> It's also common to see full time moms mocked, which I see as misogyny.

My wife stays at home with our boys and I've heard her mocked and derided directly to her face. The interesting thing that it's been exclusively by women (even family members). I've never heard a man question it and some seem jealous that we don't need that second income.

Yeah. Same. My wife has consistently been told either explicitly or explicitly that her choice to be a stay-at-home mom is a poor one.

How many agnostic / atheist people do you know that have four or more kids?

Atheists don't genuinely seem to believe in natural selection, it's ironic.

I wasn't arguing the opposite -- that people have some kind of duty to have kids. I was simply pointing out that there exists a complete void in secular philosophy and culture when it comes to this aspect of human existence.

Many people turn to religion when they have kids for this reason. There's just nobody else in society and culture that acknowledges the importance of this aspect of human existence or provides any social framework for it.

Another hypothesis I have is that there exists some kind of deep cognitive link between the emotional basis of religion and the emotional basis of parenting and fertility. "God the father," etc. When I hear God spoken of it is generally as a kind of idealized parent. Most religions seem to have a strong fertility cult aspect.

Secular philosophy refuses to touch this. Maybe this comes from its general phobia of anything emotional, aesthetic, or "spooky." Secular philosophy has a similar reluctance to touch things like "consciousness," which gives us the bizarre spectacle of conscious beings experiencing themselves proclaiming that consciousness does not exist.

Of course religion has its own denialisms and refuses to look at certain things. When we decide that we believe in a philosophical framework, generally we start discarding anything that doesn't fit neatly into it. This IMHO humanity's greatest cognitive weakness. Finding a way to short circuit this would be a path to super-intelligence.

What are you implying that a belief in natural selection requires?

An understanding that natural selection is a competitive process and at least some inclination to participate in that competition.

There's nothing ironic about people not embracing your misapprehension of the idea.

What is my misapprehension exactly?

That genuine belief in the concept necessitates any action.

Personally, I think genuine beliefs correlate pretty strongly with action. But I see your point.

atheist here, 3 kids.

I was speaking of statistical averages of course. On average religious believers have more kids.

I believe this video properly elaborates on why https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXSz0bA9CiE

It does not. Marriage and fertility rates are dropping across all income groups. And, in the past, it was the wealthy and educated who had more children than the poor and uneducated.

Wait, have you been listening to the people who say that atheists have no morals, because all morals come from religious teaching?

The middle-aged atheists I know are mostly in families with children. And they seem to have similar beliefs as religious people when it comes to the amount of care they take raising their children.

If you bring up generalizations like this with no backup details, are you surprised that you "get attacked" for bringing it up?

"It's also common to see full time moms mocked, which I see as misogyny."

Well, it is not like really conservative christians would seen women as equally capable as men - it just seen as natural that women cant naturally compete and thus is better off at home. (And dont tell me no, I read local conservative christians journals, have friends in that community and occasionally visit catholic church with conservative priest.)

The only real difference is that one group see moms as throwing away skills while the other as never having them in the first place.

This is a false categorization of the Catholic position.[1] Doubtless, there are plenty of priests who misrepresent on this (as on any position), but I know a handful of feminists who are now Catholic and who think there is no other organization that understands the human person (both women and men) so well. I tend to agree, but I'm definitely biased. :)

[1] http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/letters/1995/do...

Sure there are and there are plenty of sexist liberals.

But, conservative catholics are quite open about women "wanting to be men" when they are attempting to be effective, no liberal talked with straight face about men being head of familly, lectures about husbands being expected to manly hit the table with fist to get his way, and women not being real women if she states openly what she wants (you are supposed to gently manipulate). The fist thing is priest during wedding and manipulation psychologue in journal article. The "you are not scared" question when I wanted to drive car with kids came from conservative catholic collegue, otherwise nice to talk with dude. But in his world, women is expected to be afraid of such feat or something.

So I mean, I have respect to Catholic feminists, but some of theirs cobelievers are whole another level. Plus there may be difference in location - we are more conservative place in general.

In 40 years of connection to Catholic culture including 12 years of Catholic schooling I have never once heard any voice from the church --- including the laity --- talking about women "wanting to be men".

I did, however, spent middle and high school having the notion of gender equality in the workplace inculcated to me by priests, nuns, and lay teachers.

Glad to hear that not everywhere are catholics as conservative as here. I heard/read that one multiple times. Then they got offended when someone called them sexist.