Category Archives: Religion

Muslim Takeover of Australia?

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I get a lot of emails expressing fear that Australia, or the Western world in general, will be taken over by Muslims because of a) immigration from predominantly Muslim countries, b) Muslims’ high fertility rate or c) both.

Obviously, if Muslims do breed faster then non-Muslims they will inevitably achieve a majority one day. But is it imminent? I constructed a small Excel model and put in some simple assumptions for Australia. Here they are:

  1. Muslims represent 3% of the Australian population now.
  2. Muslims’ natural rate of increase is 1.5%pa while that of non-Muslims is 0.5%pa.
  3. Annual net immigration is equivalent to 1% of the population.
  4. Muslims represent 30% of net immigration.
  5. Anyone born to Muslim parents adopts their faith.
  6. Nobody converts to or from Islam.

This set of assumptions produces a Muslim majority in the year 2289, at which time the total population of Australia will be 3.6 billion.

I’d be happy to receive evidence-based data to replace my crude assumptions; or to send out my little model to be played with by you or anyone else.

As an atheist myself I earnestly hope that nobody follows any religion at all by 2289, rendering this a pointless exercise. Fun, though.

Poster Children

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The photo of a drowned 3-year-old lying face-down on a Turkish beach suddenly became visual shorthand for the miserable situation in Syria and the desperation of people seeking refuge.

It is an admirable human trait that our sympathy is aroused by the sight of a child in distress. Indeed, if we did not react that way very few children would make it into adulthood. But I am uneasy about the kneejerk-ism that such sympathy provokes. Complex issues should be addressed thoughtfully and with full understanding of causes and effects.

At the moment nothing is more complex than the tangle of superstition, competition and ancient hatred that characterises the Arab world. I want my government and other governments to behave rationally. I do not want them to be pressured by compassionate electors to take heart-warming, headline-grabbing decisions that buy short-term popularity at the expense of actions that could, perhaps, lead to long-term solutions.

Seeds of Evil

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All the Abrahamic faiths contain seeds of evil as well as seeds of good.  At the moment the evil seeds of Islam seem to be the most numerous, or the most virulent.  The murder of Charlie Hebdo staff in Paris is the latest manifestation to hit the global headlines, but atrocities are committed daily by Al Qaeda, Al-Shabab, Boko Haram and other extremist groups and individuals.

The common thread linking the Abrahamic faiths is the belief that there is only one god, and that he writes books.  It’s a bizarre notion in my opinion, but that may be the subject of another post.  If a god writes a book, and does not occasionally send a prophet to revise it in the light of changing circumstances, his dictates remain frozen in time.  This is not a big problem if the dictates are general in nature – “Love one another” is a good example – but it is a very big problem if the god has provided a detailed manual for everyday living.  This, I think, is at the heart of the problem confronting Moslems today.

I say “confronting Moslems” because the vast majority are decent, reasonable people who want the same things for themselves and their children as everyone else does.  I say this confidently having lived and worked with Moslems for much of my adult life, starting with my volunteer service in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).  But a decent, reasonable Moslem family may produce a child who adopts extremist ideology and commits terrible crimes.  In almost all cases other family members are as mystified and horrified as their non-Moslem neighbours.

I would liken Islamist extremism to a parasite inhabiting a host, much as a the malaria parasite inhabits the mosquito population.  We target the innocent mosquitoes because they bring the parasite to us.  Non-Moslems must avoid targeting the whole Islamic community because it harbours the parasite of extremism.  The war against extremism must be waged together.

 

Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

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My friend Peter asked me this a week or two ago.  Peter is a Jehovah’s Witness and our house is in his territory.  He knows I’m an atheist and the chances of converting me are close to those of global warming being reversed, but we both enjoy 10 minutes of mental sparring on the doorstep once a month.

Actually, what he asked was, “Do you ever wonder why bad things happen to good people?”  I said “No” and he changed the subject.

But after he had gone I thought about it.  Why should anyone expect the incidence of good or bad things to be correlated in any way with the moral quality of the people to whom they happen?  Has there ever been any evidence for this, even evidence of the most circumstantial nature?

On the other hand there is pretty good evidence for the following propositions:

  1. The universe behaves in accordance with a set of fixed physical laws.
  2. Within those laws, there is plenty of scope for random events.
  3. Conforming with the laws, customs and values of one’s own community is likely to result in better outcomes than flouting them (eg not spending time in jail or being ignited by an angry mob).

I suppose the third of these propositions goes a little way towards validating Peter’s question, but I don’t think that’s what he had in mind.