Religion, fertility and modern intellectuals

"Religiousness" may be at a deeper level the "missing link" of current sociobiological theory. Because religiousness shows the best correlations with fertility in all human cultures.

I said this some weeks ago in a comment to Razib Khan's Blog. I think it is too important not to repeat here. Razib asked "Does it?" and I gave this study by Michael Blume (pdf) as an evidence for this thesis.

Even if the Templeton-Foundation and a lot of other organizations are funding very much science concerning scientific approaches to religion, this thesis of Michael Blume has not found so much attention yet in the scientific communitiy (as far as I can see).

Now I had some disagreement with Razib (in the comments: here and here), because I try to apply the mentioned thesis to world history as a whole. I like Razib Khan very much, because he is looking for truth like me in a lot of areas like me and because he knows a lot of things better than me (for example human genetics). We had some disagreements yesterday concerning some interpretations of historical processes. And the deeper reason for this disagreement - I think now - may be found in what famous Jürgen Habermas as a typical atheistic intellectual has said about himself - that he is "religiously unmusical".

Since Habermas has talked together with the former Cardinal Ratzinger (now pope Benedict XVI.) about the necessity of religion for our society (in the year 2004), this "being unmusical concerning religion" may have a new importance for the public discourse. Surley, at the state of science now we cannot "measure" the inborn or learned ability for being "religiously musical" very precise. But to speak about this is becoming important more and more, I think.

Truth may not always be "polite". All the more if it comes to religiousness and morals. So I think we cannot avoid to have sometimes a little bit "impolite" discussions about impolite truths. This has something to do with our own infertility and atheistic attitudes as well, I think. We're reasoning very "politly" about rises and declines of cultures - and in the time we're doing that, the great culture of the western world, in which we live, is declining and declining mostly by birth rates and mostly by low birth rates of the IQ-elites that we think we represent.

So, I think, there are reasons sometimes to become a little bit impatiently - even if you are in pure scientific discussions and even if you have pure scientific attitudes. I think, it IS science, that can make you sometimes impatiently and impolite. So I try to formulate the following thesis: Atheism is a force that can make people "religiously unmusical". And then people do not understand any longer at a deeper level, why people do not have enough children and why cultures rise or decline because of that.