Time and again, history has shown a healthy middle class is the best road to alleviate poverty on a grand scale.

shutup. just shut the fuck up. you neither know you are talking about, nor have any valid point to make. its not about solving the digital divide any more than the housing thing is about solving poverty. its been widely and clearly shown that there is an increase in opportunity and outcomes between homes with and home without internet access. you're essentially complaining about improving someones potential opportunities to enrich themselves and make their life better and maybe even get out of that housing you mock. but again, you have no valid point, so therefore theres little sense in talking sense, like pointing out to you that without subsidized housing many of these people would be on street, homeless, increasing both crime rates and homeless and deaths among the impoverished. Theoretically we are a civilized nation. But a civilized nation doesnt advocate intentionally making it harder if not impossible for those most disadvantaged to improve themselves, nor advocate for them to die quickly and get out of the way.

I'm more interested in the "churchgoing" thing. It flies in the face of studies that show atheists don't have very different odds of getting divorced, whereas conservative Christians have higher divorce rates. Maybe the actual atheists are buried in a larger population of people that are nominally religious but don't go to church. I can see how the latter might be an interesting subgroup of religious people. These are people that think something is important but don't do it anyway. Atheists might be a lot more like the unfiltered population of religious people in that they are neither more nor less likely to do things they regard as important.

I'm sure someone will trot out the "but countries that have banned guns..." yes indeed, they have pretty much eliminated gun violence. Of course criminals moved onto knives, bats, and other things. Which is why in a place like the UK if you're under 18 you can't buy a knife easily, and why assault with a weapon is the most commonly laid charge with "blunt force, or lacerations" being the primary indicator in cases of death or AS.

I'm sure someone with an agenda will start modding this into oblivion, and I say "disprove it." The stats are out there, you can see them yourself on wikipedia and can order them under FOIA/Open Access in various countries. You don't like it? Tough, it's reality. You want it changed, fix the problem.