Religious belief (Christian, Muslim, etc.) and absence of religious belief may be personal positions, but they have social and political implications.
Secularization of the West is a powerful phenomenon.
Secularization refers to the historical process in which religion loses social and cultural significance. As a result of secularization the role of religion in modern societies becomes restricted. In secularized societies faith lacks cultural authority, and religious organizations have little social power. (Secularization - Wikipedia)
Given these things, I have the following question: Could it be that the secularization of the West is one of the main reasons why Islam is becoming more widespread than Christianity?
That’s a completely different question from the thread title, though, isn’t it?
If the secularisation of the West involves fewer and fewer people identifying as Christians, and if Islam as a substantially non-western religion is relatively unaffected by this process, then if the trend continues at some point you expect adherents of Islam to outnumber adherents of Christianity. But note that this has nothing to do with any growth in Islam; it would happen anyway if the number of Muslims remained stable, or even if the number of Muslims declined, provided it declined slower than the number of Christians.
I don’t see how the secularisation of the West can account for growth in Islam. Growth in Islam will be down to (a) birthrate, and (b) conversions, and I’m reasonably confident that its mostly birthrate. And I struggle to see how westerners becoming more secular leads to Muslims having more babies.
By what mechanism? I’ve seen arguments that the West supported Islam fundamentalism to oppose Arab nationalism and communism, or that Western cultural imperialism triggered reactionary anger, but none of those are really about secularists or atheists. I’ve heard Christian fundamentalists say secularists don’t want to fight Islam and Christians would be better cultural warriors, but I’m not sure what that means exactly. A modern day crusade? Don’t think that would work too well.
I recall reading a number of years ago, but can not recall where, that the fast growing religions of all types are basically fundamentalist types. Meaning the more conservative Christian branches and Islam plus in others also.
They aren’t directly the same thing, I’m secular compared to Western people of centuries ago but I still identify with a religion, and even not identifying with a religion doesn’t make you an atheist. However the trends have developed together in the West, more secularization, less affiliation with religion including but not limited to positive opposition to religion.
As other posts have stated, there’s no obvious direct mechanism by which secularization or non-belief in the West has increased the number of Muslims worldwide. Maybe indirectly one could argue it weakens the evangelizing effort by Christians in eg. Africa compared to Muslims over what it would be if the West was less secular. However there is still plenty of Christian fervor in the West (and South Korea and other places) which plays out as strong missionary efforts in places where new Christians and Muslims are being ‘minted’ via conversion. And there’s no direct link between Western secularlization and Muslims having more or fewer kids.
OTOH I think there might be some connection between Western secularization and Islamic fundamentalism. Some left leaning secular Westerners, who want to align themselves as anti-anti-Muslim to score points in domestic Western debates, tend to ignore the degree to which many Muslims find their, Western highly secularized, ideas and accepted behavior corrupt and disgusting. The enemy from a fundamentalist leaning Muslim view is more the secular/post religious West than the traditionalist/Christian West.
I don’t see how not believing in the existence of gods is making ANY religion grow. There is some meme going around about atheists being Muslim apologists because we aren’t as freaked out as Christians are about helping them when their country is being torn apart by war. I can assure you we are just as skeptical about Islam as we are about the other religions.
The main reason Islam is growing is because Muslims have a lot of children.
Maybe “nature abhors a vacuum” also applies to religion.
I remember people here in the west were joyous about how Europe had begun a “post-Christian” phase. Little did they know the push for atheism had just opened the door to another religion.
Also there is no passion with atheism. Atheists have the idea of just leaving others alone and to accept everyone. Thats not working with Islam.
You apparently haven’t met any of the more militant atheists- some are just as passionate as can be about getting rid of religion.
I am an atheist, and not nearly as militant as I was a couple of decades ago, but I take umbrage to the idea that I want to just “accept everyone”. I accept people as people, but I sure as shit don’t want anything remotely resembling Sharia law brought into the mainstream, any more than I want Pat Robertson deciding who should be allowed to marry whom, or Ken Ham to determine my kids’ science curriculum. I have no time for, or respect for, those practicing Muslims that don’t outright reject the violence preached in the Koran or by the militant Islamic fundamentalists. I also don’t have time or respect for those who embrace the more violent and hateful aspects of the Bible.
Well then why has Islam been allowed to take such a strong hold in atheist nations like the UK, France, Germany, and Sweden to the point where they have areas where Sharia law is enforced?
Also, lets look at children. Part of being a Christian is we like large families but I have yet to meet an atheist household that has more than 2 kids and they mostly just have 1 or none. Also I have read in France the Muslims are having lots of kids while most French couples have few or none so in a few decades the Muslims will simply breed away the native French.
Also because those religious parties that remain are very alert to any legal measures that would impede the spread of islam, as they are afraid that those measures would also have consequences for them.
F.i. they are in favor of allowing religious schools continuing to exist beside public schools.
I have a lot of trouble buying into projections, especially of something as nebulous as the number of worshippers of a particular religion. And claiming that atheism is somehow causing a backlash sounds like complete fantasy to me, probably perpetrated by the deeply religious. But what’s the biggest-growing segment of the population re: organized religion in the US right now, to the tune of roughly a quarter?
I believe this is what most people who shun religion like to tell themselves, but it is more that religion’s strict ways of living , conform or be shunned, is the reason. Some tend to use science as their justification, not their reason.
And don’t forget the Swedes’ tolerating all that terrorism!!
How much evidence, logic and reason will it take for you to openly admit there are no Muslim no-go zones in these countries, reproductive rates are a function of prosperity rather than religion, and with greater prosperity and opportunity, reproductive rates of Muslim immigrant families will decline?
I am looking for a ballpark figure of how many readily obtainable citations I will provide establishing these facts and refuting your statements that I will need to laboriously dig up before you realize your error. Once I meet this goal, will you state you are wrong in an OP in the BBQ Pit forum? Also, could you promise to never repeat these endlessly debunked lies on this or any other messageboard, social media site, or conversation?
They do? Outside of using Sharia courts for voluntary arbitration, as in the UK, or in terms of private law, like Germany, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Cite?
Love to see your justification for that viewpoint.
Couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that no religion is internally consistent, or that each has its own mythology no different from the Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, Norse, or Celts?
No, it’s all about how we were shunned as kids. Eeyeahrite.
Allowed?
It is called the freedom of the religion and there is no such thing as “areas where Sharia law is enfoced” you should feel shame for believing hateful bigot propaganda and then repeating it.
you have read bigoted lies and nonsense that have no basis in the actual statistical facts and are nothing more than the kind of shameful hatemongering that was directed at the Jews also in the past.
No, you are simply ignorant of the history of the secularization in the core Islamic world which failed due to the close assocation with the failed secular dictotorships - supported by both the Soviets and the Americans - of the period of the decolonization.
Taking a short term development without any real knowledge of the deeper history and drawing grand movement conclusions is a path to error.
