The results are much weaker if we use a measure of belief in God, rather than the
more concrete beliefs in hell, heaven, or an after-life.
In a specification comparable to those in columns 1 and 3 of Table 4, the estimated coefficients are -0.0092 (0.0030) on the monthly attendance variable and 0.0018 (0.0030) on the belief-in-God variable.
Thus, given church attendance, variations in professed belief in God have no explanatory
power for economic growth.
One possible reason is that most people in most countries reflexively answer yes to the question of whether they believe in God in some sense—the