Fertility Gods

Take a look at the sky
And gaze at a billion stars
Seven billion people
Catch that feelin' of awe
Building civilizations
Going back millennia
Thank the fertility gods
Fertility gods

Take a look at a mosque,
take a look at a church,
take a look at a synagogue
Any religion, ashram, temple, muslim, christian, hindu, any god
What does every one of them have in common?
Followers who attend more often
Tend to have more offspring, you can check, but that effect is relatively modern
This civilization isn't much like the time and place we evolved in
Back in the Stone Age having sixteen babies wasn't really an option
Women had their hands full all day working, weaving, gathering, hunting
Then farming changed the game,
resources were suddenly abundant
And fledgling civilizations started to compete to increase their numbers
And soon religion had a new function:
policing reproduction
The local religion promotes having children as a woman's highest calling
And if it isn't in wedlock and as soon as possible, the sky is falling
It seems kinda Machiavellian,
suppressing any act of rebellion
But just 'cause it seems designed doesn't mean the designer has to be brilliant
Cultures produce designs, they test and try different combinations
And promoting fertility might have helped some to avoid foreign domination

Take a look at the sky
And gaze at a billion stars
Seven billion people
Catch that feelin' of awe
Building civilizations
Going back millennia
Thank the fertility gods
Fertility gods

Religion isn't just for finding peace in a earthquake or Jesus' birthday
For the past ten thousand years it invented ways to increase the birthrate
Cause bigger states tend to annihilate and assimilate little states
And religion is just one way that little states innovate to become bigger states
And lately women's liberation's given them basic rights take their fates
In their own hands and oh damn,
religion's so resistant to women tryin' to liberate
Those sinful contraceptives are not in the bible,
they're novel methods
Of giving women control of their own bodies,
so they draw god's invectives
Abortion doctors are devils and Michelle Obama's immodest dresses
And cover your faces in public places and follow all the Imam's directives
And don't use condoms,
even if your spouse is HIV infected?
Religious people should be really thankful that hell is just a cheap fiction
And demographics are shifting and despite religion when opportunity
Knocks for women,
whether education or economic,
they stop reproducing
At four times replacement rates and concentrate on their own agendas
And what happens to the old men in control of religion then?
I don't remember

Take a look at the sky
And gaze at a billion stars
Seven billion people
Catch that feelin' of awe
Building civilizations
Going back millennia
Thank the fertility gods
Fertility gods