With just a single exception, the non-Muslim population of every country in Europe now has a birth rate at below replacement levels. (The exception is Malta, and God bless it.) Why, I ask Bruce Thornton today on Uncommon Knowledge, do Europeans so steadfastly refuse to reproduce?
Because, replies the author of Decline and Fall: Europe’s Slow-Motion Suicide, “children are expensive. They require you to sacrifice your time and your interests and your own comfort. If your highest good is pleasure, if your highest good is a sophisticated life, then children get in the way. Why would you spend so much money and so much energy on children if your highest good is simply material well-being? That's sort of the spiritual dimension of the problem."
“The spiritual dimension of the problem.” There are so few children in Europe, in other words, because there are so few believers.
There’s more. (Look for Chapter 4 of 5).
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Why (Many) Europeans Refuse to Reproduce
Peter Robinson:
