By what you said about Singapore and British imports into the culture therein, you are still making the logical implication that “Christian benefits” can be enjoyed without actual Christianity taking root in the culture. If this is so, then how can anyone legitimately claim that Christianity is a precondition for a society to be productive, peaceful, crime-free and successful, as Singapore’s example demonstrates?
I have worked in Singapore for years and the level of trust among the people in various dealings is significantly higher than practically every Western society I have spent my life in - Australia, Britain, Europe and the US.
Forget a mere handshake, I can leave a briefcase full of valuables at a busy bus stop in Singapore and come back after three days to still find it there, untouched (this actually happened to me). This wouldn’t be possible even in small towns in the US, and most likely never was.
Isn’t the “justice” system over there severe? I recall hearing about whippings for people who do graffiti. The “tolerance” of any disorder—however small—is severely punished? As I said earlier-—you tend to think of mass conformity and fear as “trust”.
Totalitarianism creates a “safe” “trusting” environment also-—but freedom is not an element of that culture.
I say—as the Ancient Greeks, Cicero, Adam Smith, the Founders, that without Virtue there is no trust. (Liars, cheaters, adulterers, etc. never create trust). Only Moral people can be trusted...and with the overwhelming Christian paradigm in Western Civilization, trust has been the greatest—even with a diverse population of groups who from other countries had no tolerance of groups that in America they took as friends.
The freedom in America—like NO other country—was because of a moral citizenry-—of the masses. We had far more moral people than immoral—and the immoral used to be punished. We used to have a Rule by Law instead of arbitrary laws which Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. helped install to destroy our Constitutional Republic.
As I said— Singapore Laws are based on the English Common Law—which is based on Christian Ethics. What are their laws on homosexuality? On littering? etc. It seems that their built in laws promote Christian ethics in practice. That is my point. Christianity is rational. it makes a civil society. Irrational laws—laws which promote deviancy —promote unjust law and, thus, chaos and “Might makes Right” will devolve in chaos and tyranny.