I wish it were that amusing!
In fact high birth rates are correlated with suppression of women and lack of women’s education. 
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That’s a very modern, western viewpoint.
I do not disagree that in many Muslim-controlled states, women are oppressed and kept away from education.
But my Nigerian Christian friends - almost all with large families - would say there is no correlation as you describe.
It’s a matter of choice - what is really important, and for them it emphatically is not rampant consumerism, but family - and we need to be respectful of cultural differences, rather than seek to impose, Colonial- or Imperial-style, our beliefs on other peoples.
Of course it is. Because it is in a modern, western, largely secular society that women have (on the whole) been released from suppression and have been able to be well educated and as a result birth rates have plummeted. It is also, in a modern, western (non- agrarian) world that science has dealt with childhood illnesses and death and so there has been no need to have large families in order to work the land…
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What are the infant mortality rates?
I’m often amazed -I shouldn’t be! - by the narrowness of viewpoint of “modern western people”. It’s just as narrow as the imperialist viewpoint of 200 years ago, saying “My worldview is the only reasonable one.”
I know so many people who have been manipulated, by capitalism in effect, into a consumerist life where they feel they need to have possessions, rather than children; two jobs rather than to look after their children …
It’s not a zero-sum game. A couple who choose something different is very rarely an indicator of oppression of a woman!
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I was just shopping in Grand Frais and saw a beautiful little girl who was dancing in the aisles alongside her mother and another lady. Clearly a Muslim family.
Dear little girl. All I could think of is that I hope and trust there is absolutely no chance of FGM in France, nor elsewhere for her. Cairo used to be a favoured destination.
I am all for people worshipping as they wish but I feel strongly there are some things that should never happen to a child just because of a belief.
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Not just school rules, it’s illegal
Unfortunately, so are drugs but schools can be a hotbed of rebellion! Pushing the envelope is required in youth.
I wouldn’t worry. As the weather heats up they’ll be flinging off the overcloths and flitting about in shorts again.
Porridge I love the sentiment and feel that I would agree with you that the Western world does sometimes not take into account other views that can be valid elsewhere.
However statistically, what Vero and SuePJ and others have said is true overall, although of course individual families and some places can be different than the overall statistics.
I’m sure it is, though I’m confused by the use of “correlated”. It’s far too simplistic! Worse, the association suggests value judgment.
I’m suspicious of imperialism, especially cultural imperialism, the sort which says “You should adopt our ways because they are clearly superior.”
And a culture which ends up suppressing its own birthrate … I mean, that’s not great, is it? Let alone all the other factors which are messing up modern western culture.
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Apologies if that word offends you. As I worked in a world where we looked at correlations all the time I can assure you, for me there is no such association.
Nor indeed would I in any way put a value judgement on families who have more children, fewer children, no children. That is entirely up to them. But (and there is a but) “you should adopt our ways because they are clearly superior” is exactly what the Taliban are doing in Afghanistan. It is exactly what happens in Africa with FGM. “Our ways” are being forced on women who are not free to make their own life choices
I can assure you, I feel I have had much more freedom to make my own choices in life having been fortunate enough to grow up in the Western world. And I am profoundly, deeply grateful for that. And I weep for the women in this world who have not had the same chances in life. They might not want them, but they should not be denied to them.
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It’s wrong in Afghanistan.
Why isn’t it wrong when we in the West say the same thing?
Sorry Porridge - I thought you were implying that you believe it is ONLY the West doing this. Who is the “we” here?
No, not at all.
I see certain parts of the Muslim world imposing (as we in the West would see it) their worldview on their own people. I don’t like the idea of Afghan girls not being allowed to go to school.
But I don’t like children in the west being exposed to a flood of pornography.
And I’m not sure which - if you whittled it down to those alternatives - I think is better, but I suspect I’d prefer online pornography not to exist.
And I see we in the West seeking to export our own worldview to other countries, countries we see as less enlightened.
Going back to my Nigerian friends, they have a very different worldview to what they see in the UK, and they see our behaviour - towards family, community, personal morality - as distinctly inferior!
I don’t think they are alternatives and I think you are very naive if you think men all over the world don’t look at online pornography, while asserting their superiority and denying women’s rights.
As we can see the US hurtling back into the middle ages as far as women’s rights are concerned, fuelled by fundamentalist Christianity and the pernicious creeping influence of the new right/moral majority, you have a perfect illustration of how religion in the public sphere plays out in Western countries.
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Well, of course they’re not alternatives: that’s why I expressed myself as I did, to make that clear!
What would Christianity say - what would Jesus say - about pornography, do you think?
Perhaps we’re getting back to what the original topic implied without makng explicit: the fading influence of religion in secular France.
You disagree with what America is doing about abortion, and you allow that to colour your judgment about everything else. And you have an idea about Christianity which comes from the US Republican version of it and is then interpreted and coloured through your laique spectacles.
What would a young man, living in the near east under Roman administration, over two millennia ago, have to say about many things nowadays? And would it be relevant?
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We feel very very strongly about laïcité. Keep your religion at home, nobody will bother you. But religious beliefs are private, they have no place in public life and they should not have any influence on legislation.
And I don’t need you explaining to me what I think about Christianity.
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I suppose that depends on your personal view of pornography, and its effects, doesn’t it? I can’t see anything good about it - and that’s leaving out what Jesus said on the subject in general (Matthew 5:28).
Some people believe in moral absolutes. We in the west, however, have carefully dismantled anything resembling a moral code, so that we have nothing more than our feelings to guide us.