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mpi
Guest
You are exactly right! Enviromentalism is how the leftists in the ppublic school system get their foot in the door with respect to abortion, contraception, and eugenics.
I pray that you can set your son’s mind right.
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I pray that you can set your son’s mind right.
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mpi
Guest
Have you heard of economies of scale? The more people there are the more incentive their is to advance technologically, in a capitalist system. I think we’ll be into extra-planetary colonization before the sun “expires”.
Desertification is a non-sequiter. Crop yields have been climbing significantly.
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briang72
Guest
Genesis 1:28 Douay-Rheims Bible:
Mark 6:39-44:
Can someone please point me to the Scripture verse where Gods says “fill the earth, unless you sense that its abilities to support life are dwindling, then by all means kill my children, neuter yourselves, and lose all trust in Me.”?
Mark 6:39-44:
The above Scripture is truly a miracle, but I believe it has a deeper meaning to us. There is more to life than what we see. We once thought this planet was flat! Who knows what is left for us to discover!
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Calliso
Guest
And God also doesn;t say keep multiplying no matter what. Really though being that God lets plenty of horrible things go on in the world all the time even as I type this…I am sure there are people being raped killed tortured and what not. Somehow I find it surprising that people still believe God will bail us all out. He might provide comfort of a sort but beyond that…
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Ender
Guest
I don’t think there is a country in Western Europe that is reproducing at a rate sufficient to continue its culture. Even in the US we are barely at the rate necessary to balance our population. So, given that the West has really gone overboard about reducing its population one can wonder how much sense it makes to increase the speed at which our cultures implode. And it does seem more than a little weird to think that reducing our population is going to make any difference at all on those areas that are being desertified. It’s one thing to get the people who are overpopulating their resources to cut back but it is madness to suggest that those cultures which have their populations under control should cut back even further. To what end? I suppose if there were fewer Spaniards there would be room in their country for more Moroccans but it’s not exactly clear why Spaniards should be expected to sacrifice their country to make room for people who have damaged their own.
Ender
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gardenswithkids
Guest
I agreed with most of your post until you got to this part–because I don’t know which scientists and humanitarians and politicians you suggest we listen to.
Can anyone really be called a “humanitarian” if they equate humans with virus?
And politicians–which politicians from what political and world view?
And scientists? Scientists make predictions on educated guesses, but they can not see into the future.
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tuviskazinai
Guest
I guess I would just say, first of all, that we need to use prudence to understand which scientists to listen to, and then put aside our political differences with certain politicians we may not like so that we can work with them on important legislation. To take the example of global warming, and to simplify it, it seems to me that 90% of the scientists out there believe in it and 10% don’t, but many Catholics on this forum and many other people elsewhere insist that because they like the far-right politics of the 10%, or because “environmentalism is just a way to get a foot in the door towards teaching kids that abortion is ok,” therefore the 10% must be correct as far as science is concerned and global warming must not exist.
Ok, I am no scientist, and if people can provide facts to back up their claims, then that’s one thing. But I think the fact that so many people are loath to work with the Democrats on any issue, period, is really going to hurt us in the longrun. You’re right, I have a hard time calling the pro-choice position or the “human virus” appellation “humanitarian,” but if they are supported by science where science is concerned, then this just shows that we Catholics are called to demonstrate a middle way: not rejecting their science outright, but rejecting their anti-life philosophy and figuring out dignified solutions to the scientific problems they have rightfully pointed out.
Peace,
+AMDG+
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tuviskazinai
Guest
But Ender, the global politics are very complicated. The “Moroccans” (actually, the Moroccans aren’t even the poorest country in Africa, not by a long shot!) aren’t responsible for their country being destroyed. In so many of these countries you have a combination of cruel dictators (sometimes US-supported – not so much in Africa, but in Latin America, for instance) who make life miserable for 99% of the population, and Western policies (issues with the World Bank, globalization, etc.) that rob these countries of their products for next to no money and allow them to continue being poor. The (cardinal) who is the head of Caritas International said that the 800 billion dollars we suddenly came up with to bail out our banks and damaged economy (talk about damaging one’s own country!!) is more than all the developed nations in the world, combined, have paid in foreign aid to the Third World in the last 23 years. 23 years!! I would say we have a serious rich man-Lazarus situation going on here, and the idea that we are blaming them on their problems – especially when they are producing at an extraordinary rate, i.e., following your recommendations to a T! – without caring to help them is just plain cruel.
Anyway, I foresee a massive decline in the West’s standard of living (and I agree that our depopulation is not going to help us any)…right now Americans live in the top 3% of the world’s wealth, but that may someday change, and we will see how other people live, and our idea of justice and the mentality we have towards the world’s poor may change, too…
Peace,
+AMDG+
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brandymmiller
Guest
Quite simply put - don’t you think that a God who was able to create an entire universe can handle creating a few extra square acres of land? Also, there is plenty of land that goes uninhabited - just look at Kansas where they are giving away land because nobody is living there. The problem isn’t the amount of land or resources we have it is how we are choosing to use it.
Having said that - every child conceived is the answer to some problem that God sees coming up ahead. God never makes mistakes. Contraception and abortion are killing those answers.
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alcuin
Guest
I fear I do not know a complete answer, but here are a few points that may help you.So is there anyone here who can help me to discuss this topic in an enlightened way, how Catholics look at these ideas and what we think about this problem.
Thanks!
- In population questions, it is very common to to use terms such as “human virus”. It is very important not to phrase things this way. It is proper to kill an overgrowth of bacteria with bleach, it is not proper to kill a person because there are too many people. Remember, human beings are made in the image of God.
- In a healthy Catholic society, many people will join the Religious (Monks, Nuns, Priests) and will therefore not have children. The focus of American society is consumption. The focus of Religious society is God. Consider the ecological impact if only 1 in 10 people were monks or nuns.
Often times Catholic teaching becomes less obviously good when it is taken out of context. Consider the typical pro-choice examples of a girl who (they will say) ought to have an abortion. Catholic moral teaching has to be violated many times before you can reach that point…
- Natural Family Planning really does work.
When there’s not enough room, responsible parenthood requires having fewer children. And, speaking from personal experience, Natural Family Planning really does work. If practiced, it can greatly reduce the birth rate.
But why not just get sterilized and have sex whenever you want?
Well, for starters sex necessarily requires sharing with another person. It’s very telling that we say “have sex” the same way we say “have pizza.”
Beyond that, sex that is not opened to conception really does hurt us. Human beings are also animals. Biologically, our bodies expect our sexuality to be fruitful. When it’s not, then we try to ‘pick up the pieces’ and get what good out of it that we can. However, we always feel somewhat betrayed…
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otjm
Guest
I mean no disrespect to your son, but those who hold similar ideas are not reproducing themselves; if nothing else, their ideas will die out for lack of reproduction of those who hold to such ideas. The issue is easily seen in Europe, where many of the nations are below reproduction rates. We are not going to ahve to worry a whole lot about Italians who believe that one should not have children; so many of them do now, that they are fas in danger of ceasing to exist. And given the old dictum that nature abhors a vacuum, the land of Italy will soon not be Italy as we have known it, should that not change. France has figured it out in part, as they are now providing incentives to those families with more children.
The issue is not resources; it is the husbanding of resources - using less impactful means of obtaining them, and better distribution of what we obtain. We have countries starving to death, or dying of failure to provide adequate medical help, not because food or medicine is not available, but because the systems in place do not work well to distribute what is needed.
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cmharter
Guest
Go to Patrick Madrid’s blog and see the video he has there on Moslem Demographics, see what our children’s future will be after we’ve argued ourselves into oblivion.
patrickmadrid.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-proof-that-contraception-abortion.html
Mary
patrickmadrid.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-proof-that-contraception-abortion.html
Mary
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uther
Guest
Some of the most likeable politicians are the ones whose policies are the most detrimental to human freedom, and some of them are even Catholic. (For example, I would love to hang out for a couple of beers with Joe Biden. He would be a riot. But I wouldn’t trust him to run a hot-dog stand.) Their intentions are likely not evil but their understanding of history and human nature are totally deficient, and consequently dangerous.
This is over-simplifying. The number is not 90-10, and it is changing all the time. If you say the climate is changing you’ll get 100% agreement. The issue is how and why, particularly why. On that, the consensus is among the MSM, not the scientific community. However, even if there were 90% of scientists who thought that mankind was the source of the global warming trend (and which is trending the other way for several years now) it is only a snapshot in time. Copernicus and Gallileo (over whom much anti-Catholic ink has been erroneously spilled) were on the leading edge and yes, there was scientific inquiry and experimentation long before those two, and encouraged by the Church. So were the 99% of scientists right that the solar system turns around the earth? Scientific truth is not a consensus. Scientific theories perhaps.
And what are the far-right politics of the 10%? What is the far-right? If you are looking at parties, you’ve missed the real politic of America. The statists are in both parties. Far-right is meaningless in America. If you are thinking of conservative, then their main objective is individual liberty under the objective Natural Law, just like the founders.
But if you’re thinking fascism, you need to have a good look at what Jeff Immelt and the GE empire (including the media arm) are cooking up with the Obama administration for your personal medical records. Bush, Cheney, Haliburton were pikers compared to the scale of what Tom Daschle et. al. have planned. It is by definition fascism.
Bottom line? The statists don’t think you can handle your own freedom. And many, as we see in this thread are talking global issues, the presumption being global solutions. Well guess what? Global solutions require global political force and global enforcement. In order for that to eventually take place, yes, your children need to be propagandized to be at least semi-misanthropic.
Are you serious? Work with the Democrats? Why? They own every branch of government and will have the rubber stamp of the Supreme Court shortly. They can do what they want. Why do they need anyone to work with them? They passed the biggest spending program in the history of America and none of them read it. Do you really think they would seriously take the time to listen to anything other than their own agenda? Where is the confidence of their belief system? If they are right about the problem and the solution, they have the power to make it happen.
Truth of the matter? They do need the right, because most of the right are the producers, the creators, the great inventors, the visionaries that build great societies when allowed to make money at it. The left instinctively knows that to pay for their agenda they need those people to believe in the cause. Otherwise the whole thing winds down. That’s why they cannot tolerate dissent. The left never has, all over the world.
No, it is not necessary to capitulate to un-proven scientific theories and sacrifice individual liberty (individual liberty is a Catholic teaching, by the way), including freedom of religion, ie. the conscience clause for medical professionals, the freedom to teach that homosexual intercourse is objectively sinful in the eyes of God, etc. There is no middle way between freedom and tyranny, there is only a transitional period, while the free are gulled into trading their freedom for security, their birthright for a full belly, like Esau. The transition back to freedom is much more difficult and often involves revolution, if tyranny has gained a strong enough foothold. And that should concern every American who is not a member of the small elite who rule.
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tuviskazinai
Guest
You’re right that I simplified. I used the 90-10% numbers figuratively, because these issues are complex and it would be impossible to schematize things, anyway. And you are correct that consensus doesn’t equal scientific truth. But that doesn’t contradict my (poorly phrased) point, which is that we need to talk about the actual science before we say who is right and who is wrong. The 99% of scientists who believed in a geocentric universe were wrong, and if you asked me to, I could provide proof of that. I also think it’s clear as day that the minority of scientists who believe that evolution does not exist are wrong, and* if you asked me to,* I could provide proof. From what I have seen (though again, I am no expert), the global warming theorists – most of them, with the exception, perhaps, of some who go too far – have the better science. I am willing to admit that the jury is still out, and we can go to another thread to talk about the facts if you want to. Maybe you could convince me. My point was just that of all the threads that I have seen on this forum, most (I will avoid assigning arbitrary percentages this time
) avoid the scientific questions completely, asserting that global warming is a myth because it is just a foot in the door for liberals and Democrats and all those other evil people who want to spread abortion and teach high school students about condoms. And I think that that attitude is not only plainly illogical (it is), but dangerous.Ok, I spoke too hastily here, too. “Far-right” was not what I was after. You may be right or wrong about fascism in the government and individual liberty and so on…all I meant to say is that people tend to base their science on the political party the scientists belong to. The reasoning is that the scientists who belong to the Republican Party must be more “correct” than the scientists who believe in abortion or who voted for Barack Obama. And I reject that. What’s even scarier is that many of these people are more tied down to their party than to their Church…the Vatican, and the Pontifical Academies, have been among the most “green” organizations in the world for at least the past decade, and this hasn’t compromised their belief in the sanctity of life or in the importance of an individual’s freedom.
(As for the statists not thinking we can handle our own freedom…well, judging from the state of the economy right now after several years of laissez-faire economics, we seem to have handled our freedom pretty abysmally…but that is another question entirely.)
But it’s not like the Democrats planned some evil, insidious campaign to brainwash Americans and get them to vote liberally. The Democrats, apart from nominating a charismatic figure like Obama, have barely changed their game plan in the last twenty years. They’re as disorganized as ever. No, what got people to vote Democrat this time was the fact that the Republicans have done such a terrible job. Those of us who are on the conservative side of the spectrum need to admit a serious mea culpa.
I absolutely agree that the filibuster-proof majority the Dems are going to get is scary, even terrifying…no political party should own all three branches of the government. But I think the reason that we are in this situation is that the Republicans over the past ten years have gotten more and more conservative, partisan, and combative. Only political moderation and bipartisanship (yes, by which I mean, working with Democrats on issues where it is conscionable to do so) will help us to break out of the two-party duopoly that stifles independent thought and creates polarized political situations like the one we are in now.
Yes. Barack Obama listens more carefully to the Republicans than they deserve, and more carefully than any other president has listened to the other party. I cannot speak for Pelosi and Reid – neither of whom I am a fan of – but if you read super-liberal blogs and talk to super-liberal people, many of them are positively irate at Obama for being so middle-of-the-road. And I think anything that aggravates the far right or the far left is probably a good thing.
You’re completely misreading me. I am not saying we should capitulate to the Democratic Party on every issue involving every individual liberty. For instance, I absolutely believe in protecting the conscience clause (although you completely lost me with “the freedom to teach that homosexual intercourse is objectively sinful in the eyes of God”…so many problems with your logic there that I don’t even know where to start!!). But we have to understand that the idea that global warming doesn’t exist and isn’t a threat is also an “unproven scientific theory.” We’ve veered off track of the original discussion, but all I’m saying is that we should discuss the science, and if we agree that there may be a problem, we should craft a solution that doesn’t jeopardize individual liberties and human rights, and which isn’t the exclusive domain of one political party or the other.
Peace,
+AMDG+
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tuviskazinai
Guest
Thanks for posting this link, Mary!
I agree that the depopulation of Europe is scary. And the fact that Islam is a rapidly growing world religion is both fascinating and important. But I have to take issue with a few things in the video…first of all, I find the menacing tone when it starts talking about “the Muslim invasion” to be downright racist. They might belong to a different religion from our own, but they deserve our respect and our love, as all people do. In fact, we can learn from Pope Benedict who just this week stopped to pray at not one but two mosques in the Holy Land and praised the Muslim contribution to the world at one of their new universities in Jordan. The Pope talks all the time about the importance of allying ourselves with Islam in proclaiming certain fundamental truths (the centrality of God, the sanctity of life) that Europe has drifted away from. So I think we’re making a mistake if we automatically assume that Muslims are our enemies.
But I also take issue with the video’s facts. “Islam” is extremely complicated. When the video gives statistics for the number of Muslims in Europe, it implies that they are all vicious jihadists out for infidel blood. In fact, the situation is far more complex. Islam is as much a cultural identity as it is a religious identity. Something like 10% of the Muslims in France attend religious services…only 10%!! That’s even less than Catholic Mass attendance. By contrast, 45% celebrate Ramadan. Why? Because the Ramadan fast expresses a cultural dimension more so than a religious message, and in fact the religious message of Islam is not necessarily that appealing to the young generation who really just wants to integrate into French society. An astonishing 40% of Moroccan males marry French females…can you imagine if 40% of African-American males were marrying white American females? The degree to which certain Muslim populations are integrating peacefully into the (very secular!) French society is simply amazing.
This is not to say that there are not very religious Muslims, though they actually get along quite well with the Catholics here. The French state, which is officially secular, has outlawed the wearing of the hijab (Islamic veil) for girls in public schools. The only place where these girls can wear the veil is in Catholic parochial schools. From what I have seen (I live in France), this shared respect of each other’s religion has been very good for Catholic-Muslim relations and probably for European society as a whole: it demonstrates that religions which are usually branded “intolerant” can in fact be more “tolerant” than the secular state. Some Muslim girls even feel more protected in these Catholic schools than in their own homes. For many Muslim men (the supposedly intolerant fanatical fathers) who don’t want to be branded as radical by French employers and neighbors force their daughters not to wear the veil. I have also heard from numerous girls whose boyfriends have threatened to break up with them if they wear the veil, because it’s a sign of modesty and piousness – hence, “uncool.”
All this is just to say that “Muslim identity” is extremely varied and complex. This is not to say that there are not many radical Muslims moving to France, for instance (these are the ones coming mainly from sub-Saharan Africa rather than from North Africa). But to say that we will be living in a “Muslim world” in a few decades is overstating the case by far. I am sure that within that time many new cultural patterns will emerge which this fear-mongering video has made no effort to predict.
Peace,
+AMDG+
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Newbie2
Guest
Why go to Wikipedia when you can go to the Matrix?You’re going to allow a Wikipedia article about population growth to make you think of humanity as a virus ravaging the virgin earth? Come on, now!
When someone makes an assertion like that, ask for their sources. I can just as easily make an unsubstantiated argument that there’s more than enough food and resources to go around.
Peace,
Dante
youtube.com/watch?v=Hn6WZh17BF4
“You move to an area and you mul-ti-ply…”
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brandymmiller
Guest
Actually, yes He does. He intends that mankind should continue to procreate and “fill the world”. We are far from having done so.
Just because man abuses the free will which God has endowed him with does not mean that God isn’t there to help those who suffer if they will turn to him. I ought to know. I’ve suffered such abuse at the hands of man and was able to not only heal through God but to heal others I have met along the way as a result. God took what was intended for evil and has used it to produce good.
He doesn’t just provide comfort. He provides. However, He expects our obedience and our trust. Allowing our fear of what “might” happen in a future that doesn’t even exist yet to be an excuse to abandon God’s laws is about as sensible as killing your child because you heard on the news that someone else’s child killed them and you don’t want the same thing to happen to you.
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Calliso
Guest
We have populated every continent but Antartica and well thats understandable. Reasonably we can;t actually think that God meant procreate until we have no room left to stand. Remember those commandments were given when supposely there was only a few people left! We have around 7 billion now I donlt think God is going to be too mad if some of us married or not chose to not procreate. I still stand by my statement we have fulfilled the command.
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brandymmiller
Guest
Most scientists do indeed agree that there is global warming going on right now, just as most agreed in the 1970’s that there was global cooling. (freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1310991/posts)
What is not agreed upon by any clear majority is either the cause OR the solution.
Darwinian logic should be the very best reason we have not to subscribe to the philosophy of population reduction:
The society/species/entity that refuses to reproduce WILL BE REPLACED by one that does not.
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Calliso
Guest
There was cooling during the midcentury or at least a period of no warming but that has been more or less explained now. scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/03/what-about-mid-century-cooling.php
Also most actually thought in the long term there would be global warming. realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/03/the-global-cooling-mole/langswitch_lang/in
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