Has Islam lead to an increase in Atheism? (page 7)

metatron

As to European societies being more peaceful, I would say that , given what we're seeing develop

as to home grown terrorism there, the matter is still up for debate, though limited to the context

of immigrants. Actually, the historically newfound pacifism of the Germans is quite remarkable!

And we must recall that Danes lost their habits of looting and pillaging as civilization developed,

so there is hope.

Most Muslims here or in Europe will adapt and assimilate but that doesn't eliminate the problem of

some young people being swayed into religious fanaticism. Having raised a teenager ( here comes

an argument from analogy) I realize the great importance of avoiding raising a spoiled child - who feels

automatically entitled to a living - and in that regard the high unemployment rates in much of Europe

are suspect, along with emboldening their ideas of 'dhimmi-tude'.

In the Middle East, I also wonder about sex and terrorism. If you can't afford to get married and the

social order forbids pre-marital sex, then 72 virgins waiting for you in Paradise might be your only

option........................

metatron

Gordy

How can it lead to an increase in Atheism.

They are killing all the Atheists.

Abaddon

metatron

As to European societies being more peaceful, I would say that , given what we're seeing develop as to home grown terrorism there, the matter is still up for debate,

Not really. Go to Nationmaster.com and play with the statistics. The US's population is 298,444,215 and the number of murders is 12,658. Totting up Western European countries until I got to a population of 305,678,958 I only have 4,893 murders in those same countries.

Our Islamic terrorists could kill over twice as many people each year as died on 9/11 ON TOP OF CURRENT MURDER RATESand Europe would still be a more peaceful place.

in that regard the high unemployment rates in much of Europe are suspect

Only Italy, Finland, France, Germany, Belgium and the UK have greater unemployment %'s than the USA. If you look at the populations of those countries you find that 276 million people in Europe live in countries with higher unemployment rates and 217 million live in countries with lower unemplyment rates than the US.

I think you are using what statistics you know to support a pre-conceived notion. You are linking uemployment with Islamic immigrants yet fail to consider that Islamic immigrants are a minority of the unemployed and therefore cannot be responsible for unemployment rates in exesss of what you amusingly seem to use as a standard of perfection (the USA).

along with emboldening their ideas of 'dhimmi-tude'.

For Pete's sake; how can a minority impose dhimmi on a majority? It is fundmental Muslims who have the rule of secular law and equality of rights imposed upon them. They have to face secularitude. The facts don't support anything else and the vocal complaints of a sub-set of Muslims are no more meaningful than other non-Islamic religious lobby groups who want to restrict non-believers rights on the grounds of their beliefs.

Illyrian

The question was if I'm not mistaken 'Has Islam lead to an increase in Atheism?'

I see a lot of personal opinion but no statistics, forgive me for saying that but opinions are like armpits every one has one but most of them smell on deodorant (hopefully)

Anyway, I went to religious statistics website to find for myself and here is a quick run down. There were two surways if I'm not mistaken several years appart and here is the column of only "western" countries with number of atheists. Admittedly last survey was in 2000 but his is so far closest in this discussion to something more concrete other than speculations.

Country	first survey	lastest survey
Austria	5%	10%
Greece	2%	5%
Finland	9%	8.5%
Spain	11.2%	12%
Norway	9%	13%
Luxemburg	n/a	19%
UK	18%	17.5%
Portugal	4%	2.5%
Neatherland	17%	30%
Belgium	23%	23%
Germany overall	23%	27%
West Germany	20%	12%
East Germany	64%	55%
Sweden	12%	30%
Slovenia	16%	20%
Denmark	17%	22%
France	19%	25%
Italy	n/a	n/a

Source http://www.religionstatistics.net/noreleng.htm

In fact a quick look at the list of overall countries gave me impression that so called Easter-European countries were more Athesitics overall but you can go and check everything one more time for yourself.

This is the conclusion from the website:

CONCLUSIONS -

Secularization: Ended... or Stopped ?

If we compare the results of surveys in 1991 with those of 1997-98, we can see that the "religious fall" has been stopped
and even reversed, above all in many Eastern countries, and in these, the believers' numbers increase spectacularly, but it
is necessary to say that many are converted not in Christianity but New Age or somewhat difficult to describe.
Other most recent evolutions that can be seen with the World Values Survey 2000 are the flux from atheism, agnosticism,
Christian deism and neodukhoborism to simple deism which seems that will be the future "religion" of Europe; also
atheism is attracting many deists, agnostics and neodukhobors.

Nowadays

The religious outlook in Europe is as follows: The "hard" atheism, those that have conscience to be atheist and respond so,
really is small ( less than 10% ) except in some countries. Generally, the believers in a god and in another life, whatever
variety, are around a 50-45%; and this is the same percentage that believes in an inspired Bible; otherwise, this Christianity
could be divided in heterodox and orthodox with equal portions. Exceptions of these rules are excomunist countries ( Russia,
Bulgaria, Czech Republic ) and nordics ( Sweden and Denmark ) in the no religious side, and those traditionals countries as
Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Italy, Cyprus in the religious side.

Abaddon

I agree that % atheism can only be answered with statistics, but those statistics aren't granular enough to reveal that '45% of people becoming atheists in the last 7 years have done so because of Islamic fundamentalism', so they don't answer the questiosn either.

And are they looking at the same table in making their summary?

If we compare the results of surveys in 1991 with those of 1997-98, we can see that the "religious fall" has been stopped
and even reversed, above all in many Eastern countries, and in these, the believers' numbers increase spectacularly, but it
is necessary to say that many are converted not in Christianity but New Age or somewhat difficult to describe.

This is a lie; if you know anything about statistics you can see the ONLY cases of a drop in atheism are cases where the drop would fall within a normal margin-of-error. All the others are clear increases in atheism beyond any possible statistical effect.

But the Data table the source refers to I headed 'SECULARIZED COUNTRIES'. Which is my point.

The ONLY major countries that have de-securised are Iran and Afghanistan. Even Russia, which was atheistic for years in law, now only has a 2% church attendence.

I think that secularism could be best measured by the following yardsticks;

Church/Mosque/whatever attendence
% population agreeing with abortion is a right
% population agreeing homosexuality is not wrong
% population agreeing pre-martial sex is not wrong

... which means most of Europe is secular, and America is almost secular...

metatron

I believe I said "though limited" to the matter of immigrants. I am well aware of the effects of

gun control in Europe with regard to the murder rate as an objective measure of peace - and being

a libertarian by inclination, I have no idea why you would think I conceive of the US as anything

approaching perfection( and you're not psychic, either!). As to that peace, we shall see how far

fear spreads in regard to rail transport and other aspects of European life.

I see 5 European nations with unemployment lower than 4.5%:

http://www.littlecamels.com/2007/05/02/unemployment-in-europe/

I see that Germany and France have made a lot of improvement.

I don't know about adopting sharia as a whole but as you are no doubt aware Australia and other

nations have already had some public debate about accepting sharia law as a secondary legal

system within their borders. If some nations keep their police out of certain neighborhoods because

they are a "provocation" ( France), is it really beyond belief that certain areas could evolve into

areas with defacto separatist rule?

....... but none of these minor contentions are really scary to me. What does frighten me, more

anything else, is the fact that many of these terrorists are well educated and have great

career opportunities. Technology is accelerating and putting more power into the hands

of individuals - and this combination is of great concern. If the best that Western culture

can offer doesn't overcome these hate filled religious beliefs, what happens next?

( I believe the End of Faith made the same point).

metatron

Holy Cow! As to that last point, synchronicity strikes again!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070703/ap_on_re_eu/doctors_as_militants

Yikes!

metatron

Has Islam lead to an increase in Atheism?

nvrgnbk

metatron

nvrgnbk

nvrgnbk

Gordy

Abaddon

Illyrian

Abaddon

metatron

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