Yet again, New Zealand has topped The Vision of Humanities ‘2010 Global Peace Index’.
In a repeat of last year, it’s exclusively the secular countries (below) that are revealed to be the most peaceful.
Just like last year we get to see that the war-mongering countries on this planet are in-fact those inhabited by a population that largely embraces religion and superstition.
The facts are damning and the only conclusion one can make is - if more people dropped their religious hatred and primitive superstitious behaviour – the planet we inhabit would be a safer place.
New Zealand (1 in 2009)
Iceland (4)
Japan (7)
Austria (5)
Norway(3)
Ireland
Denmark (2)
Luxembourg
Finland (9)
Sweden (6)
The bottom ten are:
Iraq (1)
Somalia (3)
Afghanistan (2)
Sudan (5)
Pakistan (8)
Israel (4)
Russia (9)
Georgia
Chad (7)
Congo (6)
F.Y.I: Australia (19) U.K (31) USA (85)
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10 comments:
Are you kidding?
If you grant that history has anything to do with this... think about which countries on your list have historically been largely Christian. In the top ten - all of them except Japan.
Iceland, Austria, Norway, Ireland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Finland and Sweden have strongly Christian pasts, and many still have a state church and very high religious affiliation.
Now lets look at the bottom ten.
I'm guessing Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, Sudan,
Pakistan, Israel, Chad, and Congo don't strike you as having had strong Christian influence of late? Russia, despite its Orthodox past, has recently been marked by a strong anti-religious history during severe communism oppression.
Hardly a balanced fair conclusion.
If you rejoice in secular society and freedom of religion, you may find you have Protestant Christianity to thank for it! Do the research.
I think the causation is mostly the other way around. People who feel safe don't need religion. A good life leads to atheism, not really the other way around. And it's not like the people of Somalia can just adopt atheism out of nowhere and their situation would improve.
Perhaps a more accurate title for your post would have been:
Pursuing peace? Be a nation with
-ample resources
-few shared borders, preferably an island
-political stability
-a history of Protestant Reformation
@Secular Planet, the point is that religion probably has little causative effect, as there are so many other issues contributing (politics, economics, resources, geography, history). There are also historical reasons, and if anything Protestant Christianity has a positive effect in this regard.
Using 'religion' as a homogeneous category helps very little in actually explaining anything.
The historic fact a country was ‘X’ one hundred years ago and it was because of ‘X’ the country is now ‘Y’ is a nonsensical argument.
This list measures a country today and not whenever you so conveniently pick.
Today these peaceful countries are inhabited by in-large by atheists and are secular democracies – that's what this study indicates.
Using your logic, Germany had a strong history of National Socialism fifty years ago and therefore it owes its system of democracy to Adolf Hitler!
Instead of grasping at straws if you wanted to point to Christian virtue 'positive effect' -then why not point to The United States (88% Christian) as a current leading-light when it comes to peace?
I rest my case.
Thanks for your comments.
Paul.
You think history and geography is non-sensical?
I'm guessing you studied CompSci or MechEng.
Sorry SM I am unable to follow your correlation that it is because of Christianity these pronominally Atheistic secular countries came top of this list?
The prime example I can give for Christianity having no positive bearing on a peoples propensity towards aggression is The United States of America.
The U.S (85th on the list) also takes away any perceived discrepancy that income and geography(?) are somehow to blame, rather than the peoples make-up.
In case you were not aware98% of people in Republic of Congo (the last country on the list) happen to be 'good honest' theists.
http://canterburyatheists.blogspot.com/2009/02/holidays-in-theist-hell-holes-join-our.html
Note: Sorry I am totally lost by your references to CompSci or MechEng and fail to see what my education level has to do with this topic? Do I need a degree to run a blog nowadays?
Cheers.
Paul.
Last comment (I suspect ever because I can see there is little rational thought going on here).
You have to be kidding. Who on earth, in trying to explain unrest in the D.R of Congo, would point to 'good honest theism' as a cause.
Congo is religiously syncretistic, with most people labelled 'Christian' also engaging in traditional African tribal religion. In other words, it's often just a label. Not exactly good honest theism.
And flip, correlation does not equal causation. You're right, you don't need a degree to understand this stuff - but refusing to consider that these results might be due to anything else than religion. Read my comments again. I wasn't making a simplistic correlation Christian history = peace. But I was suggesting it is much more complicated than you make out, and that the top countries do have in common a very strong Christian heritage, including still having official state churches. There are many issues-
-ample resources
-few shared borders, preferably an island
-political stability
And you think religious people live in a dream world.
How about we do a graph of Atheism vs GPI, just looking at EU countries to have a fairer comparison. This graph shows that its impossible to make a simple correlation, and in fact the most peaceful countries are not the most atheistic, and the most atheistic is not the most peaceful.
QED. Your analysis is bogus.
If Christianity and belief in the God ‘Yahweh’ and his son, was any form of social-panacea for building a peaceful,loving society this would be borne-out in studies such as this.
The United States would be a safer place to wander the streets rather than Tokyo, which is inhabited largely by heathens.
Yes, there are other factors, other than the superstitious level of the populous, that need to be taken into account, like the relative wealth of the countries in question.
The sanctimonious attitude that Christianity, Islam, The Ju Ju God from an African Jungle, belief in The Norse Gods of Scandinavia somehow makes peoples “better” is a false one.
Just the opposite is in-fact the case – lack of belief translates into a better and more open society.
See ya.
Paul.
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