Originally Posted by seshomaru samma

My feeling is that Europe's (& North America's) recent growth is not directly linked to Christianity.
There are many countries in South American and Africa which are Christian and they are a mess. Japan is the world's second largest economy , has the highest life expectancy and one of the safest environment in the world. Japan is not Christian at all.
I think the rise of Europe is linked to many factors ,some of them are cultural and some historical. Certainly the Industrial revolution and the French revolution had a big impact. The protestant ethics is another factor. The Education system was changing , with assessment being more based on individual achievements . There were advances in the area of science and technology (guns...) .The fact that Europeans switched from beer/ale to tea and coffee might have had an impact as well....
I'm sure there are many reasons I didn't mention. These cultural/ historic combination created a new phenomenon - modern society , which was very good at economic growth. The growth of the West was a challenge to all other societies. This created two opposing movements within non-western societies - one called for copying the West and one called for retaining one's original culture. It seems to me ,that Japan was the most successful ,striking a balance between Westernisation and Japanese culture, other East Asian societies were also successful. However , other cultures were less successful and Islamic culture is one of them. It seems like it's constantly changing between Westernisation and going back to it's roots. They have not managed to find a balance yet.