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(July 23, 2014 at 9:10 am)Blackout Wrote: But eventually even Muslims will start de-converting like it's happening to Christians.
So long as the country has sufficiently secular laws and information can travel freely, I would see young Muslims deconverting, as well. Islam has such a stranglehold in parts of the eastern hemisphere because apostasy is anywhere from culturally unacceptable to outright being a capital offense. Take that away, and people begin to be less afraid to think for themselves.
Part of the reason Saudi Arabia decided atheists are terrorists is that their rates of atheism had become comparable to the USA's. Losing their minds over it won't help, though, it has the opposite effect.
I think the rate of increase of atheism in a country is directly related to how threatened the theist majority acts about it.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you
(July 23, 2014 at 9:07 am)alpha male Wrote: Population growth includes immigration, which is largely Muslim.
False.
Immigration has largely been from former eastern bloc countries and is largely Catholic and Orthodox, both of which saw a significant spike in numbers. Islam is not a significant factor, apostasy amongst 2nd gen muslims is significantly higher than amongst christians.
Quote:I don't understand why you'd come to a discussion forum, and then proceed to reap from visibility any voice that disagrees with you. If you're going to do that, why not just sit in front of a mirror and pat yourself on the back continuously?
(July 23, 2014 at 9:10 am)Blackout Wrote: <snip>
You said something important, Islam will surpass Christianity first. But eventually even Muslims will start de-converting like it's happening to Christians. I don't have a lot of hope for them, but it will surely happen, young Muslims born in europe have laws and rights protecting and an immense access to knowledge and information, it will become easier for them to let go religion. And the US is losing followers too, slowly and gradually. It is also a matter of time before the EU is abolished and States regain power to expel immigrants, I trust something like that will happen soon, I live in a country affected by immigrants negatively, in my case not Muslims
When I read you. I see that you did never live close to Muslims (I'm an Indigenous French who live in a neighbourhood of Housing Estates where Muslims are between 20-40% of the population. The majority of Muslims who live there are Sunni Muslim from Maghreb or West Africa. The majority of inhabitant are mainly French descendant of Portuguese , Spanish immigrees who are fully assimilated. Indigenous French are around of 10-15%).
I'm glad to say that I live in a safe zone (I don't like this therm).
This zone is safe for many reasons :
1.This is not an important city.
2.You can access to the downtown between five and ten minutes of walk (for someone who walk at a normal speed).
3.We have public transportations.
4.Approximately 60% of people who live there are Europeans (indigeneous French like me are a minority but I don't care).
This thing is important because in the majority of HLM (French word for housing estate) people are Maghrebins or Blacks and the majority of them are Muslims (I reknown that there are more apostates that we think but they hide for security reasons).
In France the majority of those who mug people in the street and public transportations like RER lines and the Parisian metro are Muslims.
Many people who dare say the truth are in Prison because the law say that this is racist to say it.
But personaly I think that this is not racist to say that people of a certain religions do more crimes because they refuse to integrate the French society.
This website is an official website in French of Ministère de l'intérieur (Interior Ministry) where you can see the most wanted people by French Authorities. What do you constate ?
NOTE : The first story and second story happened in a vocation school were 80% of students are Muslims. The third and fourth story doesn't happened in the same city that 1 and 2.
1.A day I was in the cafeteria of a "Lycée professionnel" or "Vocation School" in English.
A young Muslim man (btw 16 and 20 years old) did asked if the meals are Halal. The canteen woman answered that all meals are Halal except the pork. Also she did precised that he doesn't must say it to others people because France is a secular state. Therefore this school didn't observed the French law about foods in public places.
The law say that you can serve meals without meat but you haven't the right to serve halal or kasher foods.
2.It was the (Lesser eid). The majority of people were'nt in the school because nearby all students are Muslims. Therefore the place was empty.
I did had the opportunity to speak with a man who work here. Do you know what he did said ? he did said something like : Après ça nous prétendons vivre dans un pays laïque. (After that [the fact that the majority of Muslims student aren't in school and that Institutions accept it even if offically they are not OK with it] we pretend live in a secular state). Also I can note that I can read a flyers where it was wrote that Muslims are allowed to skip school for feast of breaking the fast. Do you know who was the author of this flyers ? answer : the vocation school itself. Therefore the school didn't observed the French law again.
3.I was somewhere to take part in a professional formation (I can't indicate which place. I prefer avoid to be identified by some people).
The majority of people to this place were "muslims immigrees and descendant of muslim immigrees" and at a moment some "black [I precise the color of skin for that people imagine the scene] descendant of muslim immigrees" did screamed الله أَكْبَر(Allah akbar). Nobody did reacted everybody continued to listen the charged of convention.
Result : I didn't registered myself for this formation because I don't want progress in an Islamic middle.
When people who take care of those who are looking for a job asked me why I didn't registered myself. I did lied to avoid problems with French institutions. (Who want to know what was this lie ?).
4.At this same convention an "immigree muslim maghrebin(try to imagine the scene with this detail)woman" was weared a hijab. (The French law forbide it in this kind of place). I can remember that I did laughed in my mind because I saw a print on a wall of this room about secularity.
5.Which story can I tell ? they are too many stories to tell.
I have some questions :
A.Do you know that you can find in France neighbourhood with housing estates where Muslims are the majority in which Police and Firemen don't come because they risk to be attacked with stones , molotov cocktail , sticks etc... ?.
B.Do you know that in some part of France police stations are regularly attacked with molotov cocktail , mortar , stones etc.... ?
C.In some part of France street prayers are common but French authorities tolare it even if this is illegal. Since some month each Friday I can hear the adhan (Call to Islamic Prayer) this is not too loud but everybody must respect the law. Also I can see street prayer from a window of my flat each Friday since some month. Do you know the existence of this social phenomenon ?
D.Do you know that in France you can be jailed or fined if you dare say certain things about Islam and Muslims because it can be considered like racist ?
Example : A day Muslims Women importunate a man. He said something like "Un cochon arrive !"(A pig is coming !). Result : The man was fined if I'm right. I'm not sure that he was fined but I know that he was condemned.
E.Do you know that French government finance mosques illegaly (under French law this is illegal for French governmental institutions to finance any place of worship since 1905).
The law say that it have the right to finance worship places if money is necessary to restore these who were build before 1905.
French institutions pretend that they can't finance Churches that must be restored.
The consequence is that many Churches are destroyed for this reason.
I'm a Strong Atheist but I can't approve the destructions of historical buildings.
If someone wish speak about these topics with me. We can do it with PMs (this is not the subject of this thread therefore I prefer use PMs).
Conclusion : This is difficult to say if this is Atheism or Islam who will win.
Damn! France is messed up!
But I guess it's similar everywhere...
In Lisbon, Portugal, there are certain neighborhoods where the police doesn't go, not because of muslims, but a mix of gipsies and people from the ex-colonies of Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau and "São Tomé e Princípe".
Their religions are either orthodox (gipsy?), catholic or tribal, so it doesn't play much of a role... I think.
What counts is their wealth level, which is low, low, low. And so is their (apparent) willingness to change that, so many of their youth turn to crime, drugs and all that... luckily they remain mostly in their own corner.
Gipsies are then allowed to go to any fair and sell their counterfeit products and everything is allowed... police on these fairs let them run their businesses, as long as everyone behaves.... and the people get to buy cheap stuff.
(July 27, 2014 at 11:50 pm)viocjit Wrote: Conclusion : This is difficult to say if this is Atheism or Islam who will win.
France is 44% atheist and agnostic, maybe 10% Muslim. Atheism has won in France, but it may snatch defeat from the jaws of victory if France doesn't learn how to handle its immigrants better.
In the USA, Muslims aren't ghettoized or particularly poor, they're treated exactly like any other immigrant population. The kids of immigrants are concerned with their phones and making the basketball team. Oppressing people only makes them stick together more and become activists. Making sure they have equal access to the benefits of Western modernity has the opposite effect.
Quote:Determining what percentage of a given society believes in God – or doesn’t -- is fraught with methodological hurdles. First: low response rates; most people do not respond to surveys, and response rates of lower than 50% cannot be generalized to the wider society. Secondly: non-random samples. If the sample is not randomly selected – i.e., every member of the given population has an equal chance of being chosen -- it is non-generalizable. Third: adverse political/cultural climates. In totalitarian countries where atheism is governmentally promulgated and risks are present for citizens viewed as disloyal, individuals will be reluctant to admit that they do believe in God. Conversely, in societies where religion is enforced by the government and risks are present for citizens viewed as non-believers, individuals will be reluctant to admit that they don’t believe in Allah, regardless of whether anonymity is “guaranteed.” Even in democratic societies without governmental coercion, individuals often feel that it is necessary to say that are religious, simply because such a response is socially desirable or culturally appropriate. For example, the designation “atheist” is stigmatized in many societies; even when people directly claim to not believe in God, they still eschew the self-designation of “atheist.” Greeley (2003) found that 41% of Norwegians, 48% of the French, and 54% of Czechs claimed to not believe in God, but only 10%, 19%, and 20% of those respondents self-identified as “atheist,” respectively. A final methodological problem: terminology. Definitions of specific words seldom translate well cross-culturally. Signifiers such as “religious” or “God” have different meanings in different cultures (Beyer, 2003), making cross-national comparisons of beliefs between markedly different societies tenuous.
Although one can come to the conclusion that a god does not exist, the best core reason to me has nothing to do with good or bad happening in one's life. Just mere lack of evidence. You certainly can argue the morality of an all powerful being with its selective nature and also not asking for our input and being immovable.
The idea of an invisible thinking entity without a label of any kind, by itself is absurd considering we only find cognition in biological evolution.
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