God And Prosperity

Ronald Bailey sums up a new paper by Gregory Paul in the journal Evolutionary Psychology:

Paul argues that evidence strongly shows that as socioeconomic conditions improve secularism/atheism increases. Paul is a thorough-going progressive who fully endorses the economic security policies found in most western European countries. According to Paul, religious belief remains more prevalent in the United States largely because of Americans experience higher levels of economic and social insecurity than do the citizens of other rich countries. Paul asserts that the fact that secularism increases with perceived economic and physical security undercuts the argument that religious belief is natural (genetic) to human beings.