I said "belief system", ie. a series of assumptions which shapes the behaviour and mores of a person or society. A religion is that, but it's also a codified, ritualized structure in a way that atheism is not.
My point is that all societies are built upon a series of assumptions and so singling one particular type of belief out from others is disingenuous; Catholic beliefs paired with political control of a society led to the Inquisition in the same way that Soviet and Maoist beliefs (which are inherently atheistic) paired with political control of a society lead to gulags, slavery, starvation and mass executions.
Atheism is as much a belief system as not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Atheists do not "believe" or "Take for granted"; we assess by what can be verified as fact. You can't say this is unreasonable, as the same logic that would lead us to take on faith your "belief" should rightfully also lead both of us to accept "belief" in Zeus, Bigfoot and the Tooth Fairy. Though even then, there's far more support for the last two than the former.
"Nah, that sounds like horseshit" is a definitive statement. I'm not ribbing atheism here, especially considering I am an atheist. Like mentioned, atheistic beliefs were codified into law in several 20th century countries and used to control.
I'm talking specifically about fedora tipping atheism here, because there are absolutely tons of atheists who would refuse to accept evidence of God if it did appear. But just like there's plenty of sure in their ways but harmless Christians, it's the same for atheists. It's simply that the first step is completely believing in a stance, which for atheists is "God is completely made up and not real".
Well, actually according to your Bible's claim that even the Devil can appear as a being of light if he was there he's making it purposefully difficult to find reason to believe in him.
As for "That sounds like horse shit", would you describe yourself as Afairy? Aunicorn? AKraken? Would you not think it ridiculous if I inisted that the girls from some anime were real and must be respected? Why must you insist on forcing a negative into an affirmative statement? How many people are obligated to identify as a non stamp collector?
The claim that people don't believe in your deity because there is no proof is laughable. There have been many people who've done the exact opposite when proof was staring them directly in the face; less we forget the Catholic Church thanks to the Geocentric model of the universe it affirmed was absolute truth required it to condemn "belief" and ban books that explained the existence of the Planets that would become known as Uranus and Neptune as heresy; despite it being very easy to prove at that stage. Why even today we've got Theists who insist that the world is flat!
I don't mean to sound condescending, but I know it inevitably will be taken as such. I appreciate there are people in this world who for one reason or another; be it the indescribable suffering they live amongst, an inability to accept death or just finding being told what to do comforting but not all of us are this unfortunate or weak. You don't offend people like me by talking about Euphoria, you just sound pathetic. In no other context are we expected to justify the non existence of mermaids, the monster that lives under your bed or the little green men from Andromeda; you sound like an idiot.
As for the claim that Christians are harmless; considering their common stances on things such as women's rights, contraception, abortion and other issues that their imaginary friends insists must be installed as law I think they're anything but harmless. Anyone who believes they are being guided by the hand and enforcing the will of Napoleon Bonaparte would risk being locked up in an asylum, but if you do it in the nape of a first century carpenter for some reason we are obligated to accept this as reasonable and worthy of respect.
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Now as for the OP. I personally do think religion, especially Abrahamic and Indian religions, is harbored and maintained through desperation and hope in a better tomorrow for those who cannot or will not change the world now. However, I would be very hesitant to use these statistics as the sole reason behind them. The Czech Republic is a bit of an anomaly; they are a group that for most of history has been directly persecuted by Catholics and Protestants alike; and seems to have come to the general perspective that religion is a bad thing altogether. Though religious persecution has been universal at some point, it was more normally the case that one religion persecuted another religion rather than multiple religions ganging up upon one group the way the Christians did to the Czechs.
There is a bit of the "Which came first, the chicken or the egg" about this situation in poor countries. Does poverty and ignorance beget religion, or does religion beget poverty and ignorance? I think there's more of a vicious cycle, one causes the other over and over and it continues to amplify until the balance is disturbed (conditions improve or a better religion, either materially or promise wise, moves in). Africans were poor before the Christian Missionaries moved in, but accepting the colonial faith over their own at the time did provide social advancement or material that the others did not which broke the maintainence of native religions.
TL;DR: I think Religion can be a cause of poverty, such as Islam removing 50% of the population from productivity outright, but during the initial stages it is a symptom. In the decades prior to Islam Arabia had undergone changes and threats to their native way of life, threatened by the encroachment of the wealthy Christian and Persian powers both heavily influenced by a foreign and exotic religion entirely different from their native polytheism. They took aspects of both, and created a power of their own. Islam was born in a society under threat from outsiders, and then until it burst outwards in the form of the Islamic conquest was the symptom rather than a cause it would later become.
I think the internet and seeing just how better the "evil" western world is will slowly become the death of religion as we know it as a system of dogmatic belief and supernatural power on a wider scale; when they realize those their deities despise live far more fufilled and productive lives despite all the prayers the long faithful make. It might not end up on this grand scale, but we can't say the logic doesn't hold; bar migrants into first world nations traditional forms of piety are dying in the regions with the most technology access and education.
Okay well not sure if this is true or not, but Weber, a sociologist, wrote extensively about a theory he had that protestant countries do better than others because of a stronger work ethic due to the inherent values of the religion. Modern capitalism is the product of calvinist ethics and the encouragement of literacy.
en.wikipedia.org
Not sure if its actually true or not, but its a interesting idea imo.
This could just be a case of Protestantism encouraging literacy and criticism of some forms of authority (i.e: the Catholic priesthood) and self reflection; which in turn granted access to other sources of information and the ability to interpret and consider them.
