The prosperity of Christian nations
Offline So, just back from visiting family in Norway for almost 6 weeks. Nice to get my RRS fix again! (I don't mean to imply that the country of Norway doesn't have internet access. Just the place in Norway where I spent most of my time. 
)
Anyway, I was visiting with an aunt for a couple of days. She's a born-again Christian. Coverted back in the 70's. She's generally good about not being preachy. And from time to time during our coversations she would say things I didn't agree with. But I didn't plan to argue with her about anything.
She did say one thing, though, that I wouldn't have been immediately able to discredit even if I had been planning to debate her.
She said something along the lines of "Look at all the most prosperous nations on Earth - they're all Christian."
Using the assumption that nations with high literacy rates could be defined as "prosperous", I pulled up the United Nations Development Programme Report from 2005.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate
Twenty-one countries are tied for first place with a literacy rate of 99.9%. There are an additional 43 nations with literacy rates between 95% and 99.8%.
For comparison, I also looked that the Human Poverty Index from 2006 to see which countries have the lowest poverty rates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Poverty_Index
The list is pretty much the same. Most of the countries at the top of each list are predominantly Christian.
Now, clearly I don't think these nations are prosperous because Jesus is their buddy. If you look at a graphical representation of literacy rates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Literacy_rate_world.PNG
it's clear that Africa, the Middle East and southeast Asia have it the worst. Africa and the Middle East consist largely of desert nations (several of which Christians love to hate!), so it's no surpise that there would be increasing numbers of people trying to live off of minimal resources.
My question, to bring an end to this long post, is: How do you refute the argument that there must be a (Christian) God because all of the most prosperous nations on Earth are Christian? I suspect someone with a history degree could answer this better than I could. I have a couple of points that I'll jump in with once someone else has a go at it.
Nobody I know was brainwashed into being an atheist.
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The richest nations on earth are Secular. If her arguement is that countries with a higher Christian population are richer than others, that's an appeal to popularity. And I'll tell you why.
There are more Christians in the world than any other religion.
Edit: Demonination is not religion.
As was pointed out above those top nations aren't christian they arfe secular. The nations with high illiteracy rates are more often nations where dogma, religious or political, trumps education.
Aside from this fact if one was to think that there must be a christian god because nations with higher christian populations are prosperous then would it not be necessary, for sake of consistency, to think that the Roman gods must have actually existed for several centuries?
“Philosophers have argued for centuries about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but materialists have always known it depends on whether they are jitterbugging or dancing cheek to cheek" -- Tom Robbins
And they are...?
It depends on what you define as "top". The Bible says that hoarding riches isn't suggested, so countries with a large percentage of Christians aren't likely to be trying to get millions upon millions in riches.
And your evidence for this...?
Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
http://internationaltrade.suite101.com/article.cfm/world_s_richest_countries
Notice a trend?
Two words: Dark Ages
For a long time the Muslim world had the upper hand on civilization, and they thought that was evidence for Islam.
Yes, but this is the average for how much money per person is spent per year...not earned. I wonder if the money spent in this statistic includes money spent that people don't have, such as credit cards, loans, etc. IMHO, I think that a better way of showing the richest country would be to show the average income.
Hmm...good point.
Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
That links about the GNP, gross national product, which is something along the lines of a estimate of the total value of goods produced in a country in a year.
In other words, that's about how much money is made per person per year. I'd call that a good way to find out who the richest nations are in terms of population. None of those nations, as far as I know, have a national religion.
There is a reason why most of what we call the western world is insanely sucessful and rich (per capita).
FTA: GNP per capita is the most widely accepted index for a country's financial success. Also referred to as Gross National Income, this much publicized statistic represents the total amount of money that a country's consumers spend (ed.-not make) on all goods and services in a year, divided by that country's population.
Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
These maps show the changing distribution of Gross National Product/capita. Gross National Product is the total value added from domestic and foreign sources claimed by residents of a country. In other words it is GDP (Gross Domestic Product, the value of goods and services produced within a country) plus net income received by residents from non-resident sources. GNP/capita is the total divided by the number of people in the country. In other words, GNP/capita is a measure of national income per person.
http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/gnp/gnp.html
What would be the point of christian nations having prosperity? Aren't the poor supposed to get the kingdom of god?
There are no theists on operating tables.
Yes. The meak shall inherit the earth and the poor will sit up next to God on beach front property.