Of course, if the goal is to promote Christianity in orde to blaance out Islam, it seems to me that de-establishing the churches of Europe would be a good start. If anything, the establishment of state religion appears to be related to it decline; apparently the free market of the US is much more conducive to a Christian society.

perhaps. that is in keeping with rod stark's 'rational choice' driven idea of 'religious firms.' but:

1) sweden deestablished the lutheran church in 2000. did this result in an upswing in lutheranism? (i don't know, and not much time has passed by).

2) france has been pretty extreme in its deestablishment, and it is not very religious. of course, france takes a managerial attitude toward religion, sort of like religious socialism. so perhaps it isn't a good test.

3) what about the netherlands? there are many traditional religions, the mainstream dutch reformed, the more conservative calvinists and catholics. these receive some subsidies, but in general the state stays out (from what i know). and yet 40% of dutch are self-profressed 'nothings.'

4) the relationship between state & church is complex in much of europe. germany doesn't have an established church, but the protestant (which is a forced amalgamation of calvinist and lutheran traditions) and catholic churches receive some privileges via the 'church tax' that other christian groups do not receive. though catholicism is not the 'official religion' of italy it has a pretty central role in the life of the nation that is not conceivable in france.

one point i would like to reiterate, in places like france and to a lesser extent holland, secularists have gelded and tamed christianity (in holland catholics and calvinists have often cooperated against the secular elite and its dutch reformed lapdogs). now, i would like them to turn their attention to islam, if not for the healthy of european society, for the health of immigrant communities! if there was a "internet infidels france," it should focus on islam, not roman catholicism!

Since the Church and the State separated in 2000, a number of people have left the Church each year. In 2003, 58,746 people left the Church. According to studies carried out by the Church of Sweden, the main reason for people leaving appears to be economic; membership means a tax of 1.19 percent of members' incomes. In 2003, the Church of Sweden baptized 67.6 percent of children, a figure that has declined steadily over the past 2 decades. Confirmations have declined even more sharply; 37.6 of Swedish children were confirmed in 2003, as opposed to 80 percent in 1970.
from international religious freedom report. i think this is just showing that nominal 'believers' are leaving the church now that they have to take more responsibilities. but disestablishment has not cured the lutheran church of its ailments, that seems clear.

"I think it is safe to say that secular and godless assertions are more acceptable in the typical Christian (and Buddhist and Hindu) nation than Muslim ones."

It is more than safe to say -- it is almost blindingly obvious, judging by the historical record.

Unfortunately, from a Darwinian perspective, Islam appears to be the most successful religion of all. Just look at the explosion of carriers of the Muslim allele (or whatever you evopsy guys call it).

While at the other extreme, secular humanists like yourself and secular reactionaries like myself are heading for extinction, due to our failure to reproduce a sufficient number of offspring. Of course, once the number of secularists drops to zero, it will be moot to worry about whether they reside in a Muslim of non-Muslim environment.

"the opponent before us might pale before monsters emerging from the depths ..."

The opponent is already doing so -- just witness all those 'interfaith' Christian and Jewish Quislings who are already preparing the way for dhimmitude. The monsters have already emerged.

It seems to me that different religions would tend to appeal to different alleles (if religious alleles exist at all). Christianity and Mormonism, for example, are primarily faith-based religions, which require their adherents to believe in a particular theology, eschatology, and/or history. Skepticism about such beliefs would be a serious barrier to any member remaining religious, even if they were attracted to social or other aspects of the religion. Judaism (and I think, Islam), on the other hand, is primarily a lifestyle-based religion, the lifestyle being defined by halakha (Jewish Law, literally: "the way"). It requires only a vague belief in an undefined God (which according to the figures you cite, seems to be compatible with 80-90% of the population). Within Judaism, you find a wide variety of theological, eschatological, and historical beliefs, and a wide variety of social styles, from cold/analytical, to fiery/zealous, to warm/fuzzy - all of which are tolerated as being differences of style, not substance. On the other hand, to be Jewish, you have to be willing to follow halakha. Inability to do that would be a serious barrier to being religious, no matter how much you are attracted to the religion.

On the question of whether a religious revival is taking place or not: within Judaism, at least, the evidence is clear. The answer is both. Most Jews are getting less religious, but at the same time the religious community is growing. It used to be that there was a large middle ground: Jews who didn't keep halakha, but nonetheless considered themselves religious. This community is disappearing.

I don't think this is surprising. The modern world of the last 200 years or so has been a major challenge to inter-generation propagation of established religions. Only recently have modern-world-resistant strains of religion become common enough to be noticed. What we are seeing is the simultaneous growth of the modern strains, and the decline of the pre-modern strains. Our picture is muddled because the figures you cite combine both.

As to the pattern of observed religiosity, I think the most important factors are the degree of religious diversity, and the speed of incursion of the modern world. High diversity increases the likelihood of modern-world-resistant strains being present in the population, while a slow rate of incursion of modernity increases the time available for resistant strains to develop. We see the former in the US, and the latter in the Arab world.

"Only recently have modern-world-resistant strains of religion become common enough to be noticed. What we are seeing is the simultaneous growth of the modern strains, and the decline of the pre-modern strains. "

Razib, I hope you'll put that in your collection of 'great quotations from the GNXP comments section"!

Just in case GNXP readers aren't familiar with the term 'dhimmitude', which I used in my first comment, I reproduce below the excellent definition from Robert Spencer's site 'Dhimmi Watch':

Dhimmitude is the status that Islamic law, the Sharia, mandates for non-Muslims, primarily Jews and Christians. Dhimmis, "protected people," are free to practice their religion in a Sharia regime, but are made subject to a number of humiliating regulations designed to enforce the Qur'an's command that they "feel themselves subdued" (Sura 9:29). This denial of equality of rights and dignity remains part of the Sharia, and, as such, are part of the law that global jihadists are laboring to impose everywhere, ultimately on the entire human race.
The dhimmi attitude of chastened subservience has entered into Western academic study of Islam, and from there into journalism, textbooks, and the popular discourse. One must not point out the depredations of jihad and dhimmitude; to do so would offend the multiculturalist ethos that prevails everywhere today.


Deserves to be learnt off by heart.

"Only recently have modern-world-resistant strains of religion become common enough to be noticed. What we are seeing is the simultaneous growth of the modern strains, and the decline of the pre-modern strains. "
Wow, awesome! Is there organic unity of Judaism as well as of Islam?

"I think it is safe to say that secular and godless assertions are more acceptable in the typical Christian (and Buddhist and Hindu) nation than Muslim ones."

*Is* there a "typical" Christian nation to be compared with a "typical" Muslim nation? It's not clear to me why the modern-day United Kingdom and America and Sweden are standing in as the paradigms for Christian countries and not El Salvador or Poland, whereas the model for the Muslim world conspicuously doesn't include Turkey or Bosnia-Hercegovina.

It seems to me that in such discussions there's frequently a bit of selectivity going on in the choice of examples.

It seems to me that in such discussions there's frequently a bit of selectivity going on in the choice of examples.

the distribution clearly overlaps. but this is an interesting point you make with your examples: poland has an atheist president, and to my knowledge, so have many latin american nations (brazil, chile, mexico, etc.), or at least heads of states. bosnia-hercegovina i don't know about, though alia izabegavic was not as liberal in all his views as some would think. additionally, though turkey has a militant secular elite, my opinion of late is that the islamist parties are not equivalent to christian democrats/.

i've said it a million (or at least a dozen) times, you have to compare the distributions, the generalizations are not categorical or typological.

Christianity and Mormonism, for example, are primarily faith-based religions, which require their adherents to believe in a particular theology, eschatology, and/or history. Skepticism about such beliefs would be a serious barrier to any member remaining religious, even if they were attracted to social or other aspects of the religion.

well, mormons have some rather strict rules you have to follow to be 'in good standing.' no alcohol, tith 10%, spend all of sunday with your family (no work), and so forth. it is actually rather explicitly a faith and works religion (in contrast to the de jure emphasize on faith in protestantism).

islam occupies a confused position, but i think it is more faith-based than judaism, in that someone can quite obviously be a muslim apostate as there are rules for how to handle such folk in sharia.

razib, I have yet to meet a mormon that was strict about the no alchohol rule. One of my friends married into a mormon ranching family south of Jackson's Hole. The father (a church elder!) and sons once rode their horses into the Cowboy Bar under the influence. There was always beer for the hay crews and branding crews. I wonder how strictly any religious rules are followed any more?

I wonder how strictly any religious rules are followed any more?

hm, i don't know, it was pretty strict in my small town. people knew who was 'good' and 'bad.' the example you mention is interesting, my personal impression is that the mormons of wyoming are a bit more carefree, and if it was a ranching family perhaps they had more freedom since they weren't always under everyone's noses.

"Christianity was not a low SES sect in the ancient world if you are wondering, it was middling at worst, even correcting for the fact that its urban nature tended to select for some element of cosmopolitanism."

Speaking of simultaneous growth and decline, I note that in "The Barbarian Conversion" (reviewed here and commented further upon here), I believe that Fletcher makes the point that the very early (1st-2nd century) Christians were low SES; this gradually improved through the 3rd-4th centuries. There was also a significant difference between East and West; the Eastern Empire was at least plurality Christian by the time of Constantine, but the West was only about 5% Christian when the legions withdrew. Subsequent evangelization in the West concentrated heavily on the nobility, turning Western Christianity into a de facto high-SES sect.

Your friendly Christian not-so-high-SES correspondent ...

jay,

well, this is history, so the debate goes on.

1) early christians would have been jewish, who from what i know, would not have been that low SES (jews did pretty well under the pagan dispenstation, despite two destructive rebellions).

2) as for plural majorites of christians in the east, i don't know if one could say this. there might have been plural majorities in some cities of the levant and anatolia, but greece proper for example was heavily pagan into the 5th century. for example, the empress eudoxia was originally named athenais and was from a pagan philosophical family of athens (she was the wife of theodosius the II).

3) your point about the west is correct, and i suspect that 5% is highballing the numbers. the western aristocracy remained heavily pagan until the year 400, when the defeat of the anti-theodosian forces at frigidis put a damper on the pagan revival in rome and other western cities, and signalled the final death knell for western aristocratic paganism.

About anti-modern religious movements, at least 2 older ones come to mind (amish and ascetics). I think one could argue that some orders of the catholic priesthood also qualify as a kind of moderate anti-modern religiosity.

On the other hand, since the modern world and its accompanying widespread literacy and mass communication are so recent one is hard pressed to dispute their newly acquired salience.

I wrote about Bat Ye'or here. Her ideas are flawed, to say the least.

You know, the general trend in Western societies has been for them to liberalize over the past two centuries. This is despite the fact that the gap between fertile-religious and infertile-seculars has existed throughout all this time. (What, does anyone think this is new?) So, if this gap has existed indefinitely, why was there any liberal social change at all?

Randy, to be honest with you, what you have said about Bat Ye'or has little relevance to the body of work that Bat has produced. Just because you ran a Google search and didn't quite find what Bat is talking about, and just because Bat is pro-American and pro-Israeli, is not a sufficient reason to write Bat off. All the rest of your "points" are drawn from inference.

Arcane:

If the only people talking about the "Euro-Arab Dialogue" are Bat Ye'or and her supporters, if she's wildly misrepresenting European domestic and foreign policies (does the French ban of the hijab and French hostility towards sthe idea of Turkey joining the EU represent "Eurabia" in any conceivable fashion?), and if she's drawing upon scare theories on the permanence of Muslim conservatism which are demonstrably false, her arguments are clearly unsound. Depending upon her to represent the dynamics behind European/Arab relations is something like counting on an old uncle who lost his father in the Second World War to the Germans and rants about the Krauts' evils to talk sensibly about Germany's role in the European Union.

And what do you mean by "pro-American" and "pro-Israeli"? She advocates a specific set of policies for the United States and Israel, yes; other people with diametrically opposed views have offered other specific sets. Neither are inherentl "pro-American" or "pro-Israeli," unless they call for the demolition or devastation of either country.

i think bat ye'or is overwrought. she is OK as a polemicist, but the closer to the present her assertions get, the more weird they are. i read the decline of eastern christianity under islam, and thought it was a good work. her identification with the dhimmi was obvious, but i've read enough this stuff to pretty much find most of it plausible in the detail (and frankly, i preferred it to the white-washing of some muslim and 'liberal' western scholars).

but now that i read her contemporary stuff i just find it veering sharply from scholarship to polemics. it is fine to be pro-israel, but i've read some of her stuff on frontpage, and she seems to draw israel into the picture constantly when talking about europe, a connection that is justifiable if you have a set of political concerns, but not (in my opinion) on scholarly grounds.

i am not one who is sanguine about muslim immmigration into europe. in fact, i think it is far more destabilizing to the nations involved than high levels of unskilled latino immigration into the USA*. that being said, i find bat ye'or's assertions so unbelievable at this point that i think they will simply convince those disinclined to be concerned about muslim immigration to write it off as the concern of marginal nuts. of course, she will mobilize and reconfirm the concerns of 'believers,' but what's the point of that?

* though i think europeans because of their nation's historical non-attachment to 'land of immigrants' ideology (aside from france) can probably turn on a dime on this issue faster than americans.

razib, what of her influence on the other "polemicists"? I've seen the same 'eurabia' hypothesis from Spengler, Spencer, Lewis, Pipes, etc. Is it just trendy punditry? Or is there any basis for it?
Randy at least collects data, even though I fiercely disagree with his linear models. :)
This is like your "Up from Ignorance" posts. Perhaps someone should do the maths instead of punditting.

jin,

i have read most of the pundits you are talking about. there is something to what they say, far more than a kernel. what is starting to get agitating to me is the categoricalness of some of their assertions, because when you make categorical assertions they are easy to perceive as strawmen that can be easily debunked.

my turn on this issue is actually related to my attitude toward immigration today and immigration in the late 19th and early 20th century in the united states. those who appeal to induction to show that modern immigration is not a problem, that the exact same concerns were elaborating by immigration skeptics in 1900, in my opinion casually overlook sharp differences between the earlier period and modern wave (for me, the primary difference is that the lowest skilled immigrants are far less skilled and educated than the typical american today than 1900).

i simply noted that some of the eurabiasts assume the same for muslim immigration to europe, in that they think the lessons of 700 can be applied directly to 2000. the dynamics are fundamentally different. the eurabiasts and others can plot out how european nations will become non-white and muslim within 100 years because of present rates of growth, but victorian christians could also have predicted the demise of atheists in england within 100 years based on differential birthrates i suspect. additionally, while muslim conquests of christian lands tended to be top-down, the new migration is from the bottom, and composed of the underclass. clearly muslims did not conquer the near east as underclass migrants, rather, i can even point to several instances where muslim heretics migrated into byzantine lands and converted to christianity.

but even here, the past is not the present, and european governments will not demand that muslim migrants convert to christianity like leo the syrian did of muslims fleeing the umayyads. what we have is a complex question that needs to be broken down and analysed cautiously, and appeals to historical analogy need to be weighed carefully.

perhaps the eurabiasts are trying to mobilize the public to their viewpoint. that's fine, but i think in the process they are losing the commanding heights, as historically literate individuals, as well as those who are skeptical of population projects based on present TFR (i mean, UN population projections from 1960 way overshot the reality of today-while gentiles who tabulated the birthrate of european jews in 1760 might wonder if they would become a minority in 1860!), dismiss them for being sloppy with the evidence. i also dislike writers who talk about a 'melange' culture, as they must be smart enough to know that early ottoman culture might have been pluralist in reference to christian spain of that era, but in today's context it would be dominionist (in that muslims were first class citizens, and dhimmis were definitely not).

i guess i'm saying a pox on all their houses. which means i'm going to have to start writing more on this soon.

ps i used to have something sympathy with the eurabiasts because i wondered if perhaps a 'tipping point' model might be appropriate, where europeans start converting to islam when muslims attain a certain population frequency. i have moved back from that because i don't evidence that europeans esteem muslim immigrants, or admire them much (aside from leftists going through phases), and usually people will convert to religions only when they might gain status. europeans to convert to islam would probably be dropping in status, which would serve as a bottleneck on any tipping point process.

addendum: some might assert that the indonesian conversion to islam is an example of a bottom-up process. it's not, even today the typical santri (orthodox muslim) is probably higher SES than abangan ('traditionalist' muslim, that is, one who has an element of syncretism to their faith). the original conversion to the islands was a clash of mercantile polities that converted in the process of their assimilation into the transnational muslim commercial network and inland hindu-buddhist aristocratic kingdoms.

final addendum: i do think that the eurabiasts are correct in that public acceptance of unrecostructred islam is harmfull to western values, but, i think this concentrates among those who are from muslim backgrounds. that is, a vigorous and powerful islamic identity can serve as a trap for those who want to escape and 'assimilate,' in that their social networks are constrained because of segregation, and prejudice caused by perceptions of muslim behavior and non-assimilation serve as a barrier to 'escape.'

post script: (not an addendum) this article says 50,000 french are converting to islam every year. works out to 2.5 million in 50 years. i know, you can't just get linear like that, but it gives you a sense of scale. the problem with these statistics is randy has indicated there is evidence that many muslims are becoming secular. if you assume that within any given group there is a variation in their preferences, it seems plausible that some muslims would prefer the norms of non-muslims, and, vice versa.

razib: someone can quite obviously be a muslim apostate as there are rules for how to handle such folk in sharia

Excuse me. I thought the penalty for apostasy was death.

yep, death is the consensus :) but remember, there is no compulsion in religion! (by consenus i believe this is the majority view of scholars that that was the general official punishment, though skeptics like the blind poet of al maari were sometimes indulged)

"i guess i'm saying a pox on all their houses. which means i'm going to have to start writing more on this soon."
Yeah! :)

YES! Write more! Just your comments here have made me rethink a bit of my position regarding Muslim immigration.

However, on another note, what do you think about this Eurasianist Movement in Russia that is steadily becoming more and more popular? Alexander Dugin has been writings tons of articles in international newspapers lately about the whole thing. I think it's a rather silly minority movement, but they are somewhat similar to the Eurabia folks, except instead of viewing it as a bad thing, they see it as a good thing.

I think it's a neat movement, even though it doesn't stand a chance of ever becoming a mass movement or even seeing reality, regardless as to how much the various Russian nationalist parties like it.

Check out these sites and read about the movement:
International Eurasian Movement
Arctogaia
Integral Tradition
Synthesis

The Eurasianist Movement, for those who don't know, is a very weird movement centered around a National-Bolshevik ideologue in Russia named Alexander Dugin. They espouse many of the same concepts espoused by the advocates of "Conservative Revolution" in Germany in the early 1900s, especially the advocates of geopolitical theory and traditionalism. Also, they like many of the New Right authors that publish in such journals as Telos and The Scorpion. To make it simple, they want to unite all of the Middle East, Europe, and Central Asia into a single political bloc with the explicit intention of countering American hegemony, undermining capitalism and globalization, and preserving cultures.

Whack movement? You bet, but still neat.

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