Is Europe out of step with rest of world?

When it comes to weighing the role of religion in world affairs, Europeans who worry about America have to ask: "Who looks strange now?" "The world as a whole is even more religious than the United States," Lugo added. "So it is not the United States that needs explaining, in many ways, when it comes to religion, it is Europe that needs to be explained.

"You don't have to be a genius to conclude that it is going to be more religious and less secular," he said. "There is not a European country, for instance, that is anywhere close to a replacement birth rate. Not even close. All of their populations are declining. ... So on that basis alone, you can predict that the whole religion question is going to become even more important, in terms of global affairs."


http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?...VFeXk3MTg4MTQz

[RedMenace]

What? Are you implying that Europe's slight disinterest in religion is a problem? I'd say it is a blessing.

Originally Posted by RedMenace

What? Are you implying that Europe's slight disinterest in religion is a problem? I'd say it is a blessing.

I am implying nothing. The article is coming right out and saying that compared to the rest of the world Europe's secularism is the aberation, not the norm. It goes on to warn of the peril which exists to Europe as a result of that secularism and its declining bith rate.

Something to think about.

[RedMenace]

Last time I checked, considering Europe's social and economic stability in the world, more people should follow Europe's example, not visa versa.

Originally Posted by RedMenace

Last time I checked, considering Europe's social and economic stability in the world, more people should follow Europe's example, not visa versa.

Perhaps that is it..........a little too comfortable.
Like I said something to think about.

[Chock]

Seems like something of a sweeping generalisation and over-simplification, considering that there are well over forty countries in Europe and there is a huge range of diversity across that number.

You might not have to be a genius to conclude some things, but checking facts is usually not a bad idea; that birth rate 'statistic' is completely innaccurate.

Chock

Originally Posted by Chock

Seems like something of a sweeping generalisation and over-simplification, considering that there are well over forty countries in Europe and there is a huge range of diversity across that number.

You might not have to be a genius to conclude some things, but checking facts is usually not a bad idea; that birth rate 'statistic' is completely innaccurate.

Chock

Population
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm

Death rate (if death rate is greater than birth rate that is a population decline)
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004395.html

[Camaero]

I blame condoms.

[antikristuseke]

So in a world close to being over populated reduced birthrates are bad? But seriously though, I do realize that the population in Europe is in decline and that some areas have problems with a lack of workforce and not with a lack of jobs which causes imigrants to come and "steal" jobs from honest hard working *insert country name here* citizens. Well let them, if they come here and work as a productive member of society, i dont see that as being a bad thing.
Now the religion issue, just because there are more religious zealots arround than reasonable people doesnt mean that the zealots are right.

[Skybird]

Too long a peace, especially by historic european standards... today freedom and humanism is traded away so easily because nobody has a memory of how it is to live without freedom. That's why so many cannot value it, cannot imagine a world without it being taken for granted, and thinking the sheer example of freedom alone will convince all others. "Freedom must not be defended, it must not be fought for - it simply is there if only you mean it well with all mankind." That is the declaration of bankruptcy of the european reason, and completely.

There certainly were developements in the european culture of mind that made the ancient theistic superstition obsolete, and today such religions, wether it be the right-winged Christians in the US or the Muslims living on Muhammad's land property, are not the remedy but the cause of violence and hate - like they always have been, it seems. Europe decided to leave that theism behind, after having learned some bitter lectures baout it the very hard way - but nevertheless did not choose the path of reason (like Buddhism would suggest, for example), but the path of materialism. Socialists and lefts sometimes say and think they are about a higher morality, the individual's rights, but as a matter of fact they flatten all differences, reject all different worth of different characters, declare every Peter and every Pauls as owning the top of the hill (which they had flattened before), and egnerally are about creating a totally uniform collective society that compares to the total monoculture as you know it from agriculture. Or insect states. Socialism has turned out to be not a bit less materialistic as is capitalism. They always reduce al, and everything - to material quantities. And here again: in europe, materialism correlates with the level of individual liberties and freedoms. and what was it I said about freedom: see above.

As WG said, "a little too comfortable", although he meant it in a different context.

To make low birth rates a consequence of not believing into theistic deities is idiotic. As I repeatedly have said now: correlations do not describe a relation "A causes B" or vice versa, they only say that two variables tend to appear simultaneously, nothing more. Wether or not their is a causal link you cannot say from correlations. And there are many other reason why low birth rates are the norm in Europe (white man's America as well, btw.). Materialism and the desire to consume one's life without picking up the distracting job of raising children, which will leave you no freedom at all in the first years. Careers. all that is material egoism. Or the opposite reasons: no material wealth, no jobs to fund the founding of families.

The overcoming of old superstitious traditions certainly left a vacuum behind, because I understand man to inevitably be a spiritual creature, or a religous one, if you wish, by which I mean nothing more that man is qeuipped with a level of potential reasonability and manifested self-awareness that he ask questions about himself: where do I come from, where do I go? Why am I here, how much time do I have? What's all cosmos and universe about?

I think theistic religions give the most unripe and childish answers to such questions, that'S why I never was able to take them serious even when still being a schoolboy. They belong to a lower, means: earlier state of human mind's evolution. Europe may be abnormal concenring the uninterest it has for theism, but that abnormity does not mean it lags behind - but has taken the lead. It better compares to be the seeing one in the land of the blind, as being called the ill patient who turned blind. However, the islamisation of Europe will have turned the majority of people into theistic believers again in the future of let's say 100 years. It is counter-evolution, or history turning backwards.

Can't put it any better than he does:










Edit:
P.S. One thing on the low population means low supply of workers. despite all the talking and mourning of corporations in the past 15 years and the time of economical lows, how difficult and costly it is for them in Gemrany - the leading top 50 companies here made record wins every year, and reached record increase rates of profits most of the years - while firing workers at the same time. It obviously is wrong to say that smaller population necessarily means a decline in communal wealth - the mentioned gains in profits were made with constantly decreasing work forces, but they did not reach the national community which harboured these companies. Mind you that the recent stockmarket troubles saw traders annihilating thee sum of 6 thousand billions dollars (6.000.000.000.000) "Da muß eine alte Oma lange für stricken!" So it is more a question of how the wealth, increasing while needing smaller work forces, is distributed, and how much of the cream we accept to get sacked by some elitary top managers and bosses whose incomes have not the smallest relation anymore to their duties they fulfill within the network of their companies. On the other hand, the heavy industry is shifting more and more to the east, so does the cheap mass production of goods for everyday life - we now need highly trained, knowledge-heavy, well educated specialists. To import them means that they will take the job that just some years later will be needed by our own future generation of specialists that then will have left schools - and who cannot find work anymore because the heavy industry and mass production has wandered to the eastern nations and Asia, and the spcilaised jobs are already being taken. Is thatworker-import really clever, then? as always, the industry only plans in very short terms, and without taking responsebility for the social community (how could it be any different in material capitalism: social responsebility is a non-material value). They want their specialists, and they want them now. They just do not wish to make a medium-term investement into training and educating these specialists themselves, from people here in Germany. They had all the past years to do so, but let the years go by without using them. And now it should go hopp-hopp-hopp.

No way, man! For this reason, I see globalization as one of the major threats to the future of clobal civilization, because globalized industry means industries that do not have any link to the national communities anymore that have raised them, and see no social responsebility anymore that they own to anyone (like you already see in the third world, and increasingly in the first world as well).. They are beyond control by political leaders (they already make policy today), and organizations like the UN or EU, or whatever. They become the new world leader in fact, making national states obsolete. While national states certainly are no necessitiy until the end of time, I do not wish to see them being destroyed by this, and being replaced with the tyranny of such unscrupulous leadership without a conscience that can think in non-material terms and responsebilities as well. And people became aware of these dangers in the recent years. Many supporters of the globalization project - have become remarkably silent in the the short past, now that the many dangers and problems and dangerous implications have become apparent and so many giga-fusions have caused more costs than good and were broken off again.

Let the insatiable egos of some managers never become the rulers of the world. It will kill all civilization and all cultural life there is, one way or the other.

[Chock]

Population
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm

Death rate (if death rate is greater than birth rate that is a population decline)
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004395.html

Without getting into it too much, I was basing my comment on official Government figues for the UK and Ireland, the data for which, I have access to quarterly as part of one of my freelance contracts for a Government publication. I am unable to quote statistics here from that source, as the data is provided to me on a non-disclosure basis other than for in the (internal Govt.) publication for which it gets used, which I produce. However, I did find this one online, which supports some of the data I have, but like most online sources though, it has to be taken with a pinch of salt!

http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/050928/d050928a.htm

However, I would much rather trust the data I have from official Governmnent sources, than that of a marketing company, which is the source of the related links in the above quote. I've worked with marketing companies a lot over the years, and frankly, I wouldn't trust most of them to go up the road and buy me chocolate bar without screwing it up, let alone providing competent data! You can trust me on that one.

Incidentally, that was post number 1,000 for me - yay!

Chock

[Fish]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

, just because there are more religious zealots arround than reasonable people doesnt mean that the zealots are right.

[joea]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Let the insatiable egos of some managers never become the rulers of the world. It will kill all civilization and all cultural life there is, one way or the other.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Skybird

(white man's America as well, btw.).

1990-2000
The dream of a stabilized — or even a stabilizing — population was proven to be nothing but a fairy tale as U.S. population exploded with its biggest growth ever. The Baby Boom peak was exceeded — not by a big increase in Americans' babies but because Congress further increased immigration to a level almost quadruple the traditional level. And federal decisions to stop enforcing most laws against illegal immigration in the interior of the country led to additional higher levels of illegal aliens in the country. Yet another cause of the boom was immigrant fertility. Although American natives maintained a below-replacement-level fertility rate, immigrant fertility was at a similar rate to the U.S. Baby Boom fertility of the 1950s.

http://www.numbersusa.com/overpopula...cadegraph.html

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Camaero

I blame condoms.

Learn from your parents mistakes....practice birth control