Catholicism and overpopulation

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Rau said:
I’m quite mystified as to why.
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One may not want to have their deepest values challenged.

One may also not have to think about the world being overpopulated. Let’s reduce it to a country then.
redcatholic said:
The premise of your theoretical question is false. That’s why you have to demonstrate it. There is no over population problem
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So you’re saying that a place can never be overpopulated at all? It’s better for CAF to explain why it can never be a logical scenario instead of just saying it is.tbh.
White_Tree said:
Economic development also often coincides with decreases in infant mortality. When fewer infants die due to preventable causes, people tend to naturally reduce the number of children they have.
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This is true, and probably the best answer you can get here. With economic development, comes a more egalitarian society as well, where women have more access to education and jobs. When that happens, birth rate tends to fall as well.

We won’t ever see the Church telling us to stop having lots of children. If anything we may look at people migrating to different and less populated areas.
 
StudentMI said:
I myself am on the fence about overpopulation. But just assume it’s true. How would the Church deal with it?
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Like this:

St. Paul VI, Populorum Progressio
Population Growth

37.There is no denying that the accelerated rate of population growth brings many added difficulties to the problems of development where the size of the population grows more rapidly than the quantity of available resources to such a degree that things seem to have reached an impasse. In such circumstances people are inclined to apply drastic remedies to reduce the birth rate.

There is no doubt that public authorities can intervene in this matter, within the bounds of their competence. They can instruct citizens on this subject and adopt appropriate measures, so long as these are in conformity with the dictates of the moral law and the rightful freedom of married couples is preserved completely intact. When the inalienable right of marriage and of procreation is taken away, so is human dignity.

Finally, it is for parents to take a thorough look at the matter and decide upon the number of their children. This is an obligation they take upon themselves, before their children already born, and before the community to which they belong—following the dictates of their own consciences informed by God’s law authentically interpreted, and bolstered by their trust in Him. (39)
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This seemed like more of a real issue in Pope Paul’s time, but it hasn’t really panned out. In any event, if this were a serious problem, married couples could be encouraged (but not forced) to limit births using morally sound methods as the Pope notes. This would be a just reason for using them (falling within the traditional categories of justification enunciated by the Church).
 
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I sometimes wonder if pandemics are nature’s way of keeping the world’s population under control, a sort of natural “culling” of humanity as it were - or if they are just tragic but accidental events based on the laws of nature, science, and medical knowledge and expertise of the time it occurred.
 
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The Black Plague decimated Europe by about a third of its population. Entire towns were wiped out. However, this lead to such a shortage of farmers to work the estates of the nobles that it also ended serfdom. Not overnight, mind you. But there suddenly was competition for workers to farm the land and wages and benefits rose dramatically…ownership of land became possible. Any economic system can be overcome by tragedies but humans are also quite resourceful and will adapt and change whatever is needed to survive.

If our decreasing numbers of babies causes economic hardships, humans will adapt to that as well including changing the number of babies we have. About the only catastrophe that would prevent this is something literally wiping out mankind…I think Catholics have a solution to that!

I also agree that overpopulation is most likely to occur in specific areas. This will lead to emigration to less populated or heavier resource areas. It could happen anywhere…even in America. Imagine Americans emigrating in large numbers! That’s something not likely to happen anytime soon since our population is stabilized by current immigration but it’s interesting to think what an alternate scenario would look like.

One thing I think is evident, within 40 years, America has gone from concerns about overpopulation to now realizing we aren’t growing our own and depend on immigration to make up for it. What happens if everyone no longer wants to come here?
 
Just leaving it here, since this one is kind of intriguing for me. Also this topic is fine, since you also need to consider your own conditions with the number of children you are going to have.

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I absolutely believe covid-19 was not sent by God and nor do I believe anything since Jesus was on earth was sent by God as a punishment.
Please show me in the CCC a teaching that backs your claim. You said it is a teaching so it must be in the CCC.
 
You said it’s a teaching. Show me in the CCC where the teaching is.
 
The teachings we are obliged to believe are in the CCC. Please show me in the CCC the teaching you refer to.
If you don’t stop accusing me of lying I will report you to the moderators and asked for you to be sanctioned. Your question is against forum rules. STOP IT!!
 
Earth cannot be overpopulated. It’s a myth to keep (certain) people from following God’s first command to procreate.
 
No it’s not a teaching of the Church.
It’s a theological opinion.
 
StudentMI said:
How would the Church advise dealing with the problem of overpopulation?

I myself am on the fence about overpopulation. But just assume it’s true. How would the Church deal with it?
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Overpopulation is false and can be logically be answered.
  1. there is MORE than enough water for every person on the planet. Technology exists to take water from the oceans & change it to drinking water. People who live on sailboats do this all the time.
  2. We have MORE than enough room on this planet for everyone to live. Sure, many cities are now overpopulated, but at the same time, there are millions of small towns which are now abandoned because of rural flight.
  3. We have more than enough farmland to feed every person on the planet. And we have more than enough water to water those plants if we would build the necessary saltwater destination facilities.
The real issue is not “overpopulation.” It’s corruption. Corrupt leaders prevent or get in the way of providing the necessary infrastructure to support their citizens.

The MAIN reason why we saw a major spike in world wide population was due to the advancement of medicine. People simply live longer lives today, which is a good thing.

HOWEVER, the world wide birth rate has dramatically decreased. Estimates indicate that we will eventually start dramatically LOSING population in Europe, North America, Far East Asia, etc. Many nations today have a birth rate of less than 2, which means negative population growth. The United States (for example) is one of those nations with a negative a birth rate below 2. The ONLY reason we keep growing is because of immigration.

My point: this planet is more than big enough for billions of humans to live if we live a Christ focused life. If we are good to each other, if we are good to the environment, etc; this planet can easily handle twice the population we currently have.

So again, the problem isn’t “overpopulation.” The problem is greed, corruption, a lack of responsibility, self control, etc.

Plus, I honestly do believe that God granted us the oceans & other planets in our Solar System to inhabit once we were ready & worthy.

Finally, the Church doesn’t expect each of us to have 10 kids. There are many Catholic couples with only 2 or 3 kids who live very devout lives, use NFP, and have very happy romantic lives without giving into the sins of Birth Control.

It just takes faith in God.
 
I can imagine a small population of hunter/gatherers who feed themselves by hunting with spears and gathering wild fruit and vegetables. Some guy among them asks how they could all live if there were ten times as many of them. Obviously not! Not enough resources to go around!

Then somebody invents the idea of farming.
 
Rau said:
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JimG:
We need to worry about depopulation, not overpopulation.
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Maths would suggest that the numbers can tell us which to worry about! On a finite planet, overpopulation is a risk when the birth rate exceeds the death rate (for too long). It may take a while of course.

It is interesting to note that had there been no contraception, overpopulation would be an increased risk, approaching more rapidly. It is interesting to consider how mankind would have reacted in that case.
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If you look at the way the math works, population growth would have eventually stabilized. Perhaps with a much larger number of people, but it would have stabilized. The reason our population spike is because life expectancy drastically increased. Eventually, the birth rate and death rate would stabilize to a similar place to where it was before. Granted the planet would have a lot more people, but it would have stabilized without birth control.

Those two short videos @gab123 posted are very good.
 
Rau said:
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redcatholic:
There is no over population problem.
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Do you also believe there could never be such a problem?
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“Overpopulation” would only become a problem if govts continue to be driven by greed, corruption, irresponsiblity, etc. But it still wouldn’t really be an issue of too many people, but rather that greed corruption and irresponsibility preventing proper resource management to insure the poor receives basic resources (which is exactly what is happening today in some parts of the world)

If everyone became a devout Catholic, we wouldn’t have a problem because we would be responsible to our families, our environment, our communities, our neighbors, to the poor, etc.

If you live in a city home that can only support 4 people without sacrificing mental health, it’s irresponsible to have 8 children. That’s where NFP comes into play.

Civilizations urbanize until they implode, then the people die off and/or move back to the rural areas for food. Just look at the City of Rome for example:
My point… when cities are prosperous, people move to them until the civilization reaches a tipping point and cities (and greater society) implodes. The urban citizens either die of starvation and/or crime, or move to the rural areas to start all over again.

Human population is a cycle.
 
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Not necessarily. There is a constant theme throughout human history that urban families tend to have less children than rural ones.

Reason: Rural families (eps farmers) often had the land and space to have many children. Even if their houses were tiny and the kids all have to sleep on top of each other, they could have all the space they needed outside. They could also help their parents, etc.

In urban families, there is far less space outside. So large families for the average family in an urban setting is stressful (always has been, always will be). Urban families can’t realistically hunt, farm & gather for food like rural families can. So the more mouths to feed, the harder the more stress. So urban families are incentivized to have less children. Before the pill, couples would do that by refraining for sex or by using sometime of sinful contraception. But they still did it.

For rural families, the more kids, the more help the parents have with farming, hunting and gathering. There was in incentive to have larger families in rural areas.
 
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