Quote: (05-23-2013 10:35 PM)Therapsid Wrote:
Are they atheistic? Superstition is rife in most Asian countries. They're not religious in the Western monotheistic sense, but they retain a set of folk beliefs and superstitions. This is especially true for ethnic Chinese.
Yes. A huge proportion of East Asians are. However, it gets a little confusing because traditional Buddhism, Daoism (which is the basis for a lot of Chinese folk religion), and Confucianism are more like self help movements or secular philosophies than religions because they deny or simply don't care about the existence of god(s). I'll only refer to atheists and agnostics for simplicity's sake but the actual number of people who don't believe in a higher power is pretty high.
Last time I checked about ~30-40% of South Koreans/Taiwanese were agnostic/atheist. It's higher in Japan, China, and Vietnam AFAIK (~40-60%).
Even the most radically European liberal nations like Norway or whatever barely break the 30% mark for agnosticism/atheism.
Of course, I'm just a silly white dude with a minor in East Asian studies so some of the complexities are still a bit fuzzy to me.
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Moreover, have these countries advanced the technological frontier in modern times? Or have they in the end just basically adopted Western industrialism?
Yes? Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan are at or even slightly above the US's level for industrialization and technological development although they aren't that big in absolute terms due to small populations. Their cultures are still pretty distinct from the west too. There's a sort of authoritarianism, filial piety, and collectivism that would be completely unacceptable to western liberals and conservatives for various reasons.
So they have pushed to the top of the pack without adopting western values.
I feel like I'm saying that the sky is blue here. :/
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My point is that the West created the world's first industrial revolution in predominately Protestant nations. Since that time, Catholic, Confucian/Buddhist, and even Muslim nations have followed suit in developing industrially. But has any non-Western nation progressed beyond the leading Western countries? Nope. The richest large country is still the U.S., even in our decline.
The argument you are making is quite sketchy. Your argument essentially which boils down to protestant religion leads to industrialization is a correlation not a causation. Unless you'd like to present research showing that socio-economic and political factors are not the reason behind industrialization.
Also, I would argue that the United States position as global top dog is not due to the protestant religion but rather the fact that they were the only major nation who didn't have their shit completely wrecked by World War I and World War II. You are again making a faulty logical connection.
As an aside, I would note that India and China are on trajectory to surpass the United States in the coming century. This is not really surprising though, given that China and India have always been #1 and #2 for the past 4000 years or something.
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For example, the author Tom Wolfe has written about the origins of Silicon Valley and how most of the founders of the computer industry were, if not religious themselves, steeped from childhood in a distinctive Protestant Christian culture.
Most of America's educated, wealthy upper class is also composed of white protestants because they got here first, killed off the Natives, and secured the top positions for themselves and their kids. This seems more like correlation than causation. It's like arguing that rain causes lightning because they accompany each other a lot of the time.
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I'm not dogmatically pro-religious as a political matter, although I'm a believer. But if religion is dead then it needs a viable organic substitute and atheism isn't it. Fascism attempted to provide that substitute but was beaten into submission by the U.S. and Soviet Union. I sometimes wonder if the ultimate red pill will be for men to rediscover fascist writings from the early 20th century.
Current levels of economic growth and western largesse are not possible without free trade. The bout of nationalist trade wars during the Great Depression that put Hitler in power and caused a double dip depression are excellent proof of that. I would argue that unless grinding poverty and a global cold war is your idea of a brighter future, that hardcore nationalism/fascism is not the way forward.
I would also like to conclude by saying that East Asian "religions"/philosophies and their widespread atheism demonstrate that people can have meaningful belief systems without the vicious partisan debates that the three monotheistic religions ala Islam, Christianity, and Judaism have all the time.
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