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In recent years, the fertility gap by religion has widened to unprecedented levels.... With birth rates at just 1.8 or 1.9 children per woman, versus a conversion-adjusted “replacement rate” of 2.44, religious communities in America will tend to decline by about 25 percent in each generation... Virtually 100 percent of the decline in fertility in the United States from 2012 to 2019 can be explained through a combination of two factors: growing numbers of religious women leaving the faith, along with declining birth rates among the nonreligious.... Since 2002, the share of reproductive-age women who attended church weekly or more...

“Remarking on the soaring tensions between Ukraine and Russia, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Eduardo Rodriguez Parrilla voiced support for Moscow and echoed his voice against NATO’s expansion eastward.” (This was way back on Feb. 20, by the way.) Most of us recall the Obama administration's lies and treachery regarding Benghazi. But how many of you know about the Obama administration's lies and treachery against the American families of the Americans ambushed and murdered on the orders of Raul Castro this week in 1996?....... Thought so...Well, please read on: You see, amigos: This week 26 years ago three U.S. citizens and...

The exotic concept of spontaneous generation was taken seriously by astute thinkers for a long time before the invention of microbiology. Of course, they knew about the proximate process of birth, but the biological source of life itself exercised such minds as Anaximander six hundred years B.C. and Saint Augustine, Shakespeare, and the philosopher of fishing Izaak Walton, and was at least a puzzle to Darwin. Spontaneous generation was the theory that living organisms could arise from inanimate matter, like fleas born from dust, or mice from salt and bees from animal blood and, in the speculation of Aristotle, scallops...

The next generation of sex bots will apparently have a moral code that can differentiate between good and bad people. The Sun reports the creator of the Samantha sex robot, Sergi Santos, said sex dolls will develop a moral code that will reward good people and punish bad people. Santos reportedly told IBTimes, “With two to three months work I can make her have a conversation with me and she might be able to tell if I’m evil or not.” According to Santos, the robot’s determination of whether a person is “evil or not” will play a role in whether...

Human life begins in bright flash of light as a sperm meets an egg, scientists have shown for the first time, after capturing the astonishing ‘fireworks’ on film. An explosion of tiny sparks erupts from the egg at the exact moment of conception. Scientists had seen the phenomenon occur in other animals but it is the first time is has been also shown to happen in humans. Not only is it an incredible spectacle, highlighting the very moment that a new life begins, the size of the flash can be used to determine the quality of the fertilised egg. Researchers...

Engineering is the science and practice of designing things, usually systems and sometime systems of systems. Engineers understand that nothing worthwhile happens by accident in this universe, ever. The probabilities are too vastly against it. With 70,000 gene pairs in the average chromosome and 12 different proteins at work, that would mean at least odds of (70,000 X 70,000 X 12 X 12) = 7.0 X 10^11 if you could get all that stuff in the same place at the same time without the added consideration of the right conditions. All the monkeys with their typewriters would have several thousands...

Long-time BreakPoint listeners know about Japan’s catastrophically-low birthrates: by 2060, Japan’s population is projected to fall by a third, the same percentage killed by the Black Death in 14th-century Europe. Japan’s demographic decline has spawned some creepy adaptations, such as lifelike talking dolls for elderly Japanese without grandchildren, or the borrowing of other people’s grandchildren for a day. Attempts to encourage child-bearing through economic incentives have failed, as they have in other countries with low birth-rates. Younger Japanese aren’t interested in reproducing themselves. And now, according to a recent article in the UK’s Guardian, they’re increasingly uninterested in sex, as...

I first learned of the Church of Euthanasia in high school, when a friend of mine gave me one of their bumper stickers. It was years later, when the Internet became a part of our lives, that I finally looked them up. I’m telling you about them today because this pro-death cult is the logical end result of our death-obsessed culture. The “church’s” origin story is both ridiculous and disturbing: The Church of Euthanasia was inspired by a dream, in which Rev. Chris Korda confronted an alien intelligence known as The Being who speaks for the inhabitants of Earth in...

Value depends on scarcity. In the world of human reproduction, the most valuable entity is the fertile female—specifically, her eggs and womb. The fierce politics surrounding female fecundity and women’s reproductive rights rests not only on a woman’s ability to create new life, but also on the incredible amount of commitment and risk involved when her eggs and womb are accessed for procreation. Since women are fertile for a shorter period than men, since gestation takes 40 long weeks, and since labor and delivery pose life-threatening risks, young women will always face disproportionately high demands for access to their bodies....

Helen M. Alvare, law professor at George Mason University. Washington D.C., May 18, 2012 / 04:09 am (CNA).- A law professor at George Mason University believes that current threats to religious freedom are intrinsically connected to the modern understanding that “sexual freedom is about shaping yourself.” Helen Alvaré, who has formerly worked with the U.S. bishops' pro-life office, spoke on May 10 at the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C. She observed that many modern threats to religious freedom “are coming by way of a newly strong government position on human sexuality.”This view holds that sex is unrelated to...

 Contraceptionby Sebastian R. FamaDiscussions on subjects such as the Trinity or the Eucharist can usually be kept on the intellectual level. But when it comes to a subject like contraception a person’s position may be influenced by forces beyond mere intellect. That’s because what people believe on this issue can have a profound impact on their lives. Consequently, people aren’t always willing to consider the arguments against contraception.Up until 1930, all Christian bodies taught that contraception was illicit. At that time the Anglican Church decided that it was permissible for "grave reasons in a marriage." It wasn’t long before "grave...

An Open Letter to Rick Santorum: Dear Senator: As a strong, common-sense Conservative, I have a favor to ask of you. Could you please consider not answering, off the cuff, every question thrown at you? Would you please engage your brain before putting your mouth in gear? I’m beginning to see now, how, as an incumbent, you lost your Senate seat by 18 pecentage points to the brain-dead Bob Casey. Women vote Senator; and, they vote in large numbers. Now, please consider this common-sense observation from a Conservative male: Women have been in combat for years now. Women have used...

It is a reckless analyst who risks reopening sixteenth-century disputes between Roman Catholics and the Protestant Reformers. I do so in the interest of a greater good, but my purpose is not to say who was right or who was wrong. I would simply like to explore why the Protestant churches maintained unity with the Catholic Church on the contraception question for four centuries, only to abandon this unity during the first half of the twentieth century. I write as a historian, not an advocate. (I am a “cradle Lutheran.”) Orders & Disorders To understand the change in Protestant thought...

While the citizens of Western civilizations have been preoccupied with their own selfish interests, those of the Islamic world have been busy populating a world their children and grandchildren will control. In America, Canada, and Europe, the citizens have been limiting the number of children in their families. Personally, I believe the reasons they chose to limit the number of their offspring are purely selfish. Women want to have a career, and that is difficult to do if they are having children every 2 or 3 years. As for the men, they have bought into the idea that they...

Sex Sermonist's Heroes: Pope John Paul II and Hugh Hefner Devout Catholic Christopher West Lays Out Unexpected Vision of What Sex Can Mean for Christians Christopher West is not your average sex therapist. He's a devout Catholic who believes one of the most important ways we can get closer to God is through great sex.   "As Christians, we are desperately in need of a renewed vision of our sexuality," West has sermonized. "The union of man and woman itself is meant to be here on planet Earth an image, a foretaste, a little glimmer of the eternal ecstasy that...

Among some conservative Christians, a movement is giving new meaning to the biblical mandate to "be fruitful and multiply." The movement, called Quiverfull, is based on Psalm 127, which says, "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them." Those in the Quiverfull movement shun birth control, believing that God will give them the right number of children. It turns out, that's a lot of kids. 'We Actually Didn't Want Children' While cooking a typical predawn breakfast in the Swanson household in Shelby, Mich., 10-year-old...

Maryland's Highest Court Upholds State Law Favoring Traditional Marriage ANNAPOLIS, September 18, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Today, the Maryland Court of Appeals, in a 4-3 decision, upheld the state's marriage law, which says "only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid in this state." In January 2006 the circuit court for Baltimore City struck down the marriage law (Family Law Article 2-201) as discriminatory on the basis of sex, in violation of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, in the case of Conaway v. Deane. Maryland's highest court reversed the circuit court, ruling today that the marriage law did...

Margaret Somerville | Monday, 20 August 2007 Canada ponders polygamy Now that same-sex marriage has been legalised, it seems inconsistent to prosecute Canada's polygamists. Currently, in Canada, polygamy is in the news. The Canadian Criminal Code prohibits polygamy, but it is being practiced in some communities and the question is whether the people involved should be prosecuted. Recently, the Globe and Mail, one of Canada’s nationally distributed newspapers, published an editorial entitled "No to polygamy". It’s relevant that the Globe was a major voice in support of same-sex marriage in the public debate that culminated in its legal recognition in...

Suppose for a moment that the birth in Bethlehem that Christians celebrate this week never happened --that it is, as the secularists would have it, mere mumbo jumbo, superstition, a myth. In other words, consider it not as an event but as a narrative. You want to launch a big new global movement from scratch. So what do you use? The birth of a child. If Christianity is just a myth, then it is, so to speak, an immaculately conceived one. On the one hand, what could be more powerless than a newborn babe? On the other, without a newborn...

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - In Wichita, Kansas, abortion rights supporters held a "chili for choice" fund-raising dinner. In Pierre, South Dakota, they plotted strategy in the "Back Alley" meeting hall. And in Minneapolis, volunteers led women past protesters into an abortion clinic. It was just a typical week in Middle America where the decades-old debate over abortion rights has become a full-blown battle. But even as they continue to raise money and march around state capitols, the view from the pro-choice side is this is a fight they are losing. The expected Senate confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court...