It also provides ample availability of both resources and 'time' for pursuing any sort of higher learning as well.
they offered potential for humans to grow as well as to deteriorate.
But this also led to incredibly sloppy thinking, to say the least, temptations to "go for the pot of gold", and hysterization all-around that would NEVER have come about in harsher conditions that naturally provided a reality-check.
I get it, we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Its important not to, and to see things in perspective (I like my modern quality of living too). Looking at it hypothetically, yes, one would presume its a 50/50 either/or scenario. But, in real life, when deliberating matters of soul-growth, its simply not what happens - at least not any more than a negligible level.
For the vast majority of people, the comforts and quality of life through raised standards of 3D-living will always come first and foremost and must not be compromised. Notions of spiritual development comes after the fact... Spiritual latter must not compromise physical former. This is the case for the vast majority of modernised folk in the West.
Once the niceties of materialist living is firmly established and becomes the base standard, then the necessity of soul-growth through pain of rebirth is rarely - if ever- crossed. Occasionally the death of a loved-one may trigger such "growth".
Most are, in point of fact, NOT atheistic-minded, but tend to either be happy-clappy Evangelical types, or opt to float about the quasi realms of "buckets of love and light" 'spiritualism'.
If I were to hazard a guess (and yes I am judging here) I'd say that for every 1'000 people who do fall, more or less, under the "American Dream" umbrella, only about 1 out of those 1'000 would optimize the 'time' and better quality of life comes-with, to have given over the contemplation and embark upon genuine self-development in qualifying for what one would pass as progression of "soul growth" - which is what
really matters here (not simply rolling along 'feel good' religions/faux-spirituality because at least its not the lies of Darwinism). Thats approx 0.1% of the sum total. Actually, I'm probably being quite generous there... Its probably closer to 0.01% (1 in 10'000 people) those benefiting from stable good quality 3D living.
True spiritual development has to come off pain and sufferance or severe "shocks" of some kind at intermittent points along the path. Without it, at least for the overwhelming majority, it simply doesn't happen. If notions of "spirituality" revolve around ensuring material-centric habits creature-comforts and respective life-styles must
always remain intact, then their is almost zero chance of any real "growth" of note. This is how people are... We don't seek pain, we avoid it at all cost.
In a sick twisted sort of way, I'm inclined to think mass shootings in schools and venues across America in our times that seem mostly to affect 'Middle-America' and progeny of the "American Dream" are, at an underlying psychic/cosmic level, a mass-subconscious self-infliction to make up some kind of shortfall for years of en-masse spiritual lackluster.