Wealth and Atheism
Atheism and agnosticism are labels used to describe people who have an active disbelief that god(s) exists, do not know whether a god(s) exists, or believe it is impossible to prove whether God(s) exists. The term "non-religious" is used for those who have no religious affiliation.
Some studies have found correlations between wealth and lack of religious beliefs. The GDP of countries generally correlates negatively with their religiosity, i.e. the less religious a population is the wealthier it is.
It has further been theorized that wealthy countries, whether religious or non-religious, in order to become wealthy, encourage education, personal wealth, and intellectual resources, and in the course of doing so, allow freedom of thought.
Read more about this topic: Wealth And Religion
Famous quotes containing the words wealth and/or atheism:
“It must not be thought that the cowardly feeling of caution and uneasy self-preservation is innate in the English character. It is the consequence of a corpulence derived from wealth and of the training of all thoughts and passions for acquisitiveness.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“But they that hold God to be [an incorporeal substance] ... do absolutely make God to be nothing at all. But how? Were they atheists? No. For though by ignorance of the consequence they said that which was equivalent to atheism, yet in their hearts they thought God a substance ... So that this atheism by consequence is a very easy thing to be fallen into, even by the most godly men of the church.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)