I couldn't find the "less than 2%" figure in the source (Wikipedia), but I did find this:
"A study comparing Turkish Muslim youths living in Germany and German youth found that the former were more likely to attend religious services regularly (35% versus 14%)"
Germany's Turkish population does not suffer from the same selection effects as America's Muslim population, which might explain why American Muslims seem more secular than Muslims in general, but Germans of Turkish ancestry don't seem any more secular than their brethren in Turkey.
I doubt immigration to the West secularizes Muslims.
"A study comparing Turkish Muslim youths living in Germany" Well duh, the Muslims are still Muslims. You would need to consider the Turkish non-Muslims too for this to be valid.
And this is the original quote (translated from German by Google translate):
"One of the results of the Shell Youth Study 2000 is that 27 percent of German, but only six percent of Turkish young people do not feel that they belong to any religious community. When asked about religious practices and attitudes, 14 percent of German and 35 percent of Turkish young people said that they attend church services at least once a month."
Notice it doesn't say anything about restricting the sample of Turkish young people to only Muslims.
> If [...] Jesus [...] meant to spearhead a culturally novel rejection of religious violence, he would have explicitly said so.
Jesus did say so (according to Matthew 25):
51 And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest's, and smote off his ear.
52 Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.
“You have heard it was said ‘Love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, so that you will be children of your Father in Heaven.”
I think many western people are against large numbers of Muslims coming to their countries not because, or at least not mainly because, they fear they are going to be beheaded or blown up but because of the high rate of rape, gang rape, the introduction of Sharia law into our societies and the fact that Muslims often don't seem to like us much.
Matt chose Turks in Germany as his example of Muslims leaving the faith - of course he did. Turks, especially those from western Turkey rather than Anatolia, were already used to secular life under Ataturk and the proximity of western Turkey to proper European countries meant that Turks were already fairly well disposed to our style of life.
In some towns in England Muslims are now a majority. How does integration work in that situation?
Often the second and third generations are more hostile to the West than the Muslims who arrived barely able to speak English.
I read only a third of what Bryan posted of Matt's essay but I stopped as he seemed determined to show how illogical it is to want to limit Muslim immigration to the West. I suspect someone equally determined to prove the opposite case could do so by cherry picking their examples in a similar way.
Has this guy ever studied Christianity? Christians aren’t required to kill apostates. Jesus Christ deauthorized killing even in defense of Himsef, the literal God incarnate.
If there ever was a staggering example of the triumph of hope over experience, this is it. All over Europe, in such "racist," "bigoted," and "illiberal" states as Sweden, Denmark, Holland, etc. the citizenry is up in arms, NOT because they are afraid of being murdered in their beds, because they are losing their liberal culture: the right to say what they think, to burn holy books (if they like), to hold rock concerts w/o the fear of being slaughtered, to walk through their cities displaying affection to same sex or LGBTQ partners, or to dress like a Jew w/o being physically attacked or to attend religious services w/o fear of attack. By analogy, it is not just government's censorship of speech that is a problem, but the self-censorship that occurs for fear of being punished.
I visited Copenhagen recently, and the main Jewish synagogue is under essentially 24 hour military protection. The street is closed to automobiles and there are soldiers patrolling in uniform, carrying semi-auto rifles. Intimidation is the issue. A society that has to endure this is no longer a liberal society. And, dare I say something so radical, but the first duty of a liberal society is to remain liberal.
Also, by virtue of their voting power as a bloc, and the eagerness of Leftist politicians to pander to them, Muslim immigrants have the power to change the social order for the worse. This is the unholy red/green alliance poses the same threat to liberty described above; perhaps an even greater one.
By the argument given here, that corrects over time from attrition. If a belief system loses a quarter of its children every generation, it doesn't last long.
Members of this religion have a lot of children, and it doesn't take mass numbers to produce the intimidation I described. In any case, in liberal states, this argument doesn't seem to hold. Muslim immigration in France goes back to the 1950s, and the problem there has worsened. Same for German, which I believe imported large numbers of Turks, starting I believe in the 1970s.
This would require analyzing the proportion of Turks arriving in Germany in the 1970s, and descendants thereof, who no longer identify as Muslims. According to the author's thesis, the rise in Muslim population is driven entirely by new immigration, with much of the old batch assimilated.
Also, use of "to import" in this context is dehumanizing; immigrants decide where to go; they are not crates to be hauled about.
My argument does not depend on whether the terrorism and intimidation comes from larger numbers of new migrants or the failure of earlier generations to assimilate. The trend is negative all over Europe, which is why "right wing" parties are on the rise. I've now said all I can say, and all I need to say, about Bryan's argument. Have a nice evening.
The "less than 2%" part sounded wrong to me, so I clicked the link and it went to a Wikipedia page that said, "According to a representative survey, it is estimated that in 2019, there were 5.3–5.6 million Muslims with a migrant background in Germany (6.4–6.7% of the population), in addition to an unknown number of Muslims without a migrant background." I don't see where the "less than 2%" came from.
Bryan, I would never normally argue with you about anything bc I don’t enjoy being destroyed in debate. Haha. But did Jesus really need to explicitly say “no violence!!” to his followers? He told us to endlessly forgive, he gave up his own life for all of mankind and prayed for the forgiveness of his enemies from the cross!! Jesus and the New Testament could not be more clear that judgement is in God’s hands and not to be violently carried out by the church.
According to Pew, based on fertility rates, conversion and apostasy rates, and migration rates, they predict that in 2050 Europe will be 10.2% Muslim, compared to 5.9% in 2010. They also predict that the total number of Muslims in Europe will grow from 43.5 million in 2010 to 70.9 million in 2050. Pew, at least, does not believe that the apostasy rate is sufficient to outweigh the fertility and migration effects. It’s hard to find better numbers than Pew, so I tend to trust them.
The "familiar truism" doesn't really prove what you want it to. Actually, people really don't like car accident deaths, and this is demonstrated by the actions society takes to prevent them. Seatbelt use is mandatory. Large crumple zones, airbags, and backup cameras are required in new cars. Driving recklessly, drunk, or distracted will get you ticketed or jailed. When the weather gets bad, schools and businesses close to prevent a multitude of drivers on the roads. Commercial drivers with heavy loads are scrutinized and regulated partly for safety reasons. You can argue about each individual policy, but I don't think there's evidence of hypocrisy here.
After some years of open borders policy, a district in England finds that 40% of its population is Muslim. If, on average, Muslim couples have 4.7 children and non-Muslim couples have 1.7 children, what percentage of the district's population will be Muslim after three generations, assuming that 25% of the Muslim population abandons its faith every generation?
One thing to note about the conversion of North Africa, Syria and Egypt is that all three were heretical branches of Christianity (donatism,monophysite, and Nestorian which had been persecuted heavily. The Visigoths were Arian. In India it appealed to the Dalits, in Bosnia the Paterenes. Islam was able to appeal to the locals as they had already been outside the mainstream of their original religions and were persecuted because of it. The exception is east and west Africa where trade drove the conversion of the sahel and the Kilwa sultanates.
I couldn't find the "less than 2%" figure in the source (Wikipedia), but I did find this:
"A study comparing Turkish Muslim youths living in Germany and German youth found that the former were more likely to attend religious services regularly (35% versus 14%)"
According to the Pew Research Center, weekly worship attendance in Turkey is 44% (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/06/13/how-religious-commitment-varies-by-country-among-people-of-all-ages/). Assuming Turkey has been slowly secularizing (younger => less attendance), it would seem that religious attendance in Turkey is likely the same as Turkish religious attendance in Germany.
Germany's Turkish population does not suffer from the same selection effects as America's Muslim population, which might explain why American Muslims seem more secular than Muslims in general, but Germans of Turkish ancestry don't seem any more secular than their brethren in Turkey.
I doubt immigration to the West secularizes Muslims.
"A study comparing Turkish Muslim youths living in Germany" Well duh, the Muslims are still Muslims. You would need to consider the Turkish non-Muslims too for this to be valid.
This is the source of that quote (in German, page 9): https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/akademie/berlin/04705.pdf
And this is the original quote (translated from German by Google translate):
"One of the results of the Shell Youth Study 2000 is that 27 percent of German, but only six percent of Turkish young people do not feel that they belong to any religious community. When asked about religious practices and attitudes, 14 percent of German and 35 percent of Turkish young people said that they attend church services at least once a month."
Notice it doesn't say anything about restricting the sample of Turkish young people to only Muslims.
oh, yeah, I guess so...
> If [...] Jesus [...] meant to spearhead a culturally novel rejection of religious violence, he would have explicitly said so.
Jesus did say so (according to Matthew 25):
51 And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest's, and smote off his ear.
52 Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.
“You have heard it was said ‘Love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, so that you will be children of your Father in Heaven.”
I think many western people are against large numbers of Muslims coming to their countries not because, or at least not mainly because, they fear they are going to be beheaded or blown up but because of the high rate of rape, gang rape, the introduction of Sharia law into our societies and the fact that Muslims often don't seem to like us much.
Matt chose Turks in Germany as his example of Muslims leaving the faith - of course he did. Turks, especially those from western Turkey rather than Anatolia, were already used to secular life under Ataturk and the proximity of western Turkey to proper European countries meant that Turks were already fairly well disposed to our style of life.
In some towns in England Muslims are now a majority. How does integration work in that situation?
Often the second and third generations are more hostile to the West than the Muslims who arrived barely able to speak English.
I read only a third of what Bryan posted of Matt's essay but I stopped as he seemed determined to show how illogical it is to want to limit Muslim immigration to the West. I suspect someone equally determined to prove the opposite case could do so by cherry picking their examples in a similar way.
Has this guy ever studied Christianity? Christians aren’t required to kill apostates. Jesus Christ deauthorized killing even in defense of Himsef, the literal God incarnate.
If there ever was a staggering example of the triumph of hope over experience, this is it. All over Europe, in such "racist," "bigoted," and "illiberal" states as Sweden, Denmark, Holland, etc. the citizenry is up in arms, NOT because they are afraid of being murdered in their beds, because they are losing their liberal culture: the right to say what they think, to burn holy books (if they like), to hold rock concerts w/o the fear of being slaughtered, to walk through their cities displaying affection to same sex or LGBTQ partners, or to dress like a Jew w/o being physically attacked or to attend religious services w/o fear of attack. By analogy, it is not just government's censorship of speech that is a problem, but the self-censorship that occurs for fear of being punished.
I visited Copenhagen recently, and the main Jewish synagogue is under essentially 24 hour military protection. The street is closed to automobiles and there are soldiers patrolling in uniform, carrying semi-auto rifles. Intimidation is the issue. A society that has to endure this is no longer a liberal society. And, dare I say something so radical, but the first duty of a liberal society is to remain liberal.
Also, by virtue of their voting power as a bloc, and the eagerness of Leftist politicians to pander to them, Muslim immigrants have the power to change the social order for the worse. This is the unholy red/green alliance poses the same threat to liberty described above; perhaps an even greater one.
By the argument given here, that corrects over time from attrition. If a belief system loses a quarter of its children every generation, it doesn't last long.
Members of this religion have a lot of children, and it doesn't take mass numbers to produce the intimidation I described. In any case, in liberal states, this argument doesn't seem to hold. Muslim immigration in France goes back to the 1950s, and the problem there has worsened. Same for German, which I believe imported large numbers of Turks, starting I believe in the 1970s.
This would require analyzing the proportion of Turks arriving in Germany in the 1970s, and descendants thereof, who no longer identify as Muslims. According to the author's thesis, the rise in Muslim population is driven entirely by new immigration, with much of the old batch assimilated.
Also, use of "to import" in this context is dehumanizing; immigrants decide where to go; they are not crates to be hauled about.
My argument does not depend on whether the terrorism and intimidation comes from larger numbers of new migrants or the failure of earlier generations to assimilate. The trend is negative all over Europe, which is why "right wing" parties are on the rise. I've now said all I can say, and all I need to say, about Bryan's argument. Have a nice evening.
The "less than 2%" part sounded wrong to me, so I clicked the link and it went to a Wikipedia page that said, "According to a representative survey, it is estimated that in 2019, there were 5.3–5.6 million Muslims with a migrant background in Germany (6.4–6.7% of the population), in addition to an unknown number of Muslims without a migrant background." I don't see where the "less than 2%" came from.
Bryan, I would never normally argue with you about anything bc I don’t enjoy being destroyed in debate. Haha. But did Jesus really need to explicitly say “no violence!!” to his followers? He told us to endlessly forgive, he gave up his own life for all of mankind and prayed for the forgiveness of his enemies from the cross!! Jesus and the New Testament could not be more clear that judgement is in God’s hands and not to be violently carried out by the church.
The European leaders have already admitted that assimilation has failed. The question is what solutions are available to correct this failure.
According to Pew, based on fertility rates, conversion and apostasy rates, and migration rates, they predict that in 2050 Europe will be 10.2% Muslim, compared to 5.9% in 2010. They also predict that the total number of Muslims in Europe will grow from 43.5 million in 2010 to 70.9 million in 2050. Pew, at least, does not believe that the apostasy rate is sufficient to outweigh the fertility and migration effects. It’s hard to find better numbers than Pew, so I tend to trust them.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/feature/religious-composition-by-country-2010-2050/
The "familiar truism" doesn't really prove what you want it to. Actually, people really don't like car accident deaths, and this is demonstrated by the actions society takes to prevent them. Seatbelt use is mandatory. Large crumple zones, airbags, and backup cameras are required in new cars. Driving recklessly, drunk, or distracted will get you ticketed or jailed. When the weather gets bad, schools and businesses close to prevent a multitude of drivers on the roads. Commercial drivers with heavy loads are scrutinized and regulated partly for safety reasons. You can argue about each individual policy, but I don't think there's evidence of hypocrisy here.
Here's a test:
After some years of open borders policy, a district in England finds that 40% of its population is Muslim. If, on average, Muslim couples have 4.7 children and non-Muslim couples have 1.7 children, what percentage of the district's population will be Muslim after three generations, assuming that 25% of the Muslim population abandons its faith every generation?
One thing to note about the conversion of North Africa, Syria and Egypt is that all three were heretical branches of Christianity (donatism,monophysite, and Nestorian which had been persecuted heavily. The Visigoths were Arian. In India it appealed to the Dalits, in Bosnia the Paterenes. Islam was able to appeal to the locals as they had already been outside the mainstream of their original religions and were persecuted because of it. The exception is east and west Africa where trade drove the conversion of the sahel and the Kilwa sultanates.