The reality of the planet is that most people retain the religious beliefs of their parents. Like most Atheists that I know, I have no children. My girlfriend and I are in our 30's and have no plan on having children. Meanwhile the religious around the world seem to be breeding like rabbits. In the US the non-religious have the second lowest fertility rate of all groups (behind Jews, many of whom are probably not religious anyway.) Not surprisingly Muslims have the highest fertility rate in the US. This is likewise echoed across the world as Muslims have ridiculously high fertility rates. This is the real reason why Islam is the fastest growing religion, as the scat data available actually suggests more Muslims deconvert in the west than new people convert to Islam.

http://www.scilogs.eu/en/blog/biology-of...s-gss-data

While secularism easily is winning the war of ideas, is it possible that we (and possibly the planet) are doomed because we will simply be out-bred by the religious.

I wouldn't worry about scat data as it's pretty shitty anyway...

I've have a belief that any more than 2 children per couple considering the population crisis is extremely selfish. My wife and I have just the one (unplanned) child, but held off having another due to financial reasons, but that doesn't seem to worry most. I have friends who have rarely worked if at all in the last 10 years but keep popping kids out every year and it's extremely depressing.

edit:

Sorry, I went slightly off topic. I agree. lol

Well, I'm doing my part. It's time you other atheists start popping out kids and indoctrinating them.

Of course, if we can't increase the amount of non-religious, we could always start decreasing the number of religious...

My mum's family had so many kids she woke up everyday as a kid not knowing if she'll have anything to eat that day.

I will never have a child, because I suck at taking care of things and have no interest in doing so. Children can suffer so much when they grow up in a family that's not ready for them. That's too big a deal for me to ignore just to get into this breeding competition.

I believe people change their minds. It's not a lost cause when the theocracies are failing as they are. Religion has receded throughout history, in a sense that it governs less of our lives (except in theocratic countries, perhaps). But yea, I don't think number of kids is going to save religion.

Well, I had my one child, but unfortunately his mother got hold of him and filled his head with a bunch of goobbledygook when I wasn't looking.

Sadly, there will be no more little spawn of Cthulhu.

All my potential spawn find themselves embedded in tissue.

(August 26, 2013 at 3:30 pm)CapnAwesome Wrote: The reality of the planet is that most people retain the religious beliefs of their parents. Like most Atheists that I know, I have no children. My girlfriend and I are in our 30's and have no plan on having children. Meanwhile the religious around the world seem to be breeding like rabbits. In the US the non-religious have the second lowest fertility rate of all groups (behind Jews, many of whom are probably not religious anyway.) Not surprisingly Muslims have the highest fertility rate in the US. This is likewise echoed across the world as Muslims have ridiculously high fertility rates. This is the real reason why Islam is the fastest growing religion, as the scat data available actually suggests more Muslims deconvert in the west than new people convert to Islam.

http://www.scilogs.eu/en/blog/biology-of...s-gss-data

While secularism easily is winning the war of ideas, is it possible that we (and possibly the planet) are doomed because we will simply be out-bred by the religious.

Maybe secularists ought to withhold the benefit of that part of medical science destinctly derived from counter-scriptural understanding of the world from the religious.

(August 26, 2013 at 3:30 pm)CapnAwesome Wrote: While secularism easily is winning the war of ideas, is it possible that we (and possibly the planet) are doomed because we will simply be out-bred by the religious.

I wouldn`t think that way, people throughout the western world used to breed like rabbits aswell 100 years ago.
I have heared the argument of the "breeding muslims" very frequently, thing is that it is easyly disproven and has nothing to do with Islam. 20 years ago, the birthrates in Algeria and Turkey were at an average of 4 and 5 children per family, with an economic boom in both countries, the spreading of wealth and the creation of a large middle class birth rates in both countries sunk to an average of 2 and 1. something per family. In fact it was found by researchers that the second generation of muslim immigrants to Europe addapt their birthrate into the national average.

Religion is certainly not the most contributing factor that leads to a big number of children per family. It is poverty, which is why birthrates in impoverished regions, that are not muslim, are also very high.

I do not doubt that in very religious places like Saudi Arabia and the southern states of the US is a big contributer to a high birthrate, but in the majority of cases it is simply poverty.

Other than that, I read that the high birthrates in countries such as Egypt, Pakistan and Sudan are less benefitial for the society (in terms of creating a religious demographic) because they create problems such as famine, drought and massive unemployment together with all the other destructive factores a overpopulated country can have. At least that`s the case in Egypt, where overpopulation has lead to a shortage of food, massive undereducation amongst the population, water shortage, famine and social disorder.

I've had three children by two separate
moms (former wives) prior to marrying
my current wife who didn't want kids. All
three of my children (fully grown now),
have no religious beliefs. Needless to say
(but I will anyway), I'm quite pleased by
this situation. All three of my offspring
are well on their respective ways toward
great futures without religion involved.

As a side note; My christian wife often
tells god she is pissed at him because
she never wanted kids, and therefore
she should have been spared the 'curse'
of a menstrual cycle. She asks him why,
if he knows everything, could he not make
provisions for her given that she was never
going to have children of her own...

I'm seeing the light dawn on the wifie,
and she may even question god so much
that she stops believing in him. One can
hope.

---

(August 26, 2013 at 3:50 pm)Maelstrom Wrote: All my potential spawn find themselves embedded in tissue.

You did not just say that!

Our numbers won't increase because we're more fertile. They wil increase because we make more sense and we're no longer silent and invisible.