The post modern liberal utopians of the West did not need to campaign against religion or childhood to eliminate these threats to its goals. It simply had to ignore them.

If there is nothing left requiring risk there is no need of creation. Life moves as on a conveyor belt driven by forces unknown. An act of faith means risking losing ones place in line on the people mover.

“The world’s now cold, featureless, and culturally dead; nothing really new has been created since the Overlords came … there’s nothing left to struggle for, and there are too many distractions and entertainments.”

Arthur C Clarke – Childhood’s End

In the novel by the time the children are gone humanity is ready for its extinction. There is no fight left in them. The Euros are not mourning the loss of their religion or children. They just want to figure out what to do with the leftover real estate. If the silence and loneliness of having it all becomes too much to bear there will always be a Dr. Conrad Murray to turn up the Propofol drip.