Muslm Demographics

[Fluffy]

I have no clue if anything in this video is real, but it at least made me think.

 

[Hanoi5]

Can I say 'scary' and not be called prejudiced?

[blackshoe]

"Scary" seems likely to have been the purpose of the video. They (whoever they are) issue a "call to action". Yeah, fine. What action?

[Al_U_Card]

Oh noooooo! Instead of being infested and annoyed by christians....it will soon be afflicted by muslims......what a terrible fate! At least we are not going backward toward the pagans..... :)

[jonottawa]

Toto we're not in Kansas anymore.

[luke warm]

Oh noooooo! Instead of being infested and annoyed by christians....it will soon be afflicted by muslims......what a terrible fate! At least we are not going backward toward the pagans..... :ph34r:

christians (at least those i know, i can't speak for all of them) don't want a theocracy... if they did, america would have become one long ago... even so, as long as the constitution is held to be the law of the land, the demographics shouldn't be worrisome... the trick is to maintain that rule of law

[mike777]

As an older person I do worry about demographics.

 

We need a heck of alot more people being born and coming into the workplace and paying alot more taxes to pay for us older folks. If we are going to expand Medicare to everyone, we need someone to work longer/harder and pay more in taxes.

 

If one religion compared to another or aethism results in alot more babies....sounds good to me.

 

Medicare broke in 8 years

Insolvency report gives Social Security 3 decades

 

http://www2.arkansasonline.com/news/2009/m...0090513/?latest

[Winstonm]

I have a clue - there is no such thing as a "newborn Muslim". Religious affiliation is not inherited but is a choice. It's as stupid as claiming a child born to Baptist parents is a "newborn Baptist".

 

Most likely this was produced by some far right Christian outfit like a Jerry Falwell production to scare all the churchgoers into a Muslim Hate Rage - A Righteous Jihad of the Faithful.

[Lobowolf]

I have a clue - there is no such thing as a "newborn Muslim". Religious affiliation is not inherited but is a choice. It's as stupid as claiming a child born to Baptist parents is a "newborn Baptist".

 

Most likely this was produced by some far right Christian outfit like a Jerry Falwell production to scare all the churchgoers into a Muslim Hate Rage - A Righteous Jihad of the Faithful.

My recollection is that there's strong evidence that religious affiliation is, to a surprising extent, inherited. The correlational studies of identical twins separated at birth suggest as much.

 

I think this post is more misleading than the video. What's the suggestion? That those choices are random, and completely independent of the religious beliefs of the parents? I'm going to go out on a limb and posit that most of the world's, say, Jehovah's Witnesses didn't have Muslim parents. THe countries that were predominantly Christian a generation ago are still predominantly Christian, and the ones that were predominantly Muslim are still predominantly Muslim. The "choices" of the new generation didn't change that. Obviously, not everyone adopts the religious beliefs of his or her parents. Equally obviously, there's a strong correlation.

[Winstonm]

I think this post is more misleading than the video.

 

Geez, there's a shocker.

 

What's the suggestion? That those choices are random, and completely independent of the religious beliefs of the parents?

 

No, the suggestion is that fearmongering is never based on simple facts but always on exageration.

 

Obviously, not everyone adopts the religious beliefs of his or her parents. Equally obviously, there's a strong correlation

 

Is there some point to be made in stating the obvious? I never made such a claim about religious biases; however, the video made the reverse claim that 100% of all such babies are Muslims. I am simply pointing out the obvious falsefhood in the video.

[luke warm]

I am simply pointing out the obvious falsefhood in the video.

which falsehood are you pointing out? i haven't been able to confirm the numbers used, that would be the best way to critique the video imo

[helene_t]

Winston, the small minority of children born by muslim parents who don't become muslims, is irrelevant. So is the question of nature versus nurture. Fact is that the more reactionary the religion of a couple is, the less chance that the woman will pursue a professional carrier and the more children the couple will get, and the more children will inherit (or be brainwashed by) the religion and the associated reactionary social norms.

 

There is nothing to do about it. Encouraging people, whose own intolerant religion cause them to hate Islam, to have even more children makes the problem bigger.

 

Increased acceptance of muslims in the West may make it easier for Western muslims to assimilate and adopt Western social norms. Including having fewer children. I suppose most will still call their god "Allah" and refuse to eat pigmeat but I don't consider that a thread against the Western civilization.

 

The good news is that as soon as we get independent of oil and opium, Al-Qaida will loose its funding.

[hrothgar]

I am simply pointing out the obvious falsefhood in the video.

which falsehood are you pointing out? i haven't been able to confirm the numbers used, that would be the best way to critique the video imo

The easiest way to critique this video is to point out that the variable "Muslim" is statistically insignificant in demographic models.

 

"Strength of religious belief": That has a BIG impact

"Income level": That also has an enormous impact

 

Simply put, poor religious people tend to have more children. This is equally valid regardless of whether one is looking at Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, you name it...

 

If you'd like, I can point out to all sorts of studies from the late 1800s arguing that the Germans were going to breed the French out of existence or some from a few decades later arguing that the demographic time bomb posed by the teeming Slavic hordes were going to swamp the poor, poor Germans. In actuality, we inevitably find that as individuals / societies get richer, their birthrates plummet which is conveniently ignored in this video.

 

It might be reasonable to create a video describing the threat that fast breeding religious whackjobs pose to more responsible members of society. However, to be fair that should really extend its analysis to include fundamentalists of all stripes...

 

If one prefers to spend a bit more time doing a bit of work and dealing with nasty little things like facts and numbers, the following is a pretty good starting point:

 

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuse...essay_id=519403

 

The most important point to extract from said report is how fluid all these projections are and how dangerous it is to extrapolate using an isolated set of figures drawn from a single point in time.

[kfay]

I have a clue - there is no such thing as a "newborn Muslim". Religious affiliation is not inherited but is a choice.

Get a clue, Winston. This is completely false. You might be able to argue that in theory it's not, but in practice your assertion is LOL.

[PassedOut]

I have a clue - there is no such thing as a "newborn Muslim".  Religious affiliation is not inherited but is a choice.

Get a clue, Winston. This is completely false. You might be able to argue that in theory it's not, but in practice your assertion is LOL.

Surely Winston's statement is not completely false. Religion is not inherited, but inculcated after birth.

 

One can later choose to modify or abandon one's religious upbringing, but at a social cost that many people don't wish to pay. So it's also true that one's upbringing and social network strongly influences a person's religious beliefs.

 

Most devout Christians would be equally devout Muslims, if born into different circumstances, and the other way around. And the fanatics would be equally fanatical in the opposing faith.

[Lobowolf]

Surely Winston's statement is not completely false. Religion is not inherited, but inculcated after birth.

It's both. Studies of twins separated at birth have suggested strongly that there's an inherited component entirely separate from inculcation.

[Lobowolf]

Is there some point to be made in stating the obvious?

I don't know if there's a point to stating the obvious, but there's a benefit to it that only crops up infrequently, i.e. when people deny the obvious.

[hanp]

Surely Winston's statement is not completely false. Religion is not inherited, but inculcated after birth.

It's both. Studies of twins separated at birth have suggested strongly that there's an inherited component entirely separate from inculcation.

So which of your two sentences should I take seriously, is it suggested or a fact?

[PassedOut]

Surely Winston's statement is not completely false. Religion is not inherited, but inculcated after birth.

It's both. Studies of twins separated at birth have suggested strongly that there's an inherited component entirely separate from inculcation.

Surely you are not saying that Christians inherit Christianity from their parents and Muslims likewise?

 

I think you must mean instead that people have a propensity for religious belief of an unspecific nature, which then accepts the particular religious teachings that children absorb. Am I right?

[Lobowolf]

Surely Winston's statement is not completely false. Religion is not inherited, but inculcated after birth.

It's both. Studies of twins separated at birth have suggested strongly that there's an inherited component entirely separate from inculcation.

So which of your two sentences should I take seriously, is it suggested or a fact?

Scientific studies have margins of error. It's not proven in the sense that the conclusion of a syllogism is proven, but studies have shown it to be true.

[Lobowolf]

Surely Winston's statement is not completely false. Religion is not inherited, but inculcated after birth.

It's both. Studies of twins separated at birth have suggested strongly that there's an inherited component entirely separate from inculcation.

Surely you are not saying that Christians inherit Christianity from their parents and Muslims likewise?

 

I think you must mean instead that people have a propensity for religious belief of an unspecific nature, which then accepts the particular religious teachings that children absorb. Am I right?

It's been a while, so I may be misremembering; however, my recollection is that there was a positive correlation for both (though a bigger one for the "degree" of religiosity than for the tendency toward a specific belief).

[kenberg]

This discussion of whether or not religious belief has some sort of inherited aspect seems completely beside the point to me. The central points that I see in the video are:

 

1. They assert: There has been rapid growth in the percentage of Muslims in countries that historically are regarded as, in some sense, Christian. By "in some sense" I mean that much of the culture is recognizably linked to Christianity, I don't mean that Christianity is either almost universal or required or a state religion or anything like that.

 

2. They assert: The reasons have to do with both immigration and birth rates. Children born in Christina families, or Jewish families, or Muslim families, preponderantly grow up to adopt the faith of their parents, at least in some form. My guess, I hardly regard it as debatable, is that this comes from their upbringing not from their genes, almost entirely. But whatever it comes from, it is occurring.

 

3. They assert: This is bad and something has to be done about it. Exactly what to do is left unsaid. Perhaps Christian women are supposed to get out there and produce.

 

Now: Numbers 1 and 2 seem to be true. But in fact there are many changes. People from many cultures are emigrating to many places.

 

As to number 3, this gets tricky to talk about. Here in the good old USA it seems to me that many religious people regard their minister/priest/rabbi/whatever as one more guy with an opinion. If a large number of people from any religion came to believe that they must do whatever their religious leader said to do, I would regard this as scary. We certainly hear a lot more about mindless obedience of Muslims but I am not at all sure that this has any accuracy. Mindless submission to any orthodoxy (religious or not) is scary.

 

If people value freedom and believe in thinking for themselves, and respect the rights of others to do the same, I don't much care which god, if any, they pray to. I prefer no god, but that's just my way.

 

 

Somehow I suspect that the makers of the video are fine with mindless submission to Christian orthodoxy. Perhaps I have them wrong, I don't know them. I don't completely reject their concern, I would just like to see it phrased in a broader manner. This Christian versus Muslim approach is itself very scary. And the (more or less implied) thought that women are going to enroll in large numbers having babies to fulfill their duty in the demographic struggle is bizarre.

[gwnn]

wtf @ hrothgar's article. It starts with projection bashing, continues with interesting facts and trends, and then ends with a bunch of projections?!

[luke warm]

The most important point to extract from said report is how fluid all these projections are and how dangerous it is to extrapolate using an isolated set of figures drawn from a single point in time.

does that mean you accept the numbers given at whatever point in time they were given?

[hrothgar]

The most important point to extract from said report is how fluid all these projections are and how dangerous it is to extrapolate using an isolated set of figures drawn from a single point in time.

does that mean you accept the numbers given at whatever point in time they were given?

There's a concept know as a confidence interval.

You might want to familiarize yourself with it...

 

If its too complicated, feel free to ask for help.