The Atheist That Hates

14th August 2012

Question with 3 notes

Anonymous asked: They say that people in less industralized parts of the world end up having more kids. Which is why certain religions end up having higher numbers. It's simply a fact that muslims in North Africa for example, are having more kids than a couple of atheists in Canada. Why is that? I always thought it was strange because if you had less resources or worse quality of life you'd want fewer kids?

I think there are a lot of possible reasons that could be considered. One that jumps out right away is the high infant mortality rate in areas like North Africa, someone may need to have several kids in order to get 1 or 2 that survive past adolescence. It was something that we saw a lot in the United States within the last 200 years, many families would end up with lots of children and as the infant mortality rate continued to go down we tended to see families having less and less children. Along with that there is also the factor of physical labor, more children meant more people to tend the farm and work the land, something that is less of a concern for many Americans today but still often an issue for people in less industrialized countries.

In the less industrialized countries there is also far less access to birth control and quality medical care. As a result there are far more unplanned and often unwanted pregnancies, in many ways that is something religion played a strong factor in, but hopefully with better access to contraceptives and medical care we will see less of that. More people will be given a real option to plan their family and when they want to have children instead of responding to unforeseen circumstances.

On the flip side I’ve noticed a trend (again at least in the United States) for many people that are well educated to purposely not have children or wait until much later in life to have children, there are more 40+ first time parents now than ever before. I think it is interesting and in some ways very sad. I’ve had people give me various reasons but a lot of it boils down to the state of the world. People either worry that we’re already too overcrowded, that the world is not a place they want to bring a child in to, or that they will never be able to afford the financial and emotional toll that raising a child takes. It is entirely up to an individual if they ever want to have a child but I find it disheartening that the world is in such a sad state that the most educated and informed people don’t want to procreate because of external factors. The movie “Idiocracy” is a completely far fetched example of what could happen if we continue to see the most intelligent and educated people shy away from procreating, but it makes for an entertaining movie.

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