RSA - Religion, Demography and Politics in the 21st Century

Religion, Demography and Politics in the 21st Century

15th Apr 2010; 18:00

(full recording including audience Q&A)
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RSA / New Humanist Event

For some time the high public profile of commentators such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens has suggested that, for the majority in the West at least, the argument for liberal secularism is won.

However, the hard facts of the matter point in the other direction: far from declining, religious populations are actually multiplying, and this extraordinary demographic phenomenon indicates that the more religious people are, the more children they will have.

Drawing on extensive demographic research, and considering questions of multiculturalism, nationalism and terrorism, political analyst Eric Kaufmann visits the RSA to examine the implications of the decline in liberal secularism as religious conservatism rises – and to ask: what will this mean for the future of western modernity?

Speaker: Eric Kaufmann is Reader in Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London and author of Shall the religious inherit the earth?

Respondent: Dominic Lawson, a writer and commentator, noted for his robust and iconoclastic opinions on political and social issues.

Chair: Laurie Taylor, writer, broadcaster and presenter, BBC Radio 4 Thinking Allowed

In association with New Humanist

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