Famed Atheist Richard Dawkins, who is famous for his hatred of Christianity, is now being forced to reconsider his own positions as he believes the decline of Christianity will bring about “something worse”:
Atheist author and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has warned against celebrating the demise of Christianity, calling it a “relatively benign” faith compared to others, amid reports the religion is “dying” in Europe.
“Before we rejoice at the death throes of the relatively benign Christian religion, let’s not forget Hilaire Belloc’s menacing rhyme: ‘Always keep a-hold of nurse For fear of finding something worse,'” The God Delusion author tweeted to his 2.74 million followers earlier this week.
Dawkins linked to an article from The Guardian, which pointed to a recent report, Europe’s Young Adults and Religion, by Stephen Bullivant, a professor of theology and the sociology of religion at St. Mary’s University in London, to highlight Europe’s “march towards a post-Christian society.”
The survey of 16- to 29-year-olds found that a majority of young adults in 12 European countries have no faith. The Czech Republic is the least religious country in Europe, with 91 percent of that age group saying they have no religious affiliation. Between 70 and 80 percent of young adults in Estonia, Sweden and the Netherlands also categorize themselves as nonreligious.
In the U.K., 70 percent of young people identify with no religion, and 59 percent of young people in the country never attend religious services. Additionally, nearly two-thirds of young people in the U.K. never pray.
The most religious country is Poland, where 17 percent of young adults define themselves as nonreligious, followed by Lithuania with 25 percent.
Based on the figures, Bullivant said religion — and Christianity in particular — is inevitably “moribund” in Europe.
“With some notable exceptions, young adults increasingly are not identifying with or practicing religion,” he said. “Christianity as a default, as a norm, is gone, and probably gone for good – or at least for the next 100 years.”
Bullivant added that many young Europeans “will have been baptized and then never darken the door of a church again. Cultural religious identities just aren’t being passed on from parents to children. It just washes straight off them.”
The figures for the U.K. in particular, he said, can be explained in part by high immigration.
“One in five Catholics in the U.K. were not born in the U.K.,” he said. “And we know the Muslim birthrate is higher than the general population, and they have much higher [religious] retention rates.”
Still, he acknowledged that while mainstream churches will become “smaller” over the coming decades, the few people left will be “highly committed” to their Christian faith.
The report corroborates an earlier study from the Pew Research Center, which found that while Christians remain the world’s largest religious group, they are declining in Europe, as Christians are “dying faster than they are being born.” In contrast, Muslims and the unaffiliated in Europe both experienced natural increases in their populations, with over 2 million and 1 million more births than deaths, respectively, between 2010 and 2015.
Previously, Dawkins, who was famously canned from a Berkeley campus appearance last year after organizers learned about his criticisms of Islam, admitted he has some concern about the decline of Christianity, “in so far as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse.”
“There are no Christians, as far as I know, blowing up buildings. I am not aware of any Christian suicide bombers. I am not aware of any major Christian denomination that believes the penalty for apostasy is death,” Dawkins said.
Speaking on another topic during his appearance at the Cheltenham Science Festival, Dawkins warned that Islam as a religion poses a threat more than others.
“It’s tempting to say all religions are bad, and I do say all religions are bad, but it’s a worse temptation to say all religions are equally bad because they’re not,” the atheist author said. (source)
For years, Dawkins railed against Christianity as well as other forms of religion, associating it with something that only foolish or “unevolved” people do. It is very interesting to watch Dawkins be forced to eat his own words due to the rise of Islam, since as he surely well knows, if Islam does take over Europe, then people like him are in serious danger because the Muslims in Europe today, since they actually believe in their religion and to a great extent practice what they believe, will not tolerate him or his ideas.
It is rather insulting that he speaks of a “benign Christianity,” because the word “benign” would be better translated as “spineless” since Christianity in Europe is little more than a cultural relic at this point. The Protestant Revolution marks the death of Christendom, but Christianity itself was practiced for the most part up until the Second World War, after which it declined precipitously. Atheism was the natural byproduct of Luther’s revolution because, owing to the fact that Luther’s movement effectively said that the Church is subject to the government, one need only be a “good citizen” to show devotion to God. If this is the case, then what need is there for God?
For centuries, atheists fought aggressively against Christianity and the Church. The French Revolution is more accurately described as an atheist revolution, for the purpose was to abolish the presence of Church and God completely. Throughout the entire 19th century, the atheists and their allies in Europe supported nationalist revolutions against the Church to realize the same ends.
It took several centuries, but the fact is that atheism has won in Europe, for in Europe and much of the anglosphere today there are two kinds of atheism. The first is the “open atheism” of the past, which outright rejects God or takes the agnostic route, where they do not care about God. The second is the more insidous “passive atheism,” which is a spirituality without God, or a Christianity without Christ. This is the reduction of religion to a series of cultural practices, where people may belong to a Church but do not even belief in God.
A prime example of this are the Nordic countries. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland all have state churches whose membership is around 75% or more of the people. However, in all of these nations, no more than 33% (the highest being in Finland) believe that God exists for sure. In some nations (such as Sweden), up to 35% of people do not believe in God at all. When numbers for Church attendance are considered, no more than 5% of people go to Church at all, the lowest being 3% in Denmark and Norway. This dichotomy illustrates precisely the situation of Europe brought about by Protestantism. To be a Christian in much of Europe is synonymous with “good citizenry” and has been for some time.
People speak today of the “attacks” against Europe by Islam and “the migrants.” As we at Shoebat.com have pointed out, there is something to be said of this, noting at the same time that the nations of Western Europe are importing Muslims intentionally in order that they would use the dysfunction of Islam to boost support for nationalism. This is working to an extent, but the fact is that the plan could backfire- indeed, such a risk lies with every plan- and if so, the results would be disastrous, as it would mean the unintended Islamization of Europe.
The European people are not having children, whereas the Muslims are.
The Catholic Faith has always been the major and often times, the only line of defense against Islam, as the faith rallied the peoples of Europe to fight for the Faith against the Muslims. Christianity at large, let alone the Catholic Faith, is no longer practiced or believed for the most part, whereas the Muslims earnestly believe in Islam.
Nationalism and socialism have always lead to wars and destruction. In the last world war, not only did nationalism and socialism lose in time, but adherence to these beliefs destroyed millions of lives and changed Europe forever.
Since the Second World War, Christianity has been an ostracized and increasingly hated presence in Europe by the people themselves, who have chosen atheism or a return to outright paganism. With this return has there also been a revival of the most barbaric of ancient practices including infanticide through abortion and birth control, homosexuality, fornication, the destruction of the family, and other forms of savage behavior.
Christianity is no more in Europe. People do not care for the faith, and the few that do speak up only do so in hushed tones because they legitimately fear the wrath of the people and governments against them, for increasingly is simply standing up for Christian morality a “hate crime.” The most obvious example is homosexuality, for in many European nations, saying that homosexuality is evil and “worthy of death” per the Bible is enough to get a man sent to prison.
The atheists have won. Perhaps this is the reason why Dawkins now wants to spread his beliefs to the Muslim world, since his market in Europe is for the most part consumed.
Dawkins is correct to say that Islam is an evil religion. However, the reasons why he says that Islam is evil is for the wrong reasons.
The Christian says that Islam is evil because of its anti-Christ nature.
He says that Islam is evil because it is “too aggressive” and “too violent,” namely against atheists like himself.
There is a lesson for Christians to learn from this.
It is the same reasons why, as atheists often complain, why they were considered enemies of the state and subversives- because they are.
Those who hate God such as he do no care at all about any religion, but the ones they are concerned about the most are those which pose the greatest threat to the propagation of their ideas.
John Lennon famously said in his song “Imagine” that he dreamt of a world where there was “nothing to kill or die for.” If this is the case, then by relation there is also nothing to live for.
When Europe stopped believing that the faith was something worth living for, she stopped dying and fighting for the Faith. It was at that point that men such as Dawkins entered and pushed their ideas, so that instead of fighting for the Faith, they began fighting for nationalism, racism, and identitarianism and gave rise to the host of world wars and horrors of the last century.
The rise of Islam is not simply just a push for nationalism, nor can it be relegated to a series of bad decisions. Given how Europe has refused to return to the faith and looking to the lessons of the Bible about how God gave the Israelites up to punishment by their neighbors for their refusal to repent, one must consider that the rise of Islam is the justice of God upon a society who refuses to repent and believe.
God does not will the destruction of men- the reason Christ came was to save the human race from its sins. That said, God does not force His will on those who do not want Him, and He will allow men to choose their own fate if they so will.
Anything is possible with God, but the fact is that for now, the majority of people do not want God and would rather fight for Blut und Boden than the mercy of the one who made them.
Dawkins should be happy with the rise of Islam, for it was men such as him who created the vacuum into which the Muslims were able to move just as a farmer who plants a seed and awaits for the intended crop to harvest.