulously devised to function), or allowed to evolve via natural selection according to deep time theists. Whatever the specific agent, in all cases a powerful creator that could stop the terrible child slaughter but does not as part of its grand utopia project is guilty of mass child homicide, ranging from grossly negligent to premeditated. It has committed manifold the greatest crime against humanity.
Apologists for a powerful creator have literally never tried to explain the Holocaust of the Children. It is not doable, so why try, trying will only further expose the greatest deception of the religious industry, further shrinking their consumer base. The much vaunted Free Will Theodicy collapses like the logical/moral house of cards it is in the face of the death of children. Having the mature free will needed to assess one’s post life options obviously requires growing up. If a single child dies then the whole beneficent ethical edifice crashes. That circa 50 billion have not enjoyed free will piles on the absurdity of the God Good Hypothesis – it is the ultimate fantasy pushed by the perpetually cynical religion industry. The theoindustry reps that are theologians refuse to publicly respond to my scholarly work they have been informed of, doing so only threatens to their incomes and influence.
Most folks are of course far more ethical than the evil child killing God they love and adore because they want gifts from it – a God would have more to learn from us and our modern secular societies in which child protection is a top priority than we do from it. In truth worship of the evil God is a major societal problem because it causes moral degradation of those it did not actually create (Paul 2021 https://americanhumanist.org/what-we-do/publications/eph/journals/volume29/paul). Few truly worship a creator searching for the truth, or deep meaning and purpose, or out of the goodness of their hearts. Most worshippers are superficial materialists who want miraculous stuff — amazing divine boons here on Earth (please help me get that job, or protect from that tornado you otherwise in your wisdom is not stopping and is wiping out others including families) and/or for eternal bliss, while dodging bad consequences that fear will ensue from not kissing up to the creator (no job, tornado kills supplicant who ends up in hell). In order to do so worshippers dare not risk upsetting their uptight foolish creator by in any fashion questioning its ethical status. Thus its immoral acts must be ignored in favor of acceptance of and never ending praise for its perfection and thanks for providing Earthly necessities that are its ethical responsibilities to supply its inferiors in the first place. Thus creator worship is inherently an evil, usually of a low grade immorality – most theists are fairly decent folk despite their theism than because of it – that cannot provide a secure principled footing for the superior societal success that no pious nation ever enjoys.
It is telling that as conservative Christians claim to work for the family values creator who has special love for the children, their MAGA POTUS they often claim was sent by God has particularly and swiftly disabled numerous federal programs designed to improve and save the lives of children here and abroad (https://www.propublica.org/article/how-trump-budget-cuts-harm-kids-child-care-education-abuse). This should not be surprising. It is a logical development because if the creator of scripture and the world is actually indifferent to towards the fate of immature humans, why should his worshippers be any different?
The Toxic Downsides of Unconstrained Libertarianism
Prior to the 1800s the world suffered universally poor life circumstances with even the wealthy not doing all that well, pregnancy being dangerous, juvenile mortality massive, lifespans often short even if one made it to adulthood, medical care primitive and often ineffective and torturous, housing dubious, travel limited and difficult if not risky. After the onset via human effort of modern mass industrial innovation production of material goods and other advances in America and England the economics were essentially libertarian with very limited government in terms of size, taxes, regulations, and assistance to citizens. Government interference in business was widely seen as immoral and economically damaging. Protestants were especially prone to seeing government interference with property rights as ungodly and out of step with American Social Darwinism. The elites and a burgeoning middle class enjoyed greatly improved lives. But with the corporate entities free to do whatever best served their self-interests without collective restraints, the negatives were legion. Monopolies ran rampant. Other than rural areas food was often contaminated, frequently dangerously so. Masses of workers lived impoverished lives of relentless work hours for marginal pay in frequently dangerous work conditions, dwelling in substandard over crowded housing, with little access to medical care and ensuing high mortality rates. Many farmers were immersed in chronic debt being unable to earn enough to cover costs. Air and water pollution levels were epic as fauns and floras were being devastated. Economies cycled wildly with periodic depressions, the second worst occurring in the “gay nineties” that some romanticize today.
Gilded age capital proved unable to generate broad societal success and health because unrestrained laissez faire freedom leaves increasingly powerful oligarchs — who the typically become psychologically obsessed with accumulating yet more lucre as their interests often conflict with those below their financial status – able to grab control of an ever growing portion of an economy. To the overall detriment of the rest of the population that they mass skim for ever more revenue. In the process trampling the environment,
The dark side of free-wheeling libertarianism when it ruled the economic roost was so profound, and its inherent inability to produce satisfactory collective results increasingly obvious, that mass public opinion via the vote started to push towards bigger government that is necessary to take on the plutocrats. Foods were regulated. Wildlife and habitats came under an increasing degree of protection. Trusts were busted. Outside the United States citizens began to receive public medical insurance.
The Roaring Twenties were a great big economic libertarian bubble that burst into the Great Depression. In the USA the result was extensive government expansion via the New Deal, with broadly similar programs in the rest of the industrial nations. The full blown libertarian economics socioeconomic hypothesis had been falsified, a fact commonly recognized other than by the American right wing. Increasing democratic socialism after the second world war in most of the 1st world, via the Great Society in America, have produced the best economic circumstances in human history, albeit with the USA being left in most regards at the tail end of socioeconomic success due to its retaining more in the way of libertarian economics than the rest. Thus the ongoing MAGA project to strip millions of subsidized health insurance so they will have to pay enormous sums for medical care with the profits flowing upwards to the few elites who already have lots of money and crave yet more.
Much as excessive collectivism via forced communism is an idealistic ideology rather than a practical, pragmatic scheme that actually produces good socioeconomic results, the excessive individualism of similarly idealistic libertarian economics goes too far in the opposite direction. The results may be better than communism, but that is not saying much. While the American Way has produced a powerful economy, it has proven poor at redistributing the wealth among the population in the manner that maximizes the success of the nation. Full blown libertarianism as a means of societal success is a speculative fantasy as is God worship.
Double Trouble, the Extra Toxic Downsides of Combining Religion especially Right Wing with Economic Libertarianism into a Theoligarchy
With both the godly-religion and libertarian economic socioeconomic hypotheses shown to be seriously deficient on empirical and causal grounds, then it can only be that combining the two makes matters worse. This reckless error is occurring in the USA wherein MAGA with its narcissistic combination of a large, archaic, heaven obsessed Evangelical base is with money infatuated libertarian oligarchs working to disassemble as much of the government as they can. As they boost the religious industry particularly the right wing brands, while promising that continent united into one country will soon enjoy a Golden Age. In which without the government on everyone’s back all will be wealthy (except perhaps lazy slackers or the financially inept who can resort to charities especially religious). The push includes an unprecedented assault on what until now has been the largest and most sophisticated higher education complex and national science industry in the world that had enjoyed bipartisan support. Experience indicates that the consequence of this bizarre and reckless alliance of dysfunctional ideologies will be yet a greater gap in individual and society health between the USA and the more secular socialist democracies. The abject failure of any right wing autocracy to ever achieve modern societal success – lifespans in strongeman Orban’s Hungary are among the lowest in the EU. Putin’s Russia cannot sell manufactured goods overseas — means that the various national movements towards them are a form of mass madness.
WHY THE PROGRESSIVE SECULAR-DEMOCRATIC AND SOCIALISTIC SOCIOECONOMIC HYPOTHESES ARE CORRECT, AND WORK BEST WHEN COMBINED
Utopias heavenly and earthly not being possible, idealistic extremist ideologies and policies cannot work. Pragmatic comprise systems that take the best real world aspects of differing world-views and meld them together produce the best run achievable planetary societies in the tradition of unattainable perfection is the enemy of realistic good enough.
In a democratic socialist/capitalist hybrid scheme, extensive government aid to the lower class improves the ability of the latter to move up into the middle class, with some going still further. Thus superior upward mobility that down the line increases the tax revenues that sustain the system. Universal health coverage marvelously reduces both mortality rates and costs. Although charitable giving has its place, government aid is superior because the latter is generally less efficient and efficacious. Private retirement investments are skimmed upwards by those who operate them in a classic upwards cash flow, and are subject to market fluctuations that can leave retirees in an economic lurch. Government retirement retirement provides greater reliablity on returns.
Secular hybrid schemes are far from perfect, being prone to becoming over bureaucratic. That even the best run societies are not delivering what many expect has fueled an often angry the-grass-will-be-greener-only-if-we-opt-for-a-more-right-wing-theolibertarian society. An illusion promoted by mass disiformation promoted by many plutocrats, and aided by wide ignorance of how poorly the libertatrian oligarchy actually performs. Dumping secular progressvism in favor of autocracy right or left, or divine fantasies, is not the solution because they produce inferior collective societal outcomes. The goal needs to be to produce a balance between the driving force of industrial capital with the critical government support for the lower and middle classes to produce the best overall socioeconomic conditions in a democratic context, that as a side effect does a demographic number on the illusion that is the benificial creator.
FAITH AND IDEOLOGY BASED SOCIOECONOMICS HAVE FAILED AND ALWAYS WILL
Despite its big promises, the religious industry cannot be associated with successful societies because creator worship is too immoral on dogmatic, scriptural and most importantly by cold hard real world measures. But even if creator worship were ethically and societally sound, that would not rescue it because the resulting successful society would be toxic to the no longer as useful magical belief system. While atheism is amoral, the evil nature of a creator and the deal making for favors automatically renders theism immoral. Skeptics have open access to moral agency closed to creator worshippers who must do what their unethical creator demands. The inability of theism to generate societal success is itself further refutation of the loving creator. The belief in the superiority of libertarian economics promoted by the theoright constitutes another urban legend – this one concocted largely by inept atheist theorists and adopted by the Christian right. The atheosecular community has done a fair job getting the word out on how the best run societies are the least religious to the degree most agree theism in not working as it shrinks in most regions, with even the supernaturalists sometimes getting the information. Albeit not enough to sufficiently counter the trend towards right wing authoritarianism that will gravely degrade socioeconomic conditions while oppressing much of the population, with the American wing working to establish a permanent white dominated Christian nationalist regime (Paul 2023 and refs therein) which features theoconservative elements. Even in secular western Europe the right often claims to be defending traditional Christian values if not actual beliefs. Although initial releases of the statistics got international attention a couple decades ago, a nontheism unfriendly mainstream and even progressive news media has since not been interested (as discussed at https://secularfrontier.infidels.org/2022/06/theocancel-culture-discrimination-by-neglect-the-chronic-news-and-opinion-media-bigotry-against-atheists/
And for reasons I do not get the atheosecular community has been scandalously and imprudently amiss in not citing the Children’s Holocaust as an absolute disproof of a creator than has the best intentions regarding humanity. The shocking facts that hardly any know has the potential to be a global game changer if becomes as known that any creator is a destroyer of tens of billions as say the heliocentric theory, and the majority opinion that religion is not a societal positive is correct. The only way to find out is to get the terrible moral facts out to the world as a novel major meme. It should be a stock atheist argument from the personal level on up. And the theologians need to be pressed to either put up a sensible counter argument, or concede that the religious industry is putting out a fake product.
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