Thread:User talk:WaitingforGodot/Denmark and Sweden/reply (6)

Phil Zuckerman is a good writer and researcher, so his book should be an interesting read. That said, I'm not sure you can extract "what we can learn about contentment" from non-religious societies and come away with anything fruitful, since by and large, societies are built over hundreds of generations, including in all cases, religious ones.

The separate article "Secularism - the case in Denmark" is pretty light on anything really useful to say. It's trying hard to make a claim about what being a Dane is, while stripping from Danes the fact that they were largely religious and pagan for so long, it permeates their national views.

I think one thing you want to consider when making a claim that religion (lack or presence) effects the wealth, the development, the education system, and corruption (and not the other way around) is to look at France. France has now and has had the highest rate of atheism in Europe. It has had and has now one of the most secular governments regarding how decisions are made, what is taught in school, etc. Yet it is largely stricken by economic woes, it has a high level of internal political corruption, there is a large trend towards "nationalism" (FN for example). And their high quality education system is falling apart in lower income banlieue and rural areas.

So while I think it's an interesting thing to explore, I don't think it can be as simple as "religion cause" or "secularism causes".

However, if your argument is "society can function just fine and totally morally without religion", then yes, these would be good sources, cause that's what they show.