Sunday 7 June 2009

Christianity in decline

"It is well documented that Christianity has withered dramatically in Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. The failure of the faith in the West is regularly denounced by Popes and Protestant leaders. Churches are being converted into libraries, laundromats and pubs. Those who disbelieve in deities typically make up large portions of the population, according to some surveys they make up the majority of citizens in Scandinavia, France and Japan."
G. Paul & P. Zuckerman
(with thanks to the Anti-theist blog)

quedula says: good news yes,  but we have to be careful that the influence of christianity is not replaced by that of other religions that were not subject to the Enlightenment and are still at a primitive stage in their development. For example, according to Sam Harris, if present trends continue France will be a majority muslim country in 25 years.

2 comments:

  1. Let's hope not. A lot can happen in 25 years.

    I think the key, as always, is education. For example, in Pakistan thousands of boys attend madrassas (it's estimated there are over 13,000 of them) where they're taught fundamentalist Muslim nonsense, then this sort of garbage gets exported all over the world. The reason that so many boys attend them is that most are free, and their parents can't afford any other sort of education - if you can call it education. If Pakistan were helped to educate its young people properly, and if immigrant Muslims in the UK and Europe were expected to achieve a basic level of education here (primarily, being able to speak English, since most immigrant imams don't), this would go a long way to achieve integration on our terms.

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  2. I am sure you are right. Education encourages free, rational thinking and reduces birthrates. I know this sentiment is vaguely supported everywhere but is anything being done on a sufficient scale I wonder?

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