If things continue as they are, the last Swedish atheist will get good medical care from Christian Chinese nurses.
The good news about global change is that atheism and the religious “nones” are in decline as a percentage of the global population. Humankind is becoming more brown and religious.
The future could not be brighter. Why?
In China, the official atheistic regime has not been able to keep people away from the truth. In this highly educated country, Christianity is booming.
Meanwhile, in North America and Western Europe, oldsters keep reporting on trends in Scotland as if the five million Scots matter in the face of 182 million Nigerians.
The United States will soon be smaller in population than Nigeria. Isn’t it time our media paid more attention to sub-Saharan Africa and less attention to tiny, shrinking West European countries? Of course, some bigots will say they are growing in the civilized world as if China, India, and Kenya were “uncivilized” but that kind of offensive talk will doubt out.
If the West is to be saved, it will be because new people groups decide Western ideas can be their ideas.
We should care about the Indian Supreme Court as much as the US Court if we want to find the future.
This is truly blessed news as the old evils of colonialism, the sick mistakes that tainted the good that European nations did in the world, can finally be laid to rest. Let us see power go to the global South and have those of us who are “white” and European in background be quiet and listen to the wisdom of most of humankind.
Here is what I hear just now from my global friends:
The world is tired of us. Everything we do, we broadcast. Western European and secular US culture has become the nearly-senile relative who must trumpet every bowel movement to the entire family. We don’t matter nearly as much as we think we do and it is time to sit down, listen, and let the rest of the world teach us what we have failed to learn.
Most of the world thinks we have become deranged on sex. “If you are not “‘sex positive,’ then shame on you” is not a message that resonates in the parts of the world still having actual sex that produces babies. While some decadent secularists view babies as a burden, the rest of the world views children as a blessing.
Sanity will win because sanity knows that the future belongs to those who procreate!
In the “West” we are presented three tired alternatives: right-wing secularism (individualism!), left-wing secularism (It takes a village!), and strongman rule. Most of the world says “no.” Normal humans, normals, want social stability, scientific innovation, and liberty with law.
In the West, we have produced no alternative to the bureaucracy of Belgium, the EU state, which would rather regulate a jam than eat one. Normal people look on from Africa and Asia and say: “No thanks.” They come here, they see, and they snicker.
In our futuristic novels too often we have seen Utopia or Dystopia in white, Western terms. We have forgotten that if things continue as they are, the last atheist Icelander will get charitable care from the dominant Asian and African monotheistic population.
As the “nones” fade, as atheism withers away, the important thing is to be gracious in “victory,” especially “white” theists. We did some good, but our day is done and what is done cannot ever be undone.
Take a good look at the future: religious, African and Asian, and full of jollication.
I cannot wait!
Rachel Motte edited this essay.
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