The implications of these fertility differences have been fully explored by Eric Kaufmann of the University of London in his book, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? (2010). Kaufmann noted that be...
That the Catholic Church finally thrives in Latin America could be considered as partly a gift from Martin Luther.
Tawney added an additional twist by suggesting that ‘nascent capitalism . . . [shaped] Calvinism’s attitude to enterprise and the accumulation of wealth, not vice versa’.
Rather than a great tragedy, the fall of Rome was the single most beneficial event in the rise of Western civilization.
Nationalism’ has become a much overused term, subject to far too many and often muddled definitions.
Keep in mind that democracy merely gives power to the people; it does not ensure that power will be used wisely or humanely.
IN WHAT CAME TO BE KNOWN as his farewell address, Muhammad is said to have told his followers: I was ordered to fight all men until they say ‘There is no god but Allah.’1 This is entirely consistent w...
For there is another truth: to the extent that other cultures have failed to adopt at least major aspects of Western ways, they remain backward and impoverished.
Encouraged by the Scholastics and embodied in the great medieval universities founded by the church, faith in the power of reason infused Western culture, stimulating the pursuit of science and the ev...
Although there are no reliable statistics on CCR membership broken down by nations, other statistics indirectly reveal the energizing effect of the CCR. In 1960, in the whole of Latin America there we...
Only One True God can provide an adequate religious basis for the moral order. Divine essences such as the Tao do not command us to love one another. The first mover does not forbid us to covet anothe...
Capitalism was a very Catholic invention: it first appeared in the great monastic estates, way back in the ninth century.
Nevertheless, this too is a myth. The Catholic Church actually thrives on Protestant competition and is far more successful and effective when forced to confront it.
In fact, all known societies above the very primitive level have been slave societies—even many of the Northwest American Indian tribes had slaves long before Columbus’s voyage.46 Amid this universal...
However, as in Scandinavia, the Church of England clergy are unionized and recently forced the Church to rescind a rule defrocking clergy convicted of felonies, on grounds that such convictions might...
For example, at the fall of Rome there was very extensive slavery everywhere in Europe; by the time of the Renaissance it was long gone.
Christianity was oriented to the future, while the other major religions asserted the superiority of the past. At least in principle, if not always in fact, Christian doctrines could always be modifie...
Bishops and cardinals were among the very best clients of ‘usurers’. That is not surprising since nearly everyone holding an elite Church position had purchased his office as an investment, anticipati...
Thus it was that, beginning in about the ninth century, the growing monastic estates came to resemble well-organized and stable firms that pursued complex commercial activities within a relatively fre...
Thus it is that the statement on the Jews issued by Vatican II in 1965 was nothing more (or less) than a forceful restatement of the traditional church teachings in language appropriate for the time....