http://newhumanist.org.uk/2267/battle-of-the-babies

Battle of the Babies
A new book argues that liberal secularism and high birth rates are fuelling a revival of religious fundamentalism. Caspar Melville speaks to its author Eric Kaufmann

New humanist take on the book and interview with the author is now online

*phew*

I'm so glad people have researched this and determined the math to be flawed, because when I first encountered the concept (maybe a year ago in an article on the quiverfull movement), I was deeply upset at the thought of having to breed to prevent morons from taking over the world. I am very anti-breeding. For me, that is. It's too much like the movie Aliens.

You got to be a real moron if your idea of "taking over the world" is breeding like mad instead of winning people over with your ideas.

the author of the book will be a guest of Humanist association of UK at the event to be held on the 15th April

more info here

http://blog.newhumanist.org.uk/2010/03/ ... er_29.html

Still, a little more breeding by educated rationalists wouldn't be a bad thing. Although no one should be made to feel obliged to breed, if your reason for not breeding has anything to do with 'the world doesn't need any more people brought up to be rational', perhaps you should reconsider.

This is nothing to panic over, but the general principle is one more reason secularists should support policies that enable work-family balance. Compare Sweden, for instance, to Italy - Sweden has the higher birthrate, not because their culture is more pronatalist, but because it's less burdensome for women to both be workers and mothers. (Obviously culture matters inasmuch as men are willing to be active fathers - another thing secularists should support, then.) And I've seen some data that says younger generations in Italy are trending more religious, because it's the social conservatives, at the margin, who choose to have children over a career.

FWIW, my parents are fundie Roman Catholics. After enduring 12 years of Catholic school, completing all the sacraments, and being "confirmed", I'm an atheist thinker. So are both my sisters. That a 100% drop-out rate.

All the 'statistics' about Mormons "increasing 40% every decade" come from the Mormon church itself. Hardly an objective source there. Ask any religion and they'll tell you they're growing by leaps & bounds. I read that Salt Lake City had dropped to 59% 'Mormon' as self reported by a local newspaper poll and that the church is quite alarmed by these numbers.

I guess if you count poor, uneducated Africans and Filipinos who eat the rice you give them with a smile while holding your pamphlets as "new membership" than you could claim a 40% growth rate.

AlohaChris wrote:After enduring 12 years of Catholic school, completing all the sacraments, and being "confirmed", I'm an atheist thinker.

So you got ordained as an Anglican minister, married, converted to Catholicism, and died? Damn, dude.

Matthias Wasser wrote:

AlohaChris wrote:After enduring 12 years of Catholic school, completing all the sacraments, and being "confirmed", I'm an atheist thinker.

So you got ordained as an Anglican minister, married, converted to Catholicism, and died? Damn, dude.

Alright smartass, MOST of the sacraments.

jparada wrote:You got to be a real moron if your idea of "taking over the world" is breeding like mad instead of winning people over with your ideas.

It's interesting in terms of memetics though. The ideas that survive are the ones that are best able to propagate themselves, and in religion, the "have as many children as you can" meme seems to have been quite successful.

But this meme exists in Catholicism too, and it hasn't helped them hold onto their numbers. The meme that has been most successful in destroying this has been the social democracy meme, which cuts people's reliance on the church. It's not surprising that the Amish have such high retention rates, because they put a massive amount of effort into cutting their population off from any other source of help or knowledge. The "have as many children as you can" meme doesn't go well with the social democracy meme, because people who have a lot of kids without the means to support them are treated a bit like shit, whereas in the past, they went to the church for support.