This email landed in my box yesterday, and I see it as a novel way to denigrate atheism:
Dear Professor Coyne: Look at Europe and what do you see? The birth rate has fallen far below replacement level. European civilization is dying. When a country adopts atheism, its birth rate drops to zero and the country dies. That is why atheism is a failure as an ideology. It causes every civilization that adopts it to die. Atheism is the god that failed. Raising children is such an irksome duty that you cannot get people to do it unless you convince them that God wants them to do it. If I was a Muslim fundamentalist, I would say to you “Why should we want to be like you? Your civilization is dying!
Have a nice day.
Sincerely, [Name redacted to avoid embarrassment]
The gentleman who wrote this clearly hasn’t considered alternative hypotheses for falling birthrates, like MODERNITY. After all, the U.S. birthrate is still below replacement level, even though we’re the most religious of First World nations, and religious Brazil is also below replacement rate, as are Italy and Poland, two of Europe’s most religious nations. Before China adopted its one-child policy (now two-child, I believe), the population of that godless nation was growing rapidly.
Yes, the Middle East has a higher-than-replacement birthrate, as does much of Africa and southeast Asia, but is that due to their religiosity or their poverty (which leads to high child mortality), or both? Remember that many studies show a connection between higher religiosity and lower socioeconomic well being.
This is a prime example of how correlation (if one really exists her) might be misleading about causality.
For your delectation, he’s a figure from Wikipedia showing the fertility rates of various nations reported in 2015. Rates below 2.1 (children born per woman) indicate falling population (exclusive of immigration). Click to enlarge.
As of 2010, about 48% of the world population lives in nations with sub-replacement fertility. Nonetheless most of these countries still have growing populations due to immigration, population momentum and increase of the life expectancy. This includes most nations of Europe, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Russia, Iran, Tunisia, China, and many others. The countries or areas that have the lowest fertility are Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Taiwan, Ukraine andLithuania. Only a few countries have low enough or sustained sub-replacement fertility (sometimes combined with other population factors like emigration) to have population decline, such as Japan, Germany, Lithuania, and Ukraine.
Science is based on hypotheses which are then tested to determin whether falsification is possible.
The terminally religious form premises for which there is no supporting evidence, then create proofs from the mist.
Oh that birth rates dropped below the eplacement rate everywhere.
Sorry about the typos.
“Oh that birth rates dropped below the eplacement rate everywhere.” –That sounds good to me! At once sorrowful and plaintive; and contains a neologisim (eplacement) for which we have yet to find a meaning, but for which a meaning will surely come.
😉
EPLACEMENT : getting a job in an e-industry. Not really a joke. We have programmers who work from home, for example.
That’s actually pretty good. Because of atheism, the birth rate has dropped below the eplacement rate. BIG problems!
Gordon might argue that he meant something different, but it’s too late. The sophisticated interpretation of his words is now official.
Set ’em up, knock ’em down.
Just don’t knock ’em up 🙂
LOL!
This is hilarious, on so many different levels.
I kinda like this line:
“Raising children is such an irksome duty that you cannot get people to do it unless you convince them that God wants them to do it”
It admits what I think many people religious believe privately but dare not say aloud – that the real reason they espouse religion is to get people to behave how they want them to, not because the beliefs are true.
Needless to say, this is ridiculous. If behaving a certain way is good, then telling people the real reasons for why is probably all you’d have to do to get them to behave that way.
Furthermore, even if that were true, it would suggest that we should get to work making an even better religion than Christianity (or any other), which we could very easily do in ~45 seconds – one that fosters much better moral behavior, is much less contradicted by science, sounds far more plausible, etc.
Yeah, and since he’s obviously talking about the biblical g*d how the hell did we all get here? The Abrahamic g*d wasn’t invented until 1300 BCE or so, in which case, the prior atheistic human civilizations should have died out long before.
Any letter that claims one is dying out, followed by “have a nice day” is from a disturbed person.
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Unless there are legal issues, I believe it is a mistake to try to protect idiots from their idiocy. this yokels name should be published far and wide.
I want people to be able to write me without the fear that their name will be disclosed. So my policy is not to “out” people, with the exception that I’ll do it if they threaten me.
This fellow seems to have an equally difficult time with demographics as with atheists.
He (probably) suffers from an affliction that we call “being hard of thinking”. Sadly common.
The main problem with this rather standard and cliche argument is the idea that a birthrate below replacement is a bad thing. Perhaps in ancient times it was. Today and for the forseeable future it is a boon.
Spain is also below replacement rate, and they are so Catholic that they still talk of the “Muslim invasion and occupation”, to describe “occupiers” who stayed and flourished for 500 years.
Current world population is ~7.4 billion, projected to be 8 billion by 2024, 11 billion by 2050.
What we actually need are fewer, better educated people, not more poor and ignorant people.
If I were a religious fundamentalist I would have as many children as possible with no thought as to their future well being.
If I were actually concerned about increasing the well being of fellow human beings I would be working as hard as possible to reduce world population and to ensure that the population of the future was a well educated as possible so that they could make better informed choices that the author of the EMAIL is able to make.
To some degree, you are supporting his point, old cultural traditions (partly out of necessity) encouraged active reproduction.
Modernity (this person confuses with atheism, but they are related) tends to discourage, or at least not encourage large families. Now, some might do it for perceived environmental reasons, or practical reasons, or whatever, but it is an effect.
This same point has been raised a number of times by atheists in the past, a concern that the highly religious would substantially out reproduce atheists and even moderate religious people.
Is that a justification to embark on a mad birth rate? Probably not. But his argument is not totally crazy.
Except that if you talk to people in countries with high birth rates, the reasons usually have little to do with religion. It’s a combination of lack of contraception and needing someone to take care of you when you get old.
Low birth rate is much more closely correlated to income and the availability of universal support for the elderly than to religiosity.
And NZ is an outlier too. We have a replacement birth rate, an increasing population because of immigration, we were the first country to introduce universal age-related social security benefits, and we’re 42% atheist.
The answer really is 42 apparently. 🙂
But lack of contraception and lack of a support structure for those in need such as the old is highly correlated with the religiosity of a country.
Not that I’m claiming any sort of direct causal relationship.
Yeah you’re right. I wasn’t exactly disagreeing, just pointing out some other factors. There’s definitely a correlation with those things as you point out, and I would suspect the relationship is at least partly causal.
I believe, also, that the old macho idea that a man who sires a lot of children (especially sons) is more of a “man” is still alive and well in underdeveloped societies. I feel that it may be common, on a somewhat subconscious level, that men in these societies see the “power” to impregnate a woman as being “blocked” by the woman’s access to and use of birth control.
Good point.
The tendency for religious people to have larger families than atheists is offset by the tendency for religious people to become atheists. The impression that I get from following atheist fora is that most of the atheists present were brought up in a particular religion and then became atheists, usually while in their teens. If present company want to correct this impression of mine please feel free, I’m never afraid to admit to being wrong. My user name is a bit of a clue as to whether I belong to the formerly religious demographic.
My impression is the same – currently most atheists are former theists.
I’ve written elsewhere that I think the predictions of future atheist numbers, particularly by the otherwise excellent Pew Research Center, are grossly underestimated because of this. Their predictions rely on birth rates of current atheists.
I can’t remember the numbers/dates exactly off the top of my head, but Pew’s prediction of the percentage of atheists in NZ was years out. They predicted in 2008 that it would take until c. 2025 or 2030 for us to reach the number atheists that we had at the 2013 census.
I hear “stony ground’ and wonder if it has periglacial frost – heave patterning, as recently imaged on Pluto, for science’s sake!
Er no, it refers to the New Testament parable of the sower. The seed supposedly represented the word of God, the seed that landed on stony ground didn’t grow.
Of course Jesus couldn’t have known about Jethro Tull who invented the precision seed drill that makes sure that all of the seed goes where it is supposed to. He also had a folky proggy rock band named after him.
In your society the reference may be intended to bring to mind the biblical parable. But your words read in a different society can be taken a different way.
That is a very interesting point. The name only implies my rejection of Christianity when in fact I reject all religions.
Welcome to the club. Kitens are in the corner. Holy books for re-charging the kitteh tray are in the other corner.
“Kitens are in the corner”
Ah! A safe space.
More babies = more truth. Like the Duggars.
“European civilization is dying”
I don’t see any supporting evidence for that statement. Is European civilization dying? I think it is changing, but not necessarily dying. I would also note that many of the problems currently facing Europe have to do with immigration of people who remain overly religious. An alternate hypothesis: if the immigrants can be “assimilated” they would likely become more atheistic over time, and European culture would be enriched.
The OP has a general problem with evidence.
Christianity is bad for population growth if you look at the graph in the linked article.
http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/human_pop/human_pop.html
It never got the population above one billion. For the dramatic increase during the last three centuries, you needed modern science.
From looking at the first graph on that page (human population over years) it appears that when Darwin published On The Origin Of Species the gradient turned sharply upwards. Praise Darwin.
Even if the person’s premise were completely true (and professor PCC Emeritus shows why it isn’t), that of course would say absolutely nothing in support of the existence of god. Their seems to be a trend among faith-defenders to try to resort to practical reasons for belief, which shows at least a hint of desperation.
“There”
Exactly. It’s about convincing people He exists, not that he actually does.
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I agree, falling birthrates move in tandem with atheism but are not a cause thereof, or at least not a major cause.
The writer does have a point, though. Progress (atheism being one of many indicators of progress) leads to falling birthrates. The simple solution is to reward people for having babies. Europe’s already doing that to some extent, with for example very liberal parental leave policies.
I think the map’s point is that they don’t fall in tandem. It is hard to make the argument ‘if the religious US were to turn as atheist as Europe, our birthrate would fall precipitously’ when the religious US birthrate is already the same as atheist Europe’s. He’s positing some sort of causation when in fact there’s not even correlation.
Maybe he’s not promoting religion in general, maybe he’s promoting the so-called Quiverful Movement and counting only that as “religion.”
Hey, you can slip out of a lot of errors if you simply claim your critics failed to properly understand your terms.
“When a country adopts atheism, its birth rate drops to zero and the country dies.”
A bold assertion that is supported by not a single data point!
Oh, I want to go to the pound and adopt a rescue atheism! I can feed it and brush it and take it on walks and let it sit on my lap — instead of having a baby.
See, data point right there.
Came here to say this. What countries have adopted atheism and died from low birthrate? Whereas we know (following Gibbon) that the Roman Empire died because it adopted Christianity and got all sissified.
Which country died? I must have missed this news.
Godlessandia and Atheistland no longer appear on the map. Checkmate!
You’re right, I can’t even find their wikipedia page!
They moved those to the dark web.
And the Republic of Nullifidia!
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Right beside Gondwanaland.
Devoutbuddhist #3 already pointed out one nasty implication here (that religion is about getting people to do nasty things) but I think there are plenty of nasty implications here so I’ll point out another:
That mothers and fathers find no real joy or pleasure in their children, but only find parenthood to be an irksome duty. There’s no such thing as parental love, either psychologically or biologically. People only have kids out of a sense of obligation or obedience. Nobody enjoys it for its own sake because the benefits can’t outweigh the burdens.
Hey, let’s see if we can fit that on a church billboard! That’s not only something Christians can relate to, it makes Christianity so relatable! Mom and Dad wish you were never born! And I bet God is having second thoughts, too! The religious know and embrace this truth.
I think this is what’s called an own goal. I want to see bizarre anonymous’ sentence quoted on a Mother’s Day Card, surrounded by crosses, hearts, and doves. Sheesh.
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters–yes, even their own life–such a person cannot be my disciple.” – Jesus, Luke 14:26
Any further questions?
‘If I was a Muslim fundamentalist, I would say to you “Why should we want to be like you? Your civilization is dying!’
For the religious fundamentalist (Christian or Muslim), isn’t the death of civilization the goal? The Bible and Quran prophesy it; it’s necessary to fulfill God’s plan. What’s the problem?
There is also the fact that Muslims are leaving Islamic countries in droves to come and live in the west.
Many have noted the correlation between suffering and increased religiosity. Christianity is collapsing – except in the Bible Belt where negative socioeconomic conditions persist. Wherever people’s lot in life is improved, religion wanes – even an announced 10-year increase in longevity results in an 8.4% drop in the likelihood of people describing themselves as “religious” and a 15%-17% drop in church attendance!
We’ve noted that, here in the US, the overwhelmingly Christian Republicans seem determined to dismantle what inadequate social safety nets our government has set up and to plunge ever more people into destitution and suffering. This strategy will have the effect of setting up MORE people to turn to religion (overwhelmingly Christianity) to deal with the stresses they have no control over – is this the explicitly defined goal?
“longevity” – I meant “life expectancy”.
I believe what you are saying is the republican party’s theme song – Hallelujah and on to ignorance.
Explicit or not, the federal Republicans are essentially inverted Marxists, yes.
This is where his argument fails for me personally. I have found nothing but delight in having children, and if I could go back in time and let a younger me know this, I would have had more.
Same here. I only have one but she has enriched our lives beyond measure. In any case, the implication of the OP was that atheists didn’t have children at all, you and I are proof to the contrary.
Recent Pew polls at least partially agree with this guy’s point (of course, not to the absurd degree that atheist birthrates are zero). But, notice that the poll takes into account conversion rates, which shows the main driver for religion, or lack thereof, is kids adopting the beliefs of their parents. The rise in “nones” in the west is clearly not driven by birthrates; instead it’s driven by the younger generations shunning religion. The Muslim world needs an Enlightenment in the same way the western world already has. Education and a reduction in poverty levels is the way to a better society; I think atheism is an effect that follows, rather than the cause that drives it.
First, world populations are already too high.
Second, the world’s population is expected to continue increasing at ever slower rates with total population reaching about 10^10 by 2100 (based on U.N. intermediate projections).
Third, the only problem I see with decreasing population is its negative impact on economic health. The world’s economies are very intolerant of contraction. Population contraction = economic contraction = recession or depression. Plus, how do you support an aging population with a contracting workforce? This is why numerous countries around the world are encouraging their citizens to squeeze out additional Homo sapiens like some kind of machine. Here’s a hilarious example from Denmark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrO3TfJc9Qw
If we want to reduce population to sustainable levels in a non-destructive manner, creation of novel economic systems will be necessary. This approach will be needed even to maintain population stability. For this reason, I think humanity is at the cusp of a new era in economic and social structure. We can’t grow forever.
I love the Tour d’Eiffel graphic!
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😀 😀
“Women in Muslim countries are helping the counterjihad by not having many children. They are undermining orthodox Muslims by denying them soldiers.”
“The report did, however, note a falling birth rate for the world’s Muslim population, saying that growth over the next two decades will be reduced from the 1990-2010 average of 2.2 per cent a year. ‘The declining growth rate is due primarily to falling fertility rates in many Muslim-majority countries,’ it said, noting the birth rate is falling as more Muslim women are educated, living standards rise and rural people move to cities.”
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Notice how according to the map, there are also low birthrates in such atheistic stalwarts as Iran and Tunisia.
There are a great number of studies demonstrating that religion, or „religiousness measured in different ways, per se is associated with higher fertility, after taking into account other variables (confounders) that are correlated with religion, such as socioeconomic status (SES). This is also true within Europe and the US, not only when comparing countries all over the world. There is, for example, a recent study showing the association with religion in female academics in Austria, und this can certainly not be attributed to SES. However, the associations observed are not uniform and vary from country to country, or even within large countries such as the US.
Whether religious people will outnumber nonreligious ones in the future even more than now, should be difficult to model since conversion rates will probably strongly depend on social circumstances that are difficult to predict.
I think, one should also consider that the earth certainly has a finite carrying capacity despite the fact that some people, including religious ones, claim that this is only a question of distribution. Even if this would be true, it would only postpone the critical point. The triumphant sound in the letter seems shortsighted and premature. Religious people will be confronted with the challenge even if nonreligious ones should be eradicated. Possibly they hope for a miracle or for armageddon prior to that. In any case, the attitude appears irresponsible.
In Germany we have a religious apologist who has studied „Religionswissenschaft“ and in the media plays the part of a „Wissenschaftler“, although not performing empirical or theoretical scientific research. Since nearly 10 years this person re-iterates the topic endlessly and even suggests that the enhanced fertility has an evolutionary basis. This is the reason why quite a number of people in Germany are familiar with the argument that nonreligious societies will „verebben“ (subside).
Bizarre is just the start of it. How about not in contact with this world?
Oh, the irony of the blithely insane, non-educated eager pattern searcher of crankhood!
“Eberstadt’s first paper was expressively titled “Fertility Decline in the Muslim World: A Veritable Sea-Change, Still Curiously Unnoticed.” Using data for 49 Muslim-majority countries and territories, he found that fertility rates declined an average of 41 percent between 1975-80 and 2005-10, a deeper drop than the 33 percent decline for the world as a whole.
Twenty-two Muslim countries and territories had fertility declines of 50 percent or more. The sharpest drops were in Iran, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Libya, Albania, Qatar and Kuwait, which all recorded declines of 60 percent or more over three decades.
Fertility in Iran declined an astonishing 70 percent over the 30-year period, which Eberstadt says was “one of the most rapid and pronounced fertility declines ever recorded in human history.” By 2000, Iran’s fertility rate had fallen to two births per woman, below the level necessary to replace current population, according to Eberstadt and his co-author, Apoorva Shah.
A July 2012 Financial Times story placed the Iranian fertility rate even lower and cited a U.N. report warning that Iran’s population will begin to shrink in two decades and will decline by more than 50 percent by the end of the century if current trends continue.
Big cities in the Muslim world have seen especially sharp drops. Eberstadt notes that only six states in the United States have lower rates than Istanbul. In Tehran and Isfahan, Iran, fertility rates are lower than those of any state in the United States.
Eberstadt argues that the fertility decline isn’t just a result of rising incomes and economic development, though these certainly played a role: “Fertility decline over the past generation has been more rapid in the Arab states than virtually anywhere else on earth.””
“Accompanying this fertility decline is what Eberstadt calls a “flight from marriage,” which he described in a paper presented last month in Doha, Qatar. His data show that in many areas of the world, men and women are getting married later or remaining unmarried. Divorce rates are also rising, especially in Europe, along with the percentage of extramarital births.
The decline of marriage in Europe is well-known but still striking: The female marriage rate fell in Germany from 0.98 to 0.59 from 1965 to 2000; it fell in France over that period from 0.99 to 0.61; in Sweden from 0.98 to 0.49; in Britain, from 1 to 0.54.
Marriage is also plummeting in Asia: In Japan, the percentage of women between 30 and 34 who have never married rose from 7.2 percent in 1970 to 26.6 percent in 2000; in Burma, it rose from 9.3 percent to 25.9 percent; in Thailand, from 8.1 percent to 16.1 percent; in South Korea, from 1.4 percent to 10.7 percent.
Marriage rates in the Arab world are higher, but they’re moving fast in the same direction. What’s “astonishing,” says Eberstadt in an e-mail explaining his findings, is that in the Arab world, this move away from marriage “is by many measures already as far along as was Europe’s in the 1980s — and it is taking place at a vastly lower level of development than the corresponding flights in Europe and developed East Asia.”
“These studies are a reminder that the big demographic trends shaping the world are mysterious and often overlooked. The Arab world may be experiencing a youth bulge now, fueling popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere. But as Eberstadt notes, what’s ahead over the next generation will probably be declines in the number of working-age adults and rapidly aging populations.
The Arab countries are now struggling with what Eberstadt calls their “youthquake.” But the coming dilemma, he notes, is “how these societies will meet the needs of their graying populations on relatively low income levels.””
[ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-a-demographic-shift-in-the-muslim-world/2013/02/08/54ce7bf0-7152-11e2-ac36-3d8d9dcaa2e2_story.html ; my bold]
To sum up, Muslim women to Muslim fundamentalists in the face of rampant religious misogyny: “Why should we want to be like you? Your civilization is dying!”
This was known since early 2013. Our religious crank is just 2 years behind the curve.
Every time I read a religious desperate-for-some-apologetics letter, I am reminded how deluded their world view is. Thanks for this timely reminder in particular, my ribs have healed enough that I needed the laugh!
Oh, I now see Ant has noted the same absence of fact checking, and his source is 1 year younger. So make it the Creationist Crank being 3 years behind the population curve…
What wold does a Creationist Crank inhabit? A magic world that is said to behave in exactly the opposite way that we see the world behave in. And they ask others to “look”!? Oy.
I am reminded of a line by the reimagined Spock in the 2009 Star Trek movie: “I am now a member of an endangered species.”
I’m hoping atheism does die and that will be the end of the distinction between religiosity and atheism…
because non belief, like belief in god means nothing and life by evolution and a universe of wonder and it’s horrors is the norm.
As for populations and these data, are we sure we have a handle on the prospects of global warming and it’s effects on population growth. Food security for one, population displacement for another, the continued homogenising of the global population.
How long can Japan hold onto it’s current immigration policies? Will the big bogie that is the catholic church repent in it’s farcical modernisation and allow ‘family planning’ and safe sex.
When we finally come to grips politically and socially with homosexuality in all countries, what role or not will these people play in raising families?
Variables, unpredictability, unknown quantities and the planet earth itself will have a role to play and what has this atheist doomsday predictor shagging to come up with this nonsense.
I wonder why the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful Jesus didn’t have children…..
Ah, but he did. Have you not read _Holy Blood, Holy Grail_ or _The da Vinci Code_?
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But it’s not in the Bye-bull. (I’ve read The da Vinci Code.)
“(I’ve read The da Vinci Code.)”
Oh you poor thing! You have my deepest sympathies.
The horror, the horror…trapped on a long car trip. Nothing to read but The da Vinci Code. It’s a borrowed book, and anti littering laws. Can’t throw it out the window in disgust when they escape through the unalarmed bathroom window of the most prestigious art museum in the world. Can’t throw it out the window in disgust when one of the worlds greatest cryptographers is baffled by the Fibonacci sequence. Drowning in themes and ideas much better explored by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson in 1975…
I still have flashbacks.
_Illuminatus_?
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No thanks, I’m trying to give them up.
But you’re right. It’s a long time since I read the Illuminatus trilogy. I should ferret through some old packing crates, and see if my dead tree editions still exist.
It was rather a silly book, wasn’t it? The movie was worse too.
There are a number of websites (NOT Catholic sponsored) devoted to pointing out all the absurd errors in DVC. Motivated no doubt by Dan Brown’s insistence on how much fact-checking went into it.
(There are also a number of Catholic sites devoted to rubbishing DVC, but since they are religiously motivated they can safely be ignored).
DVC is almost as fatuous as ‘The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail’, which claims to be history, and from which Brown lifted the ‘Priory of Sion’ and the Jesus stuff. Its authors famously sued Brown for breach of copyright and fell flat on their faces at least partly because they claimed their book was historically factual and there can be no copyright on historic facts.
In fact the most entertaining thing to come out of the whole saga is probably the judgement written by Justice Peter Smith. “It is a very dangerous exercise to commence litigation in the hope that the other side will settle and make a payment.” You just know the plaintiffs are not going to have a good day when you read that… 🙂
(Googling ‘Baigent v Random House 2006’ should bring the judgement up if anyone’s curious)
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“That is why atheism is a failure as an ideology.”
So refusing to accept unevidenced assertions has now been promoted from a faith to an ideology? I must have missed the memo.
“Raising children is such an irksome duty that you cannot get people to do it unless you convince them that God wants them to do it.”
I must be even weirder than I thought. I had kids because I wanted them. They are frustrating sometimes, hard work sometimes, the source of deep worry and even fear sometimes, and always a delight. If I could go back and make that choice again, knowing what I now know, I wouldn’t hesitate to make the same decision. Seems it is much better to be the child of an atheist, agnostic, or “none” than to be a child of religious parents. You get the comfort of knowing you are wanted, and not just an obligation.
There is a certain amount of satire in that last paragraph. I know many religious people want and love their kids, and freely chose to have them. I just wanted to play with yet another “own goal” by the OP. It’s amazing how many could be crammed into such a short email.