Quote Originally Posted by denuseri View Post
One interesting point that I think bears looking at was a corolation, not between a countries direct prosperity level and low precentage rates of religious responcers so much as an inverse relationship between precentages of religious respondants and the level of comprehensive social welfare that was employed by each country.
An interesting point, and one which doesn't surprise me. Religious organizations seem to be more interested in helping people get to heaven than in helping them get a job.

In that regard then...is one not simpley replacing religion with something else in one's life?
Simply? There's nothing simple about it. But yes, you would replace religion with something else. Hopefully it would be rationality, but there's no guarantees.

Is such a replacement most often a headonisitc one?
In some people it probably will be, I'm sure. It doesn't have to be. At one point I replaced religion with bowling, hardly a hedonistic activity. Unfortunately the Christian powers-that-be in this county decided that actually doing something enjoyable on a Sunday morning was a threat to our culture and forced the business to remain closed until after 1:30 PM. So much for worshiping at the Church of Earl Anthony!