The Separation of church and state

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Are countries without proper separation of church and state always having economic problems? I am asking because Spain, Italy, Portugal have always been struggling to compete with the rest of Europe, and none of those countries have a proper separation of church and state, and only Ireland compares to them, which is another country that is always at the bottom of the Western European barrel.

And I won't bother to mention the Middle East or Latin America

These are the possible explanations:
(1) the church finds it convenient to have ignorant people, since those are the people that follow them
(2) corrupt governments use religion to entertain the masses
(3) ignorance of science leads to religion, which isn't exactly science friendly, which leads to having a society that stays behind in scientific advances
(4) people who believe in the power of prayer are probably lazier and less ambitious than those who don't or those who don't really care about praying, since they believe that God will eventually help them, and everything will be fine. It may sound dumb, but I see that problem here in Panama all the time
(5) the lack of a proper separation of church and state is not the problem. The problem is that a bad economy, a decadent society, is leading people toward religion, and giving religion so and so enough power to control the government. Islam cannot control the government of, let's say, Italy, unless, of course, more than 50% of Italians became Muslims.

The most powerful country in the world started as one of the countries with the best separation of church and state: the United States of America. And before it became an empire (which is exactly what the US is), Spain was an empire. But Europe had invented science, and the catholic church made it for science to enter Spain. Soon Spain became less powerful than England and France, and when it lost its colonies in Latin America, it became a nation that has always been struggling to stay alive. The Catholic Church was behind Franco's dictatorship, and it continued having power after his death, although not as strong as before.

denmark has no separation of state and church… and norway only recently separated the two…

so i am not sure what your hypothesis could proof...

And how influential was the church in any of those two countries?

never ask an atheist that…

in my opinion way, way to much!

I think it goes deeper than simply a question of seperation of church and state. It's more like the seperation of religion and politics.

While it is true that there is no official separation of church and state in Denmark, it remains one of the least religious countries in the world.

2nd place measured on how unimportant religion is, according to this wiki, and only beaten by Sweden:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance ... by_country

The Danish state church "Folkekirken" (which is indeed enshrined in the constitution) also preaches an extremely watered down version of Lutheran Christianity (very little pauline bigotry), and homosexual marriage in the state church (not exactly condoned by Corinthians) was just recentely introduced in Denmark. There are of course splinter Evangelical groups within the state church, but they have very little political influence and are generally disliked in the population as a whole. And people who disregard evolution, for instance, are almost universally ridiculed in Denmark.

That being said, some religious authorities have a tendency to surpress or disregard scientific education (just look at the Tea Party in the US and the Haredi in Israel). If these groups gain significant power (i.e. if religion and politics is not properly separated) it could have seriously detrimental effects on the human capital of a country.

Of course, you don't need to have a religious agenda to pursue such destructive behaviour:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

1. Spain is a constitutional monarchy, Portugal and Italy are Republics. None of these countries have a state church. And as already pointed out: Denmark does have a state church. The UK, one of the most powerful economies in the world, also has a state church.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_reli ... _religions

2. Italy was the 8th and Spain the 12th largest economy the world in 2010. That's ahead of the Netherlands (seperation of church and state since 1581). Only Portugal is struggling a bit economywise, but that has absolutely nothing to do with religion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_econ ... iven_Years

The current state debt of these countries was caused by the financial crisis of 2008, which started in the USA.

I stand corrected. It is not separation of church and state. It is separation of church and politics. Or better yet, separation of state and fundamental Christianity, or fundamental Islam.

A perfect example of damage cause by religion is what the Catholic Church did in Uganda, where thousands of people are affected by HIV, and the church said to the people of Uganda that condoms were even worse than the disease itself. That kind of nonsense can really harm a population affected by AIDS, if taken seriously. Indeed the church's birth control policy has caused serious problems in Latin America, where the population keeps growing at alarming rates while the economies aren't growing fast enough.

The Catholic Church, however, does not attack science as openly as it did in the past, if it does it at all. I think that their attacks on Copernicus' theory, and how much it made them look like fools, left them scarred.

Well, United States' politics is absolutely infested with religion, and yet she has the world's largest economy, and one of the the highest levels of economic productivity globally (and this is after normalizing for PPP).

Saudi Arabia, whose government is entirely vested in "The Custodian of the Two Mosques" has the 38th largest economy per capital (again, normalized for PPP).

Well, Saudi Arabia's economy is strong mainly because they have oil. This is a closed culture where women are mistreated, freedom of religion, freedom of thought, both are almost nonexistent. And the country isn't exactly a democracy either.

Regarding the US, well, it still has one of the strongest separation of church and state any country can have. Yes, there are groups that represent a threat to it. Let's hope they never get whatever it is they want. I find it difficult to believe banning homosexual marriage and restricting abortions, and getting rid of evolution theory is all they want.

Who said anything about democracy? The original post was about economic problems.

And while the United States has strong separation of church and state, its politics are another story--and you are the one who changed the frame of reference from separation of church and state to separation of church and politics.

NewDawn is right. At a more abstract level, one could look into culture and politics as informed by religion and such. But the problems these countries face is due to the economic collapse, and the socialising of private (bank) debt.

There is no doubt that the RCC did a lot of damage by prohibiting the use of condoms, but that isn't the only or even most important reason why HIV/AIDS is rampant in Sub-Saharan Africa. It's at its worst in Swaziland, Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia. All these countries are in the south of Africa and largely protestant.

Uganda was indeed badly influenced by the RCC, but Museveni protested against that, and since then the HIV/AIDS rate has been dropping thanks to the ABC program.

http://newsite.irinnews.org/Report/5491 ... ic-leaders

In the most affected country (Swaziland), it has more to do with corruption, I think. The 'king' of Swaziland (who fancies himself as a descendant of Shaka Zulu) refused to admit that there even was a HIV problem until 2004. As a result, NGO's like Doctors Without Borders where refused to test and treat HIV/AIDS. At the moment, more than a quarter of the population is infected, a true disaster.