Of course, the millions who died in Europe within the past 90 years in terrible wars including terrific number of civilains, the gassing of millions of religious minorities didnt happen according to Glyn. By the way, across the Islamic world people can own their homes, their land and be educated.
Speaking to you is like being in a time warp, speaking to some communist. Seizing apon a single fact like religion and blaming it for all the ills of the world. You would have also made a good aid to Hitler, he sure would have appreciated your opinion on exterminating religion starting with the jews.
I would give different reasons to the poverty in India, Pak. and across a large swathe of the muslim world. The largest factor arises from trade restrictions which prevent the diffusion of superior "technology" (technical improvements). The second factor arises from level of savings and hence investment. It makes no difference whether a secular/aethist society like China embraces trade liberalisation/investment or religious nations.
This brings to the next point, does Religion increase restrictions on trade? I dont think so. In fact if a person is stupid enough to do an analysis, they would find no correlation between the two.
Your fixation on education itself is totally wrong, Kerala an India state has extremely high literacy rate (rivalling Western nations) yet it is not the wealthiest Indian state by far. Education is no different from other forms of domestic investment though it is not subject to the same degree of diminshing returns because of positive spillovers. Ignoring other forms of invesment and just focussing on education is itself a mistake.
The industrial revolution started in Britian, due to a quirk some specific factor who knows? But that Europe industrialised quickly was because of close distance and embracing British techniques of production. Nations such as Japan that did prospered, others did not.
Secondly to reach Western levels of living standard quickly requires very high investment levels. Investment is nothing more than deferring consumption, the state (as in Singpore) has taken from one generation and transferred it to another by expropriating citizens income into forced invesment.
What are you talking about the Islamic world? Economic growth is averaging 4.0% (weighted by population). This is much faster than all of the Western world barring the U.S. (which ironically is the most religious Western nation).
Take your ranting elsewhere.
I shall. I joined the forum because I was interested in Pakistan and its defence forces.
I leave because of the ignorance and hatred of the religious bigots who cannot be reasoned with.