(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.
