Man beats up straw man of atheism, feel proud

[OldYgg]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/10/22/INGA9LRRPN1.DTL

I might even have to write an article responding to this. Any thoughts?

Old Ygg

[OldYgg]

http://tinyurl.com/ydb3bp

This is probably a better link.

Old Ygg

[ELECTROGOD]

Wouldn't a tiny cell of primordial protoplasm washed up on an empty beach 3 1/2 billion years ago dry up pretty quickly? :Cheeky:

[ELECTROGOD]

It seems perplexing why nature would breed a group of people who see no purpose to life or the universe, indeed whose only moral drive seems to be sneering at their fellow human beings who do have a sense of purpose.
Don't blame us because you ask for it by writing such stupid shit like this.
Maybe they can turn their Darwinian lens on themselves and help us understand how atheism, like the human tailbone and the panda's thumb, somehow survived as an evolutionary leftover of our primitive past.
Before mythical ideas of gods there was no misguided belief in these things. After primitive humans developed such ideas and perpetuated these untruths throughout history we have finally begun to become educated on a larger scale allowing freedom of inquiry and thus revealing the true nature of the untruths. In the face of promoted god-beliefs atheism is not a primitive leftover like religion now appears to be.
By referring to "evolutionary leftovers" are you admitting that the accounts of untruth are untrue? Are only some and how do you determine this? Is any feature a leftover if it is still being utilized? Do you consider species today (including humans) to be evolved to their final forms?

[OldYgg]

Wouldn't a tiny cell of primordial protoplasm washed up on an empty beach 3 1/2 billion years ago dry up pretty quickly? :Cheeky:


I'm pretty sure (not a biologist) that single celled organisms didn't reach land on their own, but riding on plants and animals (multicellular).

Old Ygg

[OldYgg]

Don't blame us because you ask for it by writing such stupid shit like this.

Before mythical ideas of gods there was no misguided belief in these things. After primitive humans developed such ideas and perpetuated these untruths throughout history we have finally begun to become educated on a larger scale allowing freedom of inquiry and thus revealing the true nature of the untruths. In the face of promoted god-beliefs atheism is not a primitive leftover like religion now appears to be.
By referring to "evolutionary leftovers" are you admitting that the accounts of untruth are untrue? Are only some and how do you determine this? Is any feature a leftover if it is still being utilized? Do you consider species today (including humans) to be evolved to their final forms?



I didn't write it! But, I think it might be representative of what religious 'moderates' think of atheists/secular humanists and agnostics.

Of course, if we substituted any other group instead of atheists, I'm pretty sure the news carrying service would have to do a retraction - as this is very hateful speech. Only one step away from saying we should all be in prison, really.

Old Ygg

[-RRH-]

What struck me more about it was how he replaced truth with utility. He never questioned whether the atheist view was accurate, he simply insisted that religion made better people. Are we talking "the Noble Lie" here?

[OldYgg]

What struck me more about it was how he replaced truth with utility. He never questioned whether the atheist view was accurate, he simply insisted that religion made better people. Are we talking "the Noble Lie" here?

But I think I see what it means from your paragraph. He was behaving a bit like a utilitarian - saying god/religion makes better people therefore all people should believe in god/religion.

That reminds me of THX 1138 - where the population was put on various drugs to be better at their jobs and better citizens and it was a crime to come off drugs.

One of the few times I would agree with the symbolism presented in a George Lucas film.

Old Ygg

[Queen of Swords]

"Dinesh D'Souza" sounds like a Sri Lankan name, making me vaguely embarrassed on behalf of intelligent Sri Lankans everywhere.

You exist on a tiny planet

But if you're a Christian, you live on Jupiter!

Oh wait, that's just Dinesh's ego. Statements like, "You are the special creation of a good and all-powerful God. You are the climax of His creation" make me wonder if Michael, Gabriel and all the other archangels are trailer trash compared to "you". Too bad the so-called "climax" was created so naive (to put it politely) that they didn't even know the difference between good and evil. Heck, maybe the Fall should be renamed the Rise.

What carping, ludicrous rhetoric.

[-RRH-]

OldYgg: The Noble Lie from Plato's Republic is similar to the THX 1138 thing, but I was thinking of Leo Strauss.

[angela2]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/10/22/INGA9LRRPN1.DTL

I might even have to write an article responding to this. Any thoughts?

Old Ygg
What I don't like about it is much the same as RRS. It presents religious belief as creating happy face people. If that's how it was for Christianity, there wouldn't be any Christians.

[angela2]

I didn't write it! But, I think it might be representative of what religious 'moderates' think of atheists/secular humanists and agnostics.
If this guy is a moderate, nobody told him that moderates don't preach a prosperity gospel.

[OldYgg]

If this guy is a moderate, nobody told him that moderates don't preach a prosperity gospel.

I considered him a moderate - as he was not (oops missed that first write) preaching hellfire and damnation - he was using faulty logic (Religion makes you happy therefore you should do it and it is true) and exaggeration of atheist position (we don't have a purpose?) instead of saying we were evil to make his point.

I could certainly be wrong.

Old Ygg

[MadPhatCat]

Dinesh D'Souza's new book "The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11" will be published in January by Doubleday

Wow, who woulda thunk that this dude would bash atheists?

[OldYgg]

Wow, who woulda thunk that this dude would bash atheists?

I noticed that as well - after my first posting... But still, not all atheists are left. I mean, I'm pretty far on the left, but I recognize that is just me.

Old Ygg

[Malachi151]

Religion makes people better. Isn't it obvious when you compare Afghanistan to Sweden :rolleyes:

[MadPhatCat]

I noticed that as well - after my first posting... But still, not all atheists are left. I mean, I'm pretty far on the left, but I recognize that is just me.

He is a liberal hater, hating on "liberal culture". When those on the Religious Right bash "liberal culture", they seldom leave out the atheist boogeyman. Honestly, if I saw a book with that title I would assume atheists would be bashed in it somewhere.

[OldYgg]

He is a liberal hater, hating on "liberal culture". When those on the Religious Right bash "liberal culture", they seldom leave out the atheist boogeyman. Honestly, if I saw a book with that title I would assume atheists would be bashed in it somewhere.

Actually, I just noticed - he really equated happiness with having kids. This guy must be a real winner with the ladies.

Hey baby, let's go have a bunch of kids.

Basically, he equated happiness with religion. Religious people have more kids than secularists and then he equated the number of children to the darwinian destruction of atheism - as there will be fewer (according to his logic) atheists in the future than there are at present.

Old Ygg

[Toto]

Dinesh D'Souza (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinesh_D'Souza) is not a moderate. He is a right-wing, neo-con product of the new conservativism, supported by the usual Right Wing Conspirators.Prior to his marriage, he reportedly dated conservative author Ann Coulter and conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, to whom he was engaged but never married

If anything, he is Straussian. Religion is a necessary underpinning of a well ordered society.

[Malachi151]

Actually, I just noticed - he really equated happiness with having kids. This guy must be a real winner with the ladies.

Hey baby, let's go have a bunch of kids.

Basically, he equated happiness with religion. Religious people have more kids than secularists and then he equated the number of children to the darwinian destruction of atheism - as there will be fewer (according to his logic) atheists in the future than there are at present.

Old Ygg

This is actually partially correct. There were no religious people at one time, and religion has become stronger over time, becoming progressively more controlling and more pervasive over the past 10,000, especially the last 2,000.

[lpetrich]

Dinesh D'Souza was born in Bombay / Mumbai, India, and is descended from a family from the former Portuguese colony of Goa on India's west coast. He is a Catholic, and he comes from a Catholic family that had converted from Hinduism.

His main argument is "We religious people are outbreeding you nonreligious people! Bwah hah hah hah hah!! We will bury you!!!"

He ignores that there are economic reasons to have lots of children in preindustrial societies; many of them would die young, and their labor was often useful. However, in industrial societies, children usually survive to adulthood, and they are an economic liability rather than an economic asset.

And also the statistical evidence that relatively secular places like Europe and Japan score higher on various indices of social well-being than less secular places -- and that that is even true inside the US itself. The more secular "blue states" do better than the less secular "red states".

And it's possible to have a sense of purpose without religion; even many religious people have non-religion-related senses of purpose. It's even possible to have one without asking your parents why they brought you into existence.

His caricature of the Xian view represents pride, which according to medieval Catholicism is the deadliest of the Seven Deadly Sins. By comparison, his caricature of the secular view represents humility, which is supposed to be a great virtue. And D'Souza, the author of The Catholic Classics, ought to be familiar with those. But any stick will do, I suppose.

Furthermore, he omits original sin and the eternal damnation of all non-Xians, no matter how virtuous they might be.

And expanding on RRH's comments, Plato had proposed that his Republic have an official religion, which he called a "Royal Lie", this religion was designed to demonstrate the legitimacy of that city's philosopher-rulers. And he proposed banning his society's religion, Hellenic paganism, as full of bad examples, like heroes lamenting their dead companions and gods laughing.

I think that D'Souza ought to look more closely at what he celebrates, because he's including a lot of (to him) false religions. But I don't think that he'd get very far if he snickered at Protestants as Mary-denying, saint-denying, artwork-denying, Pope-denying, tradition-denying, Church-Father-denying, Bible-only heretics. Or non-Xians as hellbound heathens, complete with how he looks forward to watching his Hindu ancestors get tormented in Hell.

[sharon45]

In the secular account, "You are the descendant of a tiny cell of primordial protoplasm washed up on an empty beach 3 1/2 billion years ago. You are a mere grab bag of atomic particles, a conglomeration of genetic substance. You exist on a tiny planet in a minute solar system in an empty corner of a meaningless universe. You came from nothing and are going nowhere."I exist on a huge planet in an incredibly immense solar system of an even more incredible universe. I came from what is still yet unknown and I am going on to what still is yet unknown.

In the Christian view, by contrast, "You are the special creation of a good and all-powerful God. You are the climax of His creation. Not only is your kind unique, but you are unique among your kind. Your Creator loves you so much and so intensely desires your companionship and affection that He gave the life of His only son that you might spend eternity with him."You are the supposed creation of a conflicting emotionally charged and limited powered god. Your creator tests your loyalty to his rules by sending a false prophet to tempt you into following different rules and you severely failed the test.

[JustBlazed]

Russia is one of the most atheist countries in the world, and there abortions outnumber live births 2 to 1. Russia's birth rate has fallen so low that the nation is now losing 700,000 people a year. Japan, perhaps the most secular country in Asia, is also on a kind of population diet: its 130 million people are expected to drop to around 100 million in the next few decades. And then there is Europe. The most secular continent on the globe is decadent in the literal sense that its population is rapidly shrinking. What is so bad about populations that aren't growing? We are going to have a tough time sustaining a world population of 10+ billion. I don't mock these countries for losing population, I commend them for it.

What a pompous douchebag!

[JustBlazed]

The guy has Sean Hannity giving him bubbly reviews for his book, LOL

Dinesh D'Souza has written a book that teaches, inspires, and motivates the next generation of American conservatives. As only Dinesh can, he cuts through the illusions and lies of liberalism, and articulates the wisdom of conservatism. Letters to a Young Conservative should be a part of every conservative’s library.

—SEAN HANNITY, Fox News Channel

His website can be found here:

http://www.dineshdsouza.com/

[OldYgg]

What is so bad about populations that aren't growing? We are going to have a tough time sustaining a world population of 10+ billion. I don't mock these countries for losing population, I commend them for it.

What a pompous douchebag!

That's the interesting point. In the past religions and countries needed more physical manpower in order to win wars. So having a lot of kids is a boon beyond belief - to ensure that your 'side' wins. In reality there are no sides there is just the human race. In keeping up with the accelerating population of the word his recommendation is simply an earlier invitation for economics to take a stranglehold on supply with the net result of war for the remaining resources.

There are a couple of Hasidic jewish communities in my area. Having children is a duty they do not neglect. It would seem to me they would get along well with the writer of the referenced article.

I think the declining need to have a boatload of children in less theistic people - is a great statement to the world. "I don't feel like I have to out-compete everyone for children to have a secure home."

Old Ygg

[rationalOne]

D'Souza is a racist prick.

His oozing, smug tone is the same as always.

[Donkeykong]

They publish this ASS CLOWN in a SF newspaper?:huh:

[OldYgg]

They publish this ASS CLOWN in a SF newspaper?:huh:

Yeah, and I really liked it when I had a client in the San Fran area - most of the people seemed reasonable enough.

Old Ygg

[Merzbow42]

What you all are missing is that Dinesh is primarily making an observation in his column, not preaching. You don't have to buy into his ideology to see his logic, which we should take as a threat from the religious that must be countered. He is quite correct that as long as the highly-religious continue to significantly outbreed the non-religious (which seems to be the situation now and is not predicted to change), the highly-religious will sustain or increase its percentage of the population as a whole. This has devastating near-term consequences for Europe, most of all, which could be majority Muslim by the middle of this century.

As atheists we can continue to shoot the messengers and be bred out of existence, or do something about it. Possible solutions include:

1. Outbreeding the religious. Probably the worst of the available options for many reasons.
2. Attempt to evangelize atheism (or even a liberal form of religion) to the children of the highly religious and thus bring them to our side. (Forget the parents, you have to get them while they're young.)
3. Force all couples to have no more than 2 or 3 children, as China has done. While this could someday be defensible in order to stave off environmental collapse, it is far from technologically and politically feasible today.

So which is it folks?

[Pavlov's Dog]

Does this guy realize that plenty of societies developed, reproduced and prospered without the belief in an all loving personal god or that human beings were the pinnacle of his creations?

[ApostateAbe]

Someone in San Francisco should write a letter to the editor saying that ideas should be accepted if they correspond to observable reality, not based on how much they assist the population growth of your tribe. Remind him that overpopulation is a problem, not a profit.

[ELECTROGOD]

Hey, I think I remember this guy. Wasn't he on the Daily Show this summer and had his ass handed to him on a plate by Jon Stewart?

[Laura D.]

What is so bad about populations that aren't growing? We are going to have a tough time sustaining a world population of 10+ billion. I don't mock these countries for losing population, I commend them for it.

The author's low growth rate population argument is ... puzzling. Isn't a low population growth rate a blessing? I found it interesting that he introduced Japan rather than the People's Republic of China into his argument.

When last I was in Shanghai, the city vibrated with activity. So modern, it seemed a cross between New York and Las Vegas.

But I have wandered into irrelevancies.

God bless,


Laura

[Deacon Doubtmonger]

In the Christian view, by contrast, "You are the special creation of a good and all-powerful God. You are the climax of His creation. Not only is your kind unique, but you are unique among your kind. Your Creator loves you so much and so intensely desires your companionship and affection that He gave the life of His only son that you might spend eternity with him."
"Gee ... this story makes me feel so warm and fuzzy and treacly and gooey and loved and special I almost came in my pants ... so it MUST be true!" :rolleyes:

Let's keep it accurate, shall we? "God will withhold His love unless you grovel in the manner, places and times He demands and show the quality and degree of abjection He demands. Not only your actions, but your thoughts and feelings must always be pleasing unto Him. Your money belongs not to you, but to Him. Your time belongs not to you, but to Him. Should you fail in even the slightest degree to acquiesce to this, you will at best be hounded and harangued until you fall back into line, and at worst consigned to eternal flames no matter how decent your behavior might otherwise have been by any sane, rational standard."

Now imagine two groups of people -- let's call them the Secular Tribe and the Religious Tribe -- who subscribe to one of these two views. Which of the two is more likely to survive, prosper and multiply?... the atheist lifestyle seems to produce listless tribes that cannot even reproduce themselves.
So survive = prosper = multiply??? Any group with working male and female genitals can multiply, and the result often precludes prosperity. Here's commentary from a reviewer of Christopher Hitchens' The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice:

Hitchens points out, "When Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, few people had the poor taste to ask what she had ever done, or even claimed to do, for the cause of peace." In fact, he could have pointed out that, to the extent that those scholars who claim that overpopulation is one of the factors that can lead to war are correct, her opposition to any effective limitation on the growth of population implicates her in war rather than peace. In her lengthy address at the Nobel ceremonies, which took on the cast of a religious sermon, about the only time she mentioned war and peace was in the following: "I think that today peace is threatened by abortion, too, which is a true war, a direct killing of a child by its own mother . . . . Today, abortion is the worst evil, and the greatest enemy of peace . . . . Because if a mother can kill her own child, what will prevent us from killing ourselves, or one another? Nothing." Even after this, the Nobel Committee, apparently no more informed about the issue of war and peace than she, did not rescind her award.
-- full text here (http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/1996/august96/hakeem.html); see also the third paragraph of this article (http://www.atheistfoundation.org.au/missionaryposition.htm), from which I was unable to cut and paste.

The religious tribe is made up of people who have an animating sense of purpose. The secular tribe is made up of people who are not sure why they exist at all.
Assuming the religious tribe's superbeing even exists, I fail to see any contract or other agreement awarding him/her/it exclusive purpose-distribution rights for the entire universe.

The real difference is that in the past, children were valued as gifts from God, and now they are viewed by many people as instruments of self-gratification.
Uh ... right ... the rape victim bullied by her church into having the resulting child views it as an instrument of self-gratification ... and so does the shy and insecure girl who accedes to her boyfriend's demands that he be allowed to take off the condom 'cause sex just don't feel so good otherwise (and has no recourse against him when he skips town ...) :rolleyes:

By contrast, atheist conventions only draw a handful of embittered souls ... indeed whose only moral drive seems to be sneering at their fellow human beings who do have a sense of purpose.
Any idea how much joy there is in not having to check every action, thought, feeling, minute and penny in with a Big Tyrant Upstairs for approval? The joyful have no need of sneering.

Hey -- anyone know where to find that ex-atheist website whose author said "the atheist is unfit for any kind of useful work"? And can any of us forget God Bush the Elder's famous quote "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God"? Or Jerry Falwell's "If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being"? Or the argumentum ad horrified facial expression and audible gasp advanced by theists upon finding out you're an atheist? And WE'RE the ones who sneer??? :confused:

Of course, the whole issue is far more eloquently explored (without sneering) by our own brilliant Ebonmuse in his latest essay, "Turning Away Anger: the Myth of the Angry Atheist." (http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/angryatheists.html)

[chasborne]

What if God created the blob of pre-animate cells and said (metaphorically) "be fruitful and multiply" and over the next 6 billion years watched DNA do it's thing?

[Merzbow42]

The author's low growth rate population argument is ... puzzling. Isn't a low population growth rate a blessing? I found it interesting that he introduced Japan rather than the People's Republic of China into his argument.

When last I was in Shanghai, the city vibrated with activity. So modern, it seemed a cross between New York and Las Vegas.

But I have wandered into irrelevancies.


People continue to misread the article. The author is not advocating a high birth rate in this article (regardless of his personal beliefs). He is making a clever observation by pointing out that if atheists were willing to apply Darwinian analysis to their own situation, they would see that the evidence shows that modern-day highly religious cultures indeed have an evolutionary advantage because of their high birth rate. If anybody is actually willing to address this argument instead of setting up straw-man representations of what Dinesh is saying, please do so. For more on this topic here is an excellent recent article:

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/printarticle.php?id=7913

Breeding for God

by Eric Kaufmann

In Europe, the fertility advantage of the religious over non-believers has historically been counterbalanced by the march of secularisation. Not any more. Secularisation in Europe is now in decline, and Islam continues to grow. Europe will start to adopt a more American model of modernity

[sourdough]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/10/22/INGA9LRRPN1.DTL

I might even have to write an article responding to this. Any thoughts?

Old Ygg

In the secular account, "You are the descendant of a tiny cell of primordial protoplasm washed up on an empty beach 3 1/2 billion years ago. You are a mere grab bag of atomic particles, a conglomeration of genetic substance. You exist on a tiny planet in a minute solar system in an empty corner of a meaningless universe. You came from nothing and are going nowhere."
unless some scientist finds out otherwise,this is THE TRUTH of how it all hapened aint it?


In the Christian view, by contrast, "You are the special creation of a good and all-powerful God. You are the climax of His creation. Not only is your kind unique, but you are unique among your kind. Your Creator loves you so much and so intensely desires your companionship and affection that He gave the life of His only son that you might spend eternity with him."
yes the "all knowing" dog was so disapointed(can you say CONTRADICTION)
that he drowned everyone (can you say another CONTRADICTION describing Him as LOVING) and eventualy had to sacrifice Himself to Himself (can you say Divine Insanity)to save us from his wrath,..
and he expects THINKING people to take his MYTHS seriously ??

btw why shouldnt any human, atheists included feel special?

so what if we are made of molecules atoms and such??

we can and do feel good about ourselves no matter what we are made of,at least I do :p

[The Evil One]

As atheists we can continue to shoot the messengers and be bred out of existence, or do something about it. Possible solutions include:

1. Outbreeding the religious. Probably the worst of the available options for many reasons.
2. Attempt to evangelize atheism (or even a liberal form of religion) to the children of the highly religious and thus bring them to our side. (Forget the parents, you have to get them while they're young.)
3. Force all couples to have no more than 2 or 3 children, as China has done. ...

So which is it folks?

Since the majority of current atheists are former theists, the birth rate of atheists does not have any implications for the future size of the atheist population.

He is making a clever observation by pointing out that if atheists were willing to apply Darwinian analysis to their own situation, they would see that the evidence shows that modern-day highly religious cultures indeed have an evolutionary advantage because of their high birth rate.

It's not a terribly clever observation, because he is assuming a causal link where none really exists. Europe's birth rates are low because it is rich and peaceful and there is excellent healthcare: note, Europe's population is majority-theist and the theists have just as low a birthrate as the non-theists. (Indeed, Catholic Italy has a birthrate lower than secularised France or Britain.)

Islam continues to grow in Europe because of (a) immigration and (b) the fact that birthrates among first-generation immigrants tends to reflect that of their country of origin, which is often a poor country with, therefore, a high birthrate. Second-generation immigrants tend to have a birthrate similar to the country they are born in, not their ancestral country of origin. Likewise as the third world develops, birth rates there will fall. In the long run there is no reason to expect that theists will outbreed non-theists, because of these factors but mostly because, as noted above, theists frequently become non-theists.

Finally, none of this really qualifies as a "Darwinian" analysis unless there is (a) some reason to expect that these particular social conditions will persist long enough to have a significant effect on the overall makeup of the gene pool (which they almost certainly won't) and (b) some reason to think that "theism" or "atheism" is a genetically controlled trait which is heritable and can be consistently selected from generation to generation (which there isn't).

[Russell's Teapot]

"You are the descendant of a tiny cell of primordial protoplasm washed up on an empty beach 3 1/2 billion years ago. You are a mere grab bag of atomic particles, a conglomeration of genetic substance. You exist on a tiny planet in a minute solar system in an empty corner of a meaningless universe. You came from nothing and are going nowhere."
How about "You are the result of a magnificent process that amazingly built up life from single-celled organisms to sentient beings. Each and every life, therefore, is special and we should all cherish the world for what a beautiful rarity it is."?

Should evolutionists like Dennett, Dawkins, Harris and Wilson be surprised, then, to see that religious tribes are flourishing around the world? Across the globe, religious faith is thriving and religious people are having more children.
People who live in poverty also outbreed people who live in affluence. I guess that means that poverty should be the preferable state for humanity?

[Pavlov's Dog]

People continue to misread the article. The author is not advocating a high birth rate in this article (regardless of his personal beliefs). He is making a clever observation by pointing out that if atheists were willing to apply Darwinian analysis to their own situation, they would see that the evidence shows that modern-day highly religious cultures indeed have an evolutionary advantage because of their high birth rate.

But they don't have an evolutionary advantage, so that makes it much less clever than you think it is. Or maybe I just have higher standards for "clever."

[lpetrich]

Dinesh D'Souza took off a shoe and pounded the podium with it, shouting, "Atheists, we will outbreed you!"

A summary I thought of.

[Merzbow42]

Since the majority of current atheists are former theists, the birth rate of atheists does not have any implications for the future size of the atheist population.


Whether or not that's true now, I would agree that the best solution is to continue turning theists into atheists, which requires atheists to continue to be vocal.


It's not a terribly clever observation, because he is assuming a causal link where none really exists. Europe's birth rates are low because it is rich and peaceful and there is excellent healthcare: note, Europe's population is majority-theist and the theists have just as low a birthrate as the non-theists. (Indeed, Catholic Italy has a birthrate lower than secularised France or Britain.)


Absolutely untrue. Please see this article:

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/printarticle.php?id=7913


The share of the world's population that is religious is growing, after nearly a century of modest decline. This effect has been produced by the younger generations in the developing world rejecting secularisation, combined with higher religious fertility levels. Throughout the world, the religious tend to have more children, irrespective of age, education or wealth. "Secular" Europe is no exception. In an analysis of European data from ten west European countries in the period 1981-2004 I found that next to age and marital status, a woman's religiosity was the strongest predictor of her number of offspring.


This also applies to conservative religious groups in the US like Mormons. Mormons are very well-off yet their fertility rate remains very high. Yes, as a people become more well-off the birthrate on average will decline, but the key observation that Dinesh and others are making now is that the birthrate delta between the religious and the non-religious in the same socioeconomic strata is large.


Finally, none of this really qualifies as a "Darwinian" analysis unless there is (a) some reason to expect that these particular social conditions will persist long enough to have a significant effect on the overall makeup of the gene pool (which they almost certainly won't) and (b) some reason to think that "theism" or "atheism" is a genetically controlled trait which is heritable and can be consistently selected from generation to generation (which there isn't).

As for (a), there is no evidence that the birthrate differential between the religious and the non-religious is closing, in fact the opposite (again see the Prospect article). As for (b), I think 'Darwinian' is a broad enough term to encompass selection of groups based on traits that provide a reproductive advantage (and holding to an ideology that causes you to have far more babies than your neighbor is such an advantage).

As concerned atheists our duty is to make sure that the 'defection' rates from these religious groups remains high enough to counteract their fecundity. This is far easier to accomplish with Mormons and the like than with Muslims, since only the latter have a tendency to kill their apostates.

[OldYgg]

What you all are missing is that Dinesh is primarily making an observation in his column, not preaching. You don't have to buy into his ideology to see his logic, which we should take as a threat from the religious that must be countered. He is quite correct that as long as the highly-religious continue to significantly outbreed the non-religious (which seems to be the situation now and is not predicted to change), the highly-religious will sustain or increase its percentage of the population as a whole. This has devastating near-term consequences for Europe, most of all, which could be majority Muslim by the middle of this century.

As atheists we can continue to shoot the messengers and be bred out of existence, or do something about it. Possible solutions include:

1. Outbreeding the religious. Probably the worst of the available options for many reasons.
2. Attempt to evangelize atheism (or even a liberal form of religion) to the children of the highly religious and thus bring them to our side. (Forget the parents, you have to get them while they're young.)
3. Force all couples to have no more than 2 or 3 children, as China has done. While this could someday be defensible in order to stave off environmental collapse, it is far from technologically and politically feasible today.

So which is it folks?

I think none of those options are going to fly right now. Ask my wife. We have two kids and we are probably done. We want to provide well for them and I have a limited income.

What exactly would we evangelize for atheism? We can't even agree on a symbol.

As you mentioned, #3 isn't going to fly right now.

I think though, that we let things be, just as we always have.

Why?

Because, the rate of atheism/humanists/agnostics is increasing in society - even though the religious are the ones having all the children. The answer is simple - they are having the kids and raising them to use reason, go to college and learn and have good futures and in the process they are finding that the religious tenets they were brought up with are unsatisfactory.

Old Ygg

[OldYgg]

Being a small segment of the population in the future is - well - no different than being a small segment of the population in the present.

Often the religious marginalize atheists as less than 2 percent of the population.

But 2% is a small number, but 6 million people, regardless of percentage of population - is still a large number. (Nevermind that 6 million is the number of Jews exterminated by the Nazis in WWII).

What I am trying to say is that I moved and lived in a couple of different places. I found that in order to be an atheists and not have it affect my social standing I needed to live in either New Jersey, New York or California. Being born in NYC and raised in NJ, I have choosen to stay in NJ.

The good old boy system in North Carolina was too much for me, and living less than a mile away from churches proclaiming the army of Christ made me feel very uncomfortable and made it difficult to find a good job.

So... Perhaps secularism is on the decline, perhaps not. It may be likely that secularists (and atheists in specific) may start to accumulate in specific geographic areas. Places where they know they will be safe as well as know that laws won't be created to proscribe their existence.

I'm not sure I believe that secularism is on the decline. I think that the more secularist a person is - the more successful they will be in the job market - specifically I myself have learned a lot about a lot of technologies and I am one of the few people in the country that know as much as I do about many different technologies. I think that the more conservative you are the more likely you are to find something that works for you and stick with it.

This could be totally wrong; however.

I also think that if secularism is on the decline, it is because the vast horrors of religion have been more under control than they were in the past. In the beginning of the USA, there were people who remembered Queen Elizabeth disembowling her own citizens that did not go to church regularly. There were people here because their religion was persecuted by the government. People still remembered that towns were destroyed by the inquisition and people still remember people that were killed by the inquisition which didn't officially stop until the early 1800s.

Now, though, I think the memory is declining. People seem to remember only the good things about religion until some new small horror happens or blame a specific religion in the case of the World Trade Centers.

I think that if we started gathering in to cohesive communities (despite our many philosophical differences) that this might be a good thing.

Or, maybe making an atheist community would just make us more vulnerable, as we'd be collected in one place instead of hidden in the population.

I can't say. It would be nice to live in a physical atheist/secular humanist/agnostic community instead of just participating in an online one like IIDB. It would be nice to not have to control my comments because the person next to me might be some ultra-religions and devout person and my statements would go against their imaginary god.

Old Ygg

[Merzbow42]

What exactly would we evangelize for atheism? We can't even agree on a symbol.

As you mentioned, #3 isn't going to fly right now.

I think though, that we let things be, just as we always have.

Why?

Because, the rate of atheism/humanists/agnostics is increasing in society - even though the religious are the ones having all the children. The answer is simple - they are having the kids and raising them to use reason, go to college and learn and have good futures and in the process they are finding that the religious tenets they were brought up with are unsatisfactory.


Are you saying that we should just leave it up to chance that these kids are exposed to the information and the arguments they need in order to leave behind their religion? If we don't get out there and make this stuff available to them, there are many that will be lost that we could have 'saved'. It's not an easy thing to abandon the religion of one's community. By not spreading the message, we are deliberately making it harder for them to do so.

[OldYgg]

Are you saying that we should just leave it up to chance that these kids are exposed to the information and the arguments they need in order to leave behind their religion? If we don't get out there and make this stuff available to them, there are many that will be lost that we could have 'saved'. It's not an easy thing to abandon the religion of one's community. By not spreading the message, we are deliberately making it harder for them to do so.

Well, personally, one of the things that I don't like about religoius people is the way they always try and shove the holy cross down my throat. Now, we might not have a symbol as atheists (as a whole), but I wouldn't want to be the one shoving a *whatever* down someone else's throat.

But at the same time I'm not saying that we shouldn't make the materials available out there that show religion to be less than savory. I'm not saying we shouldn't write things stating who we are rather than who we are mischaracterized as...

But I'll never go door to door preaching (another thing I don't like about theists) the basics of reason.

Another reason is that at present the people that find their way to atheism (or other types of freethought) do so of their own volition. I find that the typical atheist that has bothered to educate themselves about atheism, reason and consider what they want for humanity - is a high-quality person.

Open the flood gates to evangelization, and you'll find (if it becomes a movement) that people are atheists because their brother is one, girlfriend, etc - or just to be part of a group on campus. The quality of these individuals is something I would question and while it would be great to see double-digit growth in atheism, I wonder if some of these people might misunderstand the thought processes behind atheism and do the things that theists think atheists are capable.

And then things would be much worse than they are now.

Old Ygg

[blkgayatheist]

Dinesh D'Souza (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinesh_D'Souza) is not a moderate. He is a right-wing, neo-con product of the new conservativism, supported by the usual Right Wing Conspirators.

If anything, he is Straussian. Religion is a necessary underpinning of a well ordered society.

Dinesh D'Souza and Ann Coulter!!!! ew, ew ew.

And people say they are revolted by the idea of two men together....

[Merzbow42]

Open the flood gates to evangelization, and you'll find (if it becomes a movement) that people are atheists because their brother is one, girlfriend, etc - or just to be part of a group on campus. The quality of these individuals is something I would question and while it would be great to see double-digit growth in atheism, I wonder if some of these people might misunderstand the thought processes behind atheism and do the things that theists think atheists are capable.


You can't change the quality of people. We need to make room for everyone, including those who cannot or do not want to think for themselves. Far better they blindly follow us instead of blindly following the current LDS prophet or some raving Muslim cleric.

[OldYgg]

You can't change the quality of people. We need to make room for everyone, including those who cannot or do not want to think for themselves. Far better they blindly follow us instead of blindly following the current LDS prophet or some raving Muslim cleric.

Point taken. If everyone and their brother-in-law are atheists - they are less likely to make laws that prohibit the existence of atheists.

I would think, though, that if atheism were to take off - you'd have to make an 'atheism for everyone' version. One that doesn't take a good reading of philosophy and a good working understanding of biology in order to be taken up by the masses.

It would have to fit in all those morals and things that aren't a part of atheism rather than say they aren't a part of atheism.

And, we'd probably not like those folks too much either, but we'd like them a whole lot more than fundamentalists and others who (from my observations) don't think for themselves.

Old Ygg

[Merzbow42]

I would think, though, that if atheism were to take off - you'd have to make an 'atheism for everyone' version. One that doesn't take a good reading of philosophy and a good working understanding of biology in order to be taken up by the masses.


In an ideal world atheism wouldn't be an ideology so much as a ground state - much like unbelief in the FSM is a ground state for (hopefully) everyone. In much of Europe, the non-immigrant population doesn't so much as subscribe to atheism as they don't subscribe to religion. But unfortunately the activities of the highly religious I think necessarily demand an opposite and commensurate response by us. Then in the day in the far future when religion has finally been 'defeated', we can go back to not really caring about even the question of God's existence.

[OldYgg]

In an ideal world atheism wouldn't be an ideology so much as a ground state - much like unbelief in the FSM is a ground state for (hopefully) everyone. In much of Europe, the non-immigrant population doesn't so much as subscribe to atheism as they don't subscribe to religion. But unfortunately the activities of the highly religious I think necessarily demand an opposite and commensurate response by us. Then in the day in the far future when religion has finally been 'defeated', we can go back to not really caring about even the question of God's existence.

Now, I'm not sure if Robert A Heinlein was an atheist, in fact some of the stuff he wrote indicates to me that he wasn't - but he did have a good idea in that in one of his books there was a two-tiered religion. Michael Valentine lead a commoners religion which would then - only some of the members would go on to the 'core' religion. (Stranger in a Strange Land)

I wonder, though, in order for a two-tiered system to work - does it mean that the higher/upper tier must be unknown?

I mean, it might be hard to get people in to the lower tier if they know they probably aren't going to make it to the next tier.

Old Ygg

[Deacon Doubtmonger]

... but he did have a good idea in that in one of his books there was a two-tiered religion.... I mean, it might be hard to get people in to the lower tier if they know they probably aren't going to make it to the next tier.
But all religion by definition is two-tiered: the "special, holy elect" and "the evil, vile, scummy, sinful, wretched, fetid, morally bankrupt, kitten-roasting damned." Any attempt to promote atheism would have to stress that the resulting freedom from god-oppression is available to all, with no tiering involved.

[OldYgg]

But all religion by definition is two-tiered: the "special, holy elect" and "the evil, vile, scummy, sinful, wretched, fetid, morally bankrupt, kitten-roasting damned." Any attempt to promote atheism would have to stress that the resulting freedom from god-oppression is available to all, with no tiering involved.

Ah of course, the followers and the priests. Maybe three tiers?

Of course in a made-up religion of atheism it'd have to be the only way - I think that is a huge part of religion. You'd have to promote the idea that you could find atheism on your own, but that the religious atheism (made-up) is much better.

Then people could de-convert from this made-up atheism and become just normal people trying to live life and promote the future of humanity.

Old Ygg

[Donkeykong]

Now, I'm not sure if Robert A Heinlein was an atheist, Old Ygg

I Think he was an atheist.

[RenegadeOfPhunk]

While I find this guy's obvious distain for athiesm and athiests in general distasteful, when he talked about religious belief being 'evolutionary advantageous', I actually felt a jolt of recognition! My thought was 'Wow, somebody else thinks so too...'

I've been toying with the idea of religious belief being an evolutionary advantageous trait for a while now. Let's face it, were the first species in the history of life on this planet that's had to worry about the reason why we actually bother to live, survive and reproduce. Seems fairly sensible to me...


As far as converting others to 'athiesm', I'd much rather convert them to humanism - whether it's secular or religious is less important to me...