Abstract
Highlights the pressing need for the development of the Global South; focuses on certain key issues, all of which are impacted upon by religion: population growth (including fertility and birth control); food security; climate change; immigration; and religious conflict and wars. There is an extensive discussion of religion and cognitive development, specifically how the former can curtail the latter. The chapter—and book—concludes by presenting various striking correlations that highlight that the influence of religion is least in the most advanced countries.
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Notes
- 1.
Piaget has had numerous critics over the years, as elaborated upon by Peter Sutherland (1992).
- 2.
This is when a child realises the inalterability of a quality despite the change of appearance (e.g., four apples are the same as four oranges); this is the conservation of numbers.
- 3.
Measured by the Gini coefficient, the 10 most unequal countries are: Lesotho, South Africa, Central African Republic, Haiti, Botswana, Namibia, Honduras, Zambia, and Hong Kong. Distribution of family income—Gini index measures the degree of inequality in the distribution of family income in a country. The more nearly equal a country’s income distribution, the lower its Gini index, e.g., a Scandinavian country with an index of 25. The more unequal a country’s income distribution, the higher its Gini index, e.g., a Sub-Saharan country with an index of 50. If income were distributed with perfect equality the index would be zero; if income were distributed with perfect inequality, the index would be 100. (CIA, The World Factbook).
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Hasan, R. (2017). Conclusion. In: Religion and Development in the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57063-1_6
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