Disgusting
Posted on: May 4, 2009 - 7:50pm
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Disgusting
I'm sure many of you have heard 18 Kids & Counting, the TLC show about the creepy Christian family that has about 20 kids right now.
Here's a segment on their oldest son and his wife/fiancee, I'm not really sure. All I know is....it scares me.
*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*
"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby
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They haven't yet kissed? Assuming I believe that, those two are heading for a real strange morning after; well good luck to bad ideas.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
I haven't watched the video yet (still loading
) but I really wonder what these christians do when they haven't watched porn or even read a book on sex. Do they just kind of go under the sheets and then ask eachother "I thought you knew?"
In my opinion, you can't know if you have chemistry with someone until you've at least kissed or touched in a sexual way. These people apparently learn from THEIR parents, when they're "of age", which also makes me wonder what fun little repressions are going on inside them...
*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*
"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby
The bible clearly instructs that if your woman doesn't pop out babies you can screw your female slaves in their place until one of THEM makes babies.
Clearly, they are just trying to follow their good book a little closer.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
I am more or less ok with that "no kissing before marriage" thing. But 20 children is sick. I'm of opinion than anyone with more than 2 or 3 children are either dumb or criminal, probably both.
But what scares the shit out of me, is that those idiots are portrayed like f-in heroes.
An example:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2374362.ece
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
''Pff! but our faith is stronger then chemistry! we'll show'm honey! one day God will make you a better kisser and ill finally have a small degree of happiness...''
What Would Kharn Do?
I've watched the show a few times, and I remember seeing this episode.
A few thoughts:
1) How can you wait until your "child" is 20 before you tell them about the mechanics of sex??? I remember my mom sitting down with me the summer before I turned 10, and explaining that soon my body would start going through changes, and this is why, sex involves x & y, etc. Literally a month after this talk (which actually was not awkward at all) I started growing breasts and beginning puberty, and I felt so much better knowing what to expect and having the proper information to monitor my own body. (Plus my mom was really open, which helped when I had to ask "is this normal?" Otherwise my first yeast infection probably would have gone untreated, lol.)
Point is, how do these kids cope with puberty & everything without even having the necessary basic biological information?? And is it really healthy to be 20 and not know where babies come from?
2) I agree with peppermint that you can't really know if you have chemistry until you've been "intimate" to some degree. This doesn't have to necessarily be intercourse; just kissing or touching would suffice. I have lots of friends who I'm not sexually intimate with. What differentiates someone I date from the rest of my friends is the fact that I am more emotionally and physically intimate with them. The notion that you can be "just friends" and then one day just turn on the intimacy is patently ridiculous. Intimacy and trust develop between two people over a long period of time. In my opinion, that's what you're supposed to be doing before you get married - building intimacy and trust - so that you know your marriage has a strong foundation.
Sex doesn't have to be a part of that, but in my opinion, it should be. I've made the mistake of hooking up with a couple people I was "just friends" with (and then one night when we were drunk/bored/whatever...) and sparks did not fly. Thank jake I wasn't married to the person before I found that out. Even if your personalities are compatible, you could have no sexual chemistry whatsoever.
3) The "dating vs. courtship" explanation was interesting. The guy (I think he's Anna's father) says that dating instills a divorce mentality, but actually, I see it as the opposite. By limiting you to one person, one relationship, and essentially one "dating experience," courtship forces you to make things work that may simply be beyond fixing (or beyond God's divine help *rolls eyes*). The difference is that dating allows you to end the relationship, while courtship forces you to stay. How is that healthy?
I would shoot myself if I had to be married to the first person I ever dated. He was a nice enough guy, with good intentions. Unfortunately, he was dumb as a brick, and our life paths ended up being completely different from what we thought they would be when we started dating (I was 14, he was 16). I broke it off after 18 months together, when I recognized that the compatibility just wasn't there anymore. At 14, I had no idea what I wanted/needed out of a relationship. After that first experience, I was a little bit wiser with regards to that.
And that's how every relationship is. Each relationship - even each date that never makes it to a relationship - teaches me something: Don't date people with intelligence vastly lower than yours. Don't date someone that's self-centered. Don't try to force things to fit when they don't. Now I've been in a relationship for a couple months, and I'm extremely happy in it. We're very compatible, have similar values, life goals, (non-)religious beliefs, etc. But I am almost certain that I would not have picked this person on my first "try" at a relationship. It took me years of interacting with people to figure out that just because someone likes you, that doesn't mean they're right for you. Like the guy that was 22, a senior in college, and headed to law school (in a different state). Good for him. But I was 18, a freshman, and just wanted to party and have fun. I could see after one date that it wouldn't work. It took me years of experience to discover what I want out of a relationship and how to pursue that. Some experiences have been painful, but I would still take the wisdom I've gained from them over innocence any day.
Maybe that's the whole problem. Everything about religious doctrine seems to be intent on keeping its followers innocent, as opposed to letting them roam the real world and figure out their own truth. Obviously, this is no exception.
I'm curious as to why exactly people think that having many children is sick or disgusting. Of course, seeing as how my parents are apparently dumb criminals, perhaps I'm not in any position to ask.
Further, I believe the problem with the segment in question is to do with the 'Vagina Clown Car Movement'. Creating an army for Christ. That puts more than a bad taste in my mouth for what I should hope are obvious reasons.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Haha, well put.
I think it's cool when people go against the trend of not having kids. Good for them.
I will not speculate on how many people our world could support, but the starvation in poor countries suggests that we are already beyond the line, or are quickly heading for it. In any case earth cannot support infinite population. So those people who have 20 children will not suffer consequences, but if we won't stop the growth of population our children will not be so lucky.
I don't think that's a very good way to measure it. There have been starving people in poor countries since there's been money and people.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
It's a shame your argument is crap. A cursory investigation would reveal that the current population could easily be supported by our current levels of food production. You should also consider that we aren't even close to our maximum capacity to produce food, considering (as one article mentioned) that a large amount of fertile land is put towards non-food use, and our current habits in food production aren't as efficient as they could be (e.g. raising livestock results in fewer usable calories per resource than grain would).
Perhaps you could make some similarly ridiculous argument that large families are the cause of poverty, but seeing as how your "reasoning" involves making up facts, I imagine it would be just as baseless.
Starvation not really suporting it, its just purchasing power really that stops them from eating. But yes those people are abit odd, im glad people are lazy and this will likely never catch on, onthe other hand it is our lazyness that causes lots of problems. If you want to have 20 children good for you but you suck ass in my eyes. I can't see how people can can stand children they are so annoying. P.S. it is likely at some point we will go over our carrying capacity in food terms t may not be today or even 100 years time but at some point we will reach it. Short of another 'Green Revolution' that is, but that brings its own problems, but the guy above is for the most part correct.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
The trend of not having kids? There are almost 7 billion people on the planet!
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Yes, at our current levels of food production. And what does it take to produce food at that level of production? Fertilizer is made from natural gas, pesticide is made from petroleum, and tractors run on gasoline or diesel.
You figure when the unsustainable monoculture system dies (called "unsustainable" because it cannot be sustained) we'll have the same amount of food being produced? Do you really? Have you heard of Monsanto? The Green Revolution?
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
I would like to say although yes we can produce alot more food if push comes to shuve, can we do it in a sustainable manner? perhaps if all the land was used yes.... but I don't think so with the amount currently used.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
In the US where those people live the fertility rate was twice what is now in 1950 and nearly four times what it is now 200 years ago. So yeah, I'd call that a trend toward not having kids. What would you call it?
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Ah. You're referring to the individual couples' fertility rate. As in two children per couple, etc. My mistake.
How many people do you figure we should have on the planet before the mass starvation begins? I don't mean poor countries with rates of starvation, I mean unsustainable agriculture falling apart and India losing a good portion of its population to starvation. What's the goal, 8 billion? You figure we should just add more to that?
Look, I have no problem with a couple having one or two kids, but after that, you're getting selfish, because there are hardly any fish left in the sea that are larger than two feet long, and we're pushing monoculture about as hard as we can.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
It's my pet peeve. People don't seem to know about energy inputs in a biological system.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Well, that's a fair question. Do I want the population to increase until it's the direct cause of a major calamity? I don't think that's the right question to ask but I think it's a fair question. I couldn't imagine anyone save for the most sinister James Bond villains wanting such a scenario to play itself out.
If I knew how many people could live on the earth in a particular manner or fashion without meeting some horrible fate (which I do not, but this is assuming that I did) I would feel justified in attempting to impede one's course toward that disaster because liberty consists of doing what one desires and no one wants to starve to death in some sort of Malthusian nightmare.
But even then it would still be for individuals to decide if they want to die and I couldn't stop them unless I thought they were somehow incapable of making that decision.
When there's not a certainty but just a danger only the person can sufficiently judge the motives that prompt them to incur the risk. Are the people selfish because the risk they're taking also effects you? Certainly, you'll get no argument here. But you probably make decisions everyday that in some way harm other people and make their lives miserable.
Are we now to place your life and the lives of this couple on a scale and determine who was more irresponsible and who caused more misery and who is a worse person? I don't want to do that. I think it's degrading.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
I'm not suggesting that anyone who is alive must die. In fact, I'd very much like to avoid that. My point is to discourage (not legislate or control) reproduction on a grand scale. We can see clearly that we're currently using the earth's resources much faster than they can be replenished, and we've been going at that rate since roughly 1900, when the world population was only 1.5 billion people. If we take 2 billion people as the carrying capacity of the earth (and it's not a terrible estimate), I'm sure you can see the trouble we're in. Even with an estimate of 3 billion people (1960) as the maximum, we're still looking at a situation that is extremely bad. Not necessarily for Western countries, but certainly for India and a good portion of China.
But that's not what I'm talking about. Discouraging the overproduction of children isn't a matter of making people miserable by accident. If they want to have two or three kids, that's fine. I object (but again, I'm not lobbying for control of their reproduction) to litters of children. We're simply past the point where we can pretend that it won't have an impact. Considering our ability to use contraception, it's not like we're completely helpless in the matter.
I'm all for freedom of a citizen's choice, but at some point, we're going to have to understand that we're all in this together.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
Could I suggest you look at http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_eco_foo-environment-ecological-footprint before come to conclusions about what is and isn't sustainable and which countries will go down the gurgler first.
The definition offered of the Ecological Footprint and the scale of this graph is stated as
"The Ecological Footprint is a method of measuring and analysing resource consumption and waste output compared to the renewable capacity of nature.
It represents the amount of productive land area needed to produce the resources (food, energy and materials) and to absorb the wastes produced by an individual. Since 1980, the average per capita ecological footprint has decreased as many processes (especially crop production) have become more efficient.
If the ecological footprint exceeds the available productive land, the resource use is considered unsustainable.
Globally, the available ecologically productive land area included in the Ecological footprint analysis is 1.89 hectares for each person."
That's all from me, please continue I'm enjoying the exchange
Why can't people accept that Atheism is by definition no faith? I don't believe in Atheism, I simply am Atheist.
Well, in a world with justice in it, the people who were informed and went ahead anyway would be thrown in jail (just like the burglar in our current world who, say, is told by a friend that breaking and entering is an unwise and wrong choice to make, and they make that choice anyway).
It's only 'their prerogative' because the current zeitgeist says it is. Needless to say, the current zeitgeist is not always a healthy thing to adhere to.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Man O' Man, I agree that was disgusting,it reminds me of puppy love. That was just another prime example of how Religion stunts the growth of all who engage in it, it's kind of like smoking causes serious health problems.
Signature ? How ?
Don't worry. It'll change as available resources dwindle.
After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him.
The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.
MySpace
If you think about it would you really rather live in a world where people never had more children than they probably should? No expertise is required to answer that question and there's no wrong answer because it's just a matter of personal preference.
Personally, I would much rather live in a world where people sometimes had too many kids, and not because I love children. I don't even like them. My response stems from the fact that evidence, and common knowledge suggest that having too many kids is not a rare occurrence at all. The question is how would a world where people never had more than two children actually work. Perhaps in a utopian sense it would be nice to live in such a world. But from a more pragmatic perspective, exactly what sort of society would we have to live in to ensure that no one ever had more than two children?
It would be a fucking nightmare with your privacy constantly being invaded and the loss of your basic human dignity. But maybe that's the sort of thing you like. I don't know. The point is that even if it were technically feasible it wouldn't be desirable.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
I'm tending to agree here, its really not something you can make a law about. All you can do is doscourage. I'm sure most people here are all gung ho freedoms and all that. It would be a major step to a police state imo. Besides its not in places lke America that a law like this will be desperatly needed, It is the 3rd world. America needs environmental laws imo not population control.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
That's why I said that we should not speculate on the question of numbers. The point in any case is that the sustainable population is not infinite.
Even if the maximum were many times bigger than our current population, it would still make no sense to multiply with no regard for the future.
2 or 3 children is just a line I chose, I'm don't want to say that anyone who crosses that line is a criminal, that just the line which would seem reasonable. But I know for sure that those people with 20 children, who, from the results, seem like doing only one thing all day long, are neither an ideal nor sane.
Yes. I'd rather set up a situation where producing more children is just seen as opulent, so that mild social pressure causes an effect rather than legislation. I agree that no law should be set up regarding reproductive rights, so social pressure is a more civilized means to discourage people from producing litters.
The hypocricy argument is pretty weak. I know exactly the damage I'm doing. I drive a car sometimes, I eat food, I travel long distances. The Western world lives at a great expense, and the bill will eventually come up. I do what I can to reduce my impact, but the way things are set up at this point, it's extremely difficult to make changes towards a sustainable life within an unsustainable system.
How difficult is it to not have four more children?
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
And then there will likely be more nuts and fewer sensible people...
-Triften
I know. It was sarcasm.
After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him.
The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.
MySpace
And there won't be anyone around who gets sarcasm.
-Triften
Doesn't bother me. I won't be around.
After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him.
The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.
MySpace
Agreed. Disgusting.
People irresponsibly pumping out miserable little life wreckers, future Walmart Shoppers and reality TV viewers is one of my favorite things to rant about...
Do you *really* give a shit about the environment?...Then stop making all of these intellectually ill-equipped needless humans... Traffic is bad enough.
www.RichWoodsBlog.com
Preach it, sister! Honestly. Some people have problems with money, some get overly jealous, some have abusive tendencies. Dating lets you experiment, find out what you want and need in a relationship, and teaches you what to avoid. The whole ordeal these people go through completely dumbs down personality and opinion. It's all about a superficial "chemistry" that has more to do with god than with the other person.
I also definitely agree about the puberty dilemma. I'm sure they explain it to each other somehow, but what happens when they start feeling sexually aroused and have NO one (no television, not really other kids, etc) to direct this energy to? How can you ever feel comfortable in your own skin like that, or comfortable with confusing feelings? All you can do is repress it.
These kids may seem happy, but what we see is polished and finely edited for TV. We don't see the private goings-on.
The girls all share a giant room and so do the boys. It makes me wonder...how the heck does 24/7 Bible camp help out these kids? They raise them like cattle, when what the children need is a consistent, PARENTAL figure...not their brothers and sisters.
*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*
"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby
You're forgetting something very, very, very important.
HUMAN NATURE
Won't happen. We're too big, too wasteful, too survival of the fittest so to speak.
*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*
"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby