Egypt Wages a War Against Atheism

Over the past few years, Egypt has tried out different programs to stop young people from leaving the faiths of the country. Christianity, Islam and others have been prominent int the country for a long time. Leaders recently announced a new "war against atheism." It is to recruit other young people to publicly endorse religions, monitor social media and sponsor public promotions. All of these have been done before. Youth just keep leaving.

Egyptian youth, especially from rural areas, who leave religion have a rough go of it. They are often shunned by family and their social circle. Getting along in life without this support has headwinds in every direction. 

Way on the other side of the world, here, an article appeared today that was like others that come along every week. This one was about the annual survey done by the American Bible Society. The survey found the same thing it found last year. The percentage of young people who read the Bible, identify as believers and are engaged in churches continues to fall. In this year's report, the writer carried on and on about how much happier young believers are than non-believers. It implies, of course, those who are now unhappy could become happy if they just became believers.

This latter theory, as well as the efforts in Egypt to drum up interest in religion, I would paraphrase in this way, "You will be much happier and more successful if you just start believing things that are impossible to believe. Furthermore, you will be happier if you join groups that preach and discuss stuff you have no interest in." Am I wrong in thinking this will not work?

Not long ago, the Christian narrative was often, "We Christians are saving the world from Islam. If we don't stop the growth of Islam it will flood across the world." That never was true. Now, we see Islam losing youth at what seems to be the same rate as Christianity. 

I think the same conversations go on between parents and children around the world. The mother or father say to the children, "We want you to be independent. We want you to think for yourself and make your way in the world as strong person. To do that you must not be an atheist, must not have atheist friends and must participate in the same religion as we do." The children roll their eyes and say, "Sure," then leave it all behind.