Posted on 04/22/2007 6:10:19 PM PDT by goldstategop
An article in The Wall Street Journal (April 12) breathlessly informs us of the latest fad on the Incredible Shrinking Continent -- "As Religious Strife Grows, Europe's Atheists Seize Pulpit: Islam's Rise Gives Boost To Militant Unbelievers; The Celebrity Hedonist," the headline teases.
The "Celebrity Hedonist," isn't geriatric frat-boy Hugh Hefner, but Michel Onfray, a 48-year-old author dubbed "France's high-priest of atheism" in the Journal piece.
Reporter Andrew Higgins describes the doyen of disbelief -- commander of the faith-less -- strutting onto the stage of Caen's 500-seat Alexis de Tocqueville auditorium, dressed in black from head to toe, to deliver the latest two-hour installment in his on-going lecture series, "Hedonist Philosophy," to a packed house.
Hedonism popular in France? You heard it here first.
Apparently, the Hedonist Philosophy does not consist of "pass the bonbons and heated body-oil" (that would be the Playboy philosophy, as Hefner pretentiously calls his mental mutterings) but includes such priceless gems as, "To enjoy and make others enjoy without doing ill to yourself or to others, this is the foundation of all morality." Catchy.
Did Mother Teresa enjoy picking the dying off the streets of Calcutta? But is not enjoyment the foundation of all morality?
According to the Journal, the rise of secularism on steroids is spurred by "alarm over Islam .... Europe's Muslim population, estimated at between 15 and 20 million, is growing more numerous, more vocal and, in some cases, more religious," as well as the nagging fear that "religion is making a comeback."
Among other signs of an increasingly assertive impiety, the article cites a debate in London last month, where atheists and believers squared off over the proposition: "We'd be better off without God" (according to a vote of the audience, the atheists won by an almost 2-to-1 margin), a spate of belief-bashing books (including Christopher Hitchens forthcoming "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything'), a German furniture manufacturer who's funding an "Enlightenment think-tank," Britain's National Secular Society (whose membership doubled in 4 years, to a staggering 7,000 - there are individual churches in the U.S with more members) and the declaration of that great thinker, Elton John, that religion turns people into "hateful lemmings" and should be banned - some have said the same of his music.
Militant atheism in the land of Jacobinism? What is it the French say, "The more things change, the more they remain the same."
French atheism of today is a shadow of its former self. Anti-clericalism reached its high-water mark during the Reign of Terror. On September 2, 1792, three Catholic bishops and more than 200 priests were massacred by a Parisian street mob. Priests and nuns were among the mass executions in Lyon and hundreds were imprisoned in what were described as "abominable conditions" in the port city of Rochefort.
The anti-religious tradition of Revolutionary France was bequeathed on to the two 20th century ideologies it spawned - Nazism and communism. In the Soviet Union, from 1922-1941, The League of the Militant Godless organized and directed atheistic agit-prop.
By 1941, the League had more than 3.5 million members and 96,000 offices across the country. Still, God always has the last laugh. When Mikhail Gorbachev met John Paul II, the former confided that his grandmother had him baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church as a child.
As for a religious renaissance in Europe, Onfray and his allies needn't worry.
True, there was a fuss when the new European Constitution engaged in historical revisionism on a grand scale, by refusing to acknowledge the continent's Christian roots stretching back a millennium.
Aleksander Kwasnieski, then president of Poland, observed: "I am an atheist and everybody knows it, but there are no excuses for making references to ancient Greece and Rome, without making references to the Christian values which are so important to the development of Europe."
Protests over the EU bureaucracy's re-writing of history aside, for many Europeans, faith is increasingly irrelevant. Europe has the lowest church-attendance in the world.
Not coincidentally, the continent is in a demographic tail-spin. Of the 10 nations with the lowest birthrates, nine are in Europe (the 10th. is Japan). Currently, 1.5 children are born for every woman in the EU. In some countries, the rate is as low as 1.1.
It takes 2.1 births per woman merely to replace current population. If present trends continue, Europe's population could decline by 88 million in the next 15 years - a loss of 23% of its 2000 population.
Why not coincidentally? From religion comes hope for the future and a sense of societal obligation (i.e., a non-hedonistic worldview). No faith, no hope. No hope for the future, no sense of obligation - hence, no children.
The United States has both the highest birthrate (2.11) and the highest church attendance in the industrialized world. Domestically, demographic differences parallel religious observance. Salt Lake City and Tupelo, Mississippi have higher fertility rates than Manhattan and San Francisco.
It makes perfect sense (in a cosmic sense). Consider: "I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live," Deuteronomy, 30:1.You choose life (God), you get life (descendants). You choose death, you don't.
I don't know who represented faith in the London debate, but it couldn't have been the A-Team. By every index, active believers are happier, healthier, more successful and more charitable than secularists. Karl Zinsmeister documented this in his recent article "Good Faith," in American Enterprise Magazine.
* A Harvard study showed inner-city youth with a "strong religious orientation" 54% less likely to use drugs than their peers.
* According to the U.S. government's National Survey of Family Growth, only 7% of couples who attend services once a month will divorce within the first 5 years of marriage. The rate for those who go to church once a year or less is 2 ½ times higher.
* Statistics from the charitable clearing house Independent Sector show that, on average, weekly churchgoers donate 3.8% of their income to charity, compared to 0.8% for those who never go.
* According to a University of Chicago nationwide survey of 2,000 physicians (not cited by Zinsmeister), 2 in 5 doctors think belief in God reduces the incidence of a host of diseases and other health problems - including heart attacks.
What do atheists have to offer in place of God to give meaning to life - democracy, human rights, reason, la dolce vita?
The dignity of the individual was first proclaimed at Sinai. The Torah sets forth individual rights and responsibilities. Democracy got a huge impetus from the Protestant Reformation.
From the French Revolution to the blood-drenched isms of the 20th. century, more people were killed in the name of reason - liberty, equality and fraternity, or "scientific" socialism, or "scientific" theories of race - than in all of the religious wars spanning the course of history combined.
The idea that atheists can stop the Islamic advance could only make sense to a modern European.
You can't beat something with nothing. Atheism isn't a values system, but the negation of a values system.
Whatever you think of it, Islam is a fighting creed. (Though some would say it more resembles an ideology than a religion.) Adherents are oriented in the universe. They're given a mission (purpose) in life, and a vision of reward and punishment in the afterlife.
It's not immigration alone that's driving the Islamacization of Europe. Europeans also are converting to Islam. Strangely, they seem not to find fulfillment in 4-day work weeks, soccer-mania, hedonist philosophies or the anemic version of Christianity prevalent in many parts of the continent.
Even some devout unbelievers are driven by self-interest to take religion seriously.
In October, 2005, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, archbishop of Genoa, returned from a trip to Cuba with startling news - "Fidel Castro is asking us (the Catholic Church) for help to combat the plague of abortion in Cuba.," Bertone disclosed.
"The spread of abortion, as Fidel Castro emphasized, is among the causes of the country's demographic crisis," the archbishop added. Cuba has the lowest birthrate in Latin America and the Caribbean, well below replacement level. And, no one is immigrating to the workers' tropical paradise.
So, where does Fidel turn to combat abortion and stop Cuba's demographic suicide? To an institution he proclaimed his mortal enemy after the 1959 revolution.
Here's another irony: As noted above, Michel Onfray, the archbishop of atheism, spoke at the 500-seat Alexis de Tocqueville auditorium.
De Tocqueville was a French aristocrat whose family was guillotined during the Reign of Terror. The non-hedonistic philosopher is best known for his seminal work "Democracy In America," based on his travels here in the early 19th. century.
Though an agnostic, de Tocqueville was discerning. In describing America's uniqueness (which even then had set it on a course that would make the 20th century the American century) de Tocqueville wrote:
"I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in harbors...; in her fertile fields and boundless forests; in her rich mines and vast world commerce, in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic Congress and matchless Constitution.
Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power."
That's what Europe has lost. That's why Europe, as we know it, could disappear in this century. Hedonistic philosophies don't fill empty cradles.
They're not making Frenchmen like de Tocqueville anymore.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Life and death bump!
Demographic decline can be traced to the flowering of the welfare state, not to any otherworldly reasons. As a thought experiment: abolish the welfare state root and branch, so that the extended family once again becomes the only [or almost so] social safety net - and as soon as it sinks, the demographic decline will be reversed pronto, even in the most godless society. In present day Europe, Poland enjoys the reputation of one of the most religious countries - and one of the lowest birth rates.
How about it as a failure of Feminism as it was currently applied?
“Only faith in God can help America navigate the perils of this age and triumph over her enemies”
Hear, Hear. Very well stated.
Feder bump (even if his defenses of religion sound a bit utilitarian)!
The numbers on Europe must also be taking into account the heavy losses in Russia. The nation is literally imploding form decades of negativity and the corrupt culture that it fostered makes abortions the norm and birth rates dreadful.
If the overall figure is true, Europe is the best bet you can make. That is if you want to go long on the Euro. Then you’ll make a bundle on a declining economic model with huge aging populations that can not be supported by the dwindling welfare state.
In France, the old people will be striking. Well not striking in the typical French sense, but more of becoming a nuisance as they block traffic and cry out for their subsidies that will bankrupt the nation.
Make no mistake, God is not mocked, the Euros are reaping what they are sowing. The Euros are squeezing sand trying to make diamonds and it just will not happen, the sand will simply run out of their hands leaving them nothing to hold onto.
When a small motivated minority mets and apathetic majority, the majority always accedes to the demands of that minority.
In “Arabian nights” a similar situation was ascribed by a mechant’s wife to her husband having too liquid semen. So she sent him to chandlers and chemists to look for a thickener, and made him a laughingstock in the process. On a more serious note, without much in terms of corporate pensions, social security, and with low 401k balances even the most diehard feminists will start thinking of the future. To afford the childless old age, one would have to be a millionaire. Everyone else would have to start families.
The idea that atheists can stop the Islamic advance could only make sense to a modern European.
The best line of a great article. If the Islamic advance is stopped in Europe (doubtful), it’ll be in spite of European atheists.
“Why not coincidentally? From religion comes hope for the future and a sense of societal obligation (i.e., a non-hedonistic worldview). No faith, no hope. No hope for the future, no sense of obligation - hence, no children.”
Bump, and how! You nailed it. How is it that in more primitive times, religious belief came naturally. The harsh conditions of living close to Nature helped a lot. Now, instead, The State seems to have completely obscured life as it is for a huge number of people.
I understood this as a primal urge-to-believe that must be satisfied. The impact of The State makes me think maybe it is not so primal and lost with surprising ease.
In my relatively short life, I have met few people who are true atheists in that they do not believe that any gods exist. Most alleged "atheists" such as the aforementioned "thinkers" are more agnostics who hate God and try everything in their power to convince themselves that there is no God. No one rails strongly as to dedicate hundreds of pages of text and entire months or years of their time worrying over something which, according to their own self-description (atheist) doesn't exist.
romanesq: “If the overall figure is true, Europe is the best bet you can make. That is if you want to go long on the Euro. Then you’ll make a bundle on a declining economic model with huge aging populations that can not be supported by the dwindling welfare state.”
Wouldn’t that make you want to go SHORT on the Euro?
By your reasoning, one would be a fool to write a book debunking anthropogenic climate change. After all, if it doesn't exist, why waste one's time on it?
Or do you now see why someone would do so? If society decided that Little Green Men had come down and told us to eliminate religion, I bet you'd fight against it, even if you didn't believe in LGM! Likewise, these atheists fight against the actions of human beings who act upon religious beliefs in certain ways.
Yeah, but they are making up words for him. Like the fake "Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power." quote cited in this article.
I said you would be a fool to devote a large portion of your time and or life to something which you profess does not exist. It's actually paradoxical, trying to find evidence of a thing that does not exist. Unless you established criteria for the thing that does not exist, which will be purely arbitrary since it does not exist therefore it can not be empirically measured, recorded or analyzed. Then you would present your "evidence" against your own arbitrary set of criteria to prove your point, which is essentially having an argument with yourself. So no, if you were to claim that anthropogenic climate change/global warming/global cooling/whatever, simply does not exist, no you couldn't. Now, you could frame the entire argument differently, saying anthropogenic climate change/global warming/global cooling/whatever is unlikely because something else is happening, then, that work.
If society suddenly decided to obey the Little Green Men instead of wipe them out and eliminate religion, sodomize bacteria, whatever, so long as they didn't bother me, I wouldn't do much more than consider them to be idiots and go about my happy way. Insofar as I know Western society has undertaken no steps to eliminate atheists and agnostics, so your example is somewhat irrelevant. However, if humanity in general where suddenly accept the reality set forth by the Little Green Men and seek to eliminate anyone who worships God, then yes, I would have problem.
Neither will American livestyle and/or such American sects like the Mormons. Believe it or not: Europe will be saved by its own great people. Most of them have a much more healty christian basement than you would ever believe.
We Europeans make our own choices and you have to live with that.
The United States has both the highest birthrate (2.11) and the highest church attendance in the industrialized world.
Interestingly the (to Americans who indulge in anti-Europeanism) most secular part of "old" Europe -France- has the highest fertility rate on the old continent with 1.98 births/woman. And the reason for this is not among muslim hordes in the banlieues as some Americans might think. French women simply have ideal premises and trust into their society. Therefore they are free to have kids. The lowest fertillity rates we find in "new" Europe. I.e. in staunch catholic Poland (and they are religious!) the average woman has only 1.26 births.
Source: CIA Factbook
One thing is indeed true. We Europeans have our own -different- values in the meantime. I.e. we lack the social pressure to be a member in a church. Our people are free to do whatever they want. Families accept if their kids do not want to go to church on sundays anymore since it is their own decision. This freedom on our continent has a amazing effect: Those who believe do it from the bottom of their heart and not just because their society expects them to worship. This is much more honest than the pseudoreligious mumbo jumbo that some (not all!) are addicted to in the US.
To give you a example: It is not nessecary for our political leaders to be a member of a church. Nobody expects them to pray in public. The necessity i.e. for a American politician to pray open in public if he wants to be elected is something that is not understood in "old" Europe. It is rather disturbing to us since we understand religion as a private matter. Even the Christian bible tells us not to make a show of our confession:
"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
Mattew 6
Think about it.
Greetings from good old Europe.
A.B.
BTW - this (to me) quite ridicolous article was already posted on FR before:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1820312/posts
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