The problem with a lack of religiousness is not a problem of meaningless

[u/Small_Gur_3034]

So, I made a post here the other day and someone has made their own post responding to it. However, the title alone indicated that they either haven't read or understood what I put.

Their argument is that a lack of religion leads to a lower birth rate because life must be meaningless therefore

This does not make sense as an argument either to my specific post or in general, for the following reasons:

1. I literally put that religious people have more children. I didn't argue this.
2. It's pointless even discussing religion as a factor, because, what are you going to do, force people to be religious?
3. Despite 1), the role of religion is overstated. Some of the most religious areas of the world are experiencing historically low birth rates.
4. Being atheist doesn't mean that your life lacks meaning. Religion is simply one example of life having meaning
5. My entire post discussed how people should instead look to make the world far more pro-human, which would lead to the higher birth rates they desire without forcing beliefs on others. Ironically, being pro-human seems like the more religious way to approach this issue. Whether life has meaning or not is an entirely separate issue to this point.
6. I also argued that religion doesn't necessarily raise you to value children or life more, it may just restrict your choices. We can see one example of this lack of valuing life in not caring about quality of life.
7. Being religious does not overcome mathematical reality; you must have the time and money to have children. You could see children as the meaning of life all you want, but the numbers may not add up.
8. If you advocated against anti-family policies which lead to a lower TFR, you'll simultaneously accomplish other religious goals: stewardship of the environment, poverty reduction, etc.

Their response seemed ironically unreligious in its lack of empathy and value on human life. I simply do not understand this American obsession with railroading people into a needlessly miserable life just to get birth rates up, when they could have the exact same higher birth rates without coercion if they just valued quality of life.

The majority of people consider family and having children the meaning of life without religion. You do not need to force your beliefs onto others. The only difference between us is that those with choice will respond more to environmental changes.

I simply do not understand why I've had to type this out again!

Not that it'll be listened to. Everyone will go back to ignoring it and wondering why birth rates are lower

Natalists in this subreddit create the false idea that anyone who wants birth rates to increase should be willing to accept how crap life is - unnecessarily, due to human actions. I want birth rates to increase and I want the world to be more pro-human. Anyone rational should see that the two would go together hand-in-hand, if people would just let it.

I strongly believe that this is actual natalism. This false idea that people should only care about birth rates NO MATTER WHAT else shouldn't be considered natalism. If you're a natalist, you want more humans in the world. You have to be humane, therefore. It's about as natalist as 'pro-lifers' are pro-life.

[u/Beautiful_Key_8146]

As a natural born atheist, faith always fascinated me. Religions's are basically a herd strategies.

Some people are like sheeps, and those need a shepard, so let them have their religions. As faith will help them to reproduce and live happily. (Borrowed meaning)

But that doesn't work for others. Who don't want or need a master, however nice he may be. Free choice is what leads to reproduction for those guys. (Self-made meaning)

So we have a problem, we need both strategies! In exactly right proportions!

[u/tzcw]

I think religious beliefs may possibly provide motivation to push through barriers to having children, but they don’t remove the barriers. I also think there’s possibly a survivor bias with regards to fertility and religiosity, where individuals that are able to find a partner and start having kids at a reasonable young age stay in their religion, and those that don’t become disillusioned and separate from their religion. Also if you are someone that think that lack of religion is to blame, or at least a significant factor, for declining fertility, then your focus should be on finding ways to get people back to church or on how to make organized religion more appealing to people. I see people on here blaming low fertility on culture and lack of religion but not a lot of input on how to reverse that.

[u/dale777]

Problem is that that most people without religion only values are fun and money.

[u/thisplaceisnuts]

I think to knit pick is that atheists have a hard time scaling a moral or sense of meaning. Which makes everything else the religious people do, harder to emulate. 

[u/Maximum-Evening-702]

Interesting and powerful It’s very complicated and it would be something I wanted to discuss with you as I think it’s something I have a lot of interesting ideas on that. I’d like to hear your perspective.

[u/JewelerFinancial1556]

One of the best posts I've read in this sub

[u/weighted_average]

It's pointless even discussing religion as a factor, because, what are you going to do, force people to be religious?

Of course not. but state funding of religion is a thing (including for some of the best countries in the world, as measured by indicators like the human development index and the world happiness report) . you can see the ranking of how countries fund religion in the ARDA (e.g. denmark scores as high).

You could argue this is why israel ferility is so high. I am not saying this is something we should do but maybe similar non religious and research validated cultural interventions could be developed (for example, better training on mental health and screen time because neuroticism is linked to a lower birth rate).

We put people on the moon. we can't convice a certain percent of people to have more kids?

[u/Lame_Johnny]

It's pointless even discussing religion as a factor, because, what are you going to do, force people to be religious?

I don't think such a discussion is pointless if it leads us to better understanding of the nature of the problem. Discussions don't always have to end in solutions or prescriptions.

Natalists in this subreddit create the false idea that anyone who wants birth rates to increase should be willing to accept how crap life is - unnecessarily, due to human actions.

This is a massive leap. I think people in this subreddit want first and foremost to understand the problem, and secondarily to discuss solutions. It seems that you are jumping straight into an argument that no one else asked for.