(The Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, and standards of living for countries worldwide. It is used to distinguish whether the country is a developed, a developing, or an under-developed country, and also to measure the impact of economic policies on quality of life. The index was developed in 1990 by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq and Indian economist Amartya Sen.)

Religions were good for taking societies from point A to B, however, as exponential growth of knowledge and sciences have exposed us to a totally new kind of knowledge, 'religion' has definitely become a drag. Religion demands judgmental approach. As a result, any critical thinking and questioning is seriously obstructed.

It is religion that teaches us the lesson of intolerance for a divergent view. In super rich societies, dogmas like the age of our universe is 6,000 years, the thought that we are at the heart of the universe develops an exaggerated sense of human importance and creates most of the obstacles. In lesser educated societies, religious hope of life after death and Puritanism inflict mayhem. Those who want to make a mark in the next world, making this one a perfect hell, should definitely deserve our censure.

If we realize it is all about enlightenment and tolerance of diverse ideas, that it is about egalitarianism and love, it is about equality and magnanimity, and not about faultlessness of belief, we can be great Jews, great Christians, great Hindus and great Muslims and we can live together in great unity. Unity in diversity at the highest level would be to find unity as inhabitants of this lonely speck of a pale blue dot in a very insignificant corner of our very insignificant galaxy within the entire universe. Once we realize that our rendezvous and zeal with a particular brand of creed shall be replaced by enthusiasm for human love, proselytising then becomes the least concern; human misery and inequalities come to the fore.

Why do we need to worship one particular prophet? Why do we insist in loyalty of creed when ideas and life have so many different forms and colors? Let's have all good things as part of our life and routine; let's take all human virtues as the greatest gift of mankind. The problem arises when religion enforces selectivity of one thought over another; it is that selectivity of 'ideological puritanism' that becomes a predicament for us.

Our new frontiers of knowledge have exposed mankind at large to new challenges. Decadent thought processes and non-scientific approach can only lead to confusion.

We see this happening all around us; societies that missed their renaissance earlier are going through a period of self-discovery, unfortunately, with the ferocity and violence as seen in medieval times.

Look at any country at the lowest rung of development. More often than not, you will see they are stuck in a quagmire of self-destruction. The lowest ten countries that are marred with the lowest level of human development index, which counts amongst many other factors like education and infant mortality, are also victims of religious intolerance and, as a result, acute tribalism and internecine wars.

Religion incites division, unfortunately, just as preoccupation with divinity definitely results in poverty and low education. Mankind today is divided into two classes - the post-renaissance and pre-renaissance societies. The west is broadly a part of the first, and others like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and sub Saharan Africa part of the latter.

One factor that is ignored in HDI studies is ‘freedom of minds;’ countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran as OPEC are high on HDI but low on human per capita intellectual productivity, since freedom there is compromised through ideological shackles. Even wealthy religious societies, if caught with dogma, become inward looking.

Perhaps, one can definitely argue that USA is a very religious country but still very progressive, however, one cannot discount that it is due to post-renaissance nature of the society. In societal terms, USA has matured to live with the luxury of commandments. Religion and church has not been able to persecute scientists and scholars, unlike those times when Galileo's support for Copernicusism was punished in a pre-renaissance society by the Catholic Church on grounds of blasphemy. (Galileo was eventually forced to recant his heliocentrism and spent the last years of his life under house arrest on orders of the Inquisition.)

Dawkins and Sagan are/were free to express their views even if they propose ideas contrary to biblical stories. In primitive pre-renaissance societies, any view opposed by Koran or any other holy book is blasphemous and cause for strife and killing.

For many of us complex human beings, faith leads and lights the candle of hope. In the present world of uncertainty, it may not be a bad idea; it is always soothing to look for some help from Providence and the Almighty. This is a great luxury to live with in a prosperous, mentally matured and a constitutional society, however, in a society where human mind has not yet matured and constitution as part of statecraft is still in infancy, religion and scriptures alone are definitely very divisive and cause serious discord and annihilation.

Poverty and income inequality are curses of our society. In deeply religious societies we see both increasing at a frightening rate; in addition, if one looks at the list of countries or dependencies by income inequality metrics including Gini coefficients, according to the United Nations, a Gini index of 0 represents perfect economic equality, and 100 perfect inequality, a similar pattern emerges; the top 30 most unequal societies are necessarily very deeply dogmatic, pre-renaissance unconstitutional societies too. I wonder and see as a point of concern where liberated societies with entrenched religious freedoms are failing in transferring the impact of their new-found wealth to the entire cross-section of the social order.

The GINI coefficient in India is increasing alarmingly like Brazil. India rose in the dollar billionaire rankings, from rank 8 in 2006 to number 4 in the Forbes list this year, but slipped from 126 to 128 in human development. In the billionaire stakes, Indians are ahead of most of the planet. Even the United States, the country with the highest number of new billionaires, also dropped from 8 to 12 in the HDI rankings this year. Becoming rich with greater sense of charity and tolerance might be the right course for any nation or individual to succeed. The world is not a proprietary place for billionaires or fundamentalists alone, it is about the fate of 6 billion of us so let’s make a sincere attempt to understand and share resources and minds in way that gives room to every person; let pluralism, true egalitarianism and incentive become the heart of our living.

http://www.swivel.com/data_sets/show/1011577
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

Poor countries (those with low per-capita GDP) have Gini coefficients that fall over the whole range from low (0.25) to high (0.71), while rich countries generally have intermediate Gini coefficients (under 0.40). Generally, the lowest Gini coefficients can be found in Australia, Japan, Scandinavian countries including Greenland, and in the recently ex-socialist countries of Eastern Europe.