Atheists facing numerical exinction

[Deleted]

"God's little rabbits: Religious people out-reproduce secular ones by a landslide" by Jesse Bering:

www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=gods-little-rabbits-religious-peopl-2010-12-22&WT.mc_id=SA_WR_20101228

The last paragraph puts it poignantly:

As a childless gay atheistic soul born to a limply interfaith couple, I suspect, perhaps for the better, that my own genes have a very mortal future ahead. As for the rest of you godless hetero-couples reading this, toss your contraceptives and get busy in the bedroom. Either that or, perish the thought, God isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

[merkavah12]

You heard the man, Tim! Get to work!

[elephantchang51]

I have long suspected that God will be 'around',for a very long time,possibly as long as homo sapiens,this article reveals nothing that should surprise disbelievers.What would have been interesting to me would have been some deeper analysis of the respective reasons for this disparity between theists and atheists.For example are atheists less likely to reproduce out of concern for the environment?

[sandwiches]

This idea seems to have been picked up on in other books/articles e.g.:

www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/shall-the-religious-inherit-the-earth-by-eric-kaufmann-1939316.html

Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?, By Eric Kaufmann
Reviewed by Ziauddin Sardar
Friday, 9 April 2010

This may come as a shock to secular sensibilities. Religious fundamentalism is set to bury the ghost of secularism. Secular liberalism is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions and the fundamentalists are about to take over the world. This is, says Eric Kaufmann, who teaches politics at University of London, not necessarily a bad thing. It may make us more secure, more grounded in our identities and communities, and much happier.

So the rise of fundamentalism need not trouble us too much. Western notions of freedom are way past their "sell by" date. Far from adding value to our culture, hedonism, sexual permissiveness and the worship of individual desires are leading us towards self-destruction. We need to show restraint and fundamentalists provide us with the appropriate example.

Moreover, far from being irrational, religion is more rational than unbelief. "As a utilitarian", Kaufmann writes, "I believe that the maximisation of collective happiness is the proper end of humanity; and on that score, religion seems more rational than irreligion." All the evidence of recent happiness research suggests that people who believe in God are far happier than atheists. This is equally true of individuals as of nations.

Others are a bit more sceptical:
www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/may/02/religious-inherit-earth-eric-kaufmann
Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? by Eric Kaufmann

For Kaufmann, Europe appears doomed because fundamentalists of every kind are multiplying far more than their liberal cousins while secularists are failing even to replace their numbers. Is this any more plausible than the arguments of the fantasists of Eurabia?

Kaufmann has an annoying tendency to lump all fundamentalists together. He also pays little attention to the work of sociologists like Olivier Roy and Gilles Kepel who have shown contemporary fundamentalism to be a novel form of religious sensibility that has more in common with new types of secular radicalism, such as today's anti-capitalist movements, than with old forms of faith.

Whether or not the religious will triumph, no one can say. What is certain is that if they do, it will not be because secularists have been out-bred, but because they have been out-thought. The real challenge they face is not in bed but in the public square.

[wraggy]

Dec 31, 2010 8:10:06 GMT elephantchang51 said:

I have long suspected that God will be 'around',for a very long time,possibly as long as homo sapiens,this article reveals nothing that should surprise disbelievers.What would have been interesting to me would have been some deeper analysis of the respective reasons for this disparity between theists and atheists. For example are atheists less likely to reproduce out of concern for the environment?

It is one possibility. Another is that people regardless of their world view may forgo children due to a deep concern for their bank balance.

[eckadimmock]

I don't see any big mystery. Both atheism (of the rational materialist kind) and declining birthrates are most prevalent in technological societies that (in very broad brush terms) tend to value youth, freedom and wealth over duty and sacrifice. Neither children nor traditional religion fit those values very well. Plus, of course, the availability of contraception has had a substantial impact.

By definition, conservative people are likely to hold out against these trends.

[gymnopodie]

Matko wrote:
The last paragraph puts it poignantly:
As a childless gay atheistic soul born to a limply interfaith couple, I suspect, perhaps for the better, that my own genes have a very mortal future ahead. As for the rest of you godless hetero-couples reading this, toss your contraceptives and get busy in the bedroom. Either that or, perish the thought, God isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

And there's this:
Since religiosity is to some degree a heritable trait, offspring born to religious parents are not only dyed in the wool of their faith through their culture, but Blume believes that they may also be genetically more susceptible to indoctrination than children born to nonreligious parents.

Can I get a show of hands of how many Christians here were born to nonreligious parents?

[unkleE]

Jan 2, 2011 4:52:26 GMT gymnopodie said:

Can I get a show of hands of how many Christians here were born to nonreligious parents?

I was born to nonreligious parents, though after I and my brother chose to follow Jesus, they eventually did also, at ages over 40. My wife was also born to nonreligious parents, an atheist and an agnostic, excluded from religious education at school, yet chose christianity in her teens and remains the only believer in her family.

[merkavah12]

Can I get a show of hands of how many Christians here were born to nonreligious parents?

Yo.

[eckadimmock]

One parent from a religious background who chucked it in, another from an irreligious family who turned to Christ in her teens, so I'll have a buck each way.

[bjorn]

Jan 2, 2011 4:52:26 GMT gymnopodie said:

Can I get a show of hands of how many Christians here were born to nonreligious parents?

I was.

What convinced me as a grown up to become a Christian was rational arguments.

[Deleted]

I've been raised by lapsed Catholics, been one myself, never took my religion seriously until my first year at university.

Jan 2, 2011 4:52:26 GMT gymnopodie said:

genetically more susceptible to indoctrination

I don't know if this makes any sense at all.

[gymnopodie]

Matko wrote:

genetically more susceptible to indoctrination

I don't know if this makes any sense at all.

Dr. Bering did say it was Blume's speculation and the first part of the quoted sentence says, Blume believes that they may

What is odd to me is why would Bering even mention it if he didn't agree with it. It appears to me that Bering is shirking responsibility by saying Blume said it. Bering also wrote this in which I also disagree:
And it occurred to me that religiously motivated homophobia may be at least partially rooted in this assumption that gay people are shirking their human reproductive obligations.
I have met many homophobes but none that hated homosexuals because they didn't procreate, no matter how regiously based their homophobia was.

[humphreyclarke]

+1 - in fact these days my family gatherings are like a meeting of the 'League of the militant godless'

Anyone here actually born to religious parents?

[chuff]

I was raised by a Catholic mother and an atheist father. Although technically, I don't think my father would have really labeled himself as an atheist until a few years ago even though he probably had been one for quite some time as he has never really gone to church for as long as I have been alive.