Is the Bible inspired by God?

To me the following data says even more. Poverty rates as of 2001: Which countries have the highest percentage of Biblical literalists? Probably the two ranked last for poverty, the United States and Mexico.--Percy

Hi Buzz!I agree with you about Roman Catholicism not any longer including Biblical inerrancy as a fundamental tenet, but this hasn't penetrated the rank-and-file adherents to any great extent, either in this country or Mexico.The issue of scale is a good one. Should one use an absolute scale and judge poverty according to a single standard, or should one use a relative scale and judge poverty according to local standards? I can see arguments both ways.I'm not sure why you think there is a fundamentalist decline in this country. Last data I saw had the conservative evangelical sects still growing.About the days of communism, you would probably have ignored statistics from countries suspected of simply defining away the problem. Certainly if you compare standard of living instead of poverty rates they would have come out near the bottom.Anyway, as our short exchange indicates, your simple declaration that fundamentalism correlates positively with living standards is not supported by evidence. Living standards more likely correlate with things like the presence of natural resources and the existence of a viable market economy. Plus there is data completely counter to your proposition, such as non-fundamentalist countries like Finland having higher standards of living than the US.--Percy

I don't know if I'm making your point, but I went with the data I found, which was the poverty rate. I had looked for some worldwide standard of living data but found only anecdotal accounts, no tables. I believe, though, that if we were to locate a standard of living table by country that the US would be around number 4 or 5, with countries like Finland and Sweden in front of us. And my point would be that these countries have a far smaller fundamentalist component than the US.I would have to see actual hard data that fundamentalism correlates with standard of living. This sounds like just one of those things fundamentalists like to say about themselves.--Percy

Hi Buzz,For some strange reason I thought you would mount stronger arguments if we switched to a topic you would know something about, but I guess not: Since you're talking about American Christian fundamentalism's influence on country-level standard of living, how does raising the example of Isael make any sense at all? That Scandinavia as a whole and Finland in particular are highly secularized societies is well known and can be confirmed in any number of places, but I cite this source because it also comments on Lutheranism (What makes Nordic countries a unity?): And Europe as a whole is far more secular than the United States, though not to the degree of the Scandinavian countries. The highest standards of living exist in the most secular countries, in other words, the Scandinavian countries like Finland.--Percy

Hi Buzz,Here's a chart showing church attendance by country. Sorry for the low quality, blame SciAm:Notice that Finland in particular and Scandnavia in general fall at the low end of the scale. Thus it doesn't matter whether Scandinavian Lutheranism in any way resembles American fundamentalism because this is a largely secular part of the world.Regarding Israel, you can make any arguments you like for how much Jewish beliefs resemble those of American fundamentalism, but it only locks you in to arguing from a position of no evidence unless you can find a study or survey that classifies things the same way you do.I'm noticing a disturbing pattern. I thought the earlier problems were due to your unfamiliarity with science, but it seems it doesn't matter what the topic, you're governed only by your own opinions which seem largely undisturbed by anything resembling evidence.--Percy