Religion the number one cause of poverty!

One of the things religion provides to the human spirit is hope. Prayer is a refuge for people who are failing but aren't ready to despair. Obviously, the wealthy are more likely to be content with their state and less likely to feel they need supernatural help to accomplish things. Those already content with life perceive less need for religion to inspire them. If they think about it at all, they decide that God must be on their side already, and maybe they remember to thank him.

I think people stay in poverty for one of two reasons: their own incompetence, or lack of opportunity.

Often when the cause is their own incompetence, people in poverty take the "Jesus do it for me" approach and do nothing themselves to climb out. In that case I don't believe it's fair to blame the religion for their condition. But when the cause is lack of opportunity, it's often the case that those who deny them opportunity encourage a theology that teaches them to be content to be poor. It still isn't religion that causes the poverty -- religion merely provides a rational excuse for what would otherwise be obvious injustice.

So I guess I'd conclude that religion facilitates laziness which cause poverty,then in turn poverty causes more religion. and the circle keeps going ..this behavior is called hopend !
  agnophilo wrote
I routinely check out the latest gallup polls, and they often have ones about religion.  I just saw this one:

People were asked if religion played an important part in their daily lives, the dark green states said yes with rates as high as 85% saying yes, and the lightest states said no with rates as low as half of that saying religion was important to their daily lives.

Out of curiosity I wondered what the poverty rates were in the dark and light regions and guessed there would be some kind of correlation.  So I googled it and the first map I found (from the CDC) indicating poverty geographically showed this:

 Notice any sort of correlation?

Now three things can be deduced from this:

One, it's a random fluke.  Unlikely, but possible.

Two, it indicates that religion causes poverty.

Or three, it indicates that poverty promotes religious adherence.

I think it's a combination of 2 and 3.  I think that religion generally throws a monkey wrench into society when politicians use it to get elected, swindle their constituents and ignore their needs, and I think - actually make that I know that sadness and pain and kittens dying etc promotes religious adherence.  There is almost always an up-tick in church attendance and other social indicators of religious adherence whenever there is a disaster.  Bear in mind homicide rates and pregnancies go up as well, religion isn't the only way people cope with bad times.

The reason this is important is because it puts religion not in the realm of something we objectively know or can verify or can independently conclude, but rather in the realm of human psychology.  Religious devotion isn't caused by god reaching down from heaven and touching your soul, it is caused by your upbringing, culture and life experiences.  If god called out to all people and everyone "knew god in their hearts" as many evangelists claim, or the evidence for christianity is abundantly obvious as many creationists insist, then there would not be correlations like this, and poverty, disasters and geography wouldn't determine religious belief.  But they do.


SHARE WITH YOUR VIEWS ... look at africa , the most religious continent of earth as well as the most poor continent on earth !!!!!!!!