[LINK] The Unbelievers: Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins Team Up Against Religion

It's well-known that religious people reproduce more. I worry that if religious deconversion efforts succeed, they'll lead the more sensible religious people to abandon their religion and become humanist hipster types, leaving the babymaking to the ones who are on average genetically more prone to dismiss uncomfortable thoughts. (I'm the oldest of 6 children. My parents prayed for a while and decided God wanted them to keep having more even after the first three.)

Think about all the humanist hipster types of previous eras, or the conscientious, altruistic couples who chose not to have kids so they could do their part to fight overpopulation. (Which isn't looking like much of a problem these days.) Isn't it a shame that the descendants of those people aren't with us?

What exactly is the case for deconverting people from religion, anyway? It doesn't particularly bother me to reserve the word "marriage" for heterosexual unions. Religious people are happier--my current characterization of Christianity is "a reasonably effective form of self-help that requires you to believe some nutty stuff". "hbd chick" has an entire thesis that touches on how Christianity changed Europe by forbidding cousin marriage, increasing genetic diversity and decreasing tribalistic attitudes; monogamous marriage may also have been key to the West's success. (Seems pretty clear that the West did something right, and if it's not broke, don't fix it, right?)

Historically, religion has proven very resilient to government suppression; it tends to continue to exist, only underground. Just look at the history of Judaism...

An old Russian joke:

A man is being interrogated by the KGB.
Q) Where were you born?
A) St. Petersburg.
Q) Where do you live now?
A) Leningrad.
Q) Where do you want to die?
A) St. Petersburg.

How would Krauss and Dawkins feel about a non-theistic system of rituals and ethical norms? The persistence of Chinese Confucianism over thousands of years suggests that such a setting is actually stable in the long run. Some people have proposed that "Atheism" should evolve into something like this, calling it "Atheism 2.0" - and what's called "Atheism Plus" is not all that different, being a lean combination of "atheism" (i.e. commitment to a non-theistic cosmology) and humanist ethics.

I agree that they are way too optimistic, I'm surprised Dawkins would be this naive.

The main trend is not so much a movement toward secularism (which would entail a shrinking of fundamentalist groups as well as liberal religious groups), but of liberal religious groups declining and losing members both to secularists and fundamentalist religious people. Also relevant is the fact that fundamentalists have high birthrates, while secularists have very low birthrates.

The main recruiting grounds for atheism are groups like mainstream Protestantism, liberal Catholicism and reform Judaism. These groups are themselves in decline due to a combination of factors: low birth rates, conversion toward more fiery religious groups, and conversion to secularism/atheism. Eventually this hunting ground will be depleted enough that seculars can no longer grow by recruiting them. They will have to raise their birthrates or start converting significant numbers of fundamentalist religious people to grow, and even to sustain their numbers.

How do you assess the state of religion in the ex-communist countries?

Certainly religion has regained some ground after communism, but most? I am under the impression the answer to this question varies hugely between countries.

I'll side with Dawkins and Krauss here. It seems to me inescapable that scientific progress and an ever better understanding of the natural causes of our world will ever tend to push out fables not based on evidence. As long as science will continue coming up with better answers, and as long as these answers (slowly) become known to more people, religions will continue withdrawing their claims from ever more areas, and with that their influence and authority will lessen.

In the last decades we've seen religious authorities the world over (including many Jewish and Muslim authorities) withdraw their claims against evolution, as part of a long cat and mouse game in which religion first lays down divine claims which may not be doubted, and then quietly withdraws those claims in the face of insurmountable evidence.

Historically this also seems to be supported, and not only in the west. While Eastern Europeans continue to give Christianity much respect, there's no denying that the influence of religion and the church has drastically dropped there compared to say, 100 years ago.

Even Eastern Europeans or Russians who go to Church every Sunday increasingly accept naturalistic causes and increasingly consult non religious authorities for their decision making. Where once the priest was the ultimate authority over every aspect of life, for an increasing number of people the priest has authority over matters of church, and many a church going Eastern European or Russian would not seriously consider heeding a priest's advice on which career path they should take, whether they should get a divorce, or who they should vote for.

The "historical inevitability" module is adaptive for most, if not all memetic entities of this class.

In the Soviet Union religion was marginalized for some 70 years, two generations grew up in the environment of state atheism, yet soon after the restrictions were relaxed, the Church has regained almost all of the lost ground. The situation was similar in the rest of the ex-Warsaw bloc (with less time under mandated atheism), and even in China, where the equilibrium was restored after the Cultural Revolution. The standard argument [bold added] for this happening is "but Communism was basically a religion by another name", what with the various Cults of Personality and the beliefs in the One True Path.

I don't think that is the strongest argument. I think that in Eastern Europe and China, religion never really went away. People don't change their minds in response to government-mandated atheism. Dawkins is talking about people changing their minds. I think on balance he is right, though the trend is obviously weak.

Whatever trend there is goes along with increasing wealth and education, obviously. The issue to be argued is whether wealth and education will continue to spread and increase, albeit slowly and with backsliding, or the backsliding is enough to prevent any ongoing trend.

RD: If you look at the broad sweep of history, then clearly we’re on the winning side.

Seems terribly myopic to me.

Naturally, it depends on what you mean by religion. If it's believing in a slave master to whom obedience is due, I don't know that Dawkins is any less religious than the Pope.

I'm with Stirner in saying "Our atheists are pious people."

Take notice how a "moral man" behaves, who today often thinks he is through with God and throws off Christianity as a bygone thing. If you ask him whether he has ever doubted that the copulation of brother and sister is incest, that monogamy is the truth of marriage, that filial piety is a sacred duty, then a moral shudder will come over him at the conception of one’s being allowed to touch his sister as wife also, etc. And whence this shudder? Because he believes in those moral commandments. This moral faith is deeply rooted in his breast. Much as he rages against the pious Christians, he himself has nevertheless as thoroughly remained a Christian – to wit, a moral Christian. In the form of morality Christianity holds him a prisoner, and a prisoner under faith. Monogamy is to be something sacred, and he who may live in bigamy is punished as a criminal; he who commits incest suffers as a criminal. Those who are always crying that religion is not to be regarded in the State, and the Jew is to be a citizen equally with the Christian, show themselves in accord with this. Is not this of incest and monogamy a dogma of faith? Touch it, and you will learn by experience how this moral man is a hero of faith too, not less than Krummacher, not less than Philip II. These fight for the faith of the Church, he for the faith of the State, or the moral laws of the State; for articles of faith, both condemn him who acts otherwise than their faith will allow. ...
Those who are zealous for something sacred often look very little like each other. How the strictly orthodox or old-style believers differ from the fighters for "truth, light, and justice," from the Philalethes, the Friends of Light, the Rationalists, and others. And yet, how utterly unessential is this difference! If one buffets single traditional truths (i.e. miracles, unlimited power of princes), then the Rationalists buffet them too, and only the old-style believers wail. But, if one buffets truth itself, he immediately has both, as believers, for opponents. So with moralities; the strict believers are relentless, the clearer heads are more tolerant. But he who attacks morality itself gets both to deal with. "Truth, morality, justice, light, etc.," are to be and remain "sacred."

From what I've seen of Dawkins, he has as much or more piety than your average bible thumper.