What I mean really mean is: atheists are going out of existence because they are not breeding enough. Leaving aside the question of whether there is any truth in religious belief, this raises interesting questions about the apparent benefits of religion – at least for your genetic survival.
This is from a recent article by Jonathan Leake:
Atheists, watch out. Religious people have evolved to produce more children than non-believers, researchers claim, while societies dominated by non-believers are doomed to die out.
A study of 82 countries has found that those whose inhabitants worship at least once a week have 2.5 children each, while those who never do so have just 1.7 — below the number needed to replace themselves.
The academic who led the study argues that evolution, credited by atheist biologists such as Richard Dawkins as the process solely responsible for creating humanity, favours the faithful because they are encouraged to breed as a religious duty.
Michael Blume, a social science researcher at Jena University in Germany, said that over evolutionary timescales of hundreds or thousands of years, atheists have had fewer children and the societies they belong to are likely to disappear.
“It is a great irony, but evolution appears to discriminate against atheists and favour those with religious beliefs,” said Blume.
His arguments are in direct contradiction of evolutionary biologists such as Dawkins, who has argued that religions are like “viruses of the mind” which infect people and impose great costs in terms of money, time and health risks.
Blume’s work suggests the opposite: evolution favours believers so strongly that over time a tendency to be religious has become embedded in our genes. [Sunday Times, 02.01.11, p3]
Why is religion such a benefit? Because a religious tradition is better at allowing values, trust and cooperation to develop.
As well as the promotion of child-bearing by religious authorities, other important factors such as strong shared religious beliefs allow people to fit into a community, accept shared tasks and rules of behaviour. This ability to work together further raises the survival chances of children.
You can read Blume’s academic article “The Reproductive Benefits of Religious Affiliation” here. And in his blog, he quotes from the end of the article:
Evolutionary Theorists brought up far more scientific arguments – but committed believers in supernatural agents brought up far more children. There is a certain irony in here: creationist parents unconsciously defend the reproductive success of their children and communities against evolutionist teachings, whereas some naturalists are trying to get rid of our evolved abilities of religiosity by quoting biology. But from an evolutionary as well as philosophic perspective, it may seem rather odd to try to defeat nature with naturalistic arguments.
This presumes that every child born to religious parents retains their faith, which isn’t true. Because religion, contrary to what this article seems to be trying to say, is not a genetic trait. The 2008 ARIS numbers show a significant rise in atheist and nonreligious numbers– hardly what you would expect if blume’s hypothesis were correct.
http://www.daylightatheism.org/2009/03/aris-2008.html
Mr Blume must have a better rear view mirror than even the most brilliant paleoanthropologist. Home Saphian only departed Africa between 70 and 60 thousand years ago. The 150,000 years or so they stayed and developed in Africa is a dark night which no-one have been able see into. The concept of atheism and its meaning developed much later, when organised religions began appearing on the world scene. Perhaps the word should be re-frased to “Anti-theism”, since this would incorporate all those who don’t believe in any God and those who are against all this chimera.
It is presumptious to think that an atheist doesn’t believe in anything, just because they don’t adhere to some man-made philosophy that suggest that Paradise is right around the corner, provided you behave yourself according to the rules proscibed by some particular religious belief.
Had organised religion never been developed, perhaps we would not have the kind of murder and mayhem that has been and still is committed in the name of “God”, whoever he or she is presumed to be.
If indeed believers in organised religion is responsible for the population increase during the last few thousand years, then it is to those that we must lay the blame for the unsustainabele population growth we have today. What we need is a lot of atheist, so we can reduce the world’s population, but then, climate change will in the end take care of that problem.
Go yee forth and multiply- and cause some more powerty, war and starvation.
I hate the word Breeding. It all sounds a bit Lab Ratish. I am probably not your average religious person and not from an average religious family, regardless of ancestors beliefs what ever they were.
My mother was one of 11 children. Grandmother being a hopeful agnostic but with no practising faith. My Mother secular. Only 6 of her children survived childhood.
My Father was only one of two. probably best described as agnostic. My mother and father had four children. I am the only child that goes to church.
However my husbands family had some measure of faith and yet he has a totally humanist outlook. He never wanted children, thought the world was too horrid. But he did adopt a child in his first 25 year happy marriage.
I never grew up religious but I had a deep feeling from a child of a world beyond, and I think for me in my life it comes down to Love, that if you are blessed enough to have babies to Love and nurture, then in our deepest faith and prayers God will look after us all in His own way. My husband just never felt that faith.
I certainly wouldn’t breed because it was expected of me, by a religious or ruling authority. But only because I wanted children inspired by His Will. In my experience what one generation strived for the other generation has rebelled against. Lets see if I can break that experience. Faith may have created more babies for me but because of Love and a deepest calling as a mother and whilst I feel the pain of maybe one day loosing those I Love the promise of eternal life is a comfort as apposed to not having babies from a fear of the loss or end of life.
Without wishing to over simplify a very complex issue, it might be suggested that religious people have more children because they are generally happier. Happier couples tend generally to wish to create more children and stay together within their happy environment. This is apart from any arguments that religions encourage procreation.
Is there some data that supports this? The idea of happier couples staying together doesn’t seem consistent with this idea since divorce rates between religions are quite similar, and slightly lower among atheists than most mainstream denominations.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm
There’s also at least some data showing that having children negatively impacts happiness, suggesting that if happier people did indeed have more children then doing so would tend to undermine the “happy environment” you’ve posited.
Do you have some numbers that make sense of your conjecture?
Interesting argument with some points for it, but not entirely correct. What about the piraha people of Brazil, who appear to be natural atheists, having no creation myth nor indulgence in expounded superstitions, beleiving only what they can experience. I wager their society has been around a lot longer than the civilisations of today most of which are pretty new. Also contrast deeply religious countries like pakistan with northern European countries steeped in aetheism..maybe they have more children in pakistan but their quality of life is much lower..Not to mention the fact that if man does finally destoy the entire planet, it is likely that the christian president of the USA will play at least some involvement in this when he pushes the red button, perhaps in a conflict with the Muslim president of Iran on behlaf of the Jewish state of Isreal, get the picture?…of course the pirha people will probably come out of the trees and inherit the earth when we are all dead..
My point being that people of faith may have more babies but maybe it is because of the intrinsic reason that they trust in God’s work and understand the eternalness of Love, or just the simple feeling that they want them and know that that is their path, and not because of the extrinsic reason that they are encouraged to do so. For me this is a truth anyway. I had no formal faith until my children were born, but with no intrinsic faith I probably wouldn’t have had children at all.
“Atheists are breeding themselves out of existence”
Just like priests!