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Surely you can see that the two at least coincide, whether or not one is causation for the other.
There is a confounded correlation of sorts with numerous significant outliers. This, by itself, is insufficient to claim that religious adherence is a definitive criterion of a third world country.
The secularisation of academia is the key confounding variable; a philosophical development that took place in the ivory towers of academia in the early 1920s, and began filtering down to the popular level in the 1960s, with wide-reaching influences from the arts to the sciences. It explains why, in some present-day regional populations, those most educationally-equipped to lead prosperous lives are also likely to carry concurrent secular beliefs; and why this correlation disappears when one looks from broader historical and geographic persectives.
As the history of science, and even atheist scholars, will attest, the secularisation trend was unnecessary for the continuation of sound science or academic excellence. Much of its underlying rationale and defenses now stand refuted and abandoned, even by its original authors.
Whether you like it or not, we are now seeing a desecularisation trend taking place at the 'ivory tower' level of academia. By inference, this means that the aforementioned correlation will diminish or even reverse in the decades ahead as this trend inexorably filters down to the popular level. Over time, you can expect to see many more of those who are theistically inclined (or former atheists like myself) defending their philosophical positions using an analytical semantics.
1st to 4th makes more sense, that would make Norway 1st world, Portugal/Chile 2nd and Uganda 4th.
1st World:
Non-Islamic Countries with GDP (PPP) per capita of at least $25.000.
2nd World:
Countries with GDP (PPP) per capita of $10.000 - $25.000 +
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Oman, Brunei.
3rd World:
Countries with GDP (PPP) per capita of $3000 - $10.000.
4th World:
Countries with GDP (PPP) per capita below $3000.
then both Hong Kong & Singapore should be 1st world with per capita of $49,000 and $61,000, respectively.
don't know why they are listed as not.
for comparison, the US's per capita is $50,000.
why is it a jaded agnostic gets so much more entertainment from watching the atheists getting spanked in these debates?
Anyways -- as for 'second world', that's a term that was only relevant to cold war political boundaries before the terms first and third world generally came to refer to "developed" and "undeveloped"
There is a confounded correlation of sorts with numerous significant outliers. This, by itself, is insufficient to claim that religious adherence is a definitive criterion of a third world country.
The secularisation of academia is the key confounding variable; a philosophical development that took place in the ivory towers of academia in the early 1920s, and began filtering down to the popular level in the 1960s, with wide-reaching influences from the arts to the sciences. It explains why, in some present-day regional populations, those most educationally-equipped to lead prosperous lives are also likely to carry concurrent secular beliefs; and why this correlation disappears when one looks from broader historical and geographic persectives.
As the history of science, and even atheist scholars, will attest, the secularisation trend was unnecessary for the continuation of sound science or academic excellence. Much of its underlying rationale and defenses now stand refuted and abandoned, even by its original authors.
Whether you like it or not, we are now seeing a desecularisation trend taking place at the 'ivory tower' level of academia. By inference, this means that the aforementioned correlation will diminish or even reverse in the decades ahead as this trend inexorably filters down to the popular level. Over time, you can expect to see many more of those who are theistically inclined (or former atheists like myself) defending their philosophical positions using an analytical semantics.
Secularization isn't necessary for sound science if 1) the field in study has nothing counter to so and so religion and 2) the people who are within that religion aren't actively working against research in that field. It's a huge waste of resources to give any credence to arguments based on any specific group of hullabaloo and waste time and resources defending against those attacks when there are actual problems to be solved. How much better it'd be if these people could spend the time and intellect wasted on this crock and apply all that to actual gains in knowledge and understanding.
For the topic at hand, the answer is pretty much yes. I think there are a lot of people who haven't actually witnessed what third world living conditions can actually be like. The bottom of the original list is nowhere near how bad things can actually be. Not being able to splurge on the newest smartphone, to eat out often, or having to rely on mass transit is nowhere near, say, not having reliable clean water and having a good chance of your kid crapping themselves to death before the age of 5.
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