Pope Says Catholics Should Have More Children
Offline I assume everyone saw the news accounts of the pope telling folks to have more children.
http://www.cathnews.com/news/509/3.php
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070324/vatican-pope-europe
Benedict expressed concern that Europe's population trends, "besides putting economic growth at risk, can also cause enormous difficulties for social cohesion, and, above all, favor dangerous individualism, careless about the consequences for the future."
Ack!
"Dangerous individualism" because folks aren't having babies they can't afford or don't want? People are supposed to have babies and raise children because the church wants them to? Until the day comes when no child is hungry and all children are clothed and educated, that's an irresponsible position.
Of course, it's more likely that the pope just wants more catholics.
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Indeed. "Social cohesion" *cough*universalagreementwithpope*cough* is MUCH more important than global overpopulation.
Reminds me of that Monty Python movie, The Meaning of Life. Had a catchy tune.
The priests are running out of boys to bugger.
Sigh, just what the planet needs. Another population boom.
I always fully supported the Catholic policy of celibate dioceses because eventually it means that they will run out of dioceses, which is fantastic.
The Pope is encouraging more people to have children? A man who has declared a vow of celibacy?
Shouldn't let others do the dirty work, I think.
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That's one thing that keeps religion active. The religious tend to have more kids. Atheists tend to have none or small families.
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Well, the Catholics are losing market share to the Mormons and other denominations. And since Catholicism as a faith is a particularly hard sell, they must start a more aggressive grow-your-own campaign. Besides, people don't need much encouragement to fornicate.
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I personally believe that the human population is critically overpopulated and that the planet has been trying desperately to thin it out for a long time. In nature (read 'all species other than humans'
there are a number of ways populations are kept in check:
Humans, unlike all other species, have managed to overcome all these natural population controls to a certian extent. Less than 100 years ago the flu was a deadly virus. In 1918 the Spanish Flu killed an estimated 50 to 100 milliion people. Throughout the last century smallpox killed an estimated 300 to 500 million. Now the flu is much more of a nusiance than a killer, and smallpox has been entirely eradicated. Famine is much less of a problem now than it was even a few decades ago. True, there are still plenty of places where lack of food is an issue, but thanks to modern farming techniques, the ability to ship food worldwide, etc. we're able to feed many who would have otherwise died of starvation. Even homosexuality hasn't effectively stopped the human population from growing. Thanks to modern scientific techniques, "test tube babies" aren't all that uncommon, and it sounds like scientists are getting very close to being able to clone humans as well.
"Mother nature" does seem to be trying to fight back against the growing human population in all the ways it knows how. Since we've been able to effectively combat once-deadly diseases like the flu new ones like HIV/AIDS have appeared that we've yet to cure. Small outbreaks of disease like Ebola and Marburg, which kill quickly and have mortality rates of 90% are of great concern to world health organizations. Thankfully those diseases mostly only spread through direct physical contact and "burn out" very quickly, but if it were to mutate into a form that made transmission easier it could have dire consequences. The same goes for the HN51 "avian" flu - currently no cure, and just a mutation away from wiping out large human populations.
I think the planet is trying to tell us something.
Oh this is great! Yes, have more babies...that fixes everything. Like when a couple is having marital problems and they are counseled to have a baby. Works everytime. Foolproof.
Thank goodness the Vatican is addressing this crucial issue.
That's true. How fucking stupid is it to council a couple having marital problems to have a baby? If anything that'll make things worse! It is true most European countries either aren't growing or are losing population.
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Actually, what's concerning is that evolution is favoring the idiots these days. If you live in some third world hell hole with corrupt thugs for government, a head full of benighted, prehistorical superstitions and not a pot to piss in, you probably have 19 kids. If you're an atheist or even a moderate theist and live in an industrialized democracy you probably have one or two. Over time, the numbers will tell.
Then there's immigration. Here in Canada, our population growth is pretty much solely due to people we let in from precisely the aforementioned benighted hell holes. We take it on faith that they will embrace our ways when they get here, but the numbers game, again, guarantees that those who don't will soon outpopulate those who do. We stack the deck in favor of our way of life a bit by requiring the original immigrant to be educated and/or have money. But there's no such control on their extended families which they can bring over once they are landed. Since assimilation is downright discouraged, I wonder sometimes if we aren't guaranteeing that our institutions will start to trend toward the theocratic.
This looks like a job for the RRS! Get out there and start exhorting atheists to make babies! It's too late for me...had my two and got the snip last month. But lots of you are young and wasting time. Get on it! You owe it to the future!
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I remember during the major Ethiopian famine of the 1980's, the church was actually telling the Ethiopians NOT to use the birth control relief workers were providing.
Looking back, I think that was one of the defining moments in my distrust of religious institutions.
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Some excellent points made here. I read an article in free Inquiry about the secularism taking place in Europe. The Muslim population is expanding and their next generation are not so eager to assimulate into secularist European society.
I think this may be part of the pope's strategy, to intice Christians to populate in order to outnumber the young Islamists coming into Europe. To say this out loud of course, would be called racist.
Ironically, christian fundamentalists, especially in this country, discourage the use of condoms and birth control in third world countries and the Bush administration has cut funding to these projects.
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Hard to find two things that piss me off more than reckless reproduction and Papal stupidity.
Rambo-Kitty is not amused.
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Before bringing more children into the world, it is my opinion that these people should take care of the ones that are already here.
Until no child goes hungry or naked or uneducated, telling people to procreate for god and country is irresponsible.
The pope should be telling these folks to adopt.
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Bingo.
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Rambo-Kitty is grumpy.
I'm not going to give any respect to the high-and mighty League-of-Conservative-Barefoot-and-Pregnant-Women-For-Repressive-Abortion-Laws until each and every one of those posers goes down to their local adoption agency and takes home two little non-white babies of their own.
An ex-gf of mine worked for the state, carting around foster kids to meet with the parents who never wanted them in the first place. I've seen this over and over. You know what the harsh reality is? The adoption agencies are full because the people who have money to adopt (insert: White Upper Middle Class) want one of two things. Ninety percent want a cute little white baby. The other ten percent want a little Asian baby (cause they're really good at math... everybody knows it). The problem? Ninety percent of the babies put up for adoption are black. Half of those are not exactly "put up" for adoption. They're taken by the state.
(Don't anybody shoot me for my numbers. I'm ball-parking it because this topic pisses me off and I don't feel like wasting my afternoon looking up the exact stats.)
Know where the majority of criminals come from? Poverty. Poverty breeds ignorance, and ignorance breeds breeding, and then the cycle speeds up. But these stuck up Rethuglican housewives with their happy little Friday afternoon Bible Study group and their 1.7 babies each and their Ford Excessives, and their "God-Fearing, Strong Household Head Husbands" who screw their secretaries every other friday at the local Motel-6 because their wives haven't been interested in sex since the second child was born.... (inhale) ... these stuck up prudes, want to tell all the poor, undereducated girls who just might have a chance to have a good life if they can stay in school long enough to get some kind of tech degree, or possibly work their way through college, that the only thing they can do to make the Sky-Daddy happy is to have their baby-daddy's baby, and then raise it on their own when baby-daddy skips town.
Screw them.
(End Rant)
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*applause for Hambydammit*
Nice rant!
Rambo-kitty is grumpy and justifiably so.
Excellent post, Hamby.