The Destruction of Religions

[Ray Rider]

According to this article, the self-destruction of Christianity might already be in progress.

http://www.alternet.org/belief/155462/h ... age=entire

How the Christian Right's Homophobia Scares Away Religious Young People
The Christian right is increasingly out of step with how Americans feel about gay rights. This issue might be the one that destroys them in the end.

In case you hadn't noticed, the USA =/= the world, and Christianity includes more than just Christians in the US.

[oss spy]

I live in the Bible Belt. Do you know how many people think that evolution is fact?

...No? You have no idea? Neither do I. This is because Christianity here has stifled it. They (the people here) believe that the Bible is 100% true. I have a friend who thinks the Earth is 6,000 years old. There was a girl in my Speech & Debate class who thought it was bull shit that there was magma underneath the Earth.

Don't ever say that religion is useful now. Bull shit spreads like a god damn wild fire and people learn it young so it's impossible to deconstruct their silly beliefs.

[Maugena]

I happily look forward to the destruction of all religions.

Religion is a thin, wire lock holding 6 billion violent inmates from charging out of the asylum and gang-raping you. The educated class on this planet is too small of a percentage of the overall population to make civilization functional without the psychological lever of religion. It will be hundreds of years before it's safe to get rid of religion. That's my issue with activist atheists.

Gravity has killed many people and caused much suffering. I don't think we should get rid of gravity.

You do make a very good point. -One that I actually agree with.
Though I'd suppose if we don't chip away at it while we can, it may persist, holding us back longer than if we actually did something.
I suppose the best approach is gradual rather than immediate. There would be catastrophic backlash if it was immediate, most certainly.

The more I think about it, though, the more it aggravates me. All the time wasted believing in it, for one, and two, all the time wasted trying to pry people from their traditional beliefs, amongst many other reasons...

[Army of GOD]

according to Civilization, religion only causes wars in 1 of 5 games while it causes happiness in all 5.

[Night Strike]

Equating religion with "fantasy land" is a fantastical argument. Christianity is based in reality. Just because you don't believe something doesn't make it false.

[chang50]

astromony for one is a easy one , many people were burned at the stake for their ideas like Giordano Bruno and Michael Servetus. there are many other fields taht they held back not just astronomy.[/quote]
Actually this is not factually correct. There was some oppression, yes, but it was not as widespread as commonly thought. Further, while the church did limit some people, it also provided a haven of research, promoted literacy and study in other formats. A lot of nasty things happened in this period, but it very much laid the foundation for advancements that came after.

A good foundation often begins with a hole.[/quote]

As an atheist I have to agree with Player the 'conflict thesis' between science and religion has been largely discredited,and is inaccurate historically.The church encouraged science because it expected its findings to reinforce,or at least not challenge their beliefs.It's only when it didn't that there were potential problems.Neither Bruno or Servetus were simply martyrs to science,their story is far more nuanced,and interesting than that.

[thegreekdog]

I'm curious, does anyone know the influence of religion on early human civilizations?

From what I understand, all early civilizations were heavily religious...Babylonians, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian all had strong religious beliefs as a whole. I'm asking because I don't know, but I feel like religion might have been vital at least for the start of humanity as we know it.

I don't know about its current impact, but it's absolutely ridiculous to say we'd be better off with/without religion because it's all god damn speculation anyway.

Huge, gigantic influence. According to most things I've read and heard religion was used to justify the holding of power by those in power. "Hey, deity wants me to sit in this throne room... and oh yeah, he just told me you need to get me some gold."

I live in the Bible Belt. Do you know how many people think that evolution is fact?

...No? You have no idea? Neither do I. This is because Christianity here has stifled it. They (the people here) believe that the Bible is 100% true. I have a friend who thinks the Earth is 6,000 years old. There was a girl in my Speech & Debate class who thought it was bull shit that there was magma underneath the Earth.

Don't ever say that religion is useful now. Bull shit spreads like a god damn wild fire and people learn it young so it's impossible to deconstruct their silly beliefs.

Who cares? If not knowing evolution causes a moron not to succeed in life, great. If the moron can succeed in life without knowing about evolution, then who cares?

[PLAYER57832]

I live in the Bible Belt. Do you know how many people think that evolution is fact?

...No? You have no idea? Neither do I. This is because Christianity here has stifled it. They (the people here) believe that the Bible is 100% true. I have a friend who thinks the Earth is 6,000 years old. There was a girl in my Speech & Debate class who thought it was bull shit that there was magma underneath the Earth.

Don't ever say that religion is useful now. Bull shit spreads like a god damn wild fire and people learn it young so it's impossible to deconstruct their silly beliefs.

Actually Evolution, the full theory is not fact. Neither is, as has been pointed out, the theory of gravity.

That fact has been exploited and blurred significantly and intentionally by the far right. They have exploited a gap in education to insist that there is a question and that religion can offern an "alternative". The problem is that all "alternatives" are not based on fact or truth. To claim that something based on a lie is fundamentally of Christian intent and origin is just plain wrong.

And that pretty well illustrates the problem with this whole debate. The problem here is not actually religion. People fit religion into their mindset, culture as much as they allow religion to shape those things. In all cases, a lot is steered by those at the top. In the Dark Ages and Middle Ages, the church was a prominent, if not the prominent power in Europe. It is therefore easy to blame the Roman Catholic church for all the ills we now see from that time. However, we have the benefit of looking back from a time of much greater knowledge. The fact is that the "Dark Ages" were actually not as "dark" as many of us have been commonly led to believe. In fact, there was a great deal of dynamic thought and discussion. We don't have as many records of it as we do of later times because of the lack of widespread printing and literacy. But, if you criticize, remember this. To be educated in the Dark and Middle Ages essentially meant to BE in the church. To be educated outside of the church to a large extent just did not happen. That is actually why we see the oppression of learned people. It is because they were, in fact operating within the church.. or essentially percieved to be working within the church. The major debates were internal debates. How should we, as Christians see the world? Out of this came the Protestant revolution and the industrial revolution both. It took a long journey, but the repressions that you see were growing pains.

Today we are in a new paradigm shift. We have lived in a time when individuals had not only had true freedom, both economic and in thinking , but essentially have access to almost every thought that has ever been expressed and recorded by humans. (note I said "recorded" and "almost"). Yet... those at the top see that people and education are a threat. So, the move is now to reverse that. The current move is not really from churches, though churches are one of the tools used. That is the real reason why churches are actually beginning to fail, because so many are resting their foundation on lies such as trying to prove evolution and much of environmental science wrong, on claims that we have an obligation to support any person that human technology can keep alive without also answering honestly the questions of when too much is just too much, and of attempting to push the roles of women and other humans back into a mold that has only truly existed for about 200 years.

[PLAYER57832]

I'm curious, does anyone know the influence of religion on early human civilizations?

From what I understand, all early civilizations were heavily religious...Babylonians, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian all had strong religious beliefs as a whole. I'm asking because I don't know, but I feel like religion might have been vital at least for the start of humanity as we know it.

I don't know about its current impact, but it's absolutely ridiculous to say we'd be better off with/without religion because it's all god damn speculation anyway.

Huge, gigantic influence. According to most things I've read and heard religion was used to justify the holding of power by those in power. "Hey, deity wants me to sit in this throne room... and oh yeah, he just told me you need to get me some gold."

I think you are both missing something pretty fundamental.

What is the first question humans have come to ask? It is, in fact, about our origins, about why things happen. Contrary to what you both seem to argue, religion itself is the fundament of creative, even "scientific" thinking (with the clarification that I use the broadest definition of science of simply seeking answers and reviewing evidence.. that they might have had less narrow ideas about evidence does not change that the fundamental process was the same).

People came up with very different answers. Leaders, of course, tried to concentrate their power. However, for most of humanity there was no such thing as great thinking outside of religion, not really. That is why leaders claimed power from God. ALL came from God in the early view. All thought, all ideas. Religion was not the constricting force some wish to claim now. It was the mover of ideas themselves. Religion is fundamentally one thing, even more than tool use, that really and truly set us apart as humans. Claiming that religion limited us is like saying that apes are human simply because they use a few tools.

Who cares? If not knowing evolution causes a moron not to succeed in life, great. If the moron can succeed in life without knowing about evolution, then who cares?

Because this is not really about evolution, that is just the surface front or means of entry. The goal is to establish science as not based on true and indisputable facts, to claim that its all just opinion and fluid like any other type of thinking. It is not cooincidence that you see a parallel between denial of evolution and many of the furthest right claims. There is a slight push back within the fundamental Christian community to say "hey, God made this Earth, we need to protect it", but lacking the real and deep knowledge of what is needed, its superficial.. plant a few trees, recycle. None of that is going to solve the world's ecological problems, ensure that we truly have a safe and reasonable country or world for our children.

For all people talk about Africa, it would be good to remember that that is where humanity began and that it began there giving huge riches to millenia of humans. Now, much of the regions cannot support themselves. Part of the reason is that we have taken much of what they have, but part of it is that a lot of fundamental destruction already happened before Europeans came in with their destruction. The resources we now extract from Africa cause even greater harm than poor agricultural practices, over-harvesting of forests did in the past. Yet, those things were fundamental to why many nations failed.

Or, you could look at China. China now has a wealth in people, but they still lack resources.

We forget that our economy and success are closely tied to the health of the world around us to our detriment.

[saxitoxin]

I happily look forward to the destruction of all religions.

Religion is a thin, wire lock holding 6 billion violent inmates from charging out of the asylum and gang-raping you. The educated class on this planet is too small of a percentage of the overall population to make civilization functional without the psychological lever of religion. It will be hundreds of years before it's safe to get rid of religion. That's my issue with activist atheists.

Gravity has killed many people and caused much suffering. I don't think we should get rid of gravity.

You do make a very good point. -One that I actually agree with.
Though I'd suppose if we don't chip away at it while we can, it may persist, holding us back longer than if we actually did something.

I guess when HansJoachim was 6 years old, I could have started letting him make short trips to the store, but I still think it was best to wait until he was 16 to learn to drive.

(Actually I adopted HansJoachim when he was 19, but for purposes of this analogy let's assume it was earlier.)

[Night Strike]

The church encouraged science because it expected its findings to reinforce,or at least not challenge their beliefs.It's only when it didn't that there were potential problems.

Actually, everything I've seen HAS reinforced my belief that God created everything. There's no way everything from the quark to the universe itself could have happened by chance as well as be finely tuned for the thriving variety of life we have here on Earth. From the chemical reactions I deal with on a daily basis, to all the physics, biology, and mathematics I've studied, creation simply makes sense to explain how everything exists in our world in exactly the correct way. Evolution and random chance just doesn't satisfy these observations.

[BigBallinStalin]

Okay, I guess a couple of things:

(1) Astronomy - who cares? I don't mean this to be an asshole and (2) plays a factor, but why would the free-er study of astronomy as early as the 16th century have advanced society?

(2) Astronomy did pretty well for itself despite the perceived exhortations of the Catholic and Protestant Churches.

(3) Bruno was executed for pantheistic beliefs. Servetus was executed for similar religious-type violations (i.e. John Calvin hated him). Neither man was executed because they were astronomers or due to their scientific beliefs.

What I'm wondering here is this - if Bruno and Servetus were not executed, what would they have done differently or better? How would astronomy have advanced if they had lived? How would astronomy's advancement helped society? And, finally, was astronomy really held back by religion or is that just a popular theme to bring up in casual conversation to make it seem like religion is this horrible thing that hinders scientific advancement?

> admits religion killed people for bullshit reasons
> argues religion isn't really that bad

... ?

It's simple really, Any irrational belief that can potentially lead one to change one's behaviour is dangerous, because in the long term its results are unexpected, no matter how noble the intentions might be.

Do we really need to go into specifics here? Missionaries caring more for converting the native populations than any kind of aid. "Houses of the poor" being basically places where the poor are brought to die righteously, rather then them getting actual treatment. Condoms condemned because after all what's a little HIV compared to going to hell? and so on and so forth.

Governments killed shit-tons of people. Shall we do away with them? .

Yes.

[PLAYER57832]

The church encouraged science because it expected its findings to reinforce,or at least not challenge their beliefs.It's only when it didn't that there were potential problems.

Actually, everything I've seen HAS reinforced my belief that God created everything. There's no way everything from the quark to the universe itself could have happened by chance as well as be finely tuned for the thriving variety of life we have here on Earth. From the chemical reactions I deal with on a daily basis, to all the physics, biology, and mathematics I've studied, creation simply makes sense to explain how everything exists in our world in exactly the correct way.

Yes, but that has nothing to do with opposing Evolution. Why cannot evolution be true?

Evolution and random chance just doesn't satisfy these observations.

That you combine these two in this way shows you understand neither... and you have made clear you refuse to try to understand. That makes you not just ignorant, but actually evil. Christ never taught us to deny truth. Refusing to understand and investigate that which you decry is lying and goes against God.

I have met a VERY few people who actually do understand Evolution and believe it false, but you are not among those few.

[BigBallinStalin]

I'm curious, does anyone know the influence of religion on early human civilizations?

From what I understand, all early civilizations were heavily religious...Babylonians, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian all had strong religious beliefs as a whole. I'm asking because I don't know, but I feel like religion might have been vital at least for the start of humanity as we know it.

I don't know about its current impact, but it's absolutely ridiculous to say we'd be better off with/without religion because it's all god damn speculation anyway.

Without a doubt, founding a religion certainly boosted the happiness, this social control, of their elite groups. I also believe that a the religion became more organized, the production time of buildings was reduced by 50%.

These facts cannot be denied.

[BigBallinStalin]

I'm curious, does anyone know the influence of religion on early human civilizations?

From what I understand, all early civilizations were heavily religious...Babylonians, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian all had strong religious beliefs as a whole. I'm asking because I don't know, but I feel like religion might have been vital at least for the start of humanity as we know it.

I don't know about its current impact, but it's absolutely ridiculous to say we'd be better off with/without religion because it's all god damn speculation anyway.

Huge, gigantic influence. According to most things I've read and heard religion was used to justify the holding of power by those in power. "Hey, deity wants me to sit in this throne room... and oh yeah, he just told me you need to get me some gold."

I think you are both missing something pretty fundamental.

What is the first question humans have come to ask? It is, in fact, about our origins, about why things happen. Contrary to what you both seem to argue, religion itself is the fundament of creative, even "scientific" thinking (with the clarification that I use the broadest definition of science of simply seeking answers and reviewing evidence.. that they might have had less narrow ideas about evidence does not change that the fundamental process was the same).

People came up with very different answers. Leaders, of course, tried to concentrate their power. However, for most of humanity there was no such thing as great thinking outside of religion, not really. That is why leaders claimed power from God. ALL came from God in the early view. All thought, all ideas. Religion was not the constricting force some wish to claim now. It was the mover of ideas themselves. Religion is fundamentally one thing, even more than tool use, that really and truly set us apart as humans. Claiming that religion limited us is like saying that apes are human simply because they use a few tools.

Who cares? If not knowing evolution causes a moron not to succeed in life, great. If the moron can succeed in life without knowing about evolution, then who cares?

Because this is not really about evolution, that is just the surface front or means of entry. The goal is to establish science as not based on true and indisputable facts, to claim that its all just opinion and fluid like any other type of thinking. It is not cooincidence that you see a parallel between denial of evolution and many of the furthest right claims. There is a slight push back within the fundamental Christian community to say "hey, God made this Earth, we need to protect it", but lacking the real and deep knowledge of what is needed, its superficial.. plant a few trees, recycle. None of that is going to solve the world's ecological problems, ensure that we truly have a safe and reasonable country or world for our children.

For all people talk about Africa, it would be good to remember that that is where humanity began and that it began there giving huge riches to millenia of humans. Now, much of the regions cannot support themselves. Part of the reason is that we have taken much of what they have, but part of it is that a lot of fundamental destruction already happened before Europeans came in with their destruction. The resources we now extract from Africa cause even greater harm than poor agricultural practices, over-harvesting of forests did in the past. Yet, those things were fundamental to why many nations failed.

Or, you could look at China. China now has a wealth in people, but they still lack resources.

We forget that our economy and success are closely tied to the health of the world around us to our detriment.

Lol what was that about China and Africa? Many of those regions have plenty of resources and plenty of capital. The main issue, especially for Africa, is lacking the institutions which are most encourage production and saving.

E.g. Banking, insurance, stable currency, legal systems--formal and informal, etc.

[thegreekdog]

I'm curious, does anyone know the influence of religion on early human civilizations?

From what I understand, all early civilizations were heavily religious...Babylonians, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian all had strong religious beliefs as a whole. I'm asking because I don't know, but I feel like religion might have been vital at least for the start of humanity as we know it.

I don't know about its current impact, but it's absolutely ridiculous to say we'd be better off with/without religion because it's all god damn speculation anyway.

Without a doubt, founding a religion certainly boosted the happiness, this social control, of their elite groups. I also believe that a the religion became more organized, the production time of buildings was reduced by 50%.

These facts cannot be denied.

I thought it was that the production time of religious buildings was reduced by 50%.

Also, you get great benefits for being the founder of a religion. But then you have to send out missionaries to make sure your other cities have the same religion (otherwise you get penalties). I'm going to play Civ 5 right now. Work be damned.

[Night Strike]

Evolution and random chance just doesn't satisfy these observations.

That you combine these two in this way shows you understand neither... and you have made clear you refuse to try to understand. That makes you not just ignorant, but actually evil. Christ never taught us to deny truth. Refusing to understand and investigate that which you decry is lying and goes against God.

I have met a VERY few people who actually do understand Evolution and believe it false, but you are not among those few.

Ok.

To believe in evolution implies that everything happen completely randomly from the beginning of time until the end of time. Theistic evolution is not consistent with the Bible because it requires death in order to change species, and the order of the creation story is completely out of order from how everything would have had to have evolved. You have to change the Bible to believe in evolution, so both cannot be true.

[PLAYER57832]

Evolution and random chance just doesn't satisfy these observations.

That you combine these two in this way shows you understand neither... and you have made clear you refuse to try to understand. That makes you not just ignorant, but actually evil. Christ never taught us to deny truth. Refusing to understand and investigate that which you decry is lying and goes against God.

I have met a VERY few people who actually do understand Evolution and believe it false, but you are not among those few.

Ok.

To believe in evolution implies that everything happen completely randomly from the beginning of time until the end of time.

No, you are wrong. That is what young Earth creationist try to claim, but it is factually incorrect. The term 'random" used in reference to evolution, to many scientific processes is basically short hand for "processes we don't understand and/or cannot predict". It does NOT refer to true mathmatical randomness. In fact, true mathematical randomness probably does not even truly exist on Earth anyway (even with computers.... go review some of the many "dice are not random" threads for some pretty decent explanations of mathematical randomness and probability if you don't believe that there is no such things as true randomness). Even when the surface process is understand, no one can prove or disprove God's place in it all.

As an example.. if I pray for God to protect me as I travel and arrive safely, did God intervene? If I get into a car crash did God turn his back? If we cannot come up with firm answers in such "simple" and direct questions as this how then do you claim clarity in biologic processes that are only barely understood?

Theistic evolution is not consistent with the Bible because it requires death in order to change species, and the order of the creation story is completely out of order from how everything would have had to have evolved. You have to change the Bible to believe in evolution, so both cannot be true.

First, the term "Theistic evolution", like the term microevolution was invented by young earth creationists. They are not terms really used outside of that format and those types of debates. That OUGHT to be a clue as to the nonesense of what you claim here, but apparently it isn't.

Actually the creation story pretty much falls in line with modern evolutionary theory. The only minor possible exception is whales, but whale evolution is hardly a foundation of evolutionary theory. A lot is very unknown. ( have gone into detail on this in a couple of other threads, but don't have the time right now).
\
As for the "death must occur for a species to change"... I have no idea where you get that nonsense. We have plenty of the earliest species still existing today. The Horseshoe crab, the Nautilus are both examples, but there are many others. Again, you need to look at what evolutionists say, instead of thinking that young earth creationists are somehow going to give you a real view of what evolutionary theory says. Else, you just look plain stupid.

[Army of GOD]

I'm curious, does anyone know the influence of religion on early human civilizations?

From what I understand, all early civilizations were heavily religious...Babylonians, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian all had strong religious beliefs as a whole. I'm asking because I don't know, but I feel like religion might have been vital at least for the start of humanity as we know it.

I don't know about its current impact, but it's absolutely ridiculous to say we'd be better off with/without religion because it's all god damn speculation anyway.

Without a doubt, founding a religion certainly boosted the happiness, this social control, of their elite groups. I also believe that a the religion became more organized, the production time of buildings was reduced by 50%.

These facts cannot be denied.

I thought it was that the production time of religious buildings was reduced by 50%.

Also, you get great benefits for being the founder of a religion. But then you have to send out missionaries to make sure your other cities have the same religion (otherwise you get penalties). I'm going to play Civ 5 right now. Work be damned.

f*ck Civ 5. They completely did away with religion which I thought was one of the best parts about 4. Also, having a different religion than other civs was a better reason for them hating me than "ohidklolI'mjustgoingtoattackyou".

Civ 4 is years ahead of 5.

[Haggis_McMutton]

I'm not saying religion is fully responsible for shit like that, I'm just saying it's part of the problem, not the solution. When people donate money trying to help and that money is collected and used by other people who spend a significant portion of their lives trying to help you would expect some positive benefit will come. Instead you get nothing because the way they're trying to help isn't grounded in reality, but in fantasy and the people they're trying to help die pretty much as before.

So you don't think the money collected by religious institutions and used (ostensibly) for charity is helping anything at all? That seems cynical and inaccurate. I know that my church (religiously based) collects money from parishioners and uses it to directly benefit the poor and infirm (paying for care, food, etc.). That is a positive benefit. So I don't agree that people get nothing. Maybe in your poor house example that is the case, but it's not making anything worse and it's certainly not causing anything. So, I wouldn't deem it to be part of the problem (certainly not part of the solution either).

Sorry, phrased that wrong, didn't mean it doesn't help at all, meant it as an example of how despite people sacrificing and having the best of intentions, irrational belief can poison all their efforts.

The problem with irrational beliefs, that aren't grounded in reality is that they're not accountable to anything, they're not falsifiable they don't make predictions, they just sort of float around mutating randomly. This makes them dangerous.

If I believe X is good from a scientific viewpoint, I will be able to be convinced X is not good, or at the very least be ridiculed for not accepting the truth about X if I'm stubborn.
If I believe X is good from a religious viewpoint, that's it, there's no recourse.

The problem with your equations is that they discount anything other than religion or science. For example, actions (whether positive or negative) must be taken with respect to X before anyone in society is affected. If I believe enslaving people is good from a religious viewpoint, I must enslave people before a negative reaction happens to society. Further, if I believe enslaving people is bad from a scientific (or economic or other) perspective, I have to refrain from enslaving people, which I may not want to do for various reasons (i.e. it's good for me from a scientific perspective). Again, that's one of my overarching points. Religion, by itself, has no negative or positive consequences. Religion with an action can have negative or positive consequences. My other overarching point is religion is used to justify actions but is not the root cause of actions; power, wealth, control, etc. is the root cause (I believe).

I mostly agree with what you are saying here (I think). I am not saying irrational beliefs are fundamentally bad or good, I'm saying they're fundamentally dangerous, because, like I said, they have no control, no grounding. Even assuming no external influence I'd be wary of such beliefs, but considering human nature they become particularly dangerous.

I don't know if it's overwhelming or not. I'm definitely not saying religion is our biggest problem or anything, but I do see it as part of the problem, not the solution.

I really don't think it's part of the problem at all. Gay marriage is seen by many to be a religious issue. I don't think it is a religious issue. I think it's a cultural issue and an economic issue. Without religion, would gay marriage be legal? I don't know.

What I know is that when someone says: "Abortion is wrong because god says person-hood happens at conception" the discussion is over. At that point I can choose to either have a scriptural debate about what god really said, or I can try to convince them god doesn't exist. Both options are equal nil.

If they don't have that crutch, they'd have to support the reasoning somehow else, with arguments that can be attacked. Further, if the person can't defend his position but sticks to it stubbornly he is now fair game for ridicule, another thing deeply frowned upon when behind the protective shield of religion.

[Maugena]

I happily look forward to the destruction of all religions.

Religion is a thin, wire lock holding 6 billion violent inmates from charging out of the asylum and gang-raping you. The educated class on this planet is too small of a percentage of the overall population to make civilization functional without the psychological lever of religion. It will be hundreds of years before it's safe to get rid of religion. That's my issue with activist atheists.

Gravity has killed many people and caused much suffering. I don't think we should get rid of gravity.

You do make a very good point. -One that I actually agree with.
Though I'd suppose if we don't chip away at it while we can, it may persist, holding us back longer than if we actually did something.

I guess when HansJoachim was 6 years old, I could have started letting him make short trips to the store, but I still think it was best to wait until he was 16 to learn to drive.

(Actually I adopted HansJoachim when he was 19, but for purposes of this analogy let's assume it was earlier.)

That example is pretty poor. ;/
My dad let me drive his truck down the street with him in passenger seat when I was 10 or so.

[PLAYER57832]

Lol what was that about China and Africa? Many of those regions have plenty of resources and plenty of capital. The main issue, especially for Africa, is lacking the institutions which are most encourage production and saving.

E.g. Banking, insurance, stable currency, legal systems--formal and informal, etc.

Not historically, no. There is some truth to that today, though a lot of that is about allowing the African nations to decide things for themselves, allowing them to support things like sustainable agriculture, local businesses and such.

However, look into why the greatest nations of the past failed and you find ecology and destruction had a lot to do with it. That, and too much concentration of capital at the top, because the two pretty often go hand in hand in what is often a kind of "chicken versus egg" way.