If that's POSSIBLE - if religion can inform politics here in the USA - then it must also be possible in the EU. THEREFORE, Leftists MUST accept that the trend in the CIA graph presents the potential for major social and political change.
I wonder what the Left thinks that change might involve? Do they think it will make the EU more tolerant? More libertarian? Less mysogynistic? Less anti-Semitic? More competitive in commerce and the sciences?
OF COURSE IT CANNOT MEAN ANY OF THOSE THINGS. It probably means the exact opposite of those things. YES: It's a harbinger for bad things, for things getting worse than they are.
Only two leading mainstream politicians in the EU seem to get this: Nicholas Sarkozy and Gert Wilders. I hope they're brave enough to lead a counter-movement - a second enlightenment - that can defeat this INVASION in a way that's consistent with Western values.
Either they do, or the Eiffel Tower will be the Muezzin for the Mosque du Notre Dame!
Don't laugh - it's happened before: in Constantinople, Antioch, Alleppo, Alexandria, and so on. It can happen again. As a matter of fact, according to this BBC REPORT, it may be too late to stop the trend:
"For decades, the Church in France has been living on borrowed time, relying on a body of priests whose average age has steadily increased. That time has suddenly run out." Recent research suggests that French priests have become so old that half of them will die in the next eight years. [...] Fr Cambon - who has more than 30 churches to look after - says his elderly congregation is dying out so rapidly that in 10 years there may be no church in Puy L'Eveque at all. "People kept saying it would be all right," says Fr Cambon, "but they're about to be proved wrong. My fear is that the Roman Catholic Church will disappear altogether in France. That's the path we're on." For French seminaries it is a well-trodden path. Only 150 men completed their training as priests last year, for the whole of France.
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While the predictions in this article are not entirely inaccurate, they overlook one important counter trend. The secularization which is emptying Europe's churches is having a similar effect on the growing Muslim populations.
Now before you laugh your butt off you should know that I am not saying that Muslims coming to Europe instantly become secular humanists or that significant numbers of fundamentalists among immigrant populations are not going to posse challenges in years to come. But I have recently seen some critical examinations of the "unstoppable European Islamification" hypothesis. If you look at surveys of religious attitudes among native born European Muslims youth, you find that their opinions and religious beliefs change markedly if the survey is taken in private or in a household setting with family present.
It is analogous to when people turn valid concerns about the speed of Latino immigration to the United States into prophesies of the end of English and protestant work ethic in America. Much perspiring is done about the changing linguistic, religious and cultural nature of the nation but just look at the changes through time between first, second and third generation new-comers and you see those massive trends that are forecast dissolving. Nearly all Latino grandkids speak English and many change religion or at least hold non doctrinal opinions. Many also marry outside their ethnic group. It is important to realize that immigrants to Europe are coming to a more urbanized and more secular environment than Mexicans are so if anything their merger into society at large should be faster than that of Latinos. In fact the anti-western attitudes and desires to form tight nit communities which a fraction of these European Muslims exhibit could very well be a reaction to the speed with which they see their children assimilate to a culture that even many older westerners don't feel comfortable with. (Kids today!!!)
If we are so certain that democracy, free-market capitalism, press freedom, free expression and human rights can be transplanted cold turkey into Islamic countries and that they are not incompatible with Arab culture and religion, why would it be so implausible for these values to infiltrate even the most conservative immigrant communities when their kids are growing up in a European culture? It is not just Iraq that can serve as an example of what a modernized Islamic society can do but western descendants of Islamic immigrants.
Every trend has one or more counter trends. Sometimes they are insufficient to stop a change but we need to ask ourselves which trends are stronger, religious and ethnic demographics or freedom. With the power of science (truth), modern technology (the Internet), free enterprise (money), and global diversity (people) on its side, my money is on freedom.
The real point is in between. The real change in Europe is race. Arabs are Muslim, Europe will spew a brand of Euroslam, Angolos willmigrate to Australia and Americas. The minarets are the new architecture on the horizen for Big Ben, Reichstag, and Eiffel. It won't be Taliban--and it might just be a bunch of warlords.
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