modernCSLewis

  • Subscribe to our RSS feed.
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Facebook
  • Digg

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Above-replacement fertility - necessary (but not sufficient) for a valid religion

Posted on 10:31 PM by Unknown
*

It seems to me that above-replacement fertility is a necessity for any valid religion; or, to put it another way, any religion in which the adherents (as a group) voluntarily average less than two children per woman, is of necessity false and evil in some very fundamental way.

The test is necessary but not, of course, sufficient. While sub-replacement fertility is necessarily bad, and evidence of some underlying and over-powering falsity in belief or practice; above replacement fertility is certainly not evidence of a group being on-the-whole-good.

Indeed most groups reasons for high fertility are bad, simply because above-replacement is the natural (biological) state for humans, and humans are sinful creatures who need to be saved.

*

So, we can apply a filter to Christian denominations around the world and within societies.

All of those denominations in which adherents average less than two children per woman are bad, false and should be rejected as being (in some way, which may or may not be specifically identifiable) on-the-whole evil (their good qualities being overwhelmed by one or more bad qualities).

The bad-ness of low-fertility can conveniently be seen in the age structure of adherents - high median age, proportionately few children and few adults of child-bearing age, and a distorted sex ratio (in other words, not enough men).

And the more extreme, and sustained, is chosen sub-fertility; the worse the denomination, the more anti-Christian. 

*

I am saying that sustained and self-chosen sub-fertility in a group is evidence of such profound spiritual malaise, that it provides an objective measure of spiritual malaise. 

*

In a country like England, this means that all the major self-styled 'Christian' denominations can be revealed as sub-fertile and trending worse, hence net-evil, hence not truly Christian, hence ruled-out of consideration.

Among those smaller, more-specific Christian groups with above-replacement fertility, we cannot assume that any are valid - since we cannot assume that there are any valid Christian groups in England.

It is possible that there are only scattered valid Christians who may be spread thinly across denominations, or outwith organized churches - or perhaps there are simply too few real Christians to register.

*

But applying this test would suggest where, among which denominations, real Christians might find it worth looking for a church that is potentially good-on-the-whole. As well as providing a quick and simple way of detecting and rejecting pseudo-Christian Churches.

*

NOTE: To make clear - as a Mere Christian, I believe that real Christians are scattered (but not evenly) across many denominations and are to be found in many congregations - even those of the most corrupt pseudo-Christian churches. However, such individuals would necessarily find themselves at-odds-with their denominations and congregations, and swimming-against the tide of change. 

*
Email ThisBlogThis!Share to XShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest
Posted in | No comments
Newer Post Older Post Home

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Popular Posts

  • Who had the highest IQ: JRR Tolkien or CS Lewis?
    * http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/tolkien-and-lewis-which-was-most.html *
  • The bass part of music
    * The bass part seems to be liked - even though it is seldom noticed (some unmusical people seem unable to hear it). When the bass comes in,...
  • Attitudes and the Thought Police: opponents of Leftism cannot be subversive
    * New Leftism, post-mid-sixties Leftism, has been about shaping 'attitudes' - and this leads directly to the Thought Police For Left...
  • How to make a Patagonian Shakespeare
    ...is the name of a new blog I am intending to work on - with a view to writing a book of that name. http://patagonianshakespeare.blogspot.c...
  • The Left isn't winning by having good arguments - it wins because people are punished for arguing against the Left
    * This is one of the things I find most frustrating, and increasingly frustrating: not so much that it happens, but that so many people cann...
  • Free will entails a plurality of gods
    * By which I mean that free will makes each Man into something very much like the God of the philosophers: an unmoved mover, an uncaused cau...
  • Free will, the torturer and the tortured
    * If free will is real - as it is - then the extreme torturer (and nobody and nothing else) really is responsible for his choice to inflict ...
  • What do 'antipsychotics' do to people?
    * An interesting quote from Robert Whitaker's Anatomy of an Epidemic: magic bullets, psychiatric drugs, and the astonishing rise of ment...
  • The Christian Evolutionist
    * I have cobbled-together an essay of some twelve thousand words by bringing together some of my blog postings on the theme of Christianity ...
  • Shippey on bureaucracy
    * http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/the-best-book-which-otherwise-than-my.html *

Blog Archive

  • ►  2013 (424)
    • ►  September (22)
    • ►  August (57)
    • ►  July (71)
    • ►  June (60)
    • ►  May (49)
    • ►  April (30)
    • ►  March (51)
    • ►  February (39)
    • ►  January (45)
  • ▼  2012 (76)
    • ▼  December (52)
      • A strategy for permanent resistance against superi...
      • Buxtehude Organ Prelude in G minor - one of the gr...
      • Orson Scott Card on the literary canon
      • Helpless by unbelief
      • Welby-watch: the incoming Archbishop of Canturbury...
      • 'Mere Christian' thoughts on the baptism of infants
      • How the modern pseudo-virtue of 'equality' corrupt...
      • The social function of Law: ancient and modern
      • Above-replacement fertility - necessary (but not s...
      • Christianity in four brief points
      • All men are equal in the eyes of God? An Antichris...
      • His name? Lermin!
      • How happy days lead on to a spiral of pleasure-see...
      • Christianity without philosophy: what would it loo...
      • Everyday life as it should be
      • Jealousy of Charles Williams was NOT a factor in t...
      • Don't argue, don't debate: Christians should just ...
      • Hobbit movie review
      • Genius as a form of power
      • What do we DO in Heaven/ Paradise? The Mormon answer
      • John C Wright on Hell
      • The Laffer limit of life - an exemplification of sin
      • What is needed is faithfulness, not better debatin...
      • The triad of Incompetence, Ignorance, and Not Even...
      • Alcohol: men, women and Mormons
      • Asking for definitions, for greater precision, fei...
      • Tolkien's Lost Road of 1936 - better prose than ea...
      • Training courses to fill-in forms... the end stage...
      • One word wrong...
      • The meaning of statistics - national median age
      • Liberal Christians are asset strippers, like all L...
      • Living patiently, prepared for an Old Testament ti...
      • Weight-training and Christianity
      • The UK census: in rationalistic, secular modernity...
      • Music in church? Unaccompanied choir, organ, guita...
      • Rise of the Guardians (Dreamworks) - movie review
      • Imagine... national repentance
      • What is the point of creeds, dogmas, articles of f...
      • Why remain a Church of England Anglican?
      • The *what?* of England
      • The desire for 'equality' is natural to humans; as...
      • Self-Diagnosis, Self-Treatment and Self-Monitoring
      • Abp Rowan Williams doing what he does best: talkin...
      • Let's be clear: equality is *not* good
      • Why managers inflict so much harm on modern society
      • Be careful about the principles upon which you 're...
      • Did you know? The Salvation Army...
      • Over-promotion and euphemism: a lethal combination
      • What gave me the idea for the over-promoted society?
      • How to tell if someone is over-promoted
      • Why don't British evangelicals use the Authorized ...
      • Progressivism is merely: What will be, ought to be...
    • ►  November (24)
Powered by Blogger.

About Me

Unknown
View my complete profile