Be Careful What You Write Against..
Now I have nothing much against Atheists as a rule. In the final analysis, they have enough trouble justifying much of anything they say. After all, if God or an ultimate reason does not exist behind the physical world, then all we have left is personal opinion, theirs and ours. And who cares what your opinion is anyway? Atheism, in order to justify any action, has to resort to force in order to make their personal opinion worth anything beyond themselves. After all, it is “just their opinion.”
Or as the ultimate Atheist, Chairman Mao said, “Morality comes at the barrel of a gun.” Yep, that’s all that is left for atheism.
Yet the new atheists write books, do lectures and debates in order to convince the world to drop God from their vocabulary and their lives. I don’t read or listen much. “It’s just their opinion.” I also take N.T. Wright’s word on the matter, that the books are just incredibly boring.
Still, life takes some interesting turns. Now the prominent atheist, Richard Dawkins is having second thoughts; maybe not about God, but about the desirability of a culture without God: or at least a certain God among the mix. Says Dawkins, regarding the decreasing influence of Christianity in Europe, and Britain in particular:
There are no Christians, as far as I know, blowing up buildings. I am not aware of any Christian suicide bombers. I am not aware of any major Christian denomination that believes the penalty for apostasy is death. I have mixed feelings about the decline of Christianity, in so far as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse.
It is really kind of (tragically) funny. For the last few decades, Europe was exactly the kind of culture in which Dawkins would have reveled. Despite having an established church (or perhaps because of it), the laws became increasingly pluralistic and the people became more and more secular and–dare we say it–atheistic.
Yet, this without-God culture was not without a price. Hope, generally a byproduct of a belief in a beneficial Deity, withered. As a consequence, the European existence became more concentrated in the pleasures of the present instead. This left little room for such future oriented pursuits (and present oriented sacrifice) as the creation of families and the propagation and raising of children.
As the columnist Spengler often notes, this leads to a shrinking population, until it can no longer support a substructure. The culture becomes one of death.
A sick cat or dog will crawl into a hole to die. The members of sick cultures do not do anything quite so dramatic, but they cease to have children, dull their senses with alcohol and drugs, become despondent, and too frequently do away with themselves. This is not due to an inborn death-drive, contrary to the odious Freud, but rather a symptom of a culture’s mortal illness.
Therefore, to ward off the death of their society (and to pay for the “social security” of the bulging mass of retirees who did not have enough children to pay for their own pensions), the culture opens itself up to immigration. From where else can the worker base be increased enough to provide the necessary tax base to pay for the nation to sustain itself?
Europe brought in Muslim groups, who in the economies of Europe, found a hope in the future (unlike in their own homelands). With that hope, came children–large numbers of them. So much so that the population shift, unless something changes drastically–such as massive Muslim conversions to Christianity–the trend is inevitable.
As Spengler often quips, “In 200 years, French and German will be spoken exclusively in hell.” As Mark Stein noted in his book, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, the demographics of Europe indicate that the Muslims will be the majority group in Europe in 50 years. Already they are a strong influence. Per Stein:
But in the same three decades as Ulster’s “Troubles,” …large Muslim populations settled in parts of Europe that had little or no experience of mass immigration…On the Continent and elsewhere in the West, native populations are aging and fading and being supplanted remorselessly by a young Muslim demographic…Of course, not all Muslims support terrorists — though enough of them share their basic objectives(the wish to live under Islamic law in Europe and North America)to function wittingly or otherwise as the “good cop” end of an Islamic good cop/bad cop routine.
In 2008, when Maclean’s magazine printed the chapter that contained the above quote, they were promptly sued by the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
What a difference two years makes. What Stein and Maclean’s were sued for, now Dawkins warns against openly. Europe, having abandoned its Christian roots, became an atheist and pluralistic state. As such, it was helpless before Muslims’ more stalwart (and fertile) population. Now even the Bishop of England declares that Shariah Law in Britain is now “unavoidable.”
The Church in Europe and History may not have been perfect, but now even Hawkins notes that what may replace it will be worse.
Too bad he never said that in his books.
So I expect Hawkins, in order to enhance Europe and the survival of Western Culture will cancel his future debates and speeches. Certainly he will pull his books off the shelves and contribute his past profits to the cathedrals and churches in Europe to help them remain that “bulwark against something worse.”
Not!
After all, its only his opinion. Hawkins goes the new atheists one better in that opinion does not carry any weight even with himself.
February 3rd, 2012 at 2:46 am
Secular people generally enjoy the materialistic and licentious culture that has largely replaced the (imperfect but real) Christian one that existed before. Secularists like Dawkins are angry atheists. Most are not. They are more religiously indifferent and only become hostile when religious people (i.e. Christians) try to have a voice and influence in the public square. The “religion” they have been fighting for years is Christianity. Only in the last ten years have they noticed the rise of Islamism in the West and they are afraid. But their politically correct “multiculturalism” and “tolerance” has made them also afraid to take a public stand against it. Especially if it risks loosing them their job or worse. And so they attack Christianity all the more! Odd. Demography is destiny. The “debt crisis” will crush us due to the aging boomers having too few kids. And the Muslims may very well inherit Europe in this century. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.