Oh, look. It's religion.

[Scav]

Read This Article.

For me, this article cast the Religion “debate” in a whole new light. The basic thesis is this: we’ve long recognized a correlation between religiosity and family size. The assumption is that religious people have more kids, for various reasons. But, what if it’s the other way around? What if fertility rates are drivers of religion, and large families are simply more likely to be religious?

He cites Europe’s fertility rates going back to the 1800s, and in almost every case, fertility started dropping before religion did.

He heads off most arguments against him. For instance, I was thinking “well, religion doesn’t allow birth control, so of course they have more kids.” Oh, what a generalization.

But if the prohibition against birth control is interpreted as the exclusive reason why religious people have larger families, then we can make no sense of this fact: Evangelical Christians, who do not similarly have theological injunctions against birth control as such, have a higher fertility rate than other groups. Orthodox Jews in America have far more children than secular Jews, even though orthodox Judaism also allows contraception within marriage for certain, quite broad purposes and does not wholly proscribe abortion.27 And Mormons have a high rate of natural family formation too, even though abortion is not wholly proscribed for them either, and couples are also allowed to use artificial contraception if they determine after prayer that it is best for them — rather a large loophole. Moreover, even Catholics are not enjoined to have all the children that they can, but rather to use their reason and weigh responsibilities in the matter of family size.

Thus, the idea that having large families is just something that religious people “do” begs the question of the relationship between those two things — especially since, apart from the Catholic Church, no meaningful restrictions on artificial contraception exist any longer in any other Christian sect.

This is fascinating to me, because it means the Christian Right is… justified. They’re *right* that Family and the Sanctity of Marriage ™ is the most important thing we have. Or rather, they have. When marriage rates fall, church attendance invariably falls along with it. It turns out that something we’ve held as coincidental (or at least I have) is actually true: that casual sex and church attendance are mutually exclusive.

My favorite point of the article is where he explains the difference between the US and Europe. The US is very technologically advanced – but we also have a rocking fertility rate, unlike Europe. And, if you plot fertility rates within the US (college educated group, etc) then it correlates strongly to how religious they are.

Of course this runs into the chicken-and-egg problem, but the article does a great job of making its case. Check it out.

And CK, sorry if this isn’t what you’re shooting for in the New Debate Hall I’m just a sucker for stuff like this.

 

[snex]

This is fascinating to me, because it means the Christian Right is… justified. They’re *right* that Family and the Sanctity of Marriage ™ is the most important thing we have. Or rather, they have. When marriage rates fall, church attendance invariably falls along with it. It turns out that something we’ve held as coincidental (or at least I have) is actually true: that casual sex and church attendance are mutually exclusive.

this doesnt follow at all. the article (or at least the part you are discussing) doesnt deal with casual sex at all. pre-marriage casual sex and post-marriage family size are never mentioned.

you were probably hoping for more than a nitpick, but unfortunately im not all that interested in the correlations between religiousness and family size. (by the way, did he look at anything other than traditional western religions?)

 

[Scav]

That's a valid point, because no, he doesn't mention casual sex I was using that as a stretch for Religion's war against anything that it deems harmful to family values.

The article claims that it's worldwide, including non-western Religions. But, it doesn't cite any of them, so I can't speak to it's veracity.