That depends on your meaning of the word "properly".
With the grace of God, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have brought 17 beautiful children into the world and live, debt free. You may find the answer to your question at their website.
Posted on 05/09/2008 7:39:02 AM PDT by NYer
'Might our religion be killing us?' That's what a Baptist minister was asking recently in an editorial in USA Today.
Rev. Oliver "Buzz" Thomas writes:
Be fruitful and multiply," says the book of Genesis, and Lord knows we have. To the tune of more than 300 million at home and more than 6 billion abroad. But as we go about the heavenly task of multiplying, a poignant question arises: Might our religion be killing us?Insert the deep dark foreboding music.
We all remember the Aztecs. Some say their religion, with its penchant for violence and human sacrifice, played a critical role in the destruction of their civilization. We moderns are far more sophisticated, of course, but if we persist with some of our religious practices, we could be heading down the same disastrous dog trot. Sort of a reverse Noah story. Noah is credited with saving humanity during the big flood. We could be the ones who get blamed for destroying it.Now " Reverend Buzz" doesn't understand that he just hit on the most truth he's going to find in this piece. By comparing America to the Aztecs who destroyed themselves with violence and human sacrifice he actually hit on the truth of America today. But he's after a different kind of truth, you know the kind that doesn't make any sense to anyone not named "Reverend Buzz."
Of course, much of our environmental problem is due to overpopulation. There are simply too many people for the planet to sustain — at least the way we expect to be sustained. Each new person requires more food, water and oxygen. At the same time, each is producing more carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane (the big culprits of global warming). For each additional human, planet Earth (and the rest of us) pays a price.Your baby is just a methane producing machine! Stop them now!
Now, consider the Roman Catholic Church's continued opposition to modern birth control or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' (i.e. Mormons) encouragement of large families. This might not alarm you unless you realize that nearly one in every five humans on the planet is Roman Catholic and that the Latter-day Saints belong to one of the fastest-growing religions in the Western Hemisphere. Many Orthodox Jews and some Muslims also eschew birth control.Additional divine revelation...from someone named Buzz, maybe? So much for sola scriptura.
In the interest of preserving our planet and our species, shouldn't religious organizations be encouraging smaller families? Do our spiritual leaders need additional divine revelation to realize that our current doctrines — which threaten to take the entire world down with us — have become ethically and theologically questionable?
Population growth hits hardest in the poorest nations, and as poverty increases, public health declines. I am quite certain that God is not the author of human misery, but by preaching against birth control at the same time we are preaching against abortion, it seems that we're making God out as cruel, a buffoon, or both.Oh come on. You knew it was coming. First it was global warming, then it was poverty. You knew women being ordained was next right? What? It follows.
I recognize that religious organizations tend to be conservative institutions. Their continued resistance to equal rights for women and gays is a good example. A woman may be president of Harvard or speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, but in the largest religious organization on the planet, women still can't get ordained as parish priests. It's even worse for gays and lesbians.
How should people of faith respond to this gathering environmental storm?Is he out of his mind. Doesn't he read? The reproduction rates of mainly Christian nations in Europe are currently sub-replacement levels. The United States hovers just at replacement rate with 2.07 births per woman. Ireland is 1.87, New Zealand 1.79, Australia 1.76. But Canada's fertility rate is down to 1.5, well below replacement rate; Germany and Austria are at 1.3, the brink of the death spiral; Russia and Italy are at 1.2; Spain 1.1, about half replacement rate. That's to say, Spain's population is halving every generation.
First, we must stop having so many children. Clergy should consider voicing the difficult truth that having more than two children during such a time is selfish. Dare we say sinful? The average American might not listen to his elected representatives, but he darn sure listens to his pastor. Every week. This will be a hard message for pastors to preach and parishioners to hear, but without it we court disaster.
In addition, Americans should be having important policy debates as we anticipate a hotter, more hostile natural environment. Instead of providing tax breaks for having more children, shouldn't Congress be providing incentives for having fewer?
When Aztec society was threatened by disease and military defeat, their religious leaders appear to have let them down. Most likely, these leaders encouraged even more human sacrifice to appease the gods, thereby further weakening the society and ultimately facilitating its collapse.Well, if he's making a list I can point to at least one religious leader who's letting people down.
Let's hope we can learn from their mistakes.
Tell this to the Third World... not the West.
How much methane have Catholic freepers produced ;-)
That pastor sounds like a friend of the world more than a servant of God. He should shut his mouth and retreat to his closet.
Funny how these nimrods will never preach this stuff to the third worlders who could benefit from the advice.
Meanwhile, we have our own state church encouraging Western Civilization to breed itself into extinction.
will never understand the mentality that sees lives as a burden.
even in the crudest economic sense, lives are an asset to a nation.
Hmm... I think he is in a BUZZ state. Yes, yes stop reproducing!! Do you think the MUSLIMS will stop having kids?
I think Rev. Buzz wants to help MUSLIMS.
Abortion IS human sacrifice!
In 10 years the average age of a Chinese person will be 40, of a European 48, of a North American 42ish, of a South American 35ish.
The youngest people in the world are Indians, Muslims and Africans.
Africa is woefully underpopulated.
At the current rate Indians will be aged out by 2025.
World population will begin dropping precipitously by then.
If current reproductive trends continue, the world population will almost halve in a century.
There are about 1 billion white people now, give or take.
That number will be about 300 million in 100 years, with the majority likely in America.
Sick. Really sick.
If the author thinks that human sacrifice brought down the Aztecs (debateable) one wonders why he doesn’t draw the obvious conclusion that human sacrifice will destroy the West?
God is not mocked.
When my hubby was Protestant he produced just as much methane as he does now as a Catholic.
However, we don’t talk about it.
Buzz needs to shut the buzz up.
LOL! Be glad you don’t have five sons, too.
Heh. :)
LOLOLOL!
Is broccoli banned in your house?
In the Late 1980’s a book by one of Cortez’s lieutenants, Bernal Diaz
was translated into English for the first time. The book is called Conquest of New Spain. I read the book in the early 90’s. The book recounts something you don’t read anywhere else. The Aztec priests were homosexuals. They would “act up” right in front of Cortez and his men. Cortez’s reaction was just the same as Moses & Joshua because the religion of the Caananites included both human sacrifice and homosexuality in the priesthood.
For this reason, I think that the reason for the sudden immense power wielded by homosexuals in western civilization today stems from Roe V Wade in 1972. The dominant religion of today is not christianity or even something loosely defined as secular humanism, but rather an ancient pagan religion.
Hey, and Happy Mother’s Day too!
I don’t want to forget!
Be careful about lighting a match when the windows are closed. Perhaps males’ digestive systems are not as evolved as ours.
Another liberal moron, but I repeat myself, talking out his "Buzz"hole.
The price of the barrel aint comin’ down, folks. It’s going to keep going up, and everything in life is going to be progressively more expensive, with inflation outstripping wage gains probably being the new constant.
I kinda worry about the people who had 5, 6, 7 kids in an economy where you could still get cheap bulk items, when its the era of cheap anything that this new energy reality is bringing to a close. How does 1 Dad, on 1 income, support that many kids properly when everything is getting so expensive? Remember, Im here cause Im a Conservative, so dont expect any kind of support for food stamps or any other thing that is stolen from me by the IRS at literal gunpoint.
Weird times. I wonder how much longer social conservatives will keep voting for GOP when its the Democrats that are offering them benefits all over the place and they’re the ones who have the most kids to feed in a $5/gallon milk America.
Loved your treatise of State Religion.
And happy Mother’s Day to you, too! I understand you’re going to a movie, ALONE :-). I’d try to negotiate a deal like that, but we have the Spanish Mass at 1:00 p.m. Maybe I can get a long run after supper.
Don’t you gals sit there and act like you don’t fart...LOL...
Happy Mother's Day, Tax-chick!
Why, Dr. Malthus! I thought you were dead!
And a very “Happy Mother’s Day” to you as well!
Thank you! And you have a great day, too!
There are couples who choose to have a huge number of children thinking to allow the Lord’s will over the womb and trying to emulate the Biblical patriarchs in some instances. - It seemed to me that Jewish families by the time of Christ were not so terribly large and that possibly even in Old Testament times a family of 12 children was not the usual number for most people except where some favored few kings and nobles had numerous wives and concubines and children with them. I read somewhere years ago that it was the practice of Jewish women to somewhat control the spacing and number of their children with a rhythm type of birth control (abstaining from sexual relations at certain times) that was not abortificent (abortificent birth control would have been against God’s law). - I personally have known people who have had anywhere from 9 to 12 or 13 children, two of my aunts had large numbers of children and it was not a fairy tale situation and the children sometimes did without some necessities and care they really needed.
I guess that's better than the NYTimes that just makes stuff up.
Christians AREN’T having “too many children” - we’re not even at replacement rate.
Thanks! :)
The movie thing just kind of worked out.
We have a newly ordained priest at the parish and Saturday is his first mass. So the hubby won’t have to usher on Sunday, because he was asked to cover this one.
He wanted to take the girls to see Grandma and now doesn’t have to be home for the 6:30.
Oh YEAH!
Thank you so much!!!!
Being a “minister” doesn’t insulate you from being stupid.
>>and the children sometimes did without some necessities and care they really needed.<<
Can you be more specific?
That’s very interesting. There really is “nothing new under the sun” is there?
History repeats itself and people never learn from it. America is heading down the same path of destruction.
What family?
That depends on your meaning of the word "properly".
With the grace of God, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have brought 17 beautiful children into the world and live, debt free. You may find the answer to your question at their website.
Perfect! Let me know what you think of the movie - Bill and Anoreth are talking about it.
It is called natural family planning (see below). Until the Lambeth conference in 1930, all Christian churches condemned birth control as sinful. Today, the Catholic Church is virtually alone in holding to this ancient belief, as one denomination after another has accepted artificial contraception. This should be a troubling fact for many who believe in Scripture.
It’s very rah-rah America. And the bad guys are in Afganistan and very Arab looking. Amazing!
My nephew (who runs the Movie theater) says it kicks. He’s really conservative so I trust his judgement.
Wait until Captain America comes out in 2010. The libs will explode!
They like war movies. So do I, but not enough to go to the movie theater when I could be running.
What do you mean by ‘aged out’? They do talk about there no long being a ‘Brain Drain’ of Indians and Chinese coming to the U.S. for tech jobs since most of those jobs are going there anyway. These demographics threads depress me like no others. For what it’s worth I believe Jews tend to have more kids than average.
This asshat is not a Baptist any more than the Westboro Church.
Please do not use potty language on the Religion Forum.
When the average age of a woman across the population is older than the prime childbearing age (42-45).
They do talk about there no long being a ‘Brain Drain’ of Indians and Chinese coming to the U.S. for tech jobs since most of those jobs are going there anyway.
That's an exaggeration, but a popular one. US employers still keep pressing for more visas for such workers - they wouldn't spend money on those applications if they did not have willing applicants.
These demographics threads depress me like no others.
Not me. I'm doing my part - i.e. reproducing at an above average rate.
And the demographic shift is the most solvable problem possible: it can be reversed more or less the minute people decide to - it's not as if the average American cannot afford to have as many children as the average Pakistani. The means are ample - all it takes is will.
For what it’s worth I believe Jews tend to have more kids than average.
Largely because Orthodox women tend to have almost four times as many children as average.
One of the few examples in the world of a high-achievement demographic reproducing at well above replacement.
As usual, the Jews are a source of hope.
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