I often wonder whether intelligence, education, and affluence are evolutionary dead-ends.
I'm not sure those are on there own--but they are when fused with both liberalism and materialism. Materialism definitely contributes to the lack of children. People want stuff, stuff costs $$, and kids are expensive and troublesome. So if they can't afford both, what do they choose? The stuff, of course. [Not that they really need that BMW, but that's beside the point--they want it!]
Liberalism, of course, gives them the out for making that choice. Sure, don't have those kids. Your gay friends will call you a breeder and there are too many exploitive white people anyway. Besides, having kids makes it tougher for women to climb that career ladder (which is the only real path to happiness). Liberalism is also responsible for higher taxes, which also makes it seem more expensive to have kids.
I can't even begin the tell you the number of smart people I have met who don't have kids, but have the car, house, vacation home, eat out 3X per week, etc. It's definitely reverse Darwinism.
Now, a Western scholar could say, that Christendom behaved very much like this for the last millennium with the exception of the last 40 or 50 years since the rise of Secular Humanism. Christians found nothing wrong with converting any population they came into contact with or killing them for that matter if they insisted on staying "heathens." Its hypocritical of Western Societies to look at aggressive Islamic tactics for converting populations as evil in itself. Yet, Europe had its experience with this very situation for hundreds of years starting with the occupation of Spain in 711 and lasting till nearly 1790, though the Ottomans maintained a foothold in Europe till the end of World War I. Up until the Battle of Vienna in 1683, the fate of Europe was very much in question.
So, for a few hundred years Europe has found a respite. Now the question has become one of Brand Switching where there is no return process, except the model is run perhaps over hundreds of iterations. In this case, without pushing back by other faiths, creating converts out of Muslims, then the outcome is inevitable.
Its not good enough just to cry out and sacrifice freedom of religion too, in this conflict. Instead, we are witnessing pushback in the US and perhaps this will spread back to Europe. The war on Christmas, that was noticed by many this year and the other examples of the Christian faith asking for the same rights as others, to exist, to grow and be celebrated in the Public Square is a beginning.
This does not mean that this should progress to destroying our separation of Church and State, but rather going back to the separation being maintained by the Government working to avoid establishing a preferred or State Religion. The error of the ACLU and others is to insist that the way to avoid establishing a state religion is to insist that the Government act as an Atheist organization, banning any displays of faith and religious teaching for fear of offending. Choosing to officially deny the existence of God, today's courts seem engaged in an effort that would horrify the Founding Fathers who were perfectly happy to declare God as the origin of man's rights and dignity.
Our Government needs to provide fertile ground for Religious faith to take hold and grow without picking the outcome. Social planners and folks who want to pick winners and losers will hate this, but even to choose against Islam would put our basic freedom at risk.
Still, Islam at its core has values and concepts that are antithetical to Western concepts of Equality, Fidelity, Honor, Patriotism because it insists on a dividing line between those who are and those who are not Muslim. Lies told to non-muslems are not sins, friendships are not to be formed with non-muslims, even sins committed to further the aims of the faith are not considered sins.
From a Western stance, the problem with Islam is its teachings and actions toward nonbelievers. It is not realistic to ask Islam to change to "fit in" with Western Civilization. Yet change is what we need desperately on a basic level to co-exist. Christianity and Judaism have changed on a profound level to accept the humanity and dignity of people of other faiths.
This acceptance has come at the price of seeming weak in the face of almost any group that reaches back to the teachings of self and other in the Bible as well as the Koran, fundamentalists. Perhaps, this was the goal of the plan of the elites to replace religious faith with Secular Humanism. However, Humanism has failed just as Communism and Socialism, because without God, all is lost. Love, Family, Honor, Sacrifice, Compassion lose their meaning without the immediate realization of the interconnected nature of men through God's love and creation. So, this leaves a mighty puzzle. How to deal with a faith that is forbidden to play by the rules.
I believe the answer is to still insist on the rules and to expose Islam publicly and loudly where its teachings run afoul of Western values. Past this, it is up to people and the creative minds of the West to defend and grow the institutions that form the basis of our beloved civilization. It is up to Christians and other faiths to get back into the business of evangelizing, and finding ways to welcome people back to active faith. Ultimately, this must culminate in other faiths converting and defending infidels despite the conflict that this will bring.