[ExI] atheists/religion

[John Clark]

On Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 11:47 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>>  most Greeks and Romans did NOT stop procreating, and although they may
>> have switched their religious franchise from one to another unfortunately
>> very very few lost their faith.
>>
>
> *> ### Let me rephrase your statement to make it coherent -*
>

I think it's quite coherent just as it is.


> >"Fortunately for the survival of Greeks and Romans, enough adopted a
> procreation-enhancing faith".
>

I know of no evidence that the birth rate in the Roman world changed
significantly either up or down after 313 A.D. when the emperor Constantine
became a Christian, in fact in 313 I seriously doubt that there was even a
Christian doctrine on birth control or how many children people should
have.

>> in general very few people lose their faith, at most they just move from
>> one form of utter nonsense to a slightly different form of utter nonsense,
>> that's it.
>>
>
> *> **### This is not true at all. *
>

I think it is, for example I think there are very few atheists in Iran,
although a few may have changed their absurd belief to a very slightly
different absurd belief. And I fail to see an obvious connection between
the belief or non-belief in an invisible man in the sky who can do anything
and the number of children one wishes to have.

> *Major religions provide a social structure that promotes fertility,*


That depends. In 1979 when the religious fanatics took over the average
woman in Iran gave birth to nearly 7 children, but today that number is
2.12, and the government (AKA the religious nuts in charge) actually did
something rational for once in their lives and urged people to have fewer
children. But all of this is really irrelevant, because none of the major
religions existed when our hominid ancestors evolved their huge brain. I
would surmise that our hominid ancestors probably didn't even realize there
is a relationship between having sex and having children, they just figured
at a certain age members of their kind started to fuck around and at a
simalr age females of their kind started to have children, but it never
occurred to them that there was a relationship between the two.


> * > The Catholic church does not matter anymore because the Irish do not
> believe in god, and yes, the Irish are dying out. This is not a
> coincidence.*
>

The Irish birth rate is down but they're not going extinct. The birth rate
of the entire human race is going down too, in 1950 the average woman on
our planet gave birth to over five children, today it's about 2 1/2. The
Human Species isn't going extinct either, at least not because of falling
birth rates.

John K Clark
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