Being outbred by the religious

[Mister Agenda]

I agree and it's obviously backed up statistically. However will the world kill itself through overpopulation or wars before everyone becomes sane?

The rate of population growth is slowing. Middle-of-the-road UN projection is that global population won't double again, it is expected to peak at around 9 or 10 billion and then start to decline very gradually for centuries. Whether we can survive the 10 billion mark remains to be seen.

[Anomalocaris]

I agree and it's obviously backed up statistically. However will the world kill itself through overpopulation or wars before everyone becomes sane?

The rate of population growth is slowing. Middle-of-the-road UN projection is that global population won't double again, it is expected to peak at around 9 or 10 billion and then start to decline very gradually for centuries. Whether we can survive the 10 billion mark remains to be seen.

That depends on whether the places where most of the new population growth is expected to occur, in Africa, South America, and India, is likely to gain power, wealth and influence to take resources commensurate with their population increase, or if they would be crushed under their population burden without being able to effect much of the rest of the world.

[EB-S.canaria]

an interesting question is whether religion is something in our genetics or taught from one generation to the next. i think we all start off ready to believe anything until we reach an age to start questioning these teachings.

[CapnAwesome]

I'm curious what effect you see the religious outbreeding the non-religious having. It's easy to say that they are outbreeding the non-religious, in a chicken little, "the sky is falling," sort of way, but what is the pragmatic effect? Following on Germans' point, there is a well documented link between affluence and birth rate; the more affluent one is, the less babies one is likely to have — regardless of religious belief. Whether religious belief in and of itself has a significant impact upon fertility rates, and how much, is unclear from this data as it does not appear to adjust for confounding factors like socio-economic status, education level, race, and so on.

Moreover, it's important to ask what is being done with those numbers. Five children scrabbling to survive working for $18,000 a year are likely to have less effect than one university professor, regardless of her salary. One wealthy liberal will have more effect than a hundred struggling fundamentalists, who themselves are saddled with the cost of that high birthrate in terms of raising their brood. (In the U.S., a low-income family with four children will spend $700,000 raising them to maturity, or 18 years worth of income; a middle-class family raising two children will spend $470,000 or 6 years of their income. There's a reason poor children start work earlier than more affluent children. The differences result in fewer educational opportunities and so on. Perhaps the religious will have more children, but if those children are condemned to occupy the lower rungs of the ladder, what of it?)

There is a theory from psychology which has had an enormous impact on me over the years, known as Vroom's Expectancy Theory. Basically, the theory states that it takes more than the desire for some change or result to motivate a person to make the changes desired or bring about the result. Vroom's theory suggests that motivation requires both that the individual possess the instrumental utility or means to achieve the goal, and that the person must be aware that they possess the means to achieve the goal. I'm not sure whether this is a part of Vroom's theory, but I would add that knowledge that one's situation without the change is unpleasant, and that one's situation after the change is pleasant, and being aware of the difference affects motivation. (This is often a major goal in psychotherapy, helping the person to become aware of how their behavior is contributing to their unhappiness, and developing an existential anxiety with respect to the continuance of those behaviors.) The subjective difference between one's current distress and one's anticipated relief must be greater than whatever subjective distress one experiences in making the change in order for the person to follow through in changing. (Changing is usually stressful in and of itself, and if that stress is greater than the anticipated reward, the attempt will likely be aborted. Another aspect worth noting is how quickly or visibly the reward materializes; if a change in behavior doesn't result in a reward rather quickly, the person will also likely abandon the change.) The question then becomes, even if the religious have greater numbers than the non-religious, are they likely to have greater impact or power than the non-religious. Whose efforts and effects in the world have the better chance of succeeding? That's a question which, in marketing, is referred to as reach. How much reach do those numbers have?

It's been my impression, or hunch, if you will, that the greater numbers are balanced by negatives which correspond to those breeding in greater numbers, so the overall effect is more or less in balance. I think this makes sense from an ecological perspective. The human species has evolved to display a range of behaviors dependent on the environment. Where having babies is the best way to exploit the environment, they will have babies; when having few children and investing in them heavily is best, that's what humans do. The latter is the general form of our reproductive strategy; we succeed by quality rather than quantity, as say, in bacteria. The question is whether religion itself is a dependent variable on its own that alters the overall behavior of the species with respect to the see-saw of fertility? I don't see that the question has been answered, but I didn't dig into your material very deeply. My impression was that the larger question was not answered, and that some faulty assumptions such as those under-girding eugenics and social Darwinism are uncritically embedded in the analysis.

First off I want to thank you for the reply. Although I think these forums are full of intelligent people often times they (and myself more than most) just don't care enough or are too lazy to really put a lot of thought into their replies. Not only that but it actually got me thinking rather than the normal series of rote replies with answers practically pre-placed up my ass and ready to pull out at a moments notice.

Really I don't think that this topic has been explored well enough to provide satisfactory answers to the questions raised. There is a link between religion and high birthrates (strictly within individual countries or geographical areas, not the fallacious comparison between Third World Countries like Afghanistan and Europe that Germans tried to pretend I was making.) This exists everywhere. Every statistic that I've ever seen on the subject confirms that the religious breed more. However lower income people also breed more and are more religious on average. It's possible that religion indeed has nothing to do with breeding rates as some people claim. To really study it you'd have to eliminate variables like education level, income level, etc and make a real study that just focuses on religion vs non-religion. I've never actually seen such a study and am not sure that one has even been done, but as I said before every single statistic that is available suggests that indeed the religious breed more.

That being said this thread was not meant as a call for secular people to have more kids. I don't think it's a realistic idea considering that the planet is approaching (or perhaps already at unsustainable population levels already.) Continuing to win the war of ideas should be the focus of the secular community. However the real fear is that sheer numbers may overwhelm good ideas. Especially considering the value that we put on Democracy. Perhaps we have all the good ideas in the world and are simply outvoted by the ignorant religious, who decide to impose their values on the rest of us. To a minor extent you see this in the United States already and you certainly see it in the Democratic countries in the Middle East (and India as well, for both Hindus and Muslims) At that point sheer numbers could very well prove our undoing. Of course it's difficult to speculate on the future and I'd like to believe that indeed even if secular people are out bred the conviction of our ideas and power of our influence will win the day, so to speak. However it's easy to look at the sheer numbers and be very pessimistic.

[Clueless Morgan]

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...

If I were a theist I'd be cursing God over having a period too. As it is I have no one to curse for this monthly affliction.

*counting down the years until I hit menopause*

My mother (and 99% of my family) is still religious. My nephew is another atheist born to religious parents. I don't think that idea of children automatically assuming the religion of their parents is necessarily true, though it happens quite often. But I'm betting that number drops as information is easily available on the internet. It was far easier to keep kids indoctrinated back when they actually had to go to the library to look stuff up.

I would agree with this; I didn't inherit my mother's religion for the primary reason that she never went to church and therefore I never went to church either. I suspect my dad is some kind of deist or the lowest, most uninterested rung of theist it's possible to be (I'd say he's a cultural christian, infused with it through ring-wing talk radio, country music, NASCAR and having pretty religious/socially conservative buddies)- the only time he has ever mentioned religion to me was when I was like 16 or 17 and a perfect stranger walked up to me, asked me if I was a Christian, then ran away when my dad walked over. My dad asked me what the guy wanted, I told him the guy asked me if I was a christian and my dad's immediate response was "Of course you are" - which, coincidentally was the first time I really acknowledged to myself that I was 100% atheist and not just investigating my beliefs.

Whoa, tangent...

I also think there might be an element of culture/generation to it, too: I have two sisters, one 2 years older and one 10 years older. The sister that's 2 years older has atheistic leanings; she told me once long ago that she was an atheist but she's not the kind who put much thought into it or cares to learn about the harm religion does, she's a "live and let live" atheist. My oldest sister takes after my dad much more, nominally theist and is probably more a cultural christian than a Believer, but is some kind of deist/theist nonetheless.

I, the most ardent atheist in my family, have no desire to have kids. Like, ever. Give me the hysterectomy now, please, let's not even wait for menopause. My older (middle) sister has never mentioned wanting to have kids and is currently (and for the last 8 years or so) been a nanny so she's raising other peoples' kids. I'm wondering if she'll want to have any of her own. My oldest sister is in her late thirties and is trying to get pregnant and having infertility problems, and coincidentally spent her early 20's as a nanny as well and got burnt out raising other peoples' kids so I'm wondering if my middle sister is destined for the same path.

[Michael Schubert]

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.

It depends on who exactly the religious are. Are they the religious extremists who kill people in the name of God (Al Qaeda/ etc.), or are they the type who join Americans United for Separation of Church and State? The former are the dangerous ones, while the latter were the plaintiffs (along with the ACLU) in the Kitzmiller vs. Dover School District case.

[John V]

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.

This contradicts the premise of the OP: "The reality of the planet is that most people retain the religious beliefs of their parents."

[Esquilax]

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.

This contradicts the premise of the OP: "The reality of the planet is that most people retain the religious beliefs of their parents."

Most do: those that don't will find atheism a far more viable option for self-identification if there is a visible public persona for atheism that isn't, say, dominated by the religious caricature of the easily offended, miserable and litigious sinner.

Moreover, you're ignoring the reason that most people retain their parent's beliefs; they aren't exposed to opposing ideas in sufficient strength and presentation to make other options seem worthy of consideration. This has already changed so much due to the internet, we're just trying to help it along.

[Tonus]

This contradicts the premise of the OP: "The reality of the planet is that most people retain the religious beliefs of their parents."

If the number of people who join a religion (or change their faith) is lower than those who leave, over time the number of non-believers would increase. I have no idea how often the former occurs, though.

[John V]

Most do: those that don't will find atheism a far more viable option for self-identification if there is a visible public persona for atheism that isn't, say, dominated by the religious caricature of the easily offended, miserable and litigious sinner.

Moreover, you're ignoring the reason that most people retain their parent's beliefs; they aren't exposed to opposing ideas in sufficient strength and presentation to make other options seem worthy of consideration. This has already changed so much due to the internet, we're just trying to help it along.

I'm not attacking or defending either position. I'm just suggesting that it would be better for you guys to consider it and reach a consensus than to talk out of both sides of your collective mouth.