Is it possible for a godless or even just non-Christian society to have a flourishing, productive economy? That shouldn't even be a reasonable question -- it should be the sort of question normally categorized with things like "can black people be trusted," but it's just the sort of issue which conservative like Rick Santorum seem to think are debatable.
What's more, Rick Santorum seems think you need to have a Christian-based society in order for an economy to flourish -- which, by implication, is an accusation that all non-Christian economies can't flourish. Maybe he should tell that to the European and especially Scandinavian societies which are doing so much better than we are despite lower levels of religiosity, theism, and Christian devotion.
Santorum's main point, though, was that limited government and a vibrant economy will never again flourish unless the United States revisits its Judeo-Christian roots. The ex-senator spent a quarter of his speech explaining how our rights come from God, not any gay-friendly government, and those rights create the backbone not only of our society but also of all the democratic governments the US has helped create throughout the world.
Source: Mother Jones
Come to think of it, I doubt that Rick Santorum would care that there is so much real-world evidence that his beliefs are false. Does he strike you as the sort of person who actually looks at evidence before forming conclusions? Does he strike you as the sort of person who ever modifies his beliefs when he comes across new evidence? No, not me either.
If rights come from God, why did his god wait so long to give women the right to vote or to give blacks the right to even be counted as persons? If rights come fro his god then his god has a lot to answer for because people around the world have, for millennia, lived and died with few or now rights whatsoever.
That's one of the key differences between the faith-based fantasy that rights come from gods and the reality-based recognition that humans are responsible for rights. The former makes gods responsible for the absence of rights and the failure to respect rights; the latter places all the blame squarely where it belongs: with us. Of course, when we have to take the blame, it means that we also deserve the credit when we do things right.
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