http://www.realclearreligion.com/index.htmlreal clearengen@realclearreligion.comCopyright 2007 2007-03-20T13:52:48-07:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Sun, 30 Sep 2007 15:48:33 -0700gen@realclearreligion.comWE MUST REPRODUCE TO AVOID THE DEATH OF THE WEST2007-03-20T13:52:48-07:00http://www.realclearreligion.com/we_must_reproduce_to_avoid__files/473a58c04b37a224e5a99845e01f37bf-0.html#unique-entry-id-0http://www.realclearreligion.com/we_must_reproduce_to_avoid__files/473a58c04b37a224e5a99845e01f37bf-0.html#unique-entry-id-0



Mark Steyn in his newest book America Alone is solidifying his place as a prophet for our times.   His message on demographics and the death of the West is so important and must be heard.  Here is an excerpt...

"The Muslim world has youth, numbers and global ambitions. The West is growing old and enfeebled, and lacks the will to rebuff those who would supplant it. It's the end of the world as we've known it

"The median age in the Gaza Strip is 15.8 years.

"Once you know that, all the rest is details.

"Likewise, the salient feature of Europe, Canada, Japan and Russia is that they're running out of babies.

"What's happening in the developed world is one of the fastest demographic evolutions in history: most of us have seen a gazillion heartwarming ethnic comedies -- My Big Fat Greek Wedding and its ilk -- in which some uptight WASPy type starts dating a gal from a vast loving fecund Mediterranean family, so abundantly endowed with sisters and cousins and uncles that you can barely get in the room.

"It is, in fact, the inversion of the truth. Greece has a fertility rate hovering just below 1.3 births per couple, which is what demographers call the point of "lowest-low" fertility from which no human society has ever recovered. And Greece's fertility is the healthiest in Mediterranean Europe: Italy has a fertility rate of 1.2, Spain 1.1.

"Insofar as any citizens of the developed world have "big" families these days, it's the anglo democracies: America's fertility rate is 2.1, New Zealand a little below. Hollywood should be making My Big Fat Uptight Protestant Wedding in which some sad Greek only child marries into a big heartwarming New Zealand family where the spouse actually has a sibling.

"As I say, this isn't a projection: it's happening now.  There's no need to extrapolate, and if you do it gets a little freaky, but, just for fun, here goes: by 2050, 60 per cent of Italians will have no brothers, no sisters, no cousins, no aunts, no uncles. The big Italian family, with papa pouring the vino and mama spooning out the pasta down an endless table of grandparents and nieces and nephews, will be gone, no more, dead as the dinosaurs. As Noel Coward once remarked in another context, "Funiculi, funicula, funic yourself." By mid-century, Italians will have no choice in the matter.

"You might formulate it like this:
"Age + Welfare = Disaster for you;
"Youth + Will = Disaster for whoever gets in your way.

"By "will," I mean the metaphorical spine of a culture. Africa, to take another example, also has plenty of young people, but it's riddled with AIDS and, for the most part, Africans don't think of themselves as Africans: as we saw in Rwanda, their primary identity is tribal, and most tribes have no global ambitions. Islam, however, has serious global ambitions, and it forms the primal, core identity of most of its adherents -- in the Middle East, South Asia and elsewhere.

"Experts talk about root causes. But demography is the most basic root of all. A people that won't multiply can't go forth or go anywhere. Those who do will shape the age we live in.

"Islam has youth and will, Europe has age and welfare.

"For states in demographic decline with ever more lavish social programs, the question is a simple one: can they get real? Can they grow up before they grow old? If not, then they'll end their days in societies dominated by people with a very different world view.

"There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe -- without swords, without guns, without conquests. The fifty million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades." says the Colonel Gadhafi.

"We're the ones who will change you," the Norwegian imam Mullah Krekar told the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet in 2006. "Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every Western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children." As he
summed it up: "Our way of thinking will prove more powerful than yours."

The prophetic warnings set out in Humane Vitae have come about.  The West must see that its embrace of artificial contraceptives has created this demographic nightmare.  We have traded the future of the West for the ease of today.  If your church does not take a position on contraceptives --is it the right church?
]]>