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The compelling research findings concerning long-term and deeply held values led Gladwell to the conclusion that cultural legacies are powerful forces. They have deep roots and long lives. They persist, generation after generation, virtually intact, even as the economic and social demographic conditions that spawned them have vanished, and they play such a role in directing attitudes and behavior that we cannot make sense of our world without them. He goes on to note the possibilities of “taking cultural legacies seriously” in order to learn “why people succeed and how to make people better.”<ref>[http://www.culturalfront.org/2013/10/outliers-cultural-legacies.html Outliers & Cultural Legacies]</ref>}}
 
The compelling research findings concerning long-term and deeply held values led Gladwell to the conclusion that cultural legacies are powerful forces. They have deep roots and long lives. They persist, generation after generation, virtually intact, even as the economic and social demographic conditions that spawned them have vanished, and they play such a role in directing attitudes and behavior that we cannot make sense of our world without them. He goes on to note the possibilities of “taking cultural legacies seriously” in order to learn “why people succeed and how to make people better.”<ref>[http://www.culturalfront.org/2013/10/outliers-cultural-legacies.html Outliers & Cultural Legacies]</ref>}}
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== Protestant work ethic statistics ==
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''See also:'' [[Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism]] and [[Atheism and sloth]]
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[[Harvard University]] historian [[Niall Ferguson]] declared: "Through a mixture of hard work and thrift the [[Protestantism|Protestant]] societies of the North and West Atlantic achieved the most rapid economic growth in history."<ref>[http://blog.tifwe.org/the-protestant-work-ethic-alive-well-in-china/ The Protestant Work Ethic: Alive & Well…In China] By Hugh Whelchel on September 24, 2012</ref>
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(Ferguson is an [[atheism|atheist]].<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B64q2_Crq-Y Niall Ferguson on Belief]</ref>)
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=== Protestant missionaries and economic development statistic ===
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The article ''The Surprising Discovery About Those Colonialist, Proselytizing Missionaries'' published in ''Christianity Today'' notes:
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{{Cquote|In his fifth year of graduate school, Woodberry created a statistical model that could test the connection between missionary work and the health of nations. He and a few research assistants spent two years coding data and refining their methods. They hoped to compute the lasting effect of missionaries, on average, worldwide...
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One morning, in a windowless, dusty computer lab lit by fluorescent bulbs, Woodberry ran the first big test. After he finished prepping the statistical program on his computer, he clicked "Enter" and then leaned forward to read the results.
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"I was shocked," says Woodberry. "It was like an atomic bomb. The impact of missions on global democracy was huge. I kept adding variables to the model—factors that people had been studying and writing about for the past 40 years—and they all got wiped out. It was amazing. I knew, then, I was on to something really important."
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Woodberry already had historical proof that missionaries had educated women and the poor, promoted widespread printing, led nationalist movements that empowered ordinary citizens, and fueled other key elements of democracy. Now the statistics were backing it up: Missionaries weren't just part of the picture. They were central to it...
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Areas where Protestant missionaries had a significant presence in the past are on average more economically developed today, with comparatively better health, lower infant mortality, lower corruption, greater literacy, higher educational attainment (especially for women), and more robust membership in nongovernmental associations.
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In short: Want a blossoming democracy today? The solution is simple—if you have a time machine: Send a 19th-century missionary."<ref> Christianity Today, [https://archive.is/cDMnA The Surprising Discovery About Those Colonialist, Proselytizing Missionaries], January 8, 2014</ref>}}
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=== Protestant work ethic and China ===
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According to ''Slate'', "Protestant Christianity has been the fastest growing religion in China."<ref>[http://www.slate.com/bigideas/what-is-the-future-of-religion/essays-and-opinions/fenggang-yang-opinion When Will China Become the World’s Largest Christian Country?], Slate</ref>  [[Evangelicalism|Evangelical Christianity]] is especially growing sharply in China.<ref>[http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2015/0111/In-China-a-church-state-showdown-of-biblical-proportions In China, a church-state showdown of biblical proportions]</ref>
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Hugh Whelchel's article ''The Protestant Work Ethic: Alive & Well…In China'' declares:
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{{Cquote|Christianity has exploded in China over the last twenty years. A 2011 report from the BBC conservatively estimated there were 60 million Christians in China. Small, primarily Protestant “house churches” are especially having a strong impact on the country.
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This growth in religion has accompanied China’s rapid economic growth over the last twenty years. Now the world’s 2nd largest economy, China illustrates how even a limited amount of economic freedom has the power to lift millions of Chinese out of abject poverty and build one of the strongest economies in the world.
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Ferguson suggests that China is starting to supplant the West, but is doing it by becoming more Western. China is booting up several of Ferguson’s “killer apps” – especially the Protestant Work Ethic.<ref>[https://tifwe.org/the-protestant-work-ethic-alive-well-in-china/ The Protestant Work Ethic: Alive & Well…In China] by Hugh Whelchel</ref>}}
    
== Happiness and irreligious countries with Protestant cultural legacies ==
 
== Happiness and irreligious countries with Protestant cultural legacies ==
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