Religious affiliation in u.S. Falls below 50 (first time ever)

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Except they do. There is a fertility gap but the idea that traditionalists are going to outbreed everyone else over such a marginal gap is silly. Plus to be honest they were always outbreeding them but the demographics are still turning against them. What went wrong?

The statistics don't lie.  In the USA, only immigration allows an increase in population overall.  In Europe, the long-term stats demonstrate that the Indo-European population will be replaced -- and that is not the first time that has happened to Europe.  See Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe (2017), and the 2019 Douglas Murray interview in Florence, Italy (Hoover Institution), here online:

 

Edited March 30, 2021 by Robert F. Smith

[JustAnAustralian]

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Does it apply to emergency services?

Emergency treatment must be performed

"The right of conscience described in subsection (a) of this 8 section does not include the right to deny emergency medical care as required 9 under 42 U.S.C. § 1395dd, as existing on January 1, 2021, or any other 10 federal law governing emergency medical treatment, as existing on January 1, 11 2021."

 

[The Nehor]

26 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The statistics don't lie.  In the USA, only immigration allows an increase in population overall.  In Europe, the long-term stats demonstrate that the Indo-European population will be replaced -- and that is not the first time that has happened to Europe.  See Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe (2017), and the 2019 Douglas Murray interview in Florence, Italy (Hoover Institution), on this online:

 

Okay, so this has gone from being about different ideologies reproducing at different rates to the usual hysteria about the white race being headed to extinction unless we keep the filthy infidels out.

Enjoy your racist fever dream. See ya.

[The Nehor]

21 minutes ago, JustAnAustralian said:

Emergency treatment must be performed

"The right of conscience described in subsection (a) of this 8 section does not include the right to deny emergency medical care as required 9 under 42 U.S.C. § 1395dd, as existing on January 1, 2021, or any other 10 federal law governing emergency medical treatment, as existing on January 1, 11 2021."

 

Wimps.

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Okay, so this has gone from being about different ideologies reproducing at different rates to the usual hysteria about the white race being headed to extinction unless we keep the filthy infidels out.

Enjoy your racist fever dream. See ya.

That has been the usual woke response to Murray, who is castigated for pointing out the utter hypocrisy of those who honor foreign cultures, but think nothing of destroying their own.  From God's POV it doesn't matter, of course, who it is and which culture.  As an anthropologist, what I see is a succession of cultures and civilizations which wipe out the preceding cultures, just as the Indo-Europeans wiped out their predecessors in Europe, and just as the Lamanites wiped out the Nephites.  And it is happening again, even though you are in denial.  And it will be coming finally to a burgh near you -- but it will take time to get there.  Thus, your grandchildren will witness it first-hand.  Pretending will not make the unpleasant facts go away.  This is particularly satisfying to those of us who want to see the racists get their comeuppance simply by being outnumbered.

On the other hand, it is also particularly satisfying to the Ayatollahs who dream of a worldwide Caliphate imposing Sharia Law, or to Chairman Xi, who dreams of China dominating the world -- he will likely be very successful -- which will seem to the woke generation a horrible thing to say, but it is the truth.  When China takes over Taiwan by force, the USA will only whimper and then go silent.  The woke generation will nod with approval.  Tell me I am wrong, Oh glorious Nehor !!

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

That has been the usual woke response to Murray, who is castigated for pointing out the utter hypocrisy of those who honor foreign cultures, but think nothing of destroying their own.  From God's POV it doesn't matter, of course, who it is and which culture.  As an anthropologist, what I see is a succession of cultures and civilizations which wipe out the preceding cultures, just as the Indo-Europeans wiped out their predecessors in Europe, and just as the Lamanites wiped out the Nephites.  And it is happening again, even though you are in denial.  And it will be coming finally to a burgh near you -- but it will take time to get there.  Thus, your grandchildren will witness it first-hand.  Pretending will not make the unpleasant facts go away.  This is particularly satisfying to those of us who want to see the racists get their comeuppance simply by being outnumbered.

On the other hand, it is also particularly satisfying to the Ayatollahs who dream of a worldwide Caliphate imposing Sharia Law, or to Chairman Xi, who dreams of China dominating the world -- he will likely be very successful -- which will seem to the woke generation a horrible thing to say, but it is the truth.  When China takes over Taiwan by force, the USA will only whimper and then go silent.  The woke generation will nod with approval.  Tell me I am wrong, Oh glorious Nehor !!

Race is not synonymous with culture and the drumbeat of foreign cultures and people destroying the United States has been sounded since John Adams and the Federalists passed the Alien and Sedition Acts back in the early days. Slowly but surely we have opened doors to more nations and people and integrated people from around the world who become Americans. The great experiment of a nation not founded on ethnic and religious ties continues.

A worldwide caliphate? That is a recent delusion thought up just over a decade ago. Islam has not led anything approaching an empire since the Ottomans and that was torn apart from within. The idea that Islam is heading towards some massive worldwide reunification is just plain nutty. It would be like thinking that the Orthodox and Protestant faiths might unify with Catholicism. It is technically possible but very unlikely. It is like the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” rubbish. An anti-Semite or Islamophobe writes up the ‘enemy plan’ and then tries to convince us this is what they are doing.

China dreams of becoming the world’s hegemonic power in the same way the US is now. This would be bad as authoritarian governments would be preferred in that new global order or at least corrupt democratic ones. What am I supposed to be worried about doing to prevent this? It might happen but China’s power is limited in many ways and it is still struggling to compete with Russia and the United States in gaining even regional supremacy. It is also worth noting that if Islamic nations form a global Caliphate and China steps onto the world stage at the same time the two will counter each other to some degree. So if one happens be sure to root for the other.

The United States will either survive or it won’t. Am I supposed to be terrified that migrants from Pakistan, China, and knows where else are going to take over? There was that kind of paranoia about the Scottish and the Irish and the Germans back in the early days. I am descended from all three and I am American and have no plans to subvert the system to disenfranchise or destroy the spawn of “perfidious Albion”. I go through whole days without thinking of trying to impose Gaelic or Teutonic law on the nation. Seriously I only think about it once or twice a month at most.

What is different this time? Skin color? Who cares? The culture and religious gap is too extreme this time? I don’t think so. I think if the United States falls it is because we will deserve it. It won’t be because we were too accepting of refugees and immigrants. I have met refugees, real refugees. I have heard the stories and how real the fear and uncertainty is. These are children of God. I don’t pretend to know the mind and will of God but I suspect that a nation that treats his suffering children in distress like the Nephites treated the Anti-Nephi-Lehis will be blessed beyond measure.

It is also incredibly ironic that you compare Lamanites to migrant cultures. It fits the Anti-Nephi-Lehi story perfectly. It is also worth noting that the Lamanites were almost always more numerous than the Nephites and the Nephites didn’t have NORAD, a nuclear triad, and a military that is built by almost 40% of the entire world’s military spending and the oft-quoted statistic that it spends as much as the next ten nations in line combined is still true. The Nephites risked more and were more vulnerable. Why are so many so scared and more importantly who is telling you to be so scared? What is their motive?

I am not saying the US is invulnerable but white people becoming a minority doesn’t scare me and I hope it doesn’t scare my grandkids. There is a real threat that the Book of Mormon talks about to the Americas but if I read it correctly a border wall would be useless and limited migration would make things potentially worse. There is only one solution: repentance. Throw in preaching the gospel and many will be fine even when the lion comes and there is none to deliver.

I am worried about the future of the United States right now but Islam and China are not the threat. It is people holding onto a debased idea of what the United States is and desperately defending this perverted idea by breaking all sacred and secular laws to hold onto this chimera. Living in fear of losing something mythical and hating the foreign that are perpetuating it.

All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again. History doesn’t repeat but it rhymes a lot.

Have some Confederate propaganda on what will happen if the Union wins......scary.....”Where all the white women at?”

Women’s suffrage should be better. I mean it was mostly non-racial.....oh

Well in World War One I am sure there was less need for xenophobia.....oh my.

Finally some god-fearing patriots who will surely......oh no, and seriously, why did anyone bring back that slogan?

Surely in World War 2 we didn’t......oh crap.

I get told how Marxist all the schools are now. Glad to see it is not new.

 

But this time. This time THEY WILL KILL US ALL unless we give up our principles and deal with it RIGHT NOW!

Edited March 30, 2021 by The Nehor

[Robert F. Smith]

11 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Race is not synonymous with culture and the drumbeat of foreign cultures and people destroying the United States has been sounded since John Adams and the Federalists passed the Alien and Sedition Acts back in the early days. Slowly but surely we have opened doors to more nations and people and integrated people from around the world who become Americans. The great experiment of a nation not founded on ethnic and religious ties continues.

That polity will change dramatically through time, and will be replaced just as the ancient Sumerians were fully replaced by Akkadians, and so on.  People who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it.

11 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

A worldwide caliphate? That is a recent delusion thought up just over a decade ago? Islam has not led anything approaching an empire since the Ottomans and that was torn apart from within.

The golden age of Islam was led by the Caliph of Bhagdad, while Europe was in the Dark Ages.

11 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

The idea that Islam is heading towards some massive worldwide reunification is just plain nutty. It would be like thinking that the Orthodox and Protestant faiths might unify with Catholicism.

Christianity is on a suicidal tear just now and is unlikely to do anything but talk.

11 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

.....................China dreams of becoming the world’s hegemonic power in the same way the US does now.

The USA is weak and not thinking of anything but ways to commit suicide.  China recognizes a clear path to dominance, and they are very patient.

11 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

.....................The United States will either survive or it won’t.

The USA will indeed survive, but in a very different form.  The Constitution and the rule of law are currently out of favor, and that does have long term consequences.

11 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Am I supposed to be terrified that migrants from Pakistan, China, and knows where else are going to take over? There was that kind of paranoia about the Scottish and the Irish and the Germans back in the early days. I am descended from all three and I am American and have no plans to subvert the system to disenfranchise or destroy the spawn of “perfidious Albion”. I go through whole days without thinking of trying to impose Gaelic or Teutonic law on the nation. Seriously I only think about it once or twice a month at most.

What is different this time? Skin color? Who cares? The culture and religious gap is too extreme this time? I don’t think so. I think if the United States falls it is because we will deserve it. It won’t be because we were too accepting of refugees and immigrants. I have met refugees, real refugees. I have heard the stories and how real the fear and uncertainty is. These are children of God. I don’t pretend to know the mind and will of God but I suspect that a nation that treats his suffering children in distress like the Nephites treated the Anti-Nephi-Lehis will be blessed beyond measure.

It is also incredibly ironic that you compare Lamanites to migrant cultures. It fits the Anti-Nephi-Lehi story perfectly. It is also worth noting that the Lamanites were almost always more numerous than the Nephites and the Nephites didn’t have NORAD, a nuclear triad, and a military that costs almost 40% of the entire world’s military spending and the oft-quoted statistic that it spends as much as the next ten nations in line combined is still true. The Nephites risked more and were more vulnerable. Why are so many so scared and more importantly who is telling you to be so scared? What is their motive?

I am not saying the US is invulnerable but white people becoming a minority doesn’t scare me and I hope it doesn’t scare my grandkids. There is a real threat that the Book of Mormon talks about to the Americas but if I read it correctly a border wall would be useless and limited migration would make things potentially worse. There is only one solution: repentance. Throw in preaching the gospel and we will be fine.

It is not even an issue of race, and never has been.  At base, it is a matter of ideology.  Is owning people O.K.?  Are civil liberties important?  The Chicoms have no respect for human rights, and they are correct to see the dictatorship of the proletariat as far more efficient that the U.S. Congress.  Machiavellian Realpolitik is far more effective, and evil is banal.

11 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I am worried about the future of the United States right now but Islam and China are not the threat. It is people holding onto a debased idea of what the United States is and desperately defending this perverted idea by breaking all sacred and secular laws to hold onto this chimera.

Yokels is as yokels does.

11 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again. History doesn’t repeat but it rhymes a lot.

Have some Confederate propaganda on what will happen if the Union wins....................................

My great grandfather was an officer in the Grand Army of the Republic and annually celebrated the victory over the South, until he died in 1915.  Yet that "victory" did not really change the status of Black people who mostly remained in thrall to White crackers for another full century.  The Emancipation Proclamation was a dead letter until the modern Civil Rights movement.  Woke people lying to themselves again.  Jim Crow will rise again !!!

[Analytics]

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The USA is weak and not thinking of anything but ways to commit suicide.  China recognizes a clear path to dominance, and they are very patient.

Interestingly, China doesn’t fit the pattern you are describing. Their total fertility rate is as low as Europe’s, and their plan doesn’t seem to be to take over the world via migration.

if every other third world country did what China has been doing—strictly limiting their population growth and taking decisive action to grow their own economies, then there wouldn’t be massive immigration to Europe or the U.S.

Quote

The USA will indeed survive, but in a very different form.  The Constitution and the rule of law are currently out of favor, and that does have long term consequences.

The rednecks who tried to subvert the Constitution when Trump lost the last election were disproportionately of Scottish decent. Is there irony in that, or does it prove your point?

Edited March 30, 2021 by Analytics

[Robert F. Smith]

5 hours ago, Analytics said:

Interestingly, China doesn’t fit the pattern you are describing. Their total fertility rate is as low as Europe’s, and their plan doesn’t seem to be to take over the world via migration.

if every other third world country did what China has been doing—strictly limiting their population growth and taking decisive action to grow their own economies, then there wouldn’t be massive immigration to Europe or the U.S.

Despite the totalitarian mistakes made on population planning in recent times, China has in fact generated the largest national population on the planet, and it is well-managed.  You are overlooking the huge Chinese emigre populations in nearly every country, and they are actually controlled by mainland China.  Threats and intimidation can work wonders in those far flung communities.  China is no longer a vulnerable sleeping giant.

5 hours ago, Analytics said:

The rednecks who tried to subvert the Constitution when Trump lost the last election were disproportionately of Scottish decent. Is there irony in that, or does it prove your point?

Scots?  I don't think so.  What got Trump elected was his populism across the board, with 70 million Americans voting for him in the last election (more than in 2016).  His opponents have continued to ignore the common working man (no higher ed), whose jobs have been transferred overseas.  Many of those Trump voters cast ballots for Obama in previous elections.  They are more pragmatic than political.  They may be ignorant, but they know who stole their jobs.

[Analytics]

22 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Despite the totalitarian mistakes made on population planning in recent times, China has in fact generated the largest national population on the planet, and it is well-managed.  You are overlooking the huge Chinese emigre populations in nearly every country, and they are actually controlled by mainland China.  Threats and intimidation can work wonders in those far flung communities.  China is no longer a vulnerable sleeping giant.

Isn't your argument about Europe that [white] Europe has a very low total fertility rate and an old and quickly aging medium age? That these demographic factors, along with immigration, is what's causing its demise?

Although the population of China is roughly double that of Europe, it has an almost identical very-low fertility rate as Europe, and an almost identical old and quickly aging medium age. My point is simply that China faces the same demographic challenges as Europe. 

22 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Scots?  I don't think so.  What got Trump elected was his populism across the board, with 70 million Americans voting for him in the last election (more than in 2016).  His opponents have continued to ignore the common working man (no higher ed), whose jobs have been transferred overseas.  Many of those Trump voters cast ballots for Obama in previous elections.  They are more pragmatic than political.  They may be ignorant, but they know who stole their jobs.

The topic isn't what got Trump elected. The topic is who are the biggest domestic enemies of the United States Constitution. The enemies aren't the 70 million Americans who voted for Trump. The enemies are the subset of Trump supporters who literally tried to overthrow the United States constitution by subverting the results of a free and fair election. Very few of the insurrectionists who stormed the capital were non-white working class people, so you can't blame the coup on "the common working man." And even though some of them were from the north and west, most of these guys were from the south. And most of them are of redneck heritage, which is Scottish.

The insurrectionists were in fact more Scottish than white America as a whole. 

My point, though, isn't to hate on people with Scottish ancestry. It's to point out the inconsistency in your rant about the changing world. You seem to think it is suicidal for [white] Christian nations not to have huge families, but somehow think that the Chinese are aggressors in this, despite the fact that they are having extremely small families, too. And you throw in a rant about the Constitution being out of favor, and seem to blame recent immigrants and liberals on this, when the real enemies of the Constitution are the "conservatives" who tried to violently overthrow the last election. And all this on a thread about how the "nones" are growing as a cohort? The success of the nones seems to be a great thing--they don't seem to be the ones who storm the capital when they lose elections. They don't seem to be the ones who are irresponsibly having huge families they can't support. They don't seem to be the ones who are trying to replace America's secular culture with religious ones.

The world is facing huge problems including climate change, radical Islam, and people with undesirable economic situations and cultures tending to have the most children.

The Steven Pinker's book Enlightenment Now! does an amazing job of putting all of this into perspective and showing that despite the challenges, the world is getting better and that humanism is the path forward (if anybody wants to read it, send me a PM and I'll send you a copy). Pinker says:

The claim that ethnic uniformity leads to cultural excellence is as wrong as an idea can be. There’s a reason we refer to unsophisticated things as provincial, parochial, and insular and to sophisticated ones as urbane and cosmopolitan. No one is brilliant enough to dream up anything of value all by himself. Individuals and cultures of genius are aggregators, appropriators, greatest-hit collectors. Vibrant cultures sit in vast catchment areas in which people and innovations flow from far and wide. This explains why Eurasia, rather than Australia, Africa, or the Americas, was the first continent to give birth to expansive civilizations (as documented by Sowell in his Culture trilogy and Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel). It explains why the fountains of culture have always been trading cities on major crossroads and waterways. And it explains why human beings have always been peripatetic, moving to wherever they can make the best lives. Roots are for trees; people have feet.

Pinker, Steven. Enlightenment Now (pp. 450-451). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

 While it is genuinely scary to think of Chinese dictators or Islamic Fundamentalists taking over the world, I think humanism can win the war of ideas and that this will lead to a brighter future for all.

[carbon dioxide]

23 hours ago, 2BizE said:

I think one thing these data show is churches and church leaders are becoming increasingly irrelevant.

There is always something to replace something else.  As society becomes more secular, I see more division ahead. 

[carbon dioxide]

Everything is going as it is supposed to.  People are becoming more secular.   People are stirred up to anger against each other more.  Divisions are increasing.  Climate change is doing it thing along with mankind becoming  more wicked.   The period before Christ comes is one of violence, disasters, and wickedness on a scale never seen in human history.  The droughts, fires, famines, plagues, floods, only get worse as time goes on.  Soon enough we will be at war with China.  China is the rising power.  The US is a declining power.  That usually leads to a period of instability and conflict.  It is a great time to be alive especially for young people.  They are going to see things in the world that none of us older people to to witness.   It all has to happen.  We don't sleep walk into the second coming.  We all have to pass though the great troubles that must occur before that time come. 

Edited March 30, 2021 by carbon dioxide

[Analytics]

1 minute ago, carbon dioxide said:

Everything is going as it is supposed to.  People are becoming more secular.   People are stirred up to anger against each other more.  Divisions are increase.  Climate change is doing it thing along with mankind becoming  more wicked.   The period before Christ comes is one of violence, disasters, and wickedness on a scale never seen in human history.  The droughts, fires, famines, plagues, floods, only get worse as time goes on.  Soon enough we will be at war with China.  China is the rising power.  The US is a declining power.  That usually leads to a period of instability and conflict.  It is a great time to be alive especially for young people.  They are going to see things in the world that none of us older people to to witness.   It all has to happen.  We don't sleep walk into the second coming.  We all have to pass though the great troubles that must occur before that time come. 

Actually, the world is getting better. I know you might be terrified that the world is coming to an end because somewhere there might be a transgender girl playing organized sports, but let's keep it in perspective. Quoting Pinker:

Since the Enlightenment unfolded in the late 18th century, life expectancy across the world has risen from 30 to 71, and in the more fortunate countries to 81.1...

The poor may not always be with us. The world is about a hundred times wealthier today than it was two centuries ago, and the prosperity is becoming more evenly distributed across the world’s countries and people. The proportion of humanity living in extreme poverty has fallen from almost 90 percent to less than 10 percent, and within the lifetimes of most of the readers of this book it could approach zero....

The world is giving peace a chance. War between countries is obsolescent, and war within countries is absent from five-sixths of the world’s surface. The proportion of people killed annually in wars is less than a quarter of what it was in the 1980s, a seventh of what it was in the early 1970s, an eighteenth of what it was in the early 1950s, and a half a percent of what it was during World War II. Genocides, once common, have become rare. In most times and places, homicides kill far more people than wars, and homicide rates have been falling as well...

Life has been getting safer in every way. Over the course of the 20th century, Americans became 96 percent less likely to be killed in a car accident, 88 percent less likely to be mowed down on the sidewalk, 99 percent less likely to die in a plane crash, 59 percent less likely to fall to their deaths, 92 percent less likely to die by fire, 90 percent less likely to drown, 92 percent less likely to be asphyxiated, and 95 percent less likely to be killed on the job. Life in other rich countries is even safer, and life in poorer countries will get safer as they get richer....

People are getting not just healthier, richer, and safer but freer. Two centuries ago a handful of countries, embracing one percent of the world’s people, were democratic; today, two-thirds of the world’s countries, embracing two-thirds of its people, are. Not long ago half the world’s countries had laws that discriminated against racial minorities; today more countries have policies that favor their minorities than policies that discriminate against them. At the turn of the 20th century, women could vote in just one country; today they can vote in every country where men can vote save one...

As people are getting healthier, richer, safer, and freer, they are also becoming more literate, knowledgeable, and smarter. Early in the 19th century, 12 percent of the world could read and write; today 83 percent can. Literacy and the education it enables will soon be universal, for girls as well as boys....

As societies have become healthier, wealthier, freer, happier, and better educated, they have set their sights on the most pressing global challenges. They have emitted fewer pollutants, cleared fewer forests, spilled less oil, set aside more preserves, extinguished fewer species, saved the ozone layer, and peaked in their consumption of oil, farmland, timber, paper, cars, coal, and perhaps even carbon. For all their differences, the world’s nations came to a historic agreement on climate change, as they did in previous years on nuclear testing, proliferation, security, and disarmament...

Pinker, Steven. Enlightenment Now (pp. 322-325). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

[The Nehor]

10 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

That polity will change dramatically through time, and will be replaced just as the ancient Sumerians were fully replaced by Akkadians, and so on.  People who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it.

The golden age of Islam was led by the Caliph of Bhagdad, while Europe was in the Dark Ages.

Christianity is on a suicidal tear just now and is unlikely to do anything but talk.

The USA is weak and not thinking of anything but ways to commit suicide.  China recognizes a clear path to dominance, and they are very patient.

The USA will indeed survive, but in a very different form.  The Constitution and the rule of law are currently out of favor, and that does have long term consequences.

It is not even an issue of race, and never has been.  At base, it is a matter of ideology.  Is owning people O.K.?  Are civil liberties important?  The Chicoms have no respect for human rights, and they are correct to see the dictatorship of the proletariat as far more efficient that the U.S. Congress.  Machiavellian Realpolitik is far more effective, and evil is banal.

Yokels is as yokels does.

My great grandfather was an officer in the Grand Army of the Republic and annually celebrated the victory over the South, until he died in 1915.  Yet that "victory" did not really change the status of Black people who mostly remained in thrall to White crackers for another full century.  The Emancipation Proclamation was a dead letter until the modern Civil Rights movement.  Woke people lying to themselves again.  Jim Crow will rise again !!!

Every people is replaced...every 60 years or so we replace most everyone. Is this just a bunch of people afraid of death and irrelevance?

The golden age of Islam was crushed by the Mongols. Ironically they also crushed a pretty enlightened group in China too. Both were on the edge of a Renaissance/Enlightenment path. There is a history joke that western Europe was the birthplace of the Renaissance because it was far enough away from Genghis Khan and his descendants.

The rule of law has been out of favor since at least Nixon when we decided that punishing the wealthy and powerful would be too damaging to the nation. This disproportionate justice system has gotten irksome. Everyone in Iran-Contra was pardoned, Marc Rich was pardoned, the people who broke laws to cause the 2008 recession were not prosecuted, etc. Thankfully there appears to be some movement towards punishing the powerful now. We'll see.

Jim Crow is rising again.

[Robert F. Smith]

11 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Isn't your argument about Europe that [white] Europe has a very low total fertility rate and an old and quickly aging medium age? That these demographic factors, along with immigration, is what's causing its demise?

Both Japan and Europe share that same demographic peril, and it has nothing to do with skin pigmentation.  In the case of Japan, there is great reluctance to allow immigrants, but the handwriting is on the wall and something must be done to avoid an end to that culture.  Now, of course, the Japanese people themselves were immigrants from Korea who displaced and reduced the Ainu before them, and such cultural replacement is quite common worldwide.  Description is not prescription.

In the cases of Europe and America, the low fertility rate is compensated for by immigration.  However, Europe is particularly vulnerable to replacement of both population and culture, whereas the USA will probably absorb its immigrants quite well.  The threat in Europe is to the basic values of Western Civilization.  Are they worth retaining?  Or should they be jettisoned in any case?  German-Austrian war guilt, as Douglas Murray points out, leads to a suicidal gesture by the German-Austrian peoples -- without them consciously recognizing it.  And this applies to the malaise of the remainder of Europe, and to the devaluing of Western Civ.

11 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Although the population of China is roughly double that of Europe, it has an almost identical very-low fertility rate as Europe, and an almost identical old and quickly aging medium age. My point is simply that China faces the same demographic challenges as Europe. 

Yes, of course, but each is handling the crisis very differently.  A command economy is not burdened by silly Western values, and can turn on a dime.

11 minutes ago, Analytics said:

.....................The insurrectionists were in fact more Scottish than white America as a whole. 

I'd like to see proof of your Scottish claim, which sounds ridiculous and even racist to me.

11 minutes ago, Analytics said:

My point, though, isn't to hate on people with Scottish ancestry. It's to point out the inconsistency in your rant about the changing world. You seem to think it is suicidal for [white] Christian nations not to have huge families, but somehow think that the Chinese are aggressors in this, despite the fact that they are having extremely small families, too. And you throw in a rant about the Constitution being out of favor, and seem to blame recent immigrants and liberals on this, when the real enemies of the Constitution are the "conservatives" who tried to violently overthrow the last election. And all this on a thread about how the "nones" are growing as a cohort? The success of the nones seems to be a great thing--they don't seem to be the ones who storm the capital when they lose elections. They don't seem to be the ones who are irresponsibly having huge families they can't support. They don't seem to be the ones who are trying to replace America's secular culture with religious ones.

The world is facing huge problems including climate change, radical Islam, and people with undesirable economic situations and cultures tending to have the most children.

The West cannot even reproduce and replace itself.  That spells economic suicide.  Our culture devalues the Constitution and the rule of law across the board.  Conservatism and liberalism are not legitimate categories, but are actually emotional states or moods.  Leonid Brezhnev and Ronald Reagan were both arch-conservatives.  How is that even possible?  Like trying to differentiate between Hitler and Stalin.  Absurd.

11 minutes ago, Analytics said:

The Steven Pinker's book Enlightenment Now! does an amazing job of putting all of this into perspective and showing that despite the challenges, the world is getting better and that humanism is the path forward (if anybody wants to read it, send me a PM and I'll send you a copy). Pinker says:

The claim that ethnic uniformity leads to cultural excellence is as wrong as an idea can be. There’s a reason we refer to unsophisticated things as provincial, parochial, and insular and to sophisticated ones as urbane and cosmopolitan. No one is brilliant enough to dream up anything of value all by himself. Individuals and cultures of genius are aggregators, appropriators, greatest-hit collectors. Vibrant cultures sit in vast catchment areas in which people and innovations flow from far and wide. This explains why Eurasia, rather than Australia, Africa, or the Americas, was the first continent to give birth to expansive civilizations (as documented by Sowell in his Culture trilogy and Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel). It explains why the fountains of culture have always been trading cities on major crossroads and waterways. And it explains why human beings have always been peripatetic, moving to wherever they can make the best lives. Roots are for trees; people have feet.

Pinker, Steven. Enlightenment Now (pp. 450-451). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

 While it is genuinely scary to think of Chinese dictators or Islamic Fundamentalists taking over the world, I think humanism can win the war of ideas and that this will lead to a brighter future for all.

Humanism is pathetic and weak, and will not be able to withstand the debacles to come.  Pinker's Enlightenment is not a defense against the consequences of global warming, which cannot be stopped or slowed in the near term.  China will be calling the shots at the end of this century, and America will hunker down in fear -- knowing that it cannot be physically invaded, but at the same time will have only very weak international influence.  Will free speech, free press, and free inquiry survive in the USA.  Probably not.  The woke elements in higher ed already make that nearly impossible.  We will become a corporatocracy -- more so than we are now -- which is saying something.

[Robert F. Smith]

16 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

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The golden age of Islam was crushed by the Mongols. Ironically they also crushed a pretty enlightened group in China too. Both were on the edge of a Renaissance/Enlightenment path. There is a history joke that western Europe was the birthplace of the Renaissance because it was far enough away from Genghis Khan and his descendants.

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😎

[Analytics]

3 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The West cannot even reproduce and replace itself.  That spells economic suicide.

For the West, but not for China?

[carbon dioxide]

3 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Actually, the world is getting better. I know you might be terrified that the world is coming to an end because somewhere there might be a transgender girl playing organized sports, but let's keep it in perspective. Quoting Pinker:

Since the Enlightenment unfolded in the late 18th century, life expectancy across the world has risen from 30 to 71, and in the more fortunate countries to 81.1...

The poor may not always be with us. The world is about a hundred times wealthier today than it was two centuries ago, and the prosperity is becoming more evenly distributed across the world’s countries and people. The proportion of humanity living in extreme poverty has fallen from almost 90 percent to less than 10 percent, and within the lifetimes of most of the readers of this book it could approach zero....

The world is giving peace a chance. War between countries is obsolescent, and war within countries is absent from five-sixths of the world’s surface. The proportion of people killed annually in wars is less than a quarter of what it was in the 1980s, a seventh of what it was in the early 1970s, an eighteenth of what it was in the early 1950s, and a half a percent of what it was during World War II. Genocides, once common, have become rare. In most times and places, homicides kill far more people than wars, and homicide rates have been falling as well...

Life has been getting safer in every way. Over the course of the 20th century, Americans became 96 percent less likely to be killed in a car accident, 88 percent less likely to be mowed down on the sidewalk, 99 percent less likely to die in a plane crash, 59 percent less likely to fall to their deaths, 92 percent less likely to die by fire, 90 percent less likely to drown, 92 percent less likely to be asphyxiated, and 95 percent less likely to be killed on the job. Life in other rich countries is even safer, and life in poorer countries will get safer as they get richer....

People are getting not just healthier, richer, and safer but freer. Two centuries ago a handful of countries, embracing one percent of the world’s people, were democratic; today, two-thirds of the world’s countries, embracing two-thirds of its people, are. Not long ago half the world’s countries had laws that discriminated against racial minorities; today more countries have policies that favor their minorities than policies that discriminate against them. At the turn of the 20th century, women could vote in just one country; today they can vote in every country where men can vote save one...

As people are getting healthier, richer, safer, and freer, they are also becoming more literate, knowledgeable, and smarter. Early in the 19th century, 12 percent of the world could read and write; today 83 percent can. Literacy and the education it enables will soon be universal, for girls as well as boys....

As societies have become healthier, wealthier, freer, happier, and better educated, they have set their sights on the most pressing global challenges. They have emitted fewer pollutants, cleared fewer forests, spilled less oil, set aside more preserves, extinguished fewer species, saved the ozone layer, and peaked in their consumption of oil, farmland, timber, paper, cars, coal, and perhaps even carbon. For all their differences, the world’s nations came to a historic agreement on climate change, as they did in previous years on nuclear testing, proliferation, security, and disarmament...

Pinker, Steven. Enlightenment Now (pp. 322-325). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

His prospective is on the short term but some of his conclusions are unfounded. 

"The poor may not always be with us. The world is about a hundred times wealthier today than it was two centuries ago, and the prosperity is becoming more evenly distributed across the world’s countries and people. The proportion of humanity living in extreme poverty has fallen from almost 90 percent to less than 10 percent, and within the lifetimes of most of the readers of this book it could approach zero...."

Many would disagree with this.  Some would say the wealth is concentrated too much in too few hands.  Though the world is better than say 100 years ago, that does not mean it can't turn quickly.  Debt is on the rise.  The US is 28 trillion in debt and its rising fast.  The pandemic itself is said to have reversed much of these gains and sent the third world back many years. 

"The world is giving peace a chance. War between countries is obsolescent, and war within countries is absent from five-sixths of the world’s surface. The proportion of people killed annually in wars is less than a quarter of what it was in the 1980s, a seventh of what it was in the early 1970s, an eighteenth of what it was in the early 1950s, and a half a percent of what it was during World War II. Genocides, once common, have become rare. In most times and places, homicides kill far more people than wars, and homicide rates have been falling as well..."

War between nations has declined because of the presence of nuclear weapons.  The existence of these weapons has forced the US, China, and Russia to fear each other and thus there has not been any major world wars since 1945.  Contrary to the views of some, nuclear weapons have saved mankind from big wars.  That may not last forever.  India and Pakistan one day might fight it out and more people will die in that war than all of the 20th century combined.  China is building up fast.  They did not get the memo of giving peace a change.  In fact, the opposite is true.  As China gets stronger, they are getting more bold.  Whether it be against Taiwan, the south and east China seas or India.   Another thing to look for is climate change changing the whole dynamics of nations.  As refugees leave for other places and the water wars start, these refugees will spill into other countries.  We can easily see this would cause instability and resentment in those countries.  You can't have mass migrations of people and not expect bad things to happen.  Pinker is right we have gone through a period of "peace" with wars being contained to small countries.  There is no reason to believe that will continue.  Both the scriptures and the trends that you see in the world show that this period of peace is going to come to an end.  I would bet all my wealth on the view that the 21st century will see far more war and death than the 20th century.  Keep in mind as well, the 20th century did not start off too bad.  WW1 started in 1914.  Those living in 1905 might have though that the 20th century was not all that bad with progress being made in the world on many things. We are only 7 years further along in our century.  So we have a long ways to go before we close out this century. The world as you know can change on a dime.

"Life has been getting safer in every way. Over the course of the 20th century, Americans became 96 percent less likely to be killed in a car accident, 88 percent less likely to be mowed down on the sidewalk, 99 percent less likely to die in a plane crash, 59 percent less likely to fall to their deaths, 92 percent less likely to die by fire, 90 percent less likely to drown, 92 percent less likely to be asphyxiated, and 95 percent less likely to be killed on the job. Life in other rich countries is even safer, and life in poorer countries will get safer as they get richer...."

Sure day to day life is a little safer.  Sure I much rather live in today word than in 1910.  That however is not my point.  Technology is better but none of this is what I as addressing.  

"People are getting not just healthier, richer, and safer but freer. Two centuries ago a handful of countries, embracing one percent of the world’s people, were democratic; today, two-thirds of the world’s countries, embracing two-thirds of its people, are. Not long ago half the world’s countries had laws that discriminated against racial minorities; today more countries have policies that favor their minorities than policies that discriminate against them. At the turn of the 20th century, women could vote in just one country; today they can vote in every country where men can vote save one..."

Trends are reversing themselves in a number of places like India.  Authoritarianism is on the rise.  Democracy is not necessarily protect freedom or make people free.  Democracy can also bring in oppression.  Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what is for dinner.  It can be a force for good or a force for bad. 

"As people are getting healthier, richer, safer, and freer, they are also becoming more literate, knowledgeable, and smarter. Early in the 19th century, 12 percent of the world could read and write; today 83 percent can. Literacy and the education it enables will soon be universal, for girls as well as boys...."

Facebook, Snap, Instagram, ect is evidence that knowledge is not increasing.  Many teens in America today are better at texting than writing.  Are people getting healthier?  Why is the obesity rate so high?   Yes life is better today than 100 years ago.  I much rather live today but things are not that peachy.  And there is many warning signs flashing ahead.  Life changes fast.  Look how much one little virus changed life as we know it today from 2019. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Analytics]

10 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I'd like to see proof of your Scottish claim, which sounds ridiculous and even racist to me.

No, the following map isn't a map of where the Proud Boys are most popular. It shows in dark orange the counties where Scotch-Irish ancestry is statistically overrepresented. 

Source: Scotch-Irish Americans - Wikipedia

[carbon dioxide]

25 minutes ago, Analytics said:

For the West, but not for China?

China, Japan, and Russia are encouraging their populations to have more kids.  There are big problems when a nation has too many old people and not enough young people. 

[Analytics]

12 minutes ago, carbon dioxide said:

His prospective is on the short term but some of his conclusions are unfounded. 

But in all cases, reason, science, and humanism give us the tools and incentives to make the progress continue. The fact that the nones are growing is great news in this regard.

12 minutes ago, carbon dioxide said:

War between nations has declined because of the presence of nuclear weapons.  The existence of these weapons has forced the US, China, and Russia to fear each other and thus there has not been any major world wars since 1945.

Nuclear weapons are part of it, but the bigger parts are two other things. First, as more people have become more wealthy, they have more to lose from any war, nuclear or not. Second, as people have become more secular, they are more inclined to be peaceful. As Pinker says:

An immaterial soul is unmoved by the earthly incentives that impel us to get along. Contestants over a material resource are usually better off if they split it than fight over it, particularly if they value their own lives on earth. But contestants over a sacred value (like holy land or affirmation of a belief) may not compromise, and if they think their souls are immortal, the loss of their body is no big deal—indeed, it may be a small price to pay for an eternal reward in paradise.

Many historians have pointed out that religious wars are long and bloody, and bloody wars are often prolonged by religious conviction. Matthew White, the necrometrician we met in chapter 14, lists thirty religious conflicts among the worst things that people have ever done to one another, resulting in around 55 million killings. (In seventeen conflicts, the monotheistic religions fought each other; in another eight, monotheists fought heathens.) And the common assertion that the two world wars were set off by the decline of religious morality (as in the former Trump strategist Stephen Bannon’s recent claim that World War II pitted “the Judeo-Christian West versus atheists”) is dunce-cap history. The belligerents on both sides of World War I were devoutly Christian, except for the Ottoman Empire, a Muslim theocracy. The only avowedly atheist power that fought in World War II was the Soviet Union, and for most of the war it fought on our side against the Nazi regime—which (contrary to another myth) was sympathetic to German Christianity and vice versa, the two factions united in their loathing of secular modernity.

Pinker, Steven. Enlightenment Now (pp. 429-430). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

12 minutes ago, carbon dioxide said:

Both the scriptures and the trends that you see in the world show that this period of peace is going to come to an end.  I would bet all my wealth on the view that the 21st century will see far more war and death than the 20th century.  Keep in mind as well, the 20th century did not start off too bad.  WW1 started in 1914.  Those living in 1905 might have though that the 20th century was not all that bad with progress being made in the world on many things. We are only 7 years further along in our century.  So we have a long ways to go before we close out this century. The world as you know can change on a dime.

Only a religious zealot or a bona fide madman would think a global war would be better than figuring out how to live together in peace. It's a good thing the nones are taking over.

 

[2BizE]

3 hours ago, carbon dioxide said:

There is always something to replace something else.  As society becomes more secular, I see more division ahead. 

I don’t think the problem is an increasing secular society.  In 1955, an astute Rabbi suggested , "It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion--its message becomes meaningless." Rabbi Abraham Heschel

Does not our church ignore the crisis of today to idolize the splendor of the past?  Has not our faith become an heirloom of early Mormon leaders rather than a living fountain?

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Analytics said:

No, the following map isn't a map of where the Proud Boys are most popular. It shows in dark orange the counties where Scotch-Irish ancestry is statistically overrepresented. 

Source: Scotch-Irish Americans - Wikipedia.....................

Very nice, and I myself am heavily of Scot extraction.  However, you need to show that a huge percentage of the Jan 6 Capitol rioters were Scots, and that you have not done -- and cannot do.

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Analytics said:

For the West, but not for China?

One needs to distinguish suicidal behavior from forced behavior -- which can be turned around due to the totalitarian nature of China.  China can turn on a dime.  We cannot and will not.

[carbon dioxide]

2 hours ago, 2BizE said:

I don’t think the problem is an increasing secular society.  In 1955, an astute Rabbi suggested , "It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion--its message becomes meaningless." Rabbi Abraham Heschel

Does not our church ignore the crisis of today to idolize the splendor of the past?  Has not our faith become an heirloom of early Mormon leaders rather than a living fountain?

I don't see the Church ignoring the crisis of today.   It gets a lot of criticism for rejecting much of what the modern world is accepting.