You're simplifying what composes a "person" to a large degree - yes, you're probably right.
Isn't there also a danger of overanalysing a situation, too?
Take Japan. At the end of WW2 Japan was humiliated - not just due to the human deaths and effects of the two atomic bombs but also due to the Japanese Emperor, believed to be divine, renouncing his divinity. Why is Japan so successful today? Why is it not languishing in squalor?