The article described the findings as “curious” but there was absolutely nothing surprising about it to me: The strongest developing economies have the strongest belief in hell.
Here in America we’ve gotten waaaaay past the fear of hell and our economy is waaaay past strong or developing. We don’t believe in hell. We stopped believing in it at some point in 1995 and never looked back. Hell is a bummer. We hate bummer’s. Thinking about a bummer is time taken away from loving/hating Barack Obama, hating/loving Sarah Palin, updating our facebook status, looking at pornography and talking shit about our co-workers and friends.
We used to use our fear of hell to promote ethical working practices and fair deals in business. But then we stopped caring about that bullshit and went for it! And as it started to pay off we started to distance ourselves from the concept of hell. We’d even jokingly tell ourselves and others that we were in hell, har har har! Then we stopped thinking about it altogether.
And that’s why we’re here today. Last fall we looked into that deep economic abyss, and we strained our eyes and looked really hard but still refused to see that fire and brimstone smoldering down at the bottom. Oh, well. There’s nothing on this earth more terrifying than an American who’s got no one left to blame.
