Isn't the view of the article that you get both? The areas where the counter reformation was strongest had the biggest drop in fertility.
The areas where the counter-reformation (i.e. theocracy) was strongest had the most secular populations. Do you call that religion or not-religion?
The article claimed that it was a response to the counter reformation based on the decreased likelihood of the opening paragraphs of wills to refer to god. The claim being that people rebelled against the counter reformation.
Poverty generates more conservatism, not less.
Poverty does, but not a small decline in standard of living. France isn't a third world country, its just not an imperial power. Seems great to me. On balance, I'd like to live in a modestly successful country without imperial ambitions.
Lot of Glaucons at Hackernews, I guess.
France is still an imperial power in West Africa, though certainly in the last few months it's changing.
One wonders if that’s stable long-term. The US is a relatively benign hegemon, but that’s just luck. The next one isn’t likely to be very nice at all, going by the standards of history.