Question Evolution!: 5 reasons why the Atheism+ movement will fail

Saturday, October 27, 2012

5 reasons why the Atheism+ movement will fail

Another sect of atheism has arisen due to the horrible perception that atheists have in much of the world. It is called Atheism+. The American atheists Sam Harris said concerning the label of atheist, "It's right next to child molester as a designation."

So how many facelifts does atheism need? What is next? The New, New, New Atheism? The new and improved atheism? Mint flavored atheism? You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

On August 23, 2012, Nelson Jones introduced the new sect of atheism called "Atheism+" via an article in The New Statesman entitled Atheism+: the new New Atheists.

This new faction of atheism called Atheism+ was introduced thusly:

Let me introduce you to Atheism+, the nascent movement that might be the most exciting thing to hit the world of unbelief since Richard Dawkins teamed up with Christopher Hitchens to tell the world that God was a Delusion and, worse than that, Not Great.

Less than a week old in its current form, Atheism+ is the brainchild of Jen McCreight, a Seattle-based biology postgrad and blogger at the secularist Freethought network. She has called for a "new wave" of atheism on that "cares about how religion affects everyone and that applies skepticism to everything, including social issues like sexism, racism, politics, poverty, and crime."....

On one level, this is just the logical culmination of the huge upsurge in interest prompted by the so-called "New Atheists" and the growth over the last few years of a recognisable community or movement based around ideas of atheism, scientific scepticism and a progressive political agenda....

Atheism+ is, at its most basic, an attempt wrap things together more formally, to create a movement that prioritises issues of equality and does so from an explicitly non-religious perspective.

So how is Atheism+ working out according the leading website tracking companies? According to Compete.com the web traffic of Atheismplus.com from 8/20/2012 to 9/20/12 was 2,787 unique monthly visitors.

Web traffic of Atheismplus.com from 8/20/2012 to 9/20/12 according to Compete.com via a graphical reprentation:

Web traffic of Atheismplus.com according to Alexa is that it is among the top 267,612 websites in the world.

5 reasons why Atheism+ will be a long term failure

The Atheism+ movement has no long term sustainability over the long term for a number of significant reasons. It will be like many sects of atheism. It will be a new toy for atheists which is eventually put away in the closet and largely forgotten due to its unviability.

1. Atheists are tightfisted relative to Christians when it comes to charity

As noted above, one of the causes of Atheism+ is the cause of poverty.

A 2009 comprehensive study by Harvard University professor Robert Putnam found that religious people are more charitable than their irreligious counterparts.

In 2007, the Barna Group reported

The typical no-faith American donated just $200 in 2006, which is more than seven times less than the amount contributed by the prototypical active-faith adult ($1500). Even when church-based giving is subtracted from the equation, active-faith adults donated twice as many dollars last year as did atheists and agnostics. In fact, while just 7% of active-faith adults failed to contribute any personal funds in 2006, that compares with 22% among the no-faith adults.

2. Greece and the Eurozone crisis is a bellweather of liberal economic policies and progressivism being unsustainable and failing

Atheism+ is adopting a liberal/progressive ideology at a time when these Western countries are saddled with tremendous amounts of government and external debt. Although secular Europe has been able to kick the can of the Eurozone crisis down the road and will likely continue to do so until at least the German elections in the fall of 2013, sooner or later they are going to have pay the piper and as Greece shows it will involve an enormous amount of financial pain. The United States government has racked up a tremendous amount of debt in the last 10 years or so as well

Bottom line: As these debts continue to accrue, bondholders of these government debts are going to demand increase premiums due to increased risk so the debts will not be sustainable.In short, big spending progressive governments are going to run out of other people's money and there is going to be a lot of financial pain.

3. Feminism within will the Atheism+ sect of atheism will help insure it dies out long term due to sub-replacement birth rates within the movement plus it will be unappealing to many men

Sexism/chauvinism is a bad thing. I am guessing that many of the atheists in the Atheism+ movement, however, are also take things further and are feminists. Feminism is often very divisive plus it has some unintended consequences. Namely, it contributes to sub-replacement rates of fertility and atheists/agnostics already have sub replacement levels of fertility which is helping to fuel a global decline of atheism.

The Birkbeck College, University of London professor Eric Kaufmann using a multitude of demographic studies argues in an academic paper entitled Shall the Righteous Inherit the Earth? Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century the decline of atheism in terms of its global adherents is an established trend that will persist for the foreseeable future and the rate of decline will accelerate and affect the Western World. A large part of this is due to atheists/agnostics having sub replacement levels of fertility. See: Why are the years 2012 and 2020 key years for Christian creationists and pro-lifers?

Michael Blume, a researcher at the University of Jena in Germany, wrote "Most societies or communities that have espoused atheistic beliefs have not survived more than a century." Blume also indicated concerning concerning his research on this matter: "What I found was the complete lack of a single case of a secular population, community or movement that would just manage to retain replacement level."

In 2012, CNN declared:

The phenomenon of women choosing not to have children is afflicting the industrialized world in alarming numbers. Childlessness is steadily becoming more widespread, particularly in English-speaking countries but also in Japan and in much of Europe. In 20 years, the number of childless women in many countries has doubled....

Although a minority of women choose not to have children, the trend constitutes a genuine revolution, pointing to some unspoken resistance to motherhood....No country can afford to ignore a decline in its birthrate. In the long term, a nation's pension payments, power and very survival are at stake...

Tellingly, these are the rallying causes of traditional feminism, more pressing and relevant than ever. It turns out that profound feminist reform, in the workplace and in family policies, might just be what is needed to keep the birthrate from free fall.Although the CNN article encourage governments to fund daycare and other measures to prevent birthrates from falling birthrates, I don't see this being very sustainable at a time when many governments are already saddled with colossal amounts of debt.

4. Atheism as a whole is undergoing global decline so the movement will not be able to recruit atheists long term.

In 2012, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (GCTS) reported that every day there are 800 less atheists per day, 1,100 less non-religious (agnostic) people per day and 83,000 more people professing to be Christians per day (see: Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary - status of Global Mission report).

In 2012 an article entitled Atheism in decline by Nigel Tomes declared:

The IBMR publishes yearly figures for religions (and non religions) around the globe. Their latest numbers, hot off the press (Jan. 2012) show some interesting trends.

1. Atheism is in Decline

In 1970 atheists (those avowing there is no God) numbered 166 million worldwide; that was almost one-in-twenty—4.5% of the globe’s population. By 2012 atheists’ number is estimated at 137 million. That’s a decline of almost 30 million. Since world population is growing, atheists’ share declined to less than one-in-fifty—under 2% in 2012. Put differently, every 24 hours there are 800 fewer atheists in the world! Atheism is in decline.

2. Agnosticism is in Decline

In 2000 agnostics (those who “don’t know” if there is a God) numbered 666 million, 10.9% of the world’s people. By 2012 agnostic’s number is estimated at 661 million--a decline of 5 million. In relative terms by 2012 agnostics represent less than one tenth (9.4%) of world population. Every 24 hours there are 1,100 less agnostics in the world. Agnostics are also in decline.

Added together these two groups make up a declining share of global population. In 1970 atheists and agnostics accounted for one-in-five (19.2%) of the world’s people. Based on current trends by 2025 they will represent less than one-in-ten (9.7%). Their population share will fall by half in 50+ years.