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Are believers culpable for overpopulation?
Nov 2, 2009 11:57 AM
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Are believers culpable for overpopulation?
This question was born from my hearing the story of a man with 17 children of whom 6 were not as normal, so to speak, as the rest. No twins. This family is poor and arguably has no quality of life.
Most Gods favor a reproducing group of adherents.
Without adherents, there relevance would be lost to history.
From Adam on down, we have not let God down, we have reproduced.
Be they Eastern or Western religions, are religions and believers responsible for our dismal control of reproduction?
Are believers culpable for our overpopulation?
Regards
DL
--
God is a cosmic consciousness. Our next evolution. Telepathy the key.
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(2 of 47)
Re: Are believers culpable for overpopulation?
Nov 2, 2009 12:08 PM
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Religions sell insurance policies to fit everyone's needs.
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Posts:
5,263
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(3 of 47)
Re: Are believers culpable for overpopulation?
Nov 2, 2009 2:46 PM
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No, I thought you were a student!? Putty is the main culprit. It is so good an alien from outer space would land, never seen it before and want some. The next is lack of education in the art of contraception techniques.
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Re: Are believers culpable for overpopulation?
Nov 2, 2009 2:47 PM
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I think cultural influences are greater than religious in terms of population.
Statistically the largest growing groups are poor and uneducated, the least growing groups are wealthy and educated. This seems to cross the boundaries of religious belief in many cases.
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Re: Are believers culpable for overpopulation?
Nov 2, 2009 7:51 PM
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Before you decide to blame believers for the horrors of overpopulation, you might want to prove that it even exists.
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I will defend to the death your right to offend me.
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Re: Are believers culpable for overpopulation?
Nov 2, 2009 8:48 PM
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Um, the population of the world is almost 7 billion, it was about 4 billion 30 some odd years ago. I would say we are getting more crowded by any objective standpoint.
Europe and Japan are having declining populations, but the developing world is increasing in rate. Overpopulation was seen as one of the hidden causes of the Rwandan genocide. Rwanda had a population density rivalling the Gaza strip prior to nastiness in the early 90's.
The less educated and more rural the society (usually also very conservative religious and culturally) the greater the population increase. Despite the propaganda, China is only nominally atheist. Outside of the cities, traditional religious mores continue more or less unabated.
--
If irony were strawberries we would all be having smoothies right now.
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Re: Are believers culpable for overpopulation?
Nov 3, 2009 2:42 AM
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Opinion, far from proof. The earth supports the current population just fine
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I will defend to the death your right to offend me.
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Re: Are believers culpable for overpopulation?
Nov 3, 2009 3:23 AM
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lwolkow,
So you agree with minergod, you think religion is responsible for overpopulation?
--
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
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Re: Are believers culpable for overpopulation?
Nov 3, 2009 8:08 AM
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> Before you decide to blame believers for the horrors
> of overpopulation, you might want to prove that it
> even exists.
>
> --
> I will defend to the death your right to offend me.
15 million starve to death yearly.
No problem.
Right?
http://library.thinkquest.org/C002291/high/present/stats.htm
Regards
DL
--
God is a cosmic consciousness. Our next evolution. Telepathy the key.
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Re: Are believers culpable for overpopulation?
Nov 3, 2009 8:12 AM
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> lwolkow,
>
> So you agree with minergod, you think religion is
> responsible for overpopulation?
>
> --
> "Two things are infinite: the universe and human
> stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." -
> Albert Einstein
Where did I indicate that religion was responsible for overpopulation?
I posed a question. I did not give my opinion.
Please do not put false words in my mouth.
Regards
DL
--
God is a cosmic consciousness. Our next evolution. Telepathy the key.
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Re: Are believers culpable for overpopulation?
Nov 3, 2009 8:43 AM
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Religion can definitely be a major cause of overpopulation, tho not the only one. Pro-proliferation religions that don't allow birth control or abortion tend to spawn huge litters of children, and it is almost always associated with a strongly second-class status for women. When women get to have access to birth control, the population numbers go way down as they limit their pregnancies to what they can give quality care to.
Fundies almost always have litters. Heaven help your school district if a bunch of fundies move into town, because you'll have to educate and support the hordes of kids they produce and it will likely result in the building of new schools to handle the influx. In the meantime, the low-wage-levels of the parents, usually uneducated and underemployed, cannot possibly make up in taxes what they consume in the town's resources. That in itself lowers the quality of life for everyone else.
Macho attitudes also foster many children, as we can see by the behavior of sports stars (particularly in basketball) who boast of their numerous illegitimate kids by their 'baby mamas'.
In nature, eating a diet heavy with grain products (simple carbohydrates) fosters high fertility because it promotes superovulation. A high protein diet (as found among hunter-gatherers) inhibits ovulation, and thus the spacing between kids is between 4 and 5 years, as opposed to the farmers' index of under 2 years. So the poorer the diet (rice or bread-based), the more the children, and often, the fatter the (malnourished) women.
Whatever the cause, we have way too many people on earth, particularly when the climate and rainfall patterns are changing. I predict that we'll see horrendous death tolls from the increasing strength of the monsoons, the failure of crops as rains come early and unseasonably or not at all, and the temperature changes. I hope I won't be around to see the misery, and be in the danger zone as the have-not nations send out their swarms of starving people with nothing to lose, against those who have food. That would be the beginning of another Dark Age, because that's exactly what happened in the late 400 AD's.
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Re: Are believers culpable for overpopulation?
Nov 3, 2009 9:11 AM
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Fundies almost always have litters.
Seriously, are you always this ignorant? AM has six kids and she is an atheist - are you going to tell her she has a litter?
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(13 of 47)
Re: Are believers culpable for overpopulation?
Nov 3, 2009 2:20 PM
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Not due to overpopulation, but to bad government.
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I will defend to the death your right to offend me.
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Posts:
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From:
Upper Revoltistan
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(14 of 47)
Re: Are believers culpable for overpopulation?
Nov 3, 2009 2:34 PM
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What is the cause of overpopulation?
Might be the fruit of overcopulation.
Rather than some other,
I will blame the mother
for mom's deep concern over Pop elation.
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Re: Are believers culpable for overpopulation?
Nov 3, 2009 5:12 PM
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Its certainly fueling it, or at least the most conservative/fundamentalist/traditional elements of religion anyway.
You can't tell me that the Catholic Church's ban on contraceptives is helping in any way.
In general its really more of a function of education levels and employment issues. Where there is a growing base of white collar/urban based jobs, where women have free access to the workplace and education and average levels of education are HS or above, populations have been shrinking. People put off having babies to focus on education, careers, the ability to support families with less land.
Attacking religion won't stem population growth, but womens rights and growing post-industrial economies will.
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If irony were strawberries we would all be having smoothies right now.
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