Conservative North Dakota still has the lowest rate of unemployment in the United States. In September of 2010, the state unemployment rate was declared to be 3.7% according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics[1]
Another positive aspect of North Dakota is that according to a CUNY 2000 religious survey, it appeared to have the lowest per capita number of atheists in the United States (people who answered "no religion" on a survey which admittedly includes agnostics and theists who don't identify with any particular religion).[2]
The Bible declares, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want" (Psalm 23:1). North Dakota, which contains plenty of Conservative Christians, certainly seems to be a shining example of this Bible verse. North Dakota has more churches per capita than any state in the United States plus has the highest percentage of people who attend church.[3][4]
Oregon atheists: Too soon old, too late smart!
See also: Oregon atheists: Too soon old, too late smart!
According to the aforementioned CUNY 2000 religious survey, Oregon was declared to have the highest per capita number of atheists in the United States (people who answered "no religion" on a survey).[5] 28% of the Oregon population declared they had "no religion".[6] According to the CUNY 2000 survey, Oregon had 7 times the rate of atheism than North Dakota.(people who answered "no religion" on a survey).[7]
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in September of 2010 that Oregon had the 7th highest level of unemployment in the United States - an unemployment rate of 10.6% .[8] The unemployment rate in Oregon in September of 2010 was reported to be nearly three times the rate of God fearing North Dakota which had an unemployment rate of 3.7![9] If Oregon atheists are so smart, then why are so many of them unemployed? Unlike conservative economists, did they fail to predict the arrival of the Great Recession?[10] The Austrian school of economics which predicted the Great Recession is on the rise![11] By the way, the Boy Scouts, who affirm the existence of God, believe in being prepared! It appears as if words of Solomon still ring true today: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 1:7)."
I hope you didn't think I would fail to mention the Soviet Union and atheistic communism!
Karl Marx established atheism as a key part of communism. He famously said, "Religion ... is the opium of the masses."[12] He believed it was part of the "superstructure," a false culture built to maintain the status quo. Thus he denigrated Christianity as a fictional religion. Instead, Marx was an avowed atheist, as he wrote, "Communism begins from the outset with atheism; but atheism is at first far from being communism; indeed, that atheism is still mostly an abstraction."[13]
Vladimir Lenin similarly wrote: "A Marxist must be a materialist, i. e., an enemy of religion, but a dialectical materialist, i. e., one who treats the struggle against religion not in an abstract way, not on the basis of remote, purely theoretical, never varying preaching, but in a concrete way, on the basis of the class struggle which is going on in practice and is educating the masses more and better than anything else could."[14]
In September of 2010 Fox News reported:
| “ | Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, asked Castro if Cuba's economic system was still worth exporting to other countries, and Castro replied: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," Goldberg wrote Wednesday in a post on his Atlantic blog. The Cuban government had no immediate comment on Goldberg's account.[15] | ” |
The Soviet atheists, Cuban atheists and many other world atheists could have picked any economic system they wished. What economic system did they pick? Communism! The joke among Russians under Soviet communism was: "We pretend to work. And the state pretends to pay us".
Capitalism and belief in God
Michael Novak wrote concerning theism and capitalism:
| “ | The economic historian David Landes, who describes himself as an unbeliever, points out that the main factors in this great economic achievement of Western civilization are mainly religious: • the joy in discovery that arises from each individual being an imago Dei called to be a creator; • the religious value attached to hard and good manual work; • the theological separation of the Creator from the creature, such that nature is subordinated to man, not surrounded with taboos; • the Jewish and Christian sense of linear, not cyclical, time and, therefore, of progress; and • respect for the market.[16] | ” |
Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system in the history of the earth.
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