Another day without basic scientific literacy for the readers of the NCR. Overpopulation is real, and it is a threat to God’s Creation here on on Earth. Why not look at actual situations here and now, rather than silly, hypothetical movies? I think I can answer that, it’s because the opinions here are ideological rather than rational. It makes me rather sad. So I say to the readers here, God gave you a big brain, why not use it? Along with your heart, it may help you see that reality is not something to be ignored, but embraced.

The world’s population will actually start decreasing within my lifetime. And Jen’s point is that when we say this or that child shouldn’t be born because his parents “have enough kids” denies that each of those potential children had some contribution to make to our world.

God gave us an amazing world and the “big brains” to figure out how best to use the resources He gave us. there is enough for all, with plenty left over. Why would He give us this world and not enough for our survival? He cares more for us than the swallows & flowers of the field. We have what we need. We will continue to have what we need. Trust in Him and welcome the children He sends to us!

To Nicholas: overpopulation is not real, and you cannot prove that it is. However, it is scientifically accurate and mathematically demonstrable that a land mass the size of Texas would hold EVERYBODY on earth, and each person would have room for a house, a dog, and a gas barbecue grill. There are not ‘too many people’ for the globe to handle. The problems of society that ideologues like yourself attribute to overpopulation have to do with greed, misuse of resources, and natural calamities. Why not focus on those things, if you’re looking to improve?

I have yet to see the proof—and I mean actual, solid evidence—that overpopulation is, in fact, present in the “here and now.”  If you want to talk “rational” rather than “ideological,” let’s start there.  Does the existence of pollution *prove* the earth is “overpopulated?”  Prove to me that pollution wouldn’t exist with 50 million (or whatever number you choose) fewer people on the planet.  How about poverty?  Well, poverty—a subsection of the population that is unbelievably poor—has always been in existence.  Disease, famine?  Yep, those haven’t ever been seperated from the human existence, either.  So again, I have yet to understand the myth that “overpopulation” is, in fact, real and that pushing for a “solution” to this supposed “problem” isn’t, in fact, just an attempt at pushing one’s own political agenda.
***
By the way, we *have* seen a loss of 50 million people in the last generation alone—due to abortion—so tell me how *that* has solved anything.
***
I continue to marvel at how society has managed to convince itself that suffering is just about the absolute worst evil, to be avoided at all costs, and that it is somehow possible to eradicate it from the human experience.  There has never been a person on earth who didn’t suffer—but there are plenty who have lost hope in the face of suffering, and it is the duty of each of us to try to restore hope in any way we can.

I think the essence of ‘overpopulation’ is that the world would be better off without OTHER people, or other people’s children. I notice that very few advocates decide that their own personal contribution is superfluous.

Scientific studies—good ones—actually do rely on following hypothetical dots logically. We tend to take for granted that everything we know now comes from what is empirical. They don’t. We hypothesize, we investigate, we analyze and we interpret.

I thought this was a rather good piece of writing. It just needs a good helping of reflection to get you there. Thanks for the insights, Jennifer.

Typo (with apologies): “They don’t” should be “They don’t always.”

Nicholas: If anything, Jen’s post was concrete; your comment is the abstraction. She named real people, real situations, and real contributions, all ways in which “overpopulated” families fueled some of humanities greatest innovations. Yet what did you cite? Particular situations? Statistics? “Science”?

And, per your second sentence, God’s Creation has man at its pinacle—not under its boot. The Earth was created for Man’s benefit, not the other way around. Check out “Caritas In Veritate” for a clearer explanation from a much more articulate teacher.

And finally, if you’re still looking for “science”—that nebulous catch-all blanket which, on this topic, attempts to quantify the incalculable, then check out:

www.overpopulationisamyth.com

A day without overpopulation is like a day without sunshine, I always say!

As for the movie question ... as Dr. McCoy didn’t say, Dammit, Jen, I’m a film critic, not a script doctor! FWIW, it sounds to me like an idea for a short film rather than a feature. Or possibly a short story. If it were my story, I’d probably try turning it on its head and telling it as a “Twilight Zone” mystery. Instead of beginning with Bob and the genie, I’d begin with a world gone horribly wrong in an unspecified way, and then slowly put the pieces together until the climactic revelation that what’s wrong with the world is the missing children after three.

Resource-consuming machines sounds about right to me - we eat, we kill, we reproduce, we die, just like any other animal. The dying and killing bits do indeed beat back overpopulation, so ya’ll are right to say how overblown that idea is. There will always be resources available for those strong enough to seize them.

I could make some snide remark about what a wonderful world that is to bring fourteen children into, but I won’t. We’re just animals, after all; we don’t know any better.

“Bob turns on his radio, and a song by Celine Dion (the youngest of 14) goes silent right in the middle of the crescendo. And then bad things start happening. The television goes dark when he tries to turn on The Stephen Colbert ... “

Ooh, can I play this very, very silly game, too?

Hitler was the fourth of sixth children. Genghis Khan was a fourth child. Osama Bin Laden was his father’s seventeenth son.

It’s easy to be glib about this as an affluent Westerner. Jennifer is making a ‘lifestyle choice’, just as most middle class Americans do these days, she’s just chosen differently. That is her right, and the American economy means we can afford to subsidize her. Here’s an article that shows what the actual issue is:

http://www.salon.com/news/africa/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/05/22/christian_family_planning

You may not agree with the conclusions, but hopefully you’ll see that the issue is a little more serious and complex than ‘there would be no Bill Murray!’.

The issue is not that the population is too high, its that the population is too high to sustain the consumer based/materialistic/disposable society lived by people in Europe and America.  People look at famines in Africa and think it is the result of overpopulation when in fact it is almost always the result of war and corruption.

I love this!  I wouldn’t be here either because my mother was 4th of six children, but since my Dad is first he would be here. 

The overpopulation hypothesis is just that a hypothesis. It has not yet been proven fact.  As new ways of recycling, food production and housing innovations are created the hypothesis needs to be adjusted.

@ Jemima Cole: The article you link to makes a Christian argument for “family planning.” Catholics are not against responsible family planning. We are against adulterating the marriage act and falsifying the true union of the spouses with contraceptive technology. Africa needs real Western support, not condoms.

“However, it is scientifically accurate and mathematically demonstrable that a land mass the size of Texas would hold EVERYBODY on earth, and each person would have room for a house, a dog, and a gas barbecue grill.”

I’m sorry, but you’re an idiot. Those people could physically fit there, but they couldn’t all enjoy the lifestyle a modern American enjoys. They have to eat food, drink water, need clothes, shelter, medical care, education and so on.

Or, in other words, it wouldn’t be long before they grabbed that dog and stuck it on that grill.

Modern medicine means more babies survive infancy, their mothers survive childbirth (in 1800, one in three American women died in childbirth), we all live longer.

Simple question. You’d agree that there’s a number where there are ‘too many people’ on the planet? The planet couldn’t sustain a trillion people, for example. So what’s the magic number? The population of the Earth was a billion in 1800, the UN’s highest estimate is fourteen billion by 2100. Can each of those fourteen billion people have three kids, and can their kids have three kids?

@ Jemima Cole: “I’m sorry, but you’re an idiot. Those people could physically fit there, but they couldn’t all enjoy the lifestyle a modern American enjoys.”

So your point is we need to help Africans stop multiplying so that Americans can continue to enjoy our luxurious lifestyles?

Jen’s right. The ‘overpopulation’ myth is really about ‘other’ people. It rationalizes interfering in other countries to reduce their populations- because we will benefit.

Followers of the myth should ask themselves: “Who do I trust to decide who is superfluous?” Its actually a good excercise for everyone, because the more centrally controlled our basics for survival are (healthcare,food,income) the more opportunities arise for those kind of decisions. Who will be making them?

The Chinese are not shy about it, but the Americans and (especially) the Europeans are not horrified… that alone should give pause.

“Africa needs real Western support, not condoms.”

But you admit that there’s a problem above and beyond the ‘there would be no more Celine Dion’ crisis Jennifer identifies?

Jemima, how exactly am I “subsidizing” Jen’s family? To my knowledge, Jen and her family are perfectly capable of supporting themselves, and are probably more environmentally conscious then Bob and Sally who live in their McMansion with their two kids and drive two SUVs.

@ Jemima Cole: “But you admit that there’s a problem above and beyond the ‘there would be no more Celine Dion’ crisis Jennifer identifies?”

Hat tip for focus. (Also, to be fair to Jen, in her scenario it’s after the Celine Dion song cuts off that “Bad things start happening” ... which seems to put the absence of Celine Dion on the non-bad side of the equation. ;) )

I admit there is a need for family planning, on a family by family basis. I acknowledge that there must be in principle some fuzzy population threshold beyond which the human race would exceed the earth’s capacity to support us. I see no evidence that we are anywhere near such a threshold. Millions of people currently thrive in the same same areas where thousands once starved. We have many practical problems regarding the proper development, utilization and distribution of the world’s resources, but nothing indicates to me a problem of “too many people.”

“So your point is we need to help Africans stop multiplying so that Americans can continue to enjoy our luxurious lifestyles?”

No. My point is that it’s very easy for a smug, vapid, sheltered ignoramus - like Jennifer consistently presents herself as being - to say ‘hey, I’ve got five kids and I manage just fine, so what’s the problem?’.

Before we worry about the exact reasons it happens, we can all acknowledge the fact that in parts of Africa there is already a ‘natural’ way in which the problem of ‘not enough food and medicine for all the new babies’ is solved.

In Sierra Leone, 278 out of every 1000 babies born die before they are five. There are 25 countries where more than one in ten do. (It’s about 7 out of 1000 in the US).

Now, call me crazy, but I think there’s something wrong there, and smug assertions about how it’s God’s will, or the mothers’ fault for being born in a wartorn country, or they should have kept their legs together or ‘hey, one of those could be the next Stephen Colbert!’ aren’t the solution. At some point, reducing the birthrate - just not sending quite so many babies into the world just to die - might be looked at as part of the strategy. Would using a condom really cause less suffering that having a three year old die of malnutrition? That was a rhetorical question, by the way. It would. Is ‘they could use condoms!’ a simple solution to all the problems of the world? Of course not.

There’s a secondary problem, and it’s actually the bigger one. If you are used to babies dying young, you have more of them. If the situation changes, and the tradition doesn’t, you end up with a lot of people around.

If every kid in Sierra Leone lived, and mothers kept having as many kids, the problem of a lack of resources would get worse, not better. That is: worse than one in four dying.

People in Europe used to have four or five kids because two of them would die young. If you look at the number of kids a couple had *that survived them* it averaged between two or three throughout history. And that’s a growing population, but not a population explosion. In modern America, you can expect your kids to survive you.

“No. My point is that it’s very easy for a smug, vapid, sheltered ignoramus
- like Jennifer consistently presents herself as being - to say ‘hey, I’ve
got five kids and I manage just fine, so what’s the problem?’.”

If you’re dissatisfied, I’m sure NCR will be more than happy to refund you the money you paid to read her articles.

... oh wait.

You’re driving traffic to her blog and SHE’S the ignoramus? Uh huh. With logic like that no wonder you’ve bought into the overpopulation myth. (see www.pop.org, by the way)

@ Jemima Cole: I won’t intrude editorially into Jen’s blog, but if you used abusive language like that in my combox, you’d be shown the door. As far as I’m concerned, if you can’t discuss ideas without demeaning people, you forfeit your place at the table.

I see nothing in your comments to warrant your leap from “family planning” to “condoms.” Barrier sex is fake sex. The two do not become one. A solution that demeans human beings and adulterates the marriage act is no solution.

To Jemima Cole: You keep bringing up suffering people in tragic situations, as if we weren’t aware. The question is: what is the source of the suffering and tragedy? Isn’t it for the reasons I mentioned: greed, misuse of resources, natural disaster, etc. Not “too many people”? The earth can easily sustain the population as is. And by the way, I’ll bet you wouldn’t call me an idiot if we were having this conversation face to face—you only do that because you’re protected by virtual space, proving that you are a coward in addition to being culpably ignorant.

@Jemima Cole: the article actually did conclude by pointing out the intrinsic value of each human being as the one thing that should enter our minds in this debate. By focusing on that matter, for example, the answer to Africa’s woes would be in feeding, clothing and educating them now. By losing the human face of the problem, population control has become the exaggerated focus, so that you might hear of them receiving more funds for condoms than basic medical supplies in some regions of the world.

“I see no evidence that we are anywhere near such a threshold. Millions of people currently thrive in the same same areas where thousands once starved.”

And I agree that the Earth can support more people than it does at the moment - and, indeed, support the people we have better than it does.

The problem with population growth is long term - children born today will have children. There are children alive now that will see the twenty second century, and some of *their* children might even see the twenty-third. We may not be in a crisis, but there’s nothing wrong with looking at current trends and saying ‘OK, if this keeps going, we’re going to have a problem’. And there clearly are areas of the world now that have a ‘population crisis’ of one kind or another.

We live in a world where we have, very quickly, got medicine and transportation that’s changed the game. Until *incredibly* recently, 1900 even, the world population was pretty steady. But now we live longer, we are fed better, more babies survive infancy, more mothers survive their childbearing years, people expect to live decades beyond retirement age.

OK ... let’s put it this way. If you have two kids, and they live eighty years in health and peace, that is ‘more life’ than having four kids, one of whom dies in infancy, one of whom dies of fever or in a war or in childbirth in their twenties, and the other two die in their sixties. I think there is something far more important than birthrate, and that’s quality of life. If we can give a hundred billion people a great life, let’s do that. But we certainly can’t at the moment.

That would be a movie I’d like to see and I don’t often go to the movies ! For all those interested in scientific facts, I recommend the great “http://overpopulationisamyth.com/” site. Coincidentally, I recently amused myself by calculating that if every countries had the same population density as Monaco (the country with the highest population density in the world), there would 1,950 billion human beings on Earth (you read that right : 1.95 trillion if you prefer). Well, I have been to Monaco and it is a nice place to live, so I won’t be worried about overpopulation until the world population reaches, say, the 1.5 trillion mark.

The only thing that bothered me with your plot synopsis is that the poor soul making the wish would be an environmentalist. Now, it is true that many environmentalists are malthusian idiots, but that doesn’t mean that every environmentalist are malthusians (a good counter example is Pope Benedict who both strongly defends environmentalism and debunks the overpopulation myth in “Caritas in Veritate”). There is far too much poor people in the world, but that doesn’t mean we should fight poor people : it means we should fight poverty. That’s why I would replace your Greenpeace fellow with a high-ranking IMF or World Bank bureaucrat. Those people are just as malthusian as many (not all) environmentalists but they are far more dangerous, since they have far more power.

I think this masterpiece of a movie you have come up with should end by the green peace person realizing he was a fourth child and a part of the what could have been generation.

“population control has become the exaggerated focus’

OK, that actually makes me angry, because it shows a staggering lack of awareness of who’s fault that is.

There is not one person who talks about using birth control who says ‘free condoms to Africans = quick and easy solution to all problems’. 

It was, though, the policy of the last White House, as advocated by evangelist, Mormon and Catholic lobbyists, that no aid program could so much as *mention* birth control. A billion dollars worth of food and one condom? ... that program would have its funding cut. A billion dollars of aid and classes for women where the *concept* of abortion was *mentioned* in the teaching materials ... program cut. 

So if there is ‘exaggerated emphasis’ on the birth control issue, that’s down to your lot, not my lot.

“if every countries had the same population density as Monaco (the country with the highest population density in the world), there would 1,950 billion human beings on Earth (you read that right : 1.95 trillion if you prefer). Well, I have been to Monaco and it is a nice place to live”

That might actually be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard any human being say.

And yet, Jemima, George W. Bush is a hero to the African people for all the help his administration did give:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/15/georgebush.usa

http://articles.cnn.com/2009-01-15/politics/frist.bush_1_antiretrovirals-hiv-george-bush?_s=PM:POLITICS

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7831460.stm

Wouldn’t that seem to indicate that his programs provided more of what WAS needed (food, medicine, supplies) as opposed to what WASN’T needed (condoms)?

Just a thought, but as long as countries like the United States and Brazil can take a significant percentage of their agricultural output and turn it into fuel for their cars rather than to feed people I don’t think we have come near the Earth’s ability to sustain us.  As long as the Western diet is so meat rich that Catholics find skipping meat on Friday to be such a burden that it becomes major news when England re-institutes meatless Fridays as the norm, I think it is safe to say the Earth can sustain us all.
—
The basic fact of the matter is that the problems of the world, particularly of Africa and other countries that face severe poverty is not one of true scarcity.  Its a problem of abuse and misuse of the resources we have.  People starve in Africa because meat is the basis of the typical western diet.  People starve in Africa because we put corn in gasoline tanks.  People starve in Africa because other Africans use food as a weapon in war.  People starve in Africa because Man has fallen and is sinful and our age refuses to acknowledge our sinfulness.

To Jemima Cole: O.K. so it seems you’re finally willing to concede what we’ve been saying all along, that there are not “too many people” for the earth to sustain, that people are not the problem, and, as you put it mildly, “we may not be in a crisis.” Now, you’ve shifted your argument to be: we need to worry about the future, because there will ONE DAY be too many people. But nobody thinks that. Demographers have been predicting a leveling off of population growth, not an ongoing expansion. And, in fact, many European countries are currently well below replacement levels; the USA would be in the same boat if not for immigration. So, again: if you’re worried about suffering people, concentrate your ire on the real root causes of suffering, instead of on the mere existence of people.

All right, let’s turn the world into Monaco. First question, where do all those people get their food?

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mn.html

And ... 100% of it is imported. Oh look: utopia has no food. We all just died of starvation. Oops.

@Jemima Cole:

You mean nobody thought to just send the food and medical supplies by themselves? And I didn’t say “birth control” issues, I said “population control”—which is an entirely different thing.

@Jemima Cole

> No. My point is that it’s very easy for a smug, vapid, sheltered ignoramus

With this kind of immaturity, I probably shouldn’t even bother answering you.
Are you a teenager or something?

But out of generosity, I will answer:

> in parts of Africa there is already a ‘natural’ way in which the problem of ‘not enough food and medicine for all the new babies’ is solved.

You talk as if the problem were “too many people”. But when a Marxist or jihadist guerrilla is stopping people from getting food, they will starve no matter how many of them there are.

> In Sierra Leone, 278 out of every 1000 babies born die before they are five.

Which is a reason for giving them better health care. Contracepting them will do no good.

>assertions about how it’s God’s will, or the mothers’ fault for being born in a wartorn country, or they should have kept their legs together or ‘hey, one of those could be the next Stephen Colbert!’

Do you really expects to be taken seriously be behaving like this? Insulting people, being rude, refuting assertions that were not said? Again, are you a teenager?

I’d comment, but I’m the fourth child. And reading the Jemima Cole exchange is just making blood pressure rise.

Why are you suddenly re-imagining the world as Monaco? What’s the point? We’re talking about the real world, as is. In the real world, people and nations grow their own food, and they trade with each other for things they need. It isn’t a utopia, of course (since the word means “no where”), but I and others here are not in search of utopia. Moral, civilized people look for ways to improve things for future generations, not for ways to cancel future generations out.

> OK ... let’s put it this way. If you have two kids, and they live eighty years in health and peace, that is ‘more life’ than having four kids, one of whom dies in infancy, one of whom dies of fever or in a war or in childbirth in their twenties, and the other two die in their sixties.

Why do you insinuate that in the 4 kids scenario, there would be more wars and more evil?

> I think there is something far more important than birthrate

Wonderful! Then tell your side to STOP OBSESSING WITH BIRTHRATE. Because certain people seem to think that the wonders of contraception and abortion will not only help Africa, but also solve all its problems.

“Why are you suddenly re-imagining the world as Monaco?”

I’m replying to Thibaud’s comment, in which he said we should do that.

“Moral, civilized people look for ways to improve things for future generations, not for ways to cancel future generations out.”

OK. Perhaps you’re missing the point. 278 out of 1000 babies born in Sierra Leone die before they are five. That ‘cancels future generations out’. Here’s a scenario and a serious question:

1. A Sierra Leone couple decide to use a condom. No baby is born.
2. A couple decide not to. The baby is born. It dies within a year of starvation and disease.

Which is better? Does the answer change if the dead baby was baptized.

The answer is this: (1) is better. If your religion blinds you to that, I’m sorry. If you think the baptism makes any different, then i’m not sorry, not at all. Good grief, you must be a monster. As for Thibaud’s’ let them eat cake’ attitude that they should all just go live in Monaco ... well, I’m not even sure how that much stupid can be contained in one human being.

Maybe the genie was a 4th child.  That’s a nice kind of Twilight Zone ending.

You know one of the great ironies and hypocrisies of the current Western Culture is that they embrace relativism except when people believe other than they do :).

What people mean when they say we need to control global population is that we need to control the population in poor countries so that there will be fewer poor people for us to feel guilty about.  They might change their minds when they find their TV’s are going to cost twice as much… but we will see.

To Jemima Cole: sorry, missed the Monaco thing by Thibaud.But I’m definitely not missing the point. Again, you mention horrible statistics like 278 babies out of a thousand in Sierra Leone dying before five as if we were unaware. Why do they die? That’s the question you won’t address. They die because of stupid governments, and greedy people who take advantage of others, and natural disasters—that’s why. Not because those 278 are somehow superfluous—they are real people who want to live. Why are you against them? Why not help them to live? Your scenario of condoms versus painful death at an early age is a false dichotomy. That’s not the challenge facing us. The challenge is: do we choose life, and help people too live, or do we condemn them to non-existence in a brave new world where only Jemima Cole and his ilk get to exist?

My Monaco example proves that it is possible to have a 15,000 habitants/km2 population density (which would result in a world populated by 1.95 trillion people) and be a great place to live. Why is it that Monaco is a great place to live ? Because there is not much poverty. So the problem is not “overpopulation”, it’s poverty. How do we stop poverty ? Read “Caritas in Veritate”.

(I could have taken a less extreme example : for instance, France is one of the countries with the highest birth rate in Europe (close to 2.1) and we (French people) do not seem to have a much worse fate than other countries in Europe. Actually, we have far less problems in the field of pensions than Germany (barely superior to 1.0 birth rate), because (surprise !) we have more young people to pay for the pensions of old people.

Or Ireland is the European country with the highest birth rate and it experienced an “economic miracle” since the 1970’s instead of civil war and starvation, as believers in the myth of overpopulation would have predicted for them.)

> What people mean when they say we need to control global population is that
> we need to control the population in poor countries so that there will be
> fewer poor people for us to feel guilty about.

Absolutely. They don’t want to help the poor, but they don’t want to feel guilty either. So they want to eliminate the problem - by eliminate the poor (which is very cheap).

This reminds me of a news article about a new, very cheap car that could put many Indians into wheels. In the comment section, people were complaining “horrible! What about the carbon emissions?”. Do you get it? The commenters (which were from the UK) are super-concerned about the carbon emissions of OTHERS, instead of tackling theirs (which are several times higher).

  They might change their minds when they find their TV’s are going to cost twice as much… but we will see.

This link shows how silly the “Overpopulation” is.  It is a myth. http://overpopulationisamyth.com/overpopulation-the-making-of-a-myth.
As China is finding out, since they are now lifting their 1 child policy because there is not enough labor.

Jemima Cole will not be moved by logical arguments, because he has an ideological fixation with eliminating people. He sits on his virtual throne and hurls insults and tries to frighten people with fantasy, abstract scenarios that happen somewhere in the future where countless people are falling off of the planet clutching their stomachs in hunger.

“My Monaco example proves that it is possible to have a 15,000 habitants/km2 population density (which would result in a world populated by 1.95 trillion people) and be a great place to live.”

Please just spend *one minute* researching the economy of Monaco and where all that wealth comes from, that’s all I ask.

“Or Ireland is the European country with the highest birth rate and it experienced an “economic miracle” since - “

You’re just the king of examples, aren’t you?

http://www.ronanlyons.com/2010/11/30/irelands-economic-crisis-what-sort-of-hole-are-we-in-and-how-do-we-get-out/

OK, there’s no problem. Great. Problem solved. Let’s all go live in Monaco, following the example of the Irish economic miracle. Should have thought of that before. You’ve all convinced me with your superb arguments. I’ll go off and listen to some Celine Dion.

Jen, You could have him die from Strep Bacteria that enters his bloodstream since Alexander Fleming was the 7th of 8 children (4 older half siblings & 2 older whole siblings).  He realizes he would be easily cured by anti-biotics, but sadly Alexander Fleming does not exist, so they were never invented.  Or he could die from an unirrigated wound since Henry Drysdale Dakin was the youngest of 8 children

To Jemima Cole: You’re dodging main points like they’re radioactive. In fact, your outrage at “where Monaco gets its wealth” proves my point: people are malnourished and economically disadvantaged NOT because there are too many of them, but because of bad governments, greedy people, and natural disasters. You have yet to make any kind of a satisfying response to that.

“Jemima Cole will not be moved by logical arguments, because he”

Great start.

“fantasy, abstract scenarios that happen somewhere in the future”

OK. There are 25 countries where more than one in ten babies born will be dead before they are five. If you really think that’s a future, abstract scenario, then I’m afraid you’re right that your ‘logical arguments’ elude me.

“Your scenario of condoms versus painful death at an early age is a false dichotomy.”

It’s not. Look - I wish all those babies lived and lived great lives. I really wish we could all live in Monaco. Do I think it’s ‘better they hadn’t been born’? You know ... yes. It’s horrible to put it those terms, but a short, painful life is not a good life. Is it really crazy to think in terms of quality of life, not quantity? Yes, I would rather those families didn’t have to go through that.

The idea that the only way to eliminate poverty is exterminate the poor is offensive rubbish. In a country that has a shortage of doctors and food, why is it crazy to suggest that *one* of the ways that might help out is if people have fewer children?

“You have yet to make any kind of a satisfying response to that.”

Because it’s silly. The economy of Monaco is a lot of rich people in a tax haven. They *don’t grow any food*. We can’t *all* live like that. Somewhere, someone has to be growing the food. I’m sure the government of Monaco is lovely, it’s not in any way applicable to what’s happening in Sierra Leone.

http://overpopulationisamyth.com

“To Jemima Cole: You’re dodging main points like they’re radioactive.”

Mr Lord, I need your guidance:

“sadly Alexander Fleming does not exist, so they were never invented.”

Is that a ‘main point’ I’m meant to tackle, or mind-numbing idiocy? I think I know, but I’d appreciate a ruling.

Jemima,
Sure there are countries where more than 1-in-10 babies born will be dead before they are five, but it is by no means a sure thing that the reason for this is over-population.  India, though over-populated by the standards you would apply might have a brighter future than China.  After all, in China, they are soon going to start having a shortage of workers in the work force while India will have plenty of new workers entering the work force.
—
As for your assertion that a short, painful life is not a good life… who are you to decide!  Each life has value, whether it lasts a day or a hundred years and each fulfills God’s purpose.  It is possible that those short, painful lives do far more good than you or I can possibly imagine. 
—
So, lets see, its offensive to suggest we “exterminate” the poor, but in a country without access to modern medicine, isn’t “helping” them reduce their birth-rate similar?  Lets say we take one of those countries where more than one in ten babies will die and magically reduce its birth rate to 2 per woman.  Does that actually improve anything?  Or does it mean that some families will end up with no children since each of their children has at least a 10% chance of dying?  Or perhaps their children live, but they don’t have enough to help on the farm or make money to send home as the parents get older?
—
You know the funny thing is, so many people who believe that human’s should limit their own fertility are also the ones who talk a lot about how dangerous it is for man to mess with Nature…

To Jemima:
You wrote: “Look - I wish all those babies lived and lived great lives. I really wish we could all live in Monaco. Do I think it’s ‘better they hadn’t been born’? You know ... yes. It’s horrible to put it those terms, but a short, painful life is not a good life. Is it really crazy to think in terms of quality of life, not quantity?” So, you have now established yourself as our Great Despotic Leader who arbitrarily decides what makes for the right quality of life and what doesn’t. Who gave you that right? Fantastically, you argue for the need to exterminate poor people for not meeting your personal criteria and then assure us that “the idea that the only way to eliminate poverty is exterminate the poor is offensive rubbish.” You contradict yourself. Do poor people have a right to live or not?

“people are malnourished and economically disadvantaged NOT because there are too many of them, but because of bad governments, greedy people, and natural disasters. You have yet to make any kind of a satisfying response to that.”

OK. ‘Malnourished’. What does that mean? It means that where they are, there are more people than there is food. Why? Of course you are right that disasters (natural and man-made) and poor government is to blame. There are things that individuals can affect and things they can’t. If there’s a terrible earthquake ... well, no one can control that. If there’s a war ... well, the chances are that you had nothing to do with the cause of that. A terrible government? Part of the definition of a terrible government these days is one that’s run without the consent of the people. If you live in a country with earthquakes and wars and a dictator, there’s not a huge amount of control you can have over that. What you *can* control, to a degree, is your consumption. If there’s not enough food, people will die. If you bring a baby into that place, it’s going to be extremely vulnerable.

There is a basic choice - ‘is this a good place to bring a baby into the world?’. Jennifer blithely asserted a couple of posts back that ‘there’s never a good time to have a baby’. Yeah. There are really, really, really bad ones, though. If you really think that there’s one measure here, the *quantity* of births, that it’s ‘better’ that a child is born, cries, starves and dies than that the parents choose not to have a child ... well, I’m sure the Pope agrees. Which is perhaps the main reason non-Catholics see him as part of the problem, rather than the solution.

This is a complex issue. It’s nuanced. The decisions that a woman in Sierra Leone has to make are literally a world away from Jennifer’s affluent Texan web designer lifestyle. But in the end, the individual choice is quite simple - if you don’t have enough food to feed yourself, it might be good to have the *option* of choosing to delay having children.

Well, Jemima’s other either/or scenario also discounts the concept that the married couple only has kids because no one gave them condoms.  She never accounts that they might CHOOSE to have kids even knowing that they might die young.  To Jemima that would just be cruel and irresponsible; how dare they have hope that their lives could change for the better?  How dare they accept that life does not come with guarantees of health and happiness. 

And I bet if I was a really hungry African man in Sierra Leone and was given ten dollars worth of condoms instead of ten dollars worth of food, I would question why someone would want to let me starve AND try to get me to have bad sex (because men usually discuss how condoms make sex so much more enjoyable, NOT!).  Or even better, why don’t we do these poor African’s a service and sterilize them? 

Hell, we hand out condoms like candy in this country, and a large part of the population (who aren’t even religious) refuse to use them.  (In fact, the false security of artificial birth control leads people to have sex more often than they normally would, increasing their chances of pregnancy and disease.)

“So, you have now established yourself as our Great Despotic Leader who arbitrarily decides what makes for the right quality of life and what doesn’t. Who gave you that right?”

You have an unelected despotic leader who makes these decisions for you. I applied for the job, but it’s men only.

“Fantastically, you argue for the need to exterminate poor people”

Oh just ... off.

“Do poor people have a right to live or not?”

The way things are at the moment, poor people are dying in their millions.

OK. Clearly people here are into stupid analogies. Would you be happy shipping your newborn baby off to Sierra Leone? Would you like *your* child to take its chances there?

@Jemima,
Of course, if people in those countries waited until they got good government, the civil wars ended, there was a constant supply of food (Lets be honest, the babies are usually not being born during the famine, but during times of relative plenty), then in some countries, there would be no one under the age of 50!

Western economies which have been in the dumps have GROWTH of the economy as the measure of success.  Same for corporate entities.  I’ve never heard it said before, but I think at a fundamental level, economic growth requires population growth.  Those same western economies in the doldrums have as I understand it a steady decline in birth rates over the last 50 ish years.

“She never accounts that they might CHOOSE to have kids even knowing that they might die young.”

So you’re happy to give them the choice? I am. I’m not arguing for compulsory sterilization, or mandatory state abortions or anything. I’m not even arguing, particularly, that abortion be available. I’m asking that the women be educated about contraception. That those women in Sierra Leone make the choice, not, say, the religious authorities of the Vatican, working through the US government.

“I’ve never heard it said before, but I think at a fundamental level, economic growth requires population growth.”

There’s a link. But those people have to be working within that economy for that to be true. A growing population that isn’t producing goods or services will kill an economy. And ‘population growth’ doesn’t mean ‘babies’. In the US, virtually all population growth is down to immigration and (mainly) people living longer.

Jemima: I see your ability to express yourself is breaking down to “oh, just ... off,” and lame attempts to insult religious leaders. But you didn’t really respond to what I wrote. You’re a Closet Despot who reserves the right to tell people when they should live or die according to some vague concept of “quality of life,” right? People are dying right now, yes…no kidding. They are dying, in many cases, because of despots like you who take no genuine interest in anybody’s “quality of life,” let alone their right to life—the only difference between those despots and you is that they have some measure of actual power and you are only a bitter old troll wandering the internet.

Wow, and the hits just keep coming:
Jemima writes: “A growing population that isn’t producing goods or services will kill an economy. And ‘population growth’ doesn’t mean ‘babies’. In the US, virtually all population growth is down to immigration and (mainly) people living longer.” What about old people? They are still alive and in need of resources, yet they cannot produce much. What does the Closet Despot say about them? They’re just “economy-killers”, right? And immigrants? Yeah, there’s a lot of them because they have lots of babies. Population growth requires babies at some point or another.

@Jemima,
So lets see, with population growth, there is a possibility that the economy can continue to grow.  Without population growth, there is no possibility.
—
And yes, true population growth in this country comes mostly from immigration… but on a global scale, the number of immigrants is probably zero (you never know, this could be the year Superman shows himself :)).
—
Regarding contraception; for years people have talked about condoms as if they would be a solution for AIDS in Africa; if we just gave them condoms, things would get better.  All of this ignored the fact that in many African countries, a woman who tries to get her husband to use a condom is viewed as an adulteress.
—
The basic corner-stone of your argument Jemima is that the poor of the world would be much better off if they started thinking and acting like western progressives.  Similar arguments were made in the 19th century for the colonization of much of the world and we all know how well that worked out for the rest of the world.

“Of course, if people in those countries waited until they got good government, the civil wars ended, there was a constant supply of food (Lets be honest, the babies are usually not being born during the famine, but during times of relative plenty), then in some countries, there would be no one under the age of 50!”

On a great number of threads here, people take these absolutist positions. I wonder, as an aside, if that’s part of the religious mentality.

If you give people two options, not everyone will pick the same option. That’s kind of the point. In America, if you want, you can use contraception. Not everyone one chooses to. If every woman in Sierra Leone, if women were given the option, many would still choose to have children. I wouldn’t want to impose my choice on them. Good luck to them.

In practical terms, wherever women are given these choices, there is a pattern: women want to get an education before having children, then have children but fewer of them. That’s held true in every single country, regardless of tradition or religious belief or the state of the economy. If people see that as a threat ... well, they could always move to Sierra Leone.

“The basic corner-stone of your argument Jemima is that the poor of the world would be much better off if they started thinking and acting like western progressives.”

... and so they should do what the Pope says instead?

The cornerstone of my argument is that when women are educated, just generally, the country gets better. When they are seen solely as baby incubators you get a lot more dead babies. I base my argument on reality, not on whether Jesus smiled in the womb or not.

“to some vague concept of “quality of life,” right?”

Believing that it’s a bad thing that 278 out of 1000 babies die before they are five is not some ‘vague’ thing. It’s not some buzzword. Answer the key question - if you knew with 100% certainty that a baby would die the day it was born, and had the choice of preventing it from being conceived, would you? I would. Would you, like the Vatican, splash some water on its head as it died, say its soul was safe and think you’d done some great good?

Do you believe in quality of life?

“What about old people? They are still alive and in need of resources, yet they cannot produce much. What does the Closet Despot say about them? They’re just “economy-killers”, right?”

Do I get to call you a name? A number spring to mind.

The fact that people live longer is going to be an economic challenge, and require changes, yes. In the UK, the retirement age of 64 was set when life expectancy was 67. It’s now 80. That is, in economic terms, 13 more years where they aren’t ‘producing’, but they are ‘consuming’. This is a good problem to have. The solution is not government issued arsenic in everyone’s 70th birthday cake. But the UK government can’t just act like nothing changed. The great thing about population growth is that you get decades of notice.

@Jemima Cole: You are making the value judgment that a child who has suffered and has had a short life is a worse scenario than had that child never existed.  I dare you to tell that to the parent of that child—or any child—that it would have been better had their child never existed before.  Again, I restate from my original post the following:
*Prove that overpopulation currently exists.*  No one has done that, and they can’t.  And changing the argument to, “Well, it WILL exist,” is insane.  Unless, of course, you have a crystal ball or some similar device that has the ability to predict the future.  But we can’t even predict the weather with any degree of accuracy beyond 3 days, so I fail to see how we could possibly predict the point when and how “overpopulation” will occur.
*It is fallacy to somehow imagine that suffering is the worst evil, to be avoided at all costs.*  Instead of focusing on trying to eradicate any semblance of suffering from the human experience (which has never been, nor will ever be, a possibility), try instead to help your neighbor (or the babies in Sierra Leone, if it makes you happy) through their suffering rather than suggest their problems would be solved by contracepting and therefore avoiding having children.
—-As an aside, I would be curious to understand how one makes the leap of blaming childhood suffering and death on the very existence of the child.—- And by the way, calling someone an idiot, ignoramous, or otherwise stupid does not lend weight to your argument, but exposes your inability to actually answer their question in a thoughtful manner.

Jemima: Your argument has nothing to do with reality. What countries see women as “baby incubators”? I can think of one: China, where women are dragged out of rice fields and forced to have abortions—but China has a government that thinks like you do: problems can be solved by eliminating people.

@Jemima,
I find it funny, when you make absolute statements, its considered nuance; when we take your arguments to their logical conclusion, you believe it is a symptom of our religion. 
—
No one here is arguing that women shouldn’t be educated and certainly no one here is arguing that women should be seen as baby incubators.  What we are arguing is that efforts to control population will have major, unintended negative consequences.
—
Further, I would point out that you are not simply arguing that women be educated, you are arguing that contraception be made easily available as well.  I think the last 50 years of contraception in America and Europe provides dubious data to it being a benefit to the world.

“with population growth, there is a possibility that the economy can continue to grow.  Without population growth, there is no possibility.”

Please read that sentence back, realize you are wrong and admit it.

@Jemima

I disagree with you completely, but I am glad that you are here, because I love you and will be praying for you.  If you didn’t comment, we wouldn’t know how much you need our love and prayers.
May God Bless you.

Jemima, you write:
“if you knew with 100% certainty that a baby would die the day it was born, and had the choice of preventing it from being conceived, would you? I would.”
This is a Minority Report question. Remember that movie? It’s a non-question. We cannot know who is going to die at birth or not! You certainly don’t know, and neither do I. But we strive to cherish and encourage life—you know, like in the Hippocratic Oath? Making decisions about people’s lives based on some unrealistic thought-exercise cooked up in a Sociology class is exactly what I would expect from a Closet Despot.
“But the UK government can’t just act like nothing changed.” So, what should they do? Encourage people to have more babies? People there do not want to have more babies. What exactly are you suggesting?

Maryland Bill wrote:
“@Jemima,
I find it funny, when you make absolute statements, its considered nuance; when we take your arguments to their logical conclusion, you believe it is a symptom of our religion.”
Read that, Jemima, accept it, and admit that you are wrong about a great many things.

“You are making the value judgment that a child who has suffered and has had a short life is a worse scenario than had that child never existed.”

Yes. If it was *known* it would be a short life, *before* conception, yes. Every time, I believe it would be better to not conceive.

Put it this way: I tell you I’m going to buy a puppy, and that I’m not planning to feed it and it will die of starvation in about five days. Would it be better if I didn’t buy that puppy?

I believe that is a choice for every mother to make. I do not want to impose my belief on others. If you want to bring a child into the world to watch it die ... well, personally, I think there are better ways to go about things.

“*Prove that overpopulation currently exists.*  No one has done that, and they can’t.”

Define terms. What’s overpopulation? How about ‘more people in an area than there is fresh water for them to drink?’. Seems like a good definition. Happy with that?

“But we can’t even predict the weather with any degree of accuracy beyond 3 days, so I fail to see how we could possibly predict the point when and how “overpopulation” will occur.”

Please read that back, try to answer your own question and if you can’t after about a minute of thinking about it, let me know and I’ll explain the difference.

“Read that, Jemima, accept it, and admit that you are wrong about a great many things.”

I am wrong about a great many things, and would never suggest otherwise. So?

“Remember that movie?”

I read the short story. I agree that it’s a logical absurdity that any being could know the future with 100% certainty. Do you?

But, as a hypothetical, if you *knew*, would it be right to conceive that child?

“- exactly what I would expect from a Closet Despot.”

Please keep saying that, it makes you sound so clever.

To Jemima: I can say “CD” for short, if you prefer. But its still appropos since, despite your shifting, you have yet to explain how you would run the world according to these “let’s not let people have babies because it’s bad for the world” principles of yours. Hows that for a hypothetical? What would you do about us baby-makers, if you were in charge?

@Jemima,
Yes, I am wrong sometimes, but not on this.  Pretty much every economic system that is used in the modern world depends on a growing population to survive.  I admitted that a growing population alone is not sufficient to ensure economic growth, but it is a necessary condition.  Contracting populations almost certainly brings poverty; growing populations might if other conditions are not present.

“let’s not let people have babies because it’s bad for the world”

No, dear ... I’m arguing ‘let’s admit that there are circumstances where it’s not a good idea to have a baby’.

In a country, or even in a family, that can’t feed the mouths there are, all you will do by bringing a baby into a world is kill the baby. Now, if people get great value from watching their babies die, well, I don’t see the appeal myself, but I’m not stopping them. *You* would stop them from choosing not to.

What would I do about you babymakers? Nothing. I’d educate women, I’d let them make the choice, I’d protect them when religious nutjobs tried to put them or their doctors to death in the name of being pro-life.

“Yes. If it was *known* it would be a short life, *before* conception, yes. Every time, I believe it would be better to not conceive.”

This drives me INSANE! A worthy life is only one that fits into your standards of worthy. People can replace that definition of worthy with ANYTHING! If I knew they would have a disability and have a lesser quality of life. If I knew they were going to be of a mixed race and therefore have a lesser quality of life. If I knew they were going to be ugly. If I knew they were going to be born in the back woods of Alabama. If I knew… No! You cannot judge simply on these outer traits what the value of a life is, and how they affect those who love them.

God is the ultimate Creator. He is the only one who knows.

If I were a poor, single mother and knew if my pregnancy were found out,I would hurt my fiance, I could be in danger of being stoned to death, and he was only going to live until the age of 33 where he would die a horrible, torturous death that lasted for days that I would have to be witness to.

“Put it this way: I tell you I’m going to buy a puppy, and that I’m not planning to feed it and it will die of starvation in about five days. Would it be better if I didn’t buy that puppy?”

A child is NOT a puppy. No I wouldn’t buy it, but it’s not the same.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/a-day-without-overpopulation#ixzz1NCkClrsz

Instead of a movie, this would be perfect for a Twilight Zone episode!

“Pretty much every economic system that is used in the modern world depends on a growing population to survive.”

Nonsense, and double nonsense if you think ‘growing population’ means ‘more babies’.

Every economic system depends on growing *production*. A modern automated steel factory can produce far more steel using far fewer workers than one from a hundred years ago.

To Jemima: Right—bad for the world because there are all these kids alive in the world who are sucking up resources and a lot of them probably won’t survive anyway. You’re backing away from that position all of a sudden because (I suspect) you’re beginning to realize that it makes you sound like a barbarian. As far as there being circumstances where it’s not a good idea to have a baby, that was well established wayyy back near the beginning of this thread. I agree that there are circumstances where a family might choose to not have a baby. In fact (get ready to gape in wonder) the Catholic Church teaches that. But if a baby has been concieved—and if the baby is in the womb then science tells us it is a completely unique human being alive and growing—if a baby has been conceived then you are bound by decency to protect that baby, not dispose of it because you’re afraid it’s life won’t meet your personal elitist quality of life standards.

“Put it this way: I tell you I’m going to buy a puppy, and that I’m not planning to feed it and it will die of starvation in about five days. Would it be better if I didn’t buy that puppy?”

‘A child is NOT a puppy. No I wouldn’t buy it, but it’s not the same.’

You’d save the puppy from that fate, but not the child.

I wouldn’t. I don’t think it’s the same. I have this quaint idea that humans mean more than puppies, and that I have a moral responsibility to do what’s right, not to defer it to one of the gods. To put it another way, if I had one portion of food, I’d give it to my baby before I gave it to my puppy.

But, let’s throw this open - is that what Catholics believe generally: it’s wrong to let the puppy starve, but OK to let the child?

Jemima: you have a “quaint idea” that SOME humans mean more than puppies. You’ve made it clear that other humans, those less fortunate than yourself, have less value than an animal you can’t afford to feed.

Also, Jemima: I just told you what the Catholic Church believes: that it may, in some circumstances, be acceptable for a couple to choose not to conceive. You don’t seem to care about what the Church actually teaches, only your ill-informed caricature of what the Church teaches.

“But if a baby has been concieved—and if the baby is in the womb then science tells us it is a completely unique human being alive and growing”

You seem to be missing the point that contraception prevents conception.

I’ve not spoken about abortion. I tried that once on this board, didn’t turn out terribly productively. I’ve no interest in talking about abortion politics here.

I’m talking about contraception. The choice for a married couple to have sex but prevent pregnancy. Now, what does this ‘science’ tell us about a teaspoon of jizz in the tip of a condom? Is *that* a unique human being alive and growing? No.

@Jemima Cole

>> “You are making the value judgment that a child who has suffered and has had a short life is a worse scenario than had that child never existed.”

> “Yes. If it was *known* it would be a short life, *before* conception, yes. Every time, I believe it would be better to not conceive.”

Do you realize that _you_ wouldn’t exist if people started thinking like that thousands of years ago? It used to be that everyone had a low life expectancy, had little defense against disease and suffering (for example, their best excuse for anesthesia was alcohol), but still people didn’t have a nihilist mentality like you do. And it was precisely Christian countries (such as Europe) that grew and got better.

If people had this nihilist mentality of yours, _you_ probably would have never existed.

By the way, can you please answer how old are you? No one in this forum gets close to your immaturity, name-calling, and unwarranted arrogance.

I seriously think people against having more than two babies think that everyone will live forever.  And environmentalists forget that humans are a NATURAL part of the ecosystem too.  Just ‘cause we’re more intelligent than the other creatures doesn’t mean we don’t belong here.

Great text.

Recenttly, I read in the the blog Canterbury Tales about the birth order of important saints. Then, we can use in your movie. What would be the world without St. Ignatius, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Catherine of Siena and St. Francis Xavier?

See:

http://cantuar.blogspot.com/2011/05/saints-and-their-birth-order-surprising.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+taylormarshall+(Canterbury+Tales+by+Taylor+Marshall)

Best,
Pedro Erik

To Jemima:
“Now, what does this ‘science’ tell us about a teaspoon of jizz in the tip of a condom? Is *that* a unique human being alive and growing? No.” What does that have to do with what we do with the result of that teaspoon of jizz and the egg from a human female? Stick to the point! You’ve already advocated for human beings being killed if their “quality of life” isn’t up to Jemima Cole standards! Are you backing away from that position, or do you finally realize that position would make you a monster?

“you have a “quaint idea” that SOME humans mean more than puppies. You’ve made it clear that other humans, those less fortunate than yourself, have less value than an animal you can’t afford to feed.”

So you’re another one who’d not let me have the puppy, but would let me have the baby?

To recap:

1. I tell you I’m going to buy a puppy but I know I have no means of feeding it and I know it will die of starvation.

2. I tell you I’m trying for a baby but I know I have no means of feeding it and it will die of starvation.

Dan Lord and Pansy Moss have stated that they’d want me to have the baby, but not buy the puppy.

Anyone here disagree with them?

I think that both (1) and (2) are irresponsible, even downright evil. I don’t think they are equally bad. I think (2) is worse.

Jemima: you’re creating easy arguments for yourself to win even though no one here thinks puppies are more valuable than humans. No one. Answer the real question. Here’s my post again:
To Jemima:
“Now, what does this ‘science’ tell us about a teaspoon of jizz in the tip of a condom? Is *that* a unique human being alive and growing? No.” What does that have to do with what we do with the result of that teaspoon of jizz and the egg from a human female? Stick to the point! You’ve already advocated for human beings being killed if their “quality of life” isn’t up to Jemima Cole standards! Are you backing away from that position, or do you finally realize that position would make you a monster?
We’re waiting.

“Are you backing”

Read what I said Dan, it wasn’t very difficult to grasp. *Before* conception, there’s no human life there. Prevent conception of something that is destined only to suffer, you do noting but prevent the suffering.

As for ‘my standards’, the hypothetical is that the baby is born, has no food, dies in a few days. Yes, I think that’s a ‘bad thing’. I understand that the Catholic position is that your life is sacred while it’s in the womb, but once you’re past the labia you’re on your own, but I’ve never seen it stated quite so starkly. If your God really has planned all those starving babies and sees infant mortality as great and life affirming ... well, I think it’s only fair to let you know other gods are available and they’re not all quite so Hannibal Lecterish.

Jemima: now you’re just getting hysterical. Are you or are you not saying that people who have been conceived but are destined for hardship ought not to go on living? And if not, what would you have us do?

“Dan Lord and Pansy Moss have stated that they’d want me to have the baby, but not buy the puppy.
Anyone here disagree with them?
I think that both (1) and (2) are irresponsible, even downright evil. I don’t think they are equally bad. I think (2) is worse.”

No, I didn’t. I was just horrified at your reaction.

You CAN avoid pregnancy just as you can avoid the puppy store. I have never lived in such a harsh environment. Maybe if you’re such a bad situation, you might not want to have sex. Or maybe you do truly need that comfort from your spouse-what else have you got? Pregnancy can result regardless of the kind of contraception you use (if people didn’t realise that, they wouldn’t be pro-choice).  Most people do their darndest once they have a child to do the very best they can to provide for that child, whereas they might not for the puppy. Love is just as important as any necessity of food of shelter. In a marriage, sex is a part of that. For some people, a child regardless of circumstances, that show of love in a married couple, is a blessing and a triumph.

I remember I went to an inner city parish that banned FHC dresses. Why? Because some people were too poor to afford them, therefore no one should have them. No one listened. Why? They didn’t realise that people who have less have no desire to let that define them. It was a sense of pride to be able to buy a FHC dress.
One of the most basic, fundamental rights of any married couple in love is to make love to your spouse and pro-create. If you’ve lived in a place where living conditions for the past few generations have been crappy, do you expect people to stop trying to find love and joy in their lives where it is?

You also, in the end allow people to decide for themselves their own choices and what’s prudent for them.

My Irish immigrant maternal grandmother (born 1897) was one of 5 children; she had 3 daughters, 8 grandchildren, and 3 great-grandchildren—by ONE grandchild.  This is a very common pattern.  I’m an only child, never married, now late middle-aged.  The population theories go back to Malthus, who calculated every female would bear a child a year from menarch to menopause.  It made no allowance for real life! 

By the way, the vanishing Mexican manure is tiresome.  I sub as a home health care aide, and am really tired of listening to illegal immigrants yell at me that NO AMERICAN would do what THEY do!  America rides on their backs!  So what am I—chopped liver?  I’m emptying the same chamber pots.  My mother and father cleaned offices, worked as building superintendents.

“You also, in the end allow people to decide for themselves their own choices and what’s prudent for them.”

Yes. You allow them choices, you don’t deny them choices or impose your one option on them. Thank you. I agree - they should be educated about the choice of using contraception.

Unless, by ‘choice’ you mean ‘do what you’d like them to’.

Dan,
“Jemima: now you’re just getting hysterical. Are you or are you not saying that people who have been conceived - “

Right, I appreciate that my remark must have been extremely cryptic. I said: ‘Prevent conception of something that is destined only to suffer, you do nothing but prevent the suffering.’

Now, let’s try to answer your question.

If I’m talking about a situation where you ‘prevent conception’, is it a situation about ‘people who have been conceived’?

Think harder than you’ve ever thought in your life, Dan, try to work it out. Let me help: if I am talking about something that has been ‘prevented’ did it happen? If you slam on the brakes and your car stops just before it kills a deer on the road, how many deer did you just kill?

“Every economic system depends on growing *production*. A modern automated steel factory can produce far more steel using far fewer workers than one from a hundred years ago.”

I think a critical thing may be that you need consumers of what is produced.

Actually, now that I think about it, the idea of efficiency and the utilitarianism which is at its root really is close to the heart of the matter.

>>“Pretty much every economic system that is used in the modern world >>depends on a growing population to survive.”
—
>Nonsense, and double nonsense if you think ‘growing population’ means >‘more babies’.
—
Lets run a little thought experiment shall we.  Lets say tomorrow we increase the life expectancy of humans to 1000 years.  At the same time we reduce the fertility of humans to zero.  How does global population grow?
—
Yes, currently a large part of the population growth in the first world has come from increased life expectancy.  However, sooner or later increasing life expectancy will probably stop (since while we have gotten very good at increasing life expectancy, we have done little or nothing to increase maximum life span in people).  At that point, eventually, if fertility rates are below 2.1 (roughly replacement rate), the population will start to decline. 
—
In other words, the only real way to increase population in the long term is to make more babies.
—

>Every economic system depends on growing *production*. A modern automated >steel factory can produce far more steel using far fewer workers than one >from a hundred years ago.
—
Have you actually studied economics in any sense at all?  Or did you just google for the first platitude on economics you could find.  Production won’t grow unless you have increased demand for the product you are producing.  It is a reasonable assumption that there is a limited market for most items that are made with steel.  And most of those markets are limited by the number of consumers that exist (i.e., most people aren’t going to buy 10 cars just to keep the steel market growing).

@Caitlin-HHAs shouldn’t reproduce then.
@Jemima-
“Yes. You allow them choices, you don’t deny them choices or impose your one option on them. Thank you. I agree - they should be educated about the choice of using contraception.
Unless, by ‘choice’ you mean ‘do what you’d like them to’.”

When does the Church state people should be FORCED not to contracept? On the contrary, full education: the link between oral/hormonal contraceptives and cancer, blood clots, mood disorders. The fact that the natural flaws in latex are 70xs the size of the AIDS virus. That IUDs work as an abortifacient.  How contraception allows for greater incidences of infidelity. That contraception has been a tool for eugenics. I think the Church states that they simply will not be party to this, because really, that’s what it is.

To Jemima: O.K. I thought just as hard as I could, and I realized that you are STILL dodging the point. If a person is about to come into existence which will be filled with hardship, how does it do that person ANY good at all if we simply prevent their coming into existence? They don’t even have the faintest chance of overcoming that hardship, or of being helped by kindly people to overcome that hardship. People want to live, Jemima—they want to exist, and if you said to them: “Oh, but living is really going to hurt sometimes” they would still want to live.Why are you so afraid of poverty and suffering that you would doom people to non-existence rather than work on solutions to society’s problems?

“I think a critical thing may be that you need consumers of what is produced.”

Yes, but that’s not a raw number of consumers, either. About half as many people live in Los Angeles as live in Sierra Leone. Who do you think buys the most cars? Who eats the most food? Uses the most electricity? Spends the most on their telephone service? Needs the most insurance? Pays the most for medical care? Sierra Leone or Los Angeles?

Keep an American alive from the age of 65-75 and they will spend more in those ten years than the average citizen of Sierra Leone will in a lifetime. That’s a real number - the life expectancy is 41 years, the average earnings $311 a year. The average person in Sierra Leone will earn $13000 *over the course of their whole life*, about what a mobility scooter costs.

“The fact that the natural flaws in latex are 70xs the size of the AIDS virus.”

That is, very simply, a lie. A deliberate lie, circulated by the Vatican, who knew it was a lie. One that the current Pope has acknowledged was false.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3176982.stm

There’s no ifs or buts on that one. Sorry.

You are missing the point.  Eliminate population growth, and sooner or later (and probably sooner), the number of consumers will reach a point of stability.  The problem is most economic systems can’t handle stability.  Stability equals stagnation which ultimately leads to decline.
—
Look at the stagnation that Japan has faced for the last decade or so that might very well be related to their lack of population growth (decline actually).  Their industry has to rely on exports because they don’t have enough home grown demand for their products.  If every country has to rely on that for growth… well, things will be very bad indeed.

Jemima, have you ever actually met anyone from Sierre Leone? I haven’t, but I have known people from other very poor African countries and NONE of them wished they had never been born. You make pretenses of being in solidarity with their suffering, but you’ve really only reduced them to resource-consuming units for whom existence would be inadvisable. I think you’re not fit to tie the sandal straps of even the lowliest resident of Sierre Leone.

“If a person is about to come into existence”

... then THEY DON’T EXIST.

Dan if you are *about* to buy a car, then you choose not to, then you
go home, did you buy a car? No. If you are *about* to drink some water, then you choose not to, did you drink the water? No.

What do non-existent people think about things? THEY DON’T.

“That is, very simply, a lie. A deliberate lie, circulated by the Vatican,”

The Vatican lied about that why exactly? Do they get paid for every child would’ve not been around? Do they like the spread of AIDS?

And what about all my other points?

Why is anyone even responding to Jemima. Jemima obviously needs to be prayed for because Jemima has bought into the big lie, that suffering is worse then EVIL.  But Evil is worse then anything, I would take suffering anyday.  Stop engaging people and just pray.

http://www.medkb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/aids/2499/HIV-virus-can-go-through-a-condom-like-a-bullet-through-a-tennis-net

“I think you’re not fit to tie the sandal straps of even the lowliest resident of Sierre Leone.”

I’m a medical statistician. I’ve been helping the UK government’s efforts to reduce infant mortality there - mostly numbercrunching. I spent a week there last year. I met nursing mothers.

So, you know, feel free to switch tack and say that I’m way too close to understand the bigger issues. After all, as Jennifer says, if they had access to contraception, we might be denied the Sierra Leone equivalent of Mark Wahlberg, and isn’t that the real problem they’ve got?

Jemima, your lack of imagination disappoints me. There was a time when Jemima Cole did not exist. What if someone in the past had the power to prevent you from ever existing? What if they decided to prevent you from coming into existence based on a supposition that your life would be full of hardship. Would you want them to prevent your coming into existence? I’ll just bet you wouldn’t. So don’t make that decision for other people, either, and stop trying to sell other people on making similar decisions.Life is worth living, even if there’s suffering.

“I think you’re not fit to tie the sandal straps of even the lowliest resident of Sierre Leone.”

Oh, and I meant to say: yes, I agree.

The fact that you’re a medical statistician is irrelevant. You could be the president of Sierre Leone—that doesn’t make you qualified to design population control systems that rob people of dignity and coerce or manipulate them into giving up children, grandchildren, etc.

“The Vatican lied about that why exactly?”

Ask them. It was a lie, they lied.

“And what about all my other points?”

I stopped reading at the lie about condoms. Sorry, there comes a point where it’s pointless to engage. Look it up. Your Vatican knowingly lied. They probably thought it served a greater good.

Look, I think that Catholics are doing wrong for the right reasons. You love babies and conception, you love that so much it blinds you to everything else. I’m sure the Vatican thought it was serving the greater good. The death toll ... well, hundreds of thousands, I’m sure, over time. Someone earlier in the thread said ‘what about the unintended consequences’? Well, OK, you take a continent rife with AIDS, you tell people that God says using condoms doesn’t prevent AIDS. What do you think the consequences will be?

Jemima,

You need to prove that the Vatican lied. I read the BBC article you posted upthread and it said no such thing. It said a documentary alleged the Vatican lied, and it also cited some examples of individual Catholics making statements about condoms and AIDS (statements which, as far as you know, could have been accurate to the best of the speaker’s knowledge at the time they were said—the article doesn’t give a timeframe). Quit making accusations without credible evidence; it’s intellectually dishonest.

Even if condoms were 100% successful in preventing the transmission of AIDS (which they aren’t, not by a long shot) the Catholic Church would still oppose them because they constitute a violation of human dignity. Plus, it has been scientifically demonstrated that condoms become less efficacious if they are exposed to high temperatures, and guess what Africa has on a regular basis?

You know what African country has done the most to fight AIDS? Uganda. You know what African country has the strongest Catholic presence in which abstinence, monogamy, and natural forms of child spacing (NFP) were encouraged? Uganda. You’ve also completely ignored the links I posted upthread in which GWB is being lauded as a HERO for his efforts to help Africans (efforts that DIDN’T include throwing condoms at the country and leaving them to fend for themselves).

Catholics are not opposed to spacing pregnancies or postponing pregnancies in times of great need. What we object to are immoral means to that end, which condoms are. Let’s teach the people of Sierra Leone to respect their bodies and their fertility by teaching them NFP—and before you say that doesn’t work, do some research and you’ll see it HAS worked in other poor and disadvantaged countries. Then let’s work on equitable distribution of available resources, which is what the people of Sierra Leone need far more that some dictatorial statistician seeing them as numbers and not people.

“The fact that you’re a medical statistician is irrelevant. You could be the president of Sierre Leone—that doesn’t make you qualified to design population control - “

Yeah, there we go. You know more about this than me. I only studied the issues for three years and went there, you’ve eaten the magic biscuit of cosmic Truth in a Church.

OK, Dan. Look up what the UK government has achieved in Sierra Leone. I take no credit for it at all, I was doing surveys of surveys, I didn’t design it. I wish I had. It has saved an unimaginable number of lives.

There are sides. One side lies about holes in condoms and has conversations with non-existent beings, the other takes practical measures to reduce HIV infection and infant mortality rates. I’m happy with the side I’m on, all I’d ask is that you just keep out of my side’s way.

O.K. now the Closet Despot Jemima Cole really lets the cat out of the bag that she is just a bigot who likes to troll Catholic websites and throw garbage at other readers. “Your Vatican knowingly lied”? Like the Vatican is an entity to Whom we can go for answers. I assume you mean “the Church,” perhaps? Lied about what? Now “hundreds of thousands” of unspecified people have died at the hands of this creature you call “the Vatican”...you really don’t have a specific charge, do you? Go home, little troll. Rest.

“I read the BBC article you posted upthread and it said no such thing. It said a documentary alleged the Vatican lied, and it also cited some examples of individual Catholics making statements about condoms and AIDS”

Cardinal Lopez Trujillo was not ‘some individual Catholic’, and I invite you to do some research into who he was. Here’s another interview, and his exact words:

http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=488

What he says there is indisputably false. He had been told at that point it was false, he had been told that people would die as a result. He repeated the statement. The first time it might have been ignorance. The second time it could not have been.

Are condoms 100% effective? Not one person has ever said they are, and that’s not the question. Of course they can, in rare cases, split. People who practice safe sex *can* be infected with HIV. It is not impossible. His lie was that the HIV virus can get through the holes in latex. It can’t. It’s nonsense.

I’m sorry, we’re in the realm of objective truth, here. He made a statement that was false. That is undeniable. Did he lie or was he ignorant? Well, neither option is brilliant. He kept saying it. If you keep saying something that you know to be false, you are lying in my book.

“Like the Vatican is an entity to Whom we can go for answers. I assume you mean “the Church,” perhaps?”

I mean Cardinal Lopez Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family at the Vatican.

‘Pontifical’ is a long word, Dan, so you might need a grown up to explain it to you. This was a very senior figure at the Vatican, speaking with the full knowledge and authority of the Church, and stating the Church’s position.

“she is just a bigot who likes to troll Catholic websites”

Hey, Dan. You’re the expert. Please enlighten us. Is the HIV virus small enough to slip through holes in a piece of latex?

If it is, I’m a troll. If it isn’t, the Vatican’s spokesman lied. Please, settle this one way or the other.

Jemima, I know who Cardinal Trujillo is.  However, one Cardinal does not represent the Catholic Church in its entirety. One Cardinal does not speak on behalf of the entire Church, especially when making comments that pertain to matters of medical science and not faith or morals. I think that YOU need to learn what constitutes and official Church teaching.

Please search the Catechism of the Catholic Church and tell me where it says that the AIDS virus can easily pass through a condom. Then you can say that “the Vatican lied.”

Can you prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Cardinal Trujillo knew that he was speaking falsely? Here’s an exerpt from the link you posted:

There are many published studies that give rise to well-founded doubts regarding the “safety” of condom use. Jacques Suaudeau, who is a medical doctor and who has followed closely the AIDS debate and problem in Africa, has an important article in our Lexicon, replete with bibliographical entries on the topic.

This report by the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute [a group in New York monitoring U.N. matters related with family and life] furthermore states that the CDC’s refusal to acknowledge this fact had “contributed to the massive STD epidemic.”

If these studies contain the same facts that Cardinal Trujillo repeated, can you say that he lied? Is it a deliberate lie if you genuinely believe the results of the studies you’ve researched?

Jemima, let’s try an analogy.

Do you believe everything that Queen Elizabeth II has ever said? After all, she is high-ranking official in the UK government, speaking with the full knowledge and authority of the United Kingdom.

Given this, you must then agree with EVERY SINGLE WORD that has come out of her mouth, correct?

Also, Jemima, perhaps Cardinal Trujillo was relying on information such as the following:

“My only comment is to point out that the rubber comprising latex condoms has intrinsic voids about 5 microns (0.0002 inches) in size. Since this is roughly 10 times smaller than sperm, the latter are effectively blocked in ideal circumstances. The 12 percent failure rate of condoms in preventing pregnancy is attributable to in situ cracking, removal, ozone deterioration from improper sealing, manufactured defects, etc.

Contrarily, the AIDS virus is only 0.1 micron (4 millions of an inch) in size. Since this is a factor of 50 smaller than the voids inherent in rubber, the virus can readily pass through the condom should it find a passage.

A reluctance to stake one’s life on the ability of a condom to prevent HIV infection bespeaks wisdom, not discrimination.”

C.M. Roland, editor, Rubber Chemistry and Technology. “Do You Want to Stake Your Life on a Condom?” The Washington Times, April 22, 1992.

But then, that’s The Washington Times, which is a bastion of Catholic groupthink… oh wait.

“Given this, you must then agree with EVERY SINGLE WORD that has come out of her mouth, correct?”

If the Queen said, in a statement, then repeated in two interviews, that the policy of her government was X, then I’d take it that the policy was X.

Trujillo was not in some bar chatting to friends, or caught off guard walking down the street. Yes, I do believe that if the Pope’s special adviser on a topic issues a statement on Vatican paper and then conducts an interview inside the Vatican, wearing his special Cardinal outfit, then we can assume he’s speaking in some official capacity.

What do you think the status of the statement was? Some random person speaking the first thing that came into his head? And when, twice, there was clarification, the same thing was said ... that wasn’t, in any way, an official Catholic position on anything? Just some guy saying stuff?

There are two issues:

1. Was he right?

The answer is no.

2. Was he speaking in an official capacity?

The answer there ... I don’t know. It looks like he is. Bishops on four continents quoted him. That seems like ‘Church teaching’ to me. Do you think that an ordinary Catholic could draw the distinction between this, apparently some old man just flapping his lips and letting random words fall out, and an official statement?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold the phone, Jemima.

Where did Cardinal Trujillo say that it was the official position of the Catholic Church that the AIDS virus was 450 times smaller than a sperm cell?

Can you provide a direct quote to that end? (Hint: the Catholic Church does not make official statements on matters of medical science, only of the morality pertaining thereto.)

Here’s another hint, Jemima: Cardinals speaking in interviews are not making statements that are binding on Catholic faithful, especially when they are speaking on matters of medical science and not faith and morals.

“Contrarily, the AIDS virus”

Would it help assess this source if I pointed out there’s no such thing as an ‘AIDS virus’? There is HIV, a virus which causes AIDS. It’s like saying colds are caused by a ‘sniffy nose virus’ or something like that.

AIDS virus is shorthand for “the virus that causes AIDS.” That shorthand has been in use for, oh, the last 30 years or so.

But feel free to contact C.M. Roland and correct him. Let me know what he says.

I also notice you don’t comment on his later statement: “A reluctance to stake one’s life on the ability of a condom to prevent HIV infection bespeaks wisdom, not discrimination.”

“Cardinals speaking in interviews are not making statements that are binding on Catholic faithful”

I don’t care. He made a statement that *wasn’t true* that *exposed people to a virus which we have no cure for*. He did it on TV, dressed as a Cardinal, in the Vatican.

Do you think a reasonable person would take away the impression that this represented Church thinking? I don’t care that it wasn’t an ex cathedra statement wrapped in velvet. He lied, and encouraged people to do something very dangerous, clad in the authority of the Church. That’s the issue.

Now you DON’T CARE that the Cardinal was not speaking on behalf the Church? But that’s what you were insisting!

How about you admit that you were wrong, Jemima?

Regardless of his correctness when it comes to medical science, the underlying principle is still the same: condoms are not reliable when it comes to preventing the spread of HIV, because the more promiscuous sex one has, the greater the likelihood of spreading the virus no matter what precautions have been used.

Senior Harvard Research Scientist for AIDS Prevention, Dr. Edward Green, actually agrees with Cardinal Trujillo in that condoms are not the answer to the world’s AIDS epidemic:

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/harvard_researcher_agrees_with_pope_on_condoms_in_africa/

But the, I don’t expect you to let facts get in the way of your bigoted hatred of Catholicism…

‘I also notice you don’t comment on his later statement: “A reluctance to stake one’s life on the ability of a condom to prevent HIV infection bespeaks wisdom, not discrimination.”

except I did say:

‘Are condoms 100% effective? Not one person has ever said they are, and that’s not the question. Of course they can, in rare cases, split. People who practice safe sex *can* be infected with HIV. It is not impossible.’

Cardinal Trujillo’s message was that condoms are so bad at blocking the HIV you needn’t bother. This is false. There’s no debate about that. You *reduce* risk, substantially, you do not eliminate it.

Fun fact: the rate of HIV infection in US Catholic priests is four times the US average.

Hey Jemima Cole,

I have nine kids.  Each of my nine children is very precious and worth more than all the money in Warren Buffet’s bank account.

Its sad that you have to take out your past abortion(s) on the rest of mankind.  You realy should get some counseling.  All of your ranting and raving isn’t going to bring back the baby that you aborted.  You are never going to be able to quench the fire in your mind that comes from such a horrific deed by trying to justify it as some benevolent act to keep the population under control.  You need to get yourself under control….because my nine kids and the hoards of other overpopulators will be the ones that shape the policy of the world that you will grow old in. 

I still am blown away by the utter lack of imagination by the overpopulation promulgation crowd.  We are just getting warmed up as a race of people.  We have billions of planets to populate.  Planets….you know those rotating orbs in outerspace that we discovered through scientific inquiry.  Why does everyone think that we, as a species, are bound to this one planet?  Why is everyone so terracentric?  Sheesh…you would think we were in Europe during the middle ages or something.

It doesn’t make one wiff of a difference how many people we can support on the earth.  You are a miscreant if you think earth is our only destiny.  God did not create the entire universe only to put his creation in a small corner.  He want us to be fruitful and multiply. 

Incidently…about this end of the world stuff…God doesn’t want the world to end.  He want the soul creating engine to keep cranking out souls that will one day populate heaven.  Really folks…how many souls is too many souls?  I don’t think there could ever be too many.  The world will end when God decides it is time to throw in the towel.  I don’t want to be around when that happens because it wont be a fun time.

“Fun fact: the rate of HIV infection in US Catholic priests is four times the US average.”

Ooooh! I can play that game too! Let’s see…

“Fun fact: People named Jemima Cole are 10x more likely to be intellectually dishonest by throwing out alleged ‘facts’ but refusing to cite a source.”

Your turn!

Interesting… working as a medical statistician for the UK government, who is benevolently concerned with the wellfare of Sierra Leone.

“Yes. If it was *known* it would be a short life, *before* conception, yes. Every time, I believe it would be better to not conceive.”
Then here, we can simply highlight that we are at an ideological impasse.  This line of thinking is something I consider grossly immoral.

“Put it this way: I tell you I’m going to buy a puppy, and that I’m not planning to feed it and it will die of starvation in about five days. Would it be better if I didn’t buy that puppy?”  I know of very few parents who plan to purposely bring children into the world and then purposely starve them.  Being born into difficult circumstances is not the equivalent of child abuse and neglect, though you seem to be equating the two.

“I believe that is a choice for every mother to make. I do not want to impose my belief on others. If you want to bring a child into the world to watch it die ... well, personally, I think there are better ways to go about things.”  Again, I don’t know of any parents who both want to bring a child into this world *and* watch it die.  The act of bringing forth new life is a seperate entity from how one deals with the suffering of loved ones.  Both can, and do, happen in the same families, but the events are unrelated in their intent and completion.

“*Prove that overpopulation currently exists.*  No one has done that, and they can’t.”

“Define terms. What’s overpopulation? How about ‘more people in an area than there is fresh water for them to drink?’. Seems like a good definition. Happy with that?”

No, I’m not; this does not define overpopulation.  As I said before, these types of circumstances have been in existence long before the notion ever existed.  There have always been places and peoples that have not had access to clean water, and there will always be that situation until we can work together to provide a long-term solution to this problem.  And by the way, preventing those countries from reproducing will not solve the problem of access to clean water.

“Please read that back, try to answer your own question and if you can’t after about a minute of thinking about it, let me know and I’ll explain the difference.”  This doesn’t address my point; explain the difference, if you can.

Did anyone hear the Vatican statement last month about how “Give us this day our daily bread’’  should apply to animals and plants in your community as well? Or maybe I misunderstood. Sounded pretty progressive, in any case.

JoAnna, thank you for sharing that article about Dr. Edward Green, the senior AIDS Prevention Researcher at Harvard. It was interesting to read that while the West pours money into condom programs in the hardest hit countries, it only exacerbates the problem by “risk compensation or behavioral disinhibition.”
“However, in 2004, Uganda’s AIDS infection rates began to increase once
again, due to an influx of condoms and Western ‘advice’, Green recalled.”
Compare the educated opinion of a Harvard researcher against Jemima Cole: “Cardinal Trujillo’s message was that condoms are so bad at blocking the HIV you needn’t bother. This is false. There’s no debate about that. You *reduce* risk, substantially, you do not eliminate it.”
It’s really sad that people’s biases are so ingrained that they are willing to ignore scientific evidence. I bet some people would prefer that millions of Africans continue high-risk behavior rather than consider alternatives that are endorsed by the big bad Church.
It’s also interesting how many Africans are offended by the West’s interference on the issue (which aggravated the problem). Rudyard Kipling had a term for that kind of interference. Hopefully the West will listen to a Harvard researcher, if not the Pope.

To speak in terms of production and utility. Each person is not merely a “consumer” but a “producer”. With the amount of technology we now have it would be impossible to keep up with production if the amount of people in the planet were to decrease. Therefore “overpopulation” is not really a problem, since every individual has a potential not only to consume but to produce.

“Its sad that you have to take out your past abortion(s) on the rest of mankind.  You realy should get some counseling.”

I’ve never had an abortion. Am I the only person here who finds what you said a bit creepy and disturbed?

“Your turn!”

http://www.bibletopics.com/biblestudy/74.htm

Hey, let’s play the ‘now she’s named her source, let’s pretend the source doesn’t count!’

@Jemima Cole: Not that this article was about AIDS and priests to begin with (how did it get here??), but that’s the Kansas City Star, and the story has simply been repeated in various places without anyone else doing another independent study. It also sounds odd to count the cases based on how respondents know of at least one priest who has AIDS. What if their acquaintances overlap significantly? Can’t they base their findings on something more tangible and verifiable? Not that I am pretending that the source doesn’t count: it’s online, but one study isn’t really convincing enough, academically speaking.

Jemima,

Why do you consider your source to be credible? As far as I can tell, the statistics cited are not independently verifiable. One would think that if you were really a statistician, you would find that troubling—so I would guess that either you are not a statistician, or your bigotry against the Catholic Church is so strong that you cannot objectively critique sources that criticize it. Or perhaps both.

WOW,,,people really BELIEVE the overpopulation crap??? Insanely stupid.  Great post, Jen.

Posted by Jemima Cole on Monday, May 23, 2011 5:14 PM (EDT):

“I only studied the issues for three years and went there, you’ve eaten the magic biscuit of cosmic Truth in a Church.”

I know you probably don’t care, but I am greatly offended. It’s cool though, because you capitalized the “t” in Truth, which probably unknowingly to you, at least acknowledges the awesomeness hidden behind the material veil of “the magic biscuit.”

“It’s cool though, because you capitalized the “t” in Truth”

I’ve learned the difference between the Truth and truth reading this blog, believe me, and I think it’s very important we distinguish between them.

“Hopefully the West will listen to a Harvard researcher”.

OK, I’m probably the only person here who’s read what he said, and not just the soundbite. Try this interview:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2009/03/aids_expert_who_defended_the_p.html

Green, a Catholic, although I don’t think that affects his thinking, says that in places like Thailand and Cambodia, there’s no doubt that condom usage has cut HIV infection.

In Africa, as he says, the problem is larger and more complicated. Not one person involved says ‘all they need is condoms’, and not one AIDS educator would say ‘wear a condom and you can do what you like’. The main issue is education, and the main problem is there are a lot of myths. And so when someone from the Vatican says ‘there are little holes in condoms that the HIV virus can get through’, the very least it is is highly irresponsible because it’s a new myth. It’s simply not true.

It’s pretty simple psychology:

1. ‘Hey, now I’m wearing a condom I can do what I like!’ - myth.
2. ‘Speaking from the Vatican, let me tell you it makes no difference if you wear a condom’ ... let’s be charitable and call that accidentally spreading another myth.

You put 1 and 2 together, and you do what you like, but there’s no point wearing condoms. The worst of all possible worlds.

Also, as someone said, in areas where there’s irregular food supply and no schools, the solution is not to prioritize sending them condoms.

Condoms are not the whole solution. Clearly, people have to know what’s high risk behavior and what isn’t, and it’s not always intuitive - being faithful to your husband and being a virgin on your wedding night and only having sex with him doesn’t work if *he’s* infected.

And it’s like anywhere - people are far more likely to trust the gossip ‘hey, I hear they’ve got tiny holes in them anyway’, particularly if it reinforces behavior they’re already doing, or it’s the easier option.

The idea that helping ordinary people is imperialism is nonsense - and particular nonsense coming from a Catholic, given that the Church’s efforts in the Third World are generally benevolent and save and educate so many people. Sierra Leone is a mess, no doubt about that. The UK effort has dramatically cut death rates. It looks like it may have halved infant mortality rates (the country would still have the worst rates in the world), and it mainly did that simply by making sure babies had milk. It’s still not enough.

If calling it ‘overpopulation’ somehow offends Catholics and makes the red mist come down, that’s useful information to know. It explains a lot, actually, if you’ve decided amongst yourselves that it’s a codeword used by anti-Catholic forces to subvert God’s will, or whatever. It isn’t, but, like I say, there’s a difference between Truth and truth.

Here’s what I understand by the term: there is a maximum population that an area can sustain given the food, water and habitat available to that area. Anything over that is overpopulation. And you’ll know you’ve hit that point when people die because they ran out of food or water.

Now, I’m afraid I can’t get to the mental place where deciding to bring a baby into a place where there’s no food or water for it, so it will die, is some life-affirming miracle. I know I’m facing a hostile crowd here, but a dead baby is worse than no baby. I’ve been told I should be thinking about Evil, not suffering. If making a baby die isn’t Evil, I’m not sure what the word means, and I’m not sure I care.

But all ‘overpopulation’ means is ‘can’t sustain the population’. That’s all. Nothing sinister. There are indisputably areas of the planet that are overpopulated. Worse, there are areas which are one famine or storm or collapsed bridge away from it. If we took all the wealth and food and land in the world and redistributed it fairly, would there be enough for everyone? Yes, easily. What are the implications? It means that we’d all get about $7800 a year to live on, before taxes. Happy with that idea? The people in Sierra Leone would be, they get about $320 a year at the moment. I’m guessing the average American wouldn’t be so keen.

The idea that we can all just build Monaco and live there, or even Texas (as someone suggested earlier) is just stupidity. It’s wrong to the point of delusion. We *do not* have enough water or food, let alone oil or other resources to give everyone an American lifestyle. America is 5% of the population and used 50% of the resources. The world, in other words, would have to produce 1000 times more of everything to give everyone that. We could strip mine the planet and we couldn’t. But we live in a world where people are getting richer, where people want a Western lifestyle, and a car and a house with a lawn. I want to keep my Western lifestyle and car, and if you ask me, I don’t want to deny that to others. But the ‘Western lifestyle’ means smaller, better-educated, families, on average. That’s the sacrifice we’ve made, if you like - fewer people, living better. And you can sneer at that, but ask your grandparents about the Great Depression. Eating food is better than not eating food.

Jemima, what are you getting out of this? Clearly it’s not to present a different perspective because you’ve insulted the heck out of everyone. Not as if we haven’t all heard it before, it’s common.

Praying for you.

“Here’s what I understand by the term: there is a maximum population that an area can sustain given the food, water and habitat available to that area. Anything over that is overpopulation. And you’ll know you’ve hit that point when people die because they ran out of food or water.”

Let’s see if we can illustrate, then, the difference between your line of thinking and what I understand to be the Catholic line of thinking.

A) Food is scarce, as is a clean water supply.  People are dying because they have no food or clean water.  Therefore, to avoid the devastation that goes with this kind of suffering and death, let’s eliminate the people (preferably by stopping their existence before it happens).

B) Food is scarce, as is a clean water supply.  People are dying because they have no food or clean water.  Therefore, to avoid the devastation that goes with this kind of suffering and death, let’s bring them food and clean water (preferably by providing infrastructure and resources so that they can sustain their own food and water supply).

It’s like saying, “The problem with such a high mortality rate is the people,” rather than actually addressing the cause of death.  There are organizations that seek to lower the rate of birth defects by advocating for women to abort their babies if found to have some anomaly on ultrasound, but this doesn’t actually decrease birth defects—it just eliminates special-needs people from the population.  My point (and I think that of several others) is that we see people as part of the solution, not a problem to be extinguished.

Additionally, at what point should the people of Sierra Leone (or wherever) be encouraged to reproduce?  Who is it that makes the determination that conditions are “good enogh” to have babies (or “bad enough” to avoid it)?  Is it even feasible to suggest to these people that, because they “don’t know what they’re missing” that they shouldn’t have children?  Would you suggest that they wait until they obtain a lifestyle they likely have never known to have their own children?

Finally, since you didn’t address my point about not being able to predict the weather, let alone a human population’s sustainability, I’ll expound with a couple assumptions.  You say you’re a medical statistician.  I have a medical degree and a chemistry degree, so I’m quite familiar with this line of work.  I understand how mathematical modeling works; it can be, at times, quite accurate when identifying trends related to the natural world - sustainability of certain ecosystems, for example - though highly inaccurate at times, too.  However, I don’t believe for a second that statistical modeling can predict things like sustainability in human populations, and I’ll explain why.  People—we creatures of the homo sapiens variety—are endowed with this little thing called “free will.”  This means we have the ability to make choices, to choose right or wrong, using faculties that supercede instinct (in stark contrast to the animal/insect world).  This is the kind of thing that explains why people rush into burning buildings, risking their own lives, to save others.  Or why someone at the brink of death “hangs on” until a family member arrives.  Or even, yes, why someone with limited access to food and water would choose to have a child and do their best to provide for that child.  The ability to give and receive love—in a manner that requires tremendous self-sacrifice—is unique to the human experience, and is a powerful motivator to do things that don’t fit neatly into statistical analysis.

Isn’t it better for everyone concerned if we fed the hungry, gave water to the thirsty, clothed the naked, gave medicine to the sick, sheltered to the homeless, and comforted the dying?  I certainly believe it would be a better use of our resources to fix the water supply than to hand out condoms or hormonal birth control (which, by the way, has to come from *somewhere*).  Because the alternatives suggested by the “overpopulationists” are to tell these people that they otherwise shouldn’t be here because they don’t have what we have.

This is great!  I wonder how many of those now presently living on this earth would be here if everyone since the beginning of time if all children conceived out of wedlock, to poor parents, from rape (that would take out a lot of Europe), to uneducated people, to unhealthy people, to people in war torn areas, to homeless people, to illegal immigrants,  and to criminals had been aborted?  Would any of us be here?

If population issues are of real interest to you, consider getting a copy of Dr. Julian Simon’s book, “The Ultimate Resource” (1 or 2, but I liked 2 better).  Dr. Simon, now deceased, undertook a bet w/ Paul Ehrlich of “The Population Bomb” to see if/when any of Ehrlich’s dire predictions would come to pass.  Guess who won and guess what he considers to be the ultimate resource.

I recently was made aware that in regard to accessing potable water the UN considers walking over a mile (one way) to be acceptable.  But we all know how they feel about birth control.  I think they’ve got their priorities skewed from the start.

Jemima,

Where is the use of condoms supported by the Bible? Can you cite a passage in the Bible that says it’s OK to use contraception? Or overpopulation: Where is that in the Bible?

The same “god” that probably inspired you to care about the environment and about the welfare of humanity is not the same God that we worship (even non-Catholic Christians). Our God (Catholics, non-Catholic Christians) is Trinitarian (3-in-one), one of whom came to earth “and dwealt among us” and said many things (i.e. “you will always have the poor with you”)  and - among many things - said “take up your cross and follow me.” That means that he calls us all to suffer. In other words, suffering is necessary. Pope John Paul II (which you probably can’t stand), was once asked why suffering exists. He stated that suffering exists “to make us more charitable.”
I see a lot of hurt in your relationship with God. So, I think you need to heal you relationship with God first and get “god” out of your life. As well-intentioned as you may be to want to help humanity, there is a GRAND difference between being a good humanitarian vs being a good Christian. Although they may overlap at times in certain areas (i.e. care for the poor), there is something which we call “corporal” works of mercy (caring for the bodily - “corpus” -needs) and the “spiritual” works of mercy, which deal with the needs of the soul. As Christians, we care about BOTH. The “god” of the humanitarian “faith” only concerns itself with the needs of the body.
Finally, compassion comes from 2 Latin words: “con” (with) and “pasion” (suffer), which literally translates to “suffer with”. So, as Christians, we are called to “suffer with” those who suffer. That’s the Christian understanding of “compassion,” which is really the only one that concerns us. The “compassion” offered by the “god” of humnitarianism is a false compassion. 
I hope these words share a little bit further an understanding of why we do what we do and why we think the way we think. You may not agree with what we have said here. But, we follow Jesus who says that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. HE is bigger than any contrived problem that has been created by the media or other anti-Christian/atheistic outlets. And to suffer for Him - and His Church - is a priviledge becaue it draws us closer to Him. Jesus says, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”
God Bless You!

A playful piece turned deadly serious in the comments section.  I don’t suspect Jemima is lacking in compassion- she certainly cares that children are dying and that colors everything in what she says- I’m not picking up that she loves the abstract earth more than children like some I have heard.  But her conclusions are flawed, and the back and forth name-calling is not the solution. I think RMMT has it right- he/she seems to be getting to the higher ground of reaching back to basic principles and looking ahead to actual solutions to actual moral/social dilemmas.

As a Catholic, I am not smug over the plight of the poor- and I am not supportive of contraceptive/abortion “solutions”. I see a two-part solution in my own reading of Catholic social doctrine- first we need to check our behavior- theology of the body is the corrective to the sexual revolution- it is empowering for woman and it helps boys become men.  We also have a social problem, a global problem of a economic/environmental nature.  Some will just shout “Free Markets” into the dark night of suffering for the poorer peoples and nations- the Catholic Hierarchical approach has been to combine forces with many forces in the community- the political community, the business community, the non-profit charitiable community, the labor union community, the human rights and environmentalist communities-  in short all the stakeholders in an organized civilization- everyone has a part to play- the political class needs to lay out the vision and help direct resources to get the job done- be it going to the Moon or digging clean water wells, attacking the challenges of physical infrastructure that often hold back higher living standards and cleaner environments.  The other communities also have a hand to play- this is why I am a proponent of Trade Agreements that have all the stakeholders at the negotiation tables- surely we can do better to manage our shared responsibility for the suffering children of the world, and for the management of our shared physical environment- the ideologue will shout “Free Markets” or “Socialism”- but the Catholic worldview I’ve read and studied is so much larger than these limited ideologies. And the Catholic way is not a limited economic or environmental policy- it includes the way we regard one another as individual human beings from the very beginning of our existences, and the way we should act with respect to our dignity as sexual persons.

Love of one’s offspring IS NOT limited to humans. Watch almost any
mammal or bird and you will see that love when they protect their
babies and mourn their killing. The main reason no serious Catholic
can understand this situation is that they seem to believe that human
beings are somehow ‘exceptional’ (where have you heard that before?),
and that they are not subject to ecological laws. And also that
non-human life really doesn’t have much value. Some here say that the
positive affect of one more human being can be
infinite! OK, then why do we need 10 billion??? Each new human life
should have the best of what the world can offer, but that is not the
world we are moving towards. It will be the opposite of that without
family planning and ecological restoration.

>“The main reason no serious Catholic can understand this situation”

We understand it well.

>“is that they seem to believe that human beings are somehow ‘exceptional’”

And you don’t believe we are exceptional? Seriously?
We can deduce it not only by religion, but by simple reasoning and common sense. We have free will; animals don’t.

> “And also that non-human life really doesn’t have much value.”

It has a lot of value - but far less than human life.

> OK, then why do we need 10 billion???

Because human life is beautiful; because it is precious; and because each human benefits from others.

> “Each new human life should have the best of what the world can offer, but that is not the world we are moving towards.”

Yes, the lack of fertility is a dangerous prospect. But don’t worry; the demographic winter we are currently facing will probably be overcome, and we will go back to youth and vitality.

Haha, I see you are a comedian as well!

Also, the present misanthropy is dooming Europe.
To merely stabilize the population, we need 2.1 children
per woman. Europeans have less than 1.5.

They are ridiculously old, and still aging. The lack of workers is being compensated by hordes of immigrants; the indigenous European culture is dying.

Now, there is one certain group of people in Europe that is growing, and growing fast. And, they vote.

So Europeans should start practicing now:

allahu akbar
allahu akbar
allahu akbar

It will be ironic, to say the least - the super-feminist continent, who rejected marriage and children because they were “oppressive”, will see what real oppression is.

> “Haha, I see you are a comedian as well!”

Do you have actual arguments based on reason, or only puerile name-calling?

Immature behavior does not exactly lend you credibility.

My point is this- as a practicing Catholic, you are not able to reason effectively, because you are predicating the success of your arguments on irrational beliefs. For example, even if humans are the only creature endowed with ‘free will’ (debatable at best), would that give us the right to exterminate all other life and replace it with with human babies? I don’t think so.  Why else do you think human are exceptional? Maybe they have a ‘soul’? And all other life forms are just molecular machines devoid of sanctity? One thing humans do excel at is brutal exploitation of other life forms, and even each other. I don’t know if other animals practice such hypocrisy. If you would like a reasonable discussion, then give the same.

Do you have actual arguments based on reason, or only puerile name-calling?

versus

My point is this- as a practicing Catholic, you are not able to reason
effectively, because you are predicating the success of your arguments on
irrational beliefs.

Nick asks for arguments based on reason, and Nicholas response with an irrational attack against alleged Catholic irrationality!

Man, you can’t write this kind of comedy these days.

I remember driving to Indiana, and from upstate New York last year, nine hours of farms, forest, and silence. After a couple of hours I asked my classmate, “do you believe in overpopulation problem?” he looked out of the window, with bored-like face, and said “I don’t think so, do you?”
I had a similar incident last year while driving with family through Texas a couple of Months ago.

Empirically speaking there are places whithout people. Let’s face it this overpopulation thing is a selfish agenda that will lead us to a European population problem, or as the Econmist calls it Eurabia. Thanks To the Rational people, my generation will have to deal with a underpopulation problem.

“let’s eliminate the people (preferably by stopping their existence before it happens).”

Silly emotive phrasing. You are not ‘eliminating people’ by using contraception, and if you can’t understand why, then I don’t know how to explain it.

“Additionally, at what point should the people of Sierra Leone (or wherever) be encouraged to reproduce?  Who is it that makes the determination that conditions are “good enogh” to have babies (or “bad enough” to avoid it)?”

They do. But they have to be given an *actual option*, a *choice*.

“people—we creatures of the homo sapiens variety—are endowed with this little thing called “free will.” “

Sigh.

Predicting population is easier than predicting the weather, because it’s a much simpler system. You know the population now, we know what sort of factors affect the number of children people have, so we can run the numbers and get at least a rough estimate. If we couldn’t, no government could function - it would be impossible to predict the need for pensions, for schools, life insurance and so on.

You can’t say exactly what will happen, you can say ‘OK, if more women go to university, that will delay them having children’ or whatever, and run the numbers.

The very term “overpopulation” implies an ideal population, which in turn implies an ideal world.  Sounds like Utopianism to me.  God save us from the Utopians!

“I wonder how many of those now presently living on this earth would be here if everyone since the beginning of time if all children conceived out of wedlock, to poor parents, from rape (that would take out a lot of Europe), to uneducated people, to unhealthy people, to people in war torn areas, to homeless people, to illegal immigrants,  and to criminals had been aborted?”

Right.

How many of those people have I actually talked about? Have I said anything at all about ‘illegal immigrants’?

I’m saying that *in an area where there’s currently a famine* and *if you have a baby there’s a one in four chance it will die*, then it would good to have the choice to delay having babies.

That’s all. That’s my radical proposal.

If you really are of the mindset that you ‘eliminate’ a baby every time you use a condom, that preventing sperm from touching an egg is the exact moral equivalent of taking a toddler outside and shooting it in the head, then I can’t help you, you are so far into cuckooland I don’t imagine there’s a way back. If that’s really what your God thinks, he’s a nutcase.

“Can you cite a passage in the Bible that says it’s OK to use contraception?”

I am currently menstruating. So you shouldn’t be talking to me. Don’t worry, as I do every month, when it’s over I’ll take two turtles to the priest to burn as offerings, as per Leviticus 15. I’m assuming everyone in your family follows this rule?

I am currently menstruating. So you shouldn’t be talking to me. Don’t worry, as I do every month, when it’s over I’ll take two turtles to the priest to burn as offerings, as per Leviticus 15. I’m assuming everyone in your family follows this rule?
I am currently menstruating. So you shouldn’t be talking to me. Don’t worry, as I do every month, when it’s over I’ll take two turtles to the priest to burn as offerings, as per Leviticus 15. I’m assuming everyone in your family follows this rule?

What a surprise; it’s yet another variation of the “God Hates Shrimp” Fallacy!

http://courageman.blogspot.com/2009/03/god-hates-shrimp-fallacy.html

In other words, Jemima, Christianity is not predicated on adherence to the Old Law, but rather the New Covenant. Perhaps you should do some research on subjects in which you are glaringly ignorant? Here’s a good article for starters:

http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2008/0812btb.asp

I’m personally grateful that my father in law and mother in law didn’t stop at two kids, or even five. Otherwise, my wonderful husband, who was the seventh of eight kids, wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t be married to a fantastic guy.  Oh, and my children wouldn’t be here either.

It’s a fallacy to think you know what God wants. None of us know the mind of God. All we can do is read Jesus’ teachings, and pray that we make the right choices, and for the strength we need to get through each day.

“The very term “overpopulation” implies an ideal population”

No.

OK ... I have got something out of this discussion. Someone, somewhere is spreading the idea to Catholics that ‘overpopulation’ is a codeword. It’s not. It’s a very simple technical term. It’s not about utopia or social engineering (beyond the ‘social engineering’ of ‘people need to drink, make sure there’s enough water’). Good grief, do you think I’m saying that if fewer babies were born in Sierra Leone it would suddenly become utopia?

Here, in the West, people like Jennifer who are affluent and middle class have made the same lifestyle choice we all have, to have as many children as she wants. She can be reasonably confident that they will survive infancy, she can be reasonably confident they will be healthy. We live in a society, thankfully, where even extremely disabled children can survive and be supported. If she wants five children, or seven, or whatever, that’s fine - there will be schools and doctors and roads and houses and jobs for them. She will watch them grow up, she will no doubt live to see her grandkids.

This is simply not the situation in Sierra Leone. If you want six kids in Sierra Leone, you have to give birth to eight, two of them will die. And you’ll live until you’re 41, on average. And have $320 a year to spend between them. This causes problems unimaginable in the USA - a simple one is this: there are no grandparents. Few people live that long. Think of all the wisdom and support that kicks away right from the beginning.

The smug assertion that they could be living in Monaco if only they sorted themselves out betrays a worldview that isn’t actually looking at this world. You think I want to impose my solution? I have absolutely no clue what the solution is. You think there’s an easy *solution*? You think that ‘condoms’ is in the top hundred ways they’ll get out of this? No. But you educate the people there, let them figure it out, support them where they need it.

“Christianity is not predicated on adherence to the Old Law, but rather the New Covenant.”

... except when it suits it to be. I know the arguments. Find the bit in the Bible where it says it’s wrong to have an abortion. Find the bit in the Bible where it says homosexuality is a sin.

Jemima,

You said, “I am currently menstruating. So you shouldn’t be talking to me. Don’t worry, as I do every month, when it’s over I’ll take two turtles to the priest to burn as offerings, as per Leviticus 15. I’m assuming everyone in your family follows this rule?”

Jesus fulfilled the Old Covenant. This is where we will differ in our uderstanding. What about the other comments I made?

Mother Theresa, who was both a great humanitarain AND Christian often told her followers that “charity begins in the home” and would tell them to return home to care for their family. When asked how she planned to eradicate poverty from the world, she responded, “God does not call us to be sucessful: He calls us to be faithful.” BTW, she also never handed out contraception.
One thing for certain: The condom does not protect you from sin. That’s why handing out contraception will NEVER be an alternative/solution to the problems of poverty or AIDS in this world per the Catholic Church.

“The lack of workers is being compensated by hordes of immigrants; the indigenous European culture is dying.”

Is that a deliberate quote from Mein Kampf, or are you just racist by instinct?

Without looking it up, what’s the Muslim population of the UK? There are sixty million people there, what percentage are Muslim? What percentage of those are immigrants? What percentage, pray tell me, vote?

I know. And your rhetoric suggests that you don’t have a clue. But go on, guess. Sixty million people in the UK at the moment. How many of those are first generation Muslim immigrants? 

Here’s the sad thing. Go back in American history 125 years - that’s what people were saying about Catholics. The loathsome Bill O’Reilly? The grandson of an illegal immigrant. And most immigrants to the US today? Catholics from Mexico. Catholics should be at the vanguard of supporting immigrant rights and the level playing field. Instead we have nasty pieces of work like you.

Jemima, there is a *free* way to plan your family that is just as if not more effective that any contraceptive.  Why are you against this?  Education is key, but it would require people to be educated on the value of every single life not just one up to your standards.

BTW—name calling doesn’t ever help your case.

“Jemima, there is a *free* way to plan your family that is just as if not more effective that any contraceptive.  Why are you against this?”

I’m not. As part of a mixed approach, one that allows couples to work out what suits them best.

> Is that a deliberate quote from Mein Kampf

You mean I would quote from the same Mein Kampf that caused Catholics and Jews to be killed? I am not very into self-hate.

By the way, Hitler would also LOVE to control the population of Sierra Leone.

> or are you just racist by instinct?

Really? Are you really going to engage into “whoever thinks politically incorrectly is racist, homophobe, bigoted or fanatic”? Can’t you use reason?

Defending one’s own culture, by saying that we should have a healthy number of children (not 1.5 or 1.3 per woman) and that immigration should have reasonable limits is just common sense.

> Without looking it up, what’s the Muslim population of the UK?
What kind of ridiculous test is that? I’m not even British, and you think I should know the Muslim population of the UK without looking up? Are you even serious?

And per chance, I have in fact just read this:
http://www.pewforum.org/future-of-the-global-muslim-population-regional-europe.aspx

I suggest you read too. The situation in Europe (specially certain countries like France) is serious, even if politically correct pundits say “everyone who worries is Nazi, fascist, racist, xenophobic!”

> I know. And your rhetoric suggests that you don’t have a clue.

Your rhetoric suggests you are an angry, immature person that can’t stand the fact that other people disagree with you on the “wonders” of population control.

> Here’s the sad thing. Go back in American history 125 years - that’s what people were saying about Catholics.

So freaking what? One error justifies another? Because protestants said wrong things about Catholics, Catholics must then be completely relativistic and allow Christian culture to be destroyed?

Besides, the error of the Protestants was to actually treat Catholics bad (including killing them). What we are saying now is completely different: we just encourage _our_ families to have children, and we encourage immigration to have common sense limits.

> Instead we have nasty pieces of work like you.

You have a problem. Do you have emotional problems, have you recently lost your job or something? I find it bizarre that a supposedly grown-up person decides to go to a Catholic forum and call names at everyone because they think differently.

“I remember driving to Indiana, and from upstate New York last year, nine hours of farms, forest, and silence. After a couple of hours I asked my classmate, “do you believe in overpopulation problem?””

So, you’re saying there’s plenty of room for Africans in Indiana? Cool, when can they start coming over? Anywhere in upstate New York in particular you think they should settle? Got some names of towns they should check out first? How many are your family willing to take?

I’ll bet anyone here $20 that every time it snows he goes ‘huh huh, so much for global warming’.

This is as stupid as saying that looking around your local Red Robin, everyone seems fat, so there can’t really be any starving babies in the world.

> Find the bit in the Bible where it says homosexuality is a sin.

Are you even serious? It is there, multiple and multiple times, all over it.

Here are some of the quotations:

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexual-persons_en.html

> “I am currently menstruating. So you shouldn’t be talking to me. Don’t worry, as I do every month, when it’s over I’ll take two turtles to the priest to burn as offerings, as per Leviticus 15. I’m assuming everyone in your family follows this rule?”

Oh please. This person is ridiculously immature and impossible to talk to. Not only the sentence above shows a 3rd-grader knowledge of Christianity (which the person is talking about), but the disrespectful attitude is akin to that of a 13-year-old.

There is a minimum of maturity, knowledge, and respect that we expect to be able to
reasonably debate.

“By the way, Hitler would also LOVE to control the population of Sierra Leone.”

Just to keep this on topic, he was also the fourth child and baptized Catholic.

“> Without looking it up, what’s the Muslim population of the UK?
What kind of ridiculous test is that? I’m not even British, and you think I should know the Muslim population of the UK without looking up? Are you even serious?”

OK.

You said:

‘hordes of immigrants ... Now, there is one certain group of people in Europe that is growing, and growing fast. And, they vote.So Europeans should start practicing now:allahu akbar’

So, yes, I’m serious. Put a number on that. What’s a ‘horde’? How ‘fast’ is the Muslim population growing? You’re the one that made the claim. I didn’t expect you to know the number, no. Because if you knew what you were talking about, you’d say something else. You’re wrong. And I’m not going to persuade you of that, but you’re wrong.

“> Here’s the sad thing. Go back in American history 125 years - that’s what people were saying about Catholics.<
So freaking what? One error justifies another? Because protestants said wrong things about Catholics, Catholics must - “

Great grief, there are very few times I wish there was a Hell, but this may be one of them.

Catholics reading this, I’m not going to respond to this person any more. My instinct that this horrible person is not typical of the people here. I’d appreciate any reassurance on that point.

... except when it suits it to be. I know the arguments. Find the bit in the Bible where it says it’s wrong to have an abortion. Find the bit in the Bible where it says homosexuality is a sin.

Sure. Read this blog post, written by a gay man. It explains the issue excellently:

http://courageman.blogspot.com/2009/03/god-hates-shrimp-fallacy.html

“Oh please. This person is ridiculously immature and impossible to talk to. Not only the sentence above shows a 3rd-grader knowledge of Christianity (which the person is talking about), but the disrespectful attitude is akin to that of a 13-year-old.
There is a minimum of maturity, knowledge, and respect that we expect to be able to
reasonably debate.”

Ohmygosh yes, she’s not worth engaging.

@Jemima Cole

Please, I cannot understand your attitude. You come to a Catholic forum to simply fling insults around and throw fallacies. What do you actually expect to achieve, apart from solidifying our positions? After all, if the other side can’t even behave like an adult, in only shows they are wrong.

You can’t possibly think that you convince anyone by behaving like an angry teenager.
Why do you do this? Do you find it fun or something?

I agree with life being a form of love and that the world would be a much poorer place without these wonderful people you list.  I’d like to make a constructive suggestion though - you should take the Greenpeace reference out of it - i know you’re not trying to mislead people.  Greenpeace reveres life and doesn’t support the argument that “overpopulation” is the trouble for the environment.  They are not a bunch of mushroom-taking idealists, and they are working hard to push government and industry to clean up their act.  They are an ally of life.  Also, you have to acknowledge that many women want to limit the number of children they have.  Life is hard when jobs are scarce, and for women in “developing” countries, when food and other resources are shipped out, leaving indigenous people without enough to feed their children.  It’s capitalism we’re up against, not idealists or socialists or Greenpeace.  So I just thinkg you might want to put a capitalist dressed in a suit, clutching a bag of money and thinking about overpopulation in your story board instead.

> So, yes, I’m serious. Put a number on that. What’s a ‘horde’? How ‘fast’ is the Muslim population growing?

I gave the person one link, but reading articles longer than a page is apparently too complicated for her. It detracts from the time she needs to fling insults around.

And this behavior is repeated against other commenters above: Jemimma does not even bother to answer actual data or arguments; she sidesteps what she cannot answer, makes a caricature of the commenter (this is know as straw-man fallacy) and then focus on her main behavior - flinging insults.

I repeat: there is a minimum level of maturity needed to engage in reasonable debate.

@Bernadette Rose

> “It’s capitalism we’re up against, not idealists or socialists or Greenpeace.”

Bernadette, Greenpeace is against rational economic activities that are needed to sustain our civilization. They are against every form of viable source of energy. Worse, they are absolutely against genetic engineering - and without genetic engineering, it would be pretty hard to feed our growing population.

I don’t think Greenpeace is a a rational, scientific, Christian environmental organization; they are not based on environmental engineering, but on religious pantheism.

Oh, and incidentally we _are_ against socialism; socialism is incompatible with human dignity and freedom and has brought untold misery to this world. There may have been half-truths that Karl Marx said (error spreads more successful when it has a kernel of truth), but socialism, taken as a whole, is evil.

“Silly emotive phrasing. You are not ‘eliminating people’ by using contraception, and if you can’t understand why, then I don’t know how to explain it.”

Fine; to follow your point, substitute “population” for “people.”  By decreasing the birthrate of a population, you will eventually eliminate the people.  (As an aside, every non-barrier form of contraception can - and does - eliminate a person when implantation is not allowed to occur.  If you want the medical proof, I will provide it, but the PDR is a good place to reference.)

“They do. But they have to be given an *actual option*, a *choice*.”

They *do* have a choice, an *actual option.*  It’s called abstinence outside of marriage and fertility awareness (or NFP); it also requires education (something I think we can all advocate for) on the part of the couple.  I’ve not seen anyone here suggesting that every couple should be having a child in every circumstance—that is not Catholic doctrine.  What I (and others) bristle about is the notion that: a) contraception solves a problem (it doesn’t) and that b) “overpopulation” is a problem that should be addressed by decreasing the number of humans rather than caring for them.  Rather, it is the duty of each couple to discern what is appropriate in terms of family size for their circumstances and to use morally licit means to do so.

“Predicting population is easier than predicting the weather, because it’s a much simpler system.”

You mean to tell me there are *more* variables that affect the weather than affect people?  That the weather is “simpler” than human interactions?  Have you ever studied psychology? (just curious)
“You know the population now, we know what sort of factors affect the number of children people have, so we can run the numbers and get at least a rough estimate. If we couldn’t, no government could function - it would be impossible to predict the need for pensions, for schools, life insurance and so on.”

Um, I’m pretty sure that governments *do* function pretty poorly because they haven’t been able to adequately plan for things like pensions, schools, life insurance, etc.  (Think of the now non-existent/dwindling federal pension programs, social security, ever-increasing taxes and school levies, ever-rising insurance premiums—all at rates higher than inflation.)  As I said before, you can’t accurately predict human behavior because there is no way to mathematically model free will.

“You can’t say exactly what will happen,”
This is exactly my point.

“you can say ‘OK, if more women go to university, that will delay them having children’ or whatever, and run the numbers.”

I think all you can do is map trends that have existed in the past, because you’re using past data.  But again, you’re trying to predict *behavior,* and if I’ve learned anything in my time practicing medicine, it’s that you can’t predict how the person in front of you is going to behave.
***
At this point, I must sign off from the discussion for a time.  Suffice it to say that my original point remains unaddressed: it would be a far better use of our resources to give people clean water than propose that they limit their family size with contraceptives.  I have yet to see any logical argument for the promotion of limiting family size based on some supposed notion of “overpopulation.”

Um, a ‘logical argument for the promotion of limiting family size’, let’s see #1 reason- Global ecological meltdown in progress with too quickly growing human population, falling quality of life for the majority as a consequence. Poor prospects for the future. How many reasons do you want?

@Nicholas

> “Um, a ‘logical argument for the promotion of limiting family size’, let’s see #1 reason- Global ecological meltdown in progress with too quickly growing human population”

First, the population is growing slowly; a mere 1.1% per year.
Second: have you studied basic concepts of demography, such as the demographic lag? The fertility rate is very small, and we only still have some population growth because the effects of the lesser fertility have not yet materialized. The reality is, fertility has _collapsed_ in the previous decades, and is currently barely above replacement level. In many places, such as Japan, South Korea and Europe, fertility is _much smaller_ than replacement level. In the long term, the indigenous cultures of these countries will be destroyed; their economy will suffer greatly because of lack of workers and abundance of pensioners; they will be weak in culture, technology, military and sports.
In short, we are moving to a serious _global demographic winter_, which has _already_ arrived in Japan (which is becoming decrepit, aging, and economically stagnated) and parts of Europe.

We have _too few_ children, and, with the rate the fertility is declining, are in a very worrisome situation indeed.

@Nicholas

Second, the ridiculous predictions of Thomas Malthus have been proven absolutely wrong (in fact, a closer examination of his work shows an astounding lack of scientific rigor). Even in times when the population grew, food production _grew faster_. Food production per capita has been _increasing_, not decreasing. As today, we produce so much food that a ridiculously high percentage is simply thrown away. Famine is caused by social problems such as wars (often Marxist or jihadist guerrillas). And if you ask any decent agronomic engineer, he will tell you that the current production can be vastly increased merely with the application of current technology - not to mention the extremely promising advances in plant productivity. In short, Thomas Malthus has been proven consistently wrong and will continue to be.

Regarding ecology, things are actually _improving_. Read this guy http://www.lomborg.com

Finally, human beings are precious not only in themselves, but also in the sense that they benefit other humans. If our population was 10 million, we would never have put a man on the moon. If our population was 10000, we wouldn’t even have the division of labor necessary to have dedicated specialized doctors, and life would be horrible.

More people means more scientists, engineers, mathematicians, philosophers, musicians, theologians and sociologists.

For a little cartoon explanation, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUY4ztwIVfA

I repeat: our problem is one of _demographic winter_. The fertility rate is already slightly above replacement, and falling fast. Many countries (such as Japan) are already becoming decrepit.

““you can say ‘OK, if more women go to university, that will delay them having children’

That should read, ‘if more women go into student debt, that will delay them having children.’

The education bubble, and if women don’t have children then who will fill up those new luxury dorms?

Renee
Way to hit the nail on the head!

“That should read, ‘if more women go into student debt, that will delay them having children.’”

No, it should read how it reads. It applies in countries where the state pays for education. Fully-funded rich women who go to university delay having children too, as a rule. Women who go to university tend to get married later, and have children later.

I’m sure the financial circumstances of being a student plays a part in a lot of women’s decisions, but it’s clearly not the main reason. It mainly seems to be that they’re in a stage of life where they’re not settled down and in a career.

“substitute “population” for “people.”  By decreasing the birthrate of a population, you will eventually eliminate the people.”

Um ... look. You’re wrong. No one wants the birthrate to decrease to *zero*.

It’s a little more complicated than this, but basically if every woman had two children (and everyone survived and stayed put), the population of a place would remain stable. In sub-Saharan Africa, the women have, on average, six children. You can reduce the birthrate a long, long way before there’s any danger that all the people will vanish. No one is saying ‘don’t have any children, ever’, they’re saying ‘have four or five, not six’.

In Europe and the USA, birthrates have fallen over the last hundred years. The population of the USA is ... not falling. It was 226M in 1980, it’s 307M now. The idea that America is dying off is pretty much the exact opposite of the truth. America has been able to sustain the population growth, it can even prosper from it. But note that even on this board we have racist buffoons insisting that ‘hordes’ of immigrants are coming over to steal our jobs and destroy our way of life (as I say ... Catholics who say this might want to consider the fact that their grandparents or great-grandparents faced the same accusations). Population changes will change things and make resources scarcer - we’re lucky in America that it only means our cars have to be a little more efficient or that our books are made from recycled paper.

“b) “overpopulation” is a problem that should be addressed by decreasing the number of humans”

Not by decreasing the number of *existing* humans. Don’t you see that?

OK ... there’s a boat. It can hold ten people. Perhaps twelve. By the time it gets to nine, people are going to be jostling and it’s going to be a squeeze. People stay on the boat for a little while, then get off and go away. For ages, only one person at a time was there. Then two, then quickly three, four, six and now there are seven people on there.

What do you do?

I’m not saying we throw *any* of those seven people overboard, I’m just saying we might want to find a way to control how many *new* people get onboard. And that there’s nothing wrong with admitting the boat sinks at some point and trying to avoid that. Yeah, we all want the maximum number of people to enjoy that boat ... but there *is* a maximum number, and at some point, if you’re jostling and fighting for room, it’s not going to be much fun. And, if the boast *does* start sinking, it won’t take long for someone to figure out that they *could* stop it by throwing people overboard.

The world’s population was one billion in 1800. It was 3.5 as recently as 1968. It’s now between seven and eight billion. Now, it doesn’t matter what the magic number is when the Earth can’t support a given population - at that rate of growth, even if the Earth can support fifty billion, we’ll be there before too many more generations. And it’s not a question that we’ll wake up one day and suddenly the whole Earth will be full - some areas will be affected more severely than others. Some *are*, now. Some resources are scarce *now*. A stitch in time saves nine. If there’s going to be a problem, and averting it is going to be easier than repairing it after the fact, then avert it. 

Whereas pretending there isn’t even a *potential* problem is just irresponsible.

“Defending one’s own culture, by saying that we should have a healthy number of children (not 1.5 or 1.3 per woman)”

Oh, and I was too busy noting Nick’s more unsavory comments to remember to correct this one: the fertility rate in the USA isn’t ‘1.3 per woman’, it’s ‘2.1’. It’s 1.7 among *white* Americans. I think that we can work out from that the type of website that Nick gets his statistics from: ones that talk about purity and the homeland a lot, the sort of ones that celebrate being ‘politically incorrect’ and don’t have the wit to realize that ‘politically incorrect’ is itself a euphemism for what they actually are. ‘When fascism comes to America, it’ll have a flag in one hand and a cross in the other’.

“It’s 1.7 among *white* Americans. I think that we can work out from that the type of website that Nick gets his statistics from…”

Well I mean… let’s not jump to conclusions.

“that ‘politically incorrect’ is itself a euphemism for what they actually are. ‘When fascism comes to America, it’ll have a flag in one hand and a cross in the other’.”
Ding ding ding! Yay, we’ve reached the Godwin’s Law moment!

“Well I mean… let’s not jump to conclusions.”

It’s not something I leap to accusing someone of, and I appreciate it’s an emotive thing to say and could be dismissed as name calling. But he rails against immigration, he’s bought into the extremist idea that Europe has somehow fallen to the Muslim ‘hordes’ (his word) he blames ‘Marxists’ for the problems in Sierra Leone (er ... no), his opponents are ‘certain people’ who are like Karl Marx and ‘not Christians’ (which ‘people’ could he possibly mean?). He bemoans ‘the political correct’. His statistics exclude non-whites, he talks about ‘defending ones own culture’.

He’s either bumbling into these right wing dog whistle catchphrases by accident pretty much every time he posts, or he’s putting them there deliberately. The first couple of times I thought he was just inept and tossing around phrases he didn’t understand. If he wants to reassure us that’s the case, I’ll happily concede that I’m wrong.

‘we’ve reached the Godwin’s Law moment!’

We reached Poe’s Law with Jennifer’s original post.

Then WHY are you here if it’s such a joke to you?

“he’s bought into the extremist idea that Europe has somehow fallen to the Muslim ‘hordes’ (his word)”

What is your opinion about Germany’s Chancellor Angella Merkel recent statement that “multiculturalism in Germany has failed”? I think that statement has less to do with xenophobia, religious discrimination against non-Christian, or even a right-wing appeal to nationalism. Many native Europeans I have spoken with feel it was a statement of exasperation that reflects an increase in foreigners (no matter religion and nationality) seeking to take advantage of state benefits.
If that turns out to be the case, shouldn’t someone have the right to make such an observation without being accused of being a right wing nut?

“Then WHY are you here if it’s such a joke to you?”

Because Jennifer treats this issue like it’s a joke. As I say, I’ve learned something useful. Some Catholics, at least, have convinced themselves of a conspiracy theory that ‘overpopulation’ is some sort of plot to force people to have abortions and use contraception. That ‘reducing birthrates’ means ‘not having any children at all’.

Some of the comments here have been idiotic. ‘There’s plenty of room in upstate New York’. Or ‘hey, if Celine Dion’s mom had been on birth control, we might not have had Celine Dion’. If Celine Dion’s mom had decided to watch TV that night instead, we wouldn’t have had Celine Dion. ‘Monaco’s run well, why don’t the Africans just do that?’ These are silly arguments. Now I understand that Jennifer makes some odd connections and even though it falls flat a lot of the time she’s trying to be playful, but ... it’s not all that funny a problem. 

Now, it doesn’t matter what you call it, but it’s the case that the Earth can not give the *current* people of the planet all an American lifestyle (as at least two people in the comments have suggested we could). There’s not enough oil, there’s not enough water. Yet people around the world want that, now. They see our lifestyle and, quite rightly, think it’s rather nice and could they have a car and house and grill and pet dog, too?

And it’s a plain fact that there are parts of the world, Sierra Leone (which I’ve been to, albeit briefly, I’m not just talking from some abstract position here) being one of them, where the country can’t support the existing population at a subsistence level. There’s not enough food, there’s not enough medicine. The long term solution is not to pour food and medicine into the place from outside.

I suspect that for most Catholics, their moral position is informed by a genuine desire to support human life. But the situation is Sierra Leone is that people die by the time they’re 41 and have six kids, one or two of which will die. This might be a large *quantity* of life, but it’s not a large *quality* of life, and some people here have sneered at that as some buzzword, but it’s simple enough to put this in terms even they’d get: YOU WOULDN’T WANT TO LIVE LIKE THAT. You would not want to support six kids on a household income of $320 a year and a gallon of water a week. Try working out how quickly an American lifestyle burns through that when it’s supporting six kids - give you a clue: you’d have pretty much run out of your year’s supply of money and water by the time they’d all had their first shower on the first morning.

As I say, I’m sure it’s a genuine concern you have for human life. But the dogma distorts it until you’re saying something profoundly wrong: that it’s preferable, as a moral absolute, in all circumstances, for parents to let their babies starve to death than not to have *as many* babies. No one is saying ‘have zero babies, people of Sierra Leone’, the issue is ‘have four, not six, and the chances of them all surviving and everyone including yourself living longer actually rises’.

If you think it’s fine as it is, if it’s God’s will, then it is God’s will that more than one in four babies there dies. I don’t know how I can put it any more starkly than that, but a lot of people here seem very blithe about it. ‘Better the parents have that baby for a week than not at all’. Really? This is not the next Bill Murray or Celine Dion, it’s a baby that comes and goes, gets thrown in a mass grave with all the other dead babies that day. It’s like those cartoons you get in ‘pro life’ propaganda, but the difference is you seem to think it’s ... not desirable, obviously, but just the way things are.

It is an extraordinarily smug and insular way to look at the world. When you have people like Nick railing against immigrants with no obvious prompting to do so ... well, again, it looks insular.

If calling it ‘overpopulation’ raises your hackles, let’s not call it that. What would you prefer to call it when there’s an area that has not enough food, water and other resources to support its current population? Come up with a new name, I’ll call it that from now on.

“is your opinion about Germany’s Chancellor Angella Merkel recent statement that “multiculturalism in Germany has failed”?”

I think she’s a politician who looks at her falling polling numbers and sees a cheap way to boost them. You see it here, you see it in France, you see it in the UK. It’s rarely pretty, it’s usually done specifically to win votes from people who’d otherwise vote for the extreme right.

That’s not the question. The question is “why do you care?” No one here is going to change their mind, at least not because of you because you’re abrasive. If we’re idiots or jokes, so be it. Why do you care?

“No one here is going to change their mind”

Great.

If it’s true, it’s true. That’s the message I got on another thread - priests may be, individually, flawed human beings, liars, child abusers but if what they say is true, it’s true. I may be ‘abrasive’. I hope I’ve at least made people think a little. Perhaps someone read this and realized how silly the Monaco line, at least, was. Whatever.

I think there is an ideological impasse, as someone put it, and I think I’ve identified it. Catholics count births. That’s how the Church calculates the number of Catholics - how many people were baptized. After they’ve got that stamp, they’re Catholic.

You think six births is better than four, in all circumstances. I get the theology. Six immortal souls is more than four, therefore better.

Three babies of that six could die the next day, but six souls is still more than four.

I think your motives are great, even though I think the whole soul thing is a dead end. I think the conclusion that *just* soul counting leads to is monstrous.

@Jemima Cole

> “Oh, and I was too busy noting Nick’s more unsavory comments to remember to correct this one: the fertility rate in the USA isn’t ‘1.3 per woman’”

I wasn’t talking about the USA. Please work on your reading comprehension.

The USA has a better situation than Europe, precisely because the USA is more religious.

> “we can work out from that the type of website that Nick gets his statistics”

Three fringe conspiratorial websites: CIA world factbook, pew forum and wikipedia.

> from: ones that talk about purity and the homeland a lot

Oh, I get your insinuation: I am a white supremacist. The fact that I am Latino, and have Portuguese, Italian, African and Native blood, and the fact that my parents aren’t Christian, makes perfect sense that I am a white supremacist.

> “‘When fascism comes to America, it’ll have a flag in one hand and a cross in the other’”.

Oh! Oh, the irony! It burns!

So Jemima, patriots and Christians are dangerous people who must be combated to stop “fascism” in America? Doesn’t that idea make you a “pagan supremacist” or something?

Anyway, why should I be answering? You simply aren’t a logical person; you just hurl insults at everyone you disagree with.

I repeat: you have only solidified my views, and I suppose that of other readers too. If you had any reason and logic, you wouldn’t have to fling insult, engage in logical fallacies such as reduction ad hitlerum, ad hominem, and straw man, and you wouldn’t behave like an angry 13-year-old.

I repeat - why do you do this?

@Jemima
> It’s not something I leap to accusing someone of

Really?

> “and could be dismissed as name calling”

It _is_ name calling. Few of what you write is rational debate; much is puerile name-calling.

> But he “rails against immigration”

False; I merely said that immigration must have common sense limits (borders should not be closed, nor should they be wide-open).

>, he’s bought into the extremist idea that Europe has somehow fallen to the Muslim ‘hordes’

False; didn’t say Europe has fallen; said Europe is in the process of losing its culture.

>“he blames ‘Marxists’ for the problems in Sierra Leone”

False; I said that Africa has been castigated by wars, _often caused by Marxist or jihadist guerrillas_. Which is true. Read the definition of “often” - it does not mean “always”. And I didn’t say this is the specific case of Sierra Leone.

> (er ... no), his opponents are ‘certain people’ who are like Karl Marx and ‘not Christians’

False. Depressing lack of reading comprehension.

> He bemoans ‘the political correct’.

False; I merely say that we do not have an OBLIGATION to be politically correct.

> His statistics exclude non-whites

WHAT?

>, he talks about ‘defending ones own culture’.

Oh, having a sense of cultural self-preservation is now evil? Really?

> I’ll happily concede that I’m wrong.

I don’t think your puerile “I am right and everyone who disagrees is a Nazi” ego is capable of such a feat.

Dear Jemima-  look I’m going to try to represent the Catholic view here by first welcoming you to a forum where you are vastly outnumbered- no pun intended :}. I know things quickly get out of hand in the blogosphere- much more than in face-to-face encounters- which is explained in part by the sacramental view of reality that Catholicism teaches.

I think there is some common ground for us- first of all- if you are not Catholic it makes sense that some of the reasoning here is going to sound a bit foreign to you- I know firsthand since I wasn’t raised Catholic, and spent nearly all of my 20’s completely ignorant of all things Catholic. I’m a convert- like Jennifer.  I’m deep into the Faith now, and I’m living it, not just talking the talk- so for me things like abortion and contraception are as foreign to my way of thinking as maybe some of the views expressed here against population control are for you.

I will acknowledge that even without State policies, most Catholics like most Americans are doing “something” to control the number of children they have- some are choosing in vitro in order to have some children, others are contracepting or using natural family planning strategies to better control the number or the spacing of offspring.  The Church is against in vitro- this would incicate that the Church is not into blind reproduction by any means in order to increase the Catholic share of humanity. That’s another discussion for another day.

The Church also teaches that it is fine for married couples to make rational plans for family size- as long as the reasons are serious- and they include one’s state of life- economic, health and the like. American couples are not at risk of starvation, so we can assume that quality of life does figure into the Church’s moral calculus. It would seem that given the chance to rationally plan one’s family size most couples will choose a modest number.  The Church singles out those who choose to go with large families for praise- since the way we have structured society- with multinational corporate dominance meaning high mobility, limited security, and fewer and fewer social safety nets - see welfare reform- all of this makes it tougher to maintain a traditional family even in America- where choice and freedom are our bread and butter. With most Catholic couples choosing to go the route of mom and dad both working outside the home- it is a no-brainer that having a bunch of kids at home alone or in daycare all day- is just not optimal for the spiritual sake of the children.

Having said all this- the situation in the so-called third world is something that offers a different set of challenges- with even fewer social safety nets like social security, food assistance, scholarships etc.. and the real fear of outright starvation- couples are tempted to either have very few children out of fear of running out of resources to take care- or to have many children hoping for their survival in order to build up a little tribe for the social security of your own family- this is code in many parts of the world- extended family networks create incredible systems of nepotism which are alien to our American sensibilities.

So- what to conclude here- without giving into a pet theory of “Carrying Capacity” for mother Earth- one can say that everyone should have the ability to make decisions as to the size of their family for all the reasons noted above. I would conclude that the place where Catholics and non-Catholics could work together is in the area of Natural Family Planning technologies/techniques- the secular pressure on the Church to conform to a contraceptive/abortive world is a non-starter- why beat your head against the wall? But if the goal is to provide all couples the ability to make use of their best practices parenting skills by empowering them to make decisions regarding their family size- then why not work to help refine and make easier the natural biological marks that would indicate when the wife is fertile and when she is not- to be open to life is not to say one should not be in dialogue with God regarding the time for new life- before that life is conceived (the beginning). The methods developed to this point are pretty good- but I think it could be even easier- there could be other ways to determine fertility than the mucus/temperature methods- which could be even more easy to translate to couples- secular humanists should be pushing for natural family planning research and practice in a way similar to how they push for organic farming techniques- both have a holistic essence and intent.

So- Jemima- are you open to the suggestion of working together to respect that Catholics have strong beliefs which will always prevent them from embracing contraception and abortion, but also recognizing that Catholics while not accepting the population dangers per se, are nevertheless quite open to the promotion of NFP and improving the quality of such methods- which would work in accord with the principle of subsidiarity to give every married couple the means to make quality/quanity decisions regarding the number of children they feel they can raise, and raise well. Living plenty of space for those in the minority who still feel that large families are the best and proceed blissfully along that path- which is obviously not the way of the majority- even in Catholic marriages.

“No one is saying ‘don’t have any children, ever’, they’re saying ‘have four or five, not six’.”

This line of thinking is flawed, and I’ll explain why: who has the *right* to tell someone else how many children they should have?  Who has the *right* to tell someone that the situation they currently live in is inadequate for choosing to bring a child into the world?  As you stated in a previous post, you want to give these people a *choice.*  While I fully *get* that water and food are an issue for the people of Sierra Leone, does anyone looking at these numbers take into account what these people want to do with their own lives?  Their religious/moral beliefs?  How they envision a better world for future generations?  In all the surveys and analysis, does anyone take into consideration *why* these women are having “6 instead of 4” babies?  If you think the answer is “because they don’t know how this kind of thing happens,” I would seriously challenge that.
Don’t you think a mother who is pregnant with baby #5, who has already seen one of her small children die of malnutrition, would rather that you came to her with water, food, medicine, and vitamins rather than saying, “You know, you really shouldn’t be having any more babies?”  Because I’ll tell you that we have this type of situation in our own country, our own communities, our own backyards.  I can agree that it is tragic when a mother finds herself pregnant (whether intentionally or not) and knows too well that her child will be brought up in a situation where there is abuse, or neglect, or drug use, or not enough food.  There are even people who would tell this mother to abort her baby because the conditions are too dire for that child to have any “quality of life.”  But I believe that helping that mother improve her circumstances is a better answer, and the action we’re all called to in caring for society.  People can, and do, rise out of adversity to lead normal, and sometimes even extraordinary lives.

“OK ... there’s a boat. It can hold ten people. Perhaps twelve. ...What do you do?”
I build a bigger boat, or give them another boat.  (If you’re suggesting there is only *one* boat, and this is a metaphor for the earth, think of the following: There are some crowded places in the world.  There are also some incredibly remote places in the world—that are easily inhabited, I’m not talking Antarctica here.)  For centuries, vast numbers have solved the problem of less-than-ideal living conditions by migrating, and they will continue to do so.  They have also become innovative as a way of bettering their current circumstances.  Perhaps the people of Sierra Leone don’t have the resources to migrate, but again, I make the point that it is a better solution to provide them with actual sustenance than to try and influence such a personal and important decision as how many children they should have.  You repeatedly state that these families live on $320/year and 1 gal. of water/week.  Fine; but I propose that the answer to their situation is to give them an extra $320/year and an extra gallon of water per week.  (BTW, the average month’s supply of hormonal contraception is $30/month—beyond the $320/year stat you cite.)

“...it’s the case that the Earth can not give the *current* people of the planet all an American lifestyle…”

I’m not suggesting that, and I don’t know many people that think this is something we should even strive for.  In fact, most of the people I know personally find the current “American lifestyle” materialistic, self-centered, and wasteful (among other things), and we do our best to swim against the tide of mass accumulation and using resources beyond our needs.

“There’s not enough oil, there’s not enough water.  There’s not enough food, there’s not enough medicine. The long term solution is not to pour food and medicine into the place from outside.”
I disagree, and I challenge you to prove this is the case.  It is well-known that our country—and several others—have more than enough resources to provide for other populations, but they don’t.  Now, I’m not going into the political aspect of why this is (and it *is* political), but saying there isn’t enough is false.  The more accurate statement is, “Those who have enough aren’t distributing their surplus supplies to some of the areas in need.”  Once you stabilize an area, and the people become healthier and stronger, you don’t need to continue to pour in resources from the outside—they’ll have the ability to provide for themselves.  And I think that is an outcome that everyone can agree is positive for all concerned.

This is a very frightening set of posts. 
Overpopulation is a myth? 
When I was a kid, the US population was 200 million and there were woods and farms all over the place.  Now the population is double that and good luck finding untamed woodlands or farmland anywhere near a city.
As for the incredibly naive assertion we can all live in packed-in cities a la Monaco….  Um, you folks are aware that Monaco has to import almost all its food, right? 
The biggest threat posed by the reckless fecundity of humanity is the threat to the entire ecosystem.  We all live on Earth—man, woman, dog, wombat, deer, tiger, bison, vole….  And when one animal species goes on a breeding spree it can threaten the balance of life everywhere.  Think of kudzu vines. 
Look, your holy book says something about heing a shepherd to the Earth, right?  It doesn’t mean “go ahead and wreck everything that gets in your way.”
So to recap the score on official teachings thus far—
1. Earth is flat.  Wrong.
2. Earth is the center of entire universe.  Wrong.
3. Earth created 6000 years ago.  Wrong.
4. Overpopulation doesn’t exist.  Wrong.

Hi David Martin, thanks, I’m happy to see that there are a few reasonable, sane, intelligent commenters out there. This blog has become quite the mosh pit.

@David E Martin

> “Overpopulation is a myth?”
Yes.

> “When I was a kid, the US population was 200 million and there were woods and farms all over the place.  Now the population is double that”

Whoa, 1.5 times is not “double”. And the US can support, even with current technology, far more than the current 300 million.

> “and good luck finding untamed woodlands or farmland anywhere near a city.”

This is much less important than the value of human beings.

> “As for the incredibly naive assertion we can all live in packed-in cities a la Monaco…”

That was the example of one commenter. I didn’t read it and won’t elaborate. Regardless of that, the fact is that the world as a whole has space for _far_ more than 7 billion. There are very few “hotspots”, such as perhaps Bangladesh, but I repeat: the average global population density is ridiculously low.

> “The biggest threat posed by the reckless fecundity of humanity is the threat to the entire ecosystem.”

Except that important environmental conditions, such as air pollution, have _improved_ (in developed countries), not worsened. The pollution in developing countries is a consequence of their current stage of development (England was also polluted once) and will be overcome.

> “We all live on Earth—man, woman, dog, wombat, deer, tiger, bison, vole….”

And humans, superior to all others.

> “Look, your holy book says something about heing a shepherd to the Earth, right?”

Yes. And we are the shepherd precisely because we are superior to the sheeps.

> “1. Earth is flat.  Wrong.”

Work on your history. The radius of Earth was already calculated by the ancient Greeks, and the roundness of the Earth was widely known in Christian Europe.

> “2. Earth is the center of entire universe.  Wrong.”

Work on your history. Geocentrism was a secular theory advanced since at least the times of Aristotle. When reliable scientific arguments called for heliocentrism, it was adopted.

> “3. Earth created 6000 years ago.  Wrong.”

Hum, you realize you are talking to Catholics, right?

> “4. Overpopulation doesn’t exist.  Wrong.”

As I said above, we can increase our population _many times_ before worrying about overpopulation.

Oh, and forgive my English errors above.
English is not my native tongue.

Excellent article, Jen.

Wow, I couldn’t get past 1/3 of the comments without my eyes crossing. You sure do attract a… diverse… following. :)

‘“and good luck finding untamed woodlands or farmland anywhere near a city.”
This is much less important than the value of human beings.’

And there we have it, in a nutshell. More humans, at all costs. More humans and ‘farmland’ is less important than that. What are all these people going to eat? Are we not even allowed plan for that? Or does that not matter because they’ll get to Heaven all the sooner?

‘the average global population density is ridiculously low’

Yours is a vision of a world densely packed with people where not one of them can ever take a walk in the woods because ‘woodland’ is ‘much less important’ than people. One ‘humans, superior to all others’ have exterminated all the wildlife to make room for yet more humans. 

A world of twenty billion people and no animals except the ones you eat.

This is an appalling, horrible vision of the future. One that should be fought. Is that Catholic teaching, or your own sick fantasy?

@Jemima Cole

Your interpretation didn’t even come close to what I said (which is pretty clear).
Are you not tired of attacking straw men again, again and again?

I repeat: flinging fallacies and calling us names will gain you nothing.

“Your interpretation didn’t even come close to what I said”

OK.

‘“and good luck finding untamed woodlands or farmland anywhere near a city.”
This is much less important than the value of human beings.’

I interpret that as you meaning that untamed woodlands and farmland is far less important than the value of human beings.

How was I meant to interpret it?

“Look, your holy book says something about being a shepherd to the Earth, right?”

Here’s what the Bible has God commanding them to do. Genesis 9:

“1. And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. 2. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. 3. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.”

Grind em all up and make them into burgers.

Catholicism has an uneasy relationship with this. The Church has admitted Noah’s Ark didn’t happen, that it’s just a story, but they use ‘go forth and multiply’ as God commanding ‘don’t use condoms’. To their immense credit, the last two Popes have said environmentalism trumps terrorizing every beast of the earth.

A long post, and thank you, let me have some time to chew on what you said. First of all:

“I build a bigger boat, or give them another boat.  (If you’re suggesting there is only *one* boat, and this is a metaphor for the earth, think of the following: There are some crowded places in the world.  There are also some incredibly remote places in the world—that are easily inhabited, I’m not talking Antarctica here.)  For centuries, vast numbers have solved the problem of less-than-ideal living conditions by migrating, and they will continue to do so.”

Yes, the boat was meant to represent the Earth, and we can’t build another one.

And, as I say, we can talk about migration and settling the underpopulated areas as a solution. But look at what Nick and a couple of other people are saying - he uses the emotive term ‘hordes’ to describe Muslim immigration into Europe. Other people have suggested that it’s important we consider what effect immigrants have on the places they come to.

Immigrants have to go somewhere real. A big chunk of the population of the US and Europe are anti-immigration, expressed as a spectrum of opinion from extremist nationalism like the neo-Nazis in Europe or the Tea Party in the US, right through to a less focused sense of unease that ‘traditions’ are being ‘lost’ or ‘swamped’.

When people say ‘people should spread out a bit more’, they don’t mean ‘into my town’. It’s a double standard to hold the position ‘overpopulation just means people have to move around more’ and also ‘Mexicans shouldn’t come over here taking our jobs’. It’s hypocrisy to say ‘the people of Sierra Leone should leave if it’s really that bad’ and ‘have you seen all the Muslims flooding into Europe?’.

A social conservative, presumably, wants society to stay roughly where it is (or go back a little). The social conservative, traditional, monocultural, position that dominates the current Church hierarchy does not want to face the problem that the only solution to unchecked population growth will mean a lot of things would change.

To be consistent on overpopulation, perhaps Catholics should be advocating an end to all restrictions on the movement of labor. Under such a system, people should be able to move anywhere in the world they want to - they’ll go where there’s more room and money and security. If they want to live in a country that’s more like here ... well, the simplest way for an individual to do that would be to come here, so we’d make it easy for them. If you’re a Catholic of Irish, Italian or Mexican descent, it’s almost certainly the decision that your ancestors made.

@Jemima Cole
>> ‘“and good luck finding untamed woodlands or farmland anywhere near a city.”
This is much less important than the value of human beings.’

> “How was I meant to interpret it?”

The correct interpretation is that human life and dignity is priority #1, and the life and well-being of other animals (and plants, and rocks) is much below. _Obviously_ that does not mean we should irresponsibly harm the environment; because if we did that, we would in the long run harm our own life and dignity. So, even if plants and monkeys are less valuable than humans, we should take care of them - not only because of their great value (even being less valuable than us, they still have great value) but because we need them.

Regarding population, this means that we should be fertile, because human life is beautiful and valuable in itself, and also because each human benefits other humans - science, mathematics, philosphy and arts have network effects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect

The exception, of course, is the hypothetical situation of a human population so big that it threatens the continuity and dignity of itself. With the possible exception of a few “hot spots” (such as Bangladesh), this is not even close to happening.

I don’t know the specific situation of Sierra Leone, but most poor countries in the world would gain nothing with a smaller population. A smaller population means less consumers, yes, but it also means less producers. Our economy, even in third world countries, is based on labor, not on simple extractivism. As the population grows, the food production per capita has actually _increased_.

Famine is caused not by “overpopulation”, but by war and corruption.

@Jemima Cole

> “Yes, the boat was meant to represent the Earth, and we can’t build another one.”

But in the long term (50 years, 100 years, I don’t know) we will colonize other planets.

> “But look at what Nick and a couple of other people are saying - he uses the emotive term ‘hordes’ to describe Muslim immigration into Europe.”

Which does not mean we should ban migration. This only means that
1) Our countries should have a decent fertility rate, so as to avoid cultural suicide. 1.3 children per woman (some European countries have even less) is disastrous.
2) Migration should have common sense limits; we don’t want a tyrannous country sending 20 million migrants in a decade to overtake our voting system; the flow of migrants should be small enough that there is time for the migrants to learn human rights, limited government and liberal democracy - specially if they come from a tyrannical place.

> “extremist nationalism like the neo-Nazis in Europe or the Tea Party in the US”

Whoa. I am not a Tea Partier but, AFAIK, they only advocate respect for the American Constitution. That is very honorable.

> It’s a double standard to hold the position ‘overpopulation just means people have to move around more’ and also ‘Mexicans shouldn’t come over here taking our jobs’

I never complained about legal Mexican immigration into the US. And are you sure that the anti-immigrants generally overlap with the overpopulation skeptics? In my limited experience, many overpopulation doom-sayers also attack immigration.  The overlap is the other way around.

> “A social conservative, presumably, wants society to stay roughly where it is.”

Not necessarily. I want society to conform to natural law, human rights, limited government and liberal democracy. Some things (such as sexual morality) should go back, but other things (such as respect for blacks and women) should improve further.

> “The social conservative, traditional, monocultural, position that dominates the current Church hierarchy”

What? Do you know anything about the Church hierarchy? Where did you get that opinion? How could the Church be monocultural, when it spans the globe (and the Vatican also has a lot of non-Europeans)? It is also not traditional in a strict sense. We respect the Holy Tradition in matters of faith; but we cherish the progress of science and culture.

> “To be consistent on overpopulation, perhaps Catholics should be advocating an end to all restrictions on the movement of labor.”

“Perhaps”? The American bishops are very pro-immigration.

I, a lay, also support immigration (perhaps not as much as the bishops). I only advocate that the flow of immigrants be regulated so that they have time to get used to human rights and liberal democracy, specially if they came from a tyrannical place and have tyrannical values.

(And I wont answer your criticism of Genesis because I have already written _far_ too much, and I have no time to study Genesis now. Remember, it is far easier to attack than to defend. One fool can ask more questions in one hour than a genius can answer in one day. And I’m no genius.)

“To be consistent on overpopulation, perhaps Catholics should be advocating an end to all restrictions on the movement of labor. Under such a system, people should be able to move anywhere in the world they want to - they’ll go where there’s more room and money and security. If they want to live in a country that’s more like here ... well, the simplest way for an individual to do that would be to come here, so we’d make it easy for them.”

I have no issue with people immigrating to our country, so long as they don’t intend to blow it up.  I have no issue with people immigrating to my town, but I do expect that they’ll work to assimilate into society.  I do *not* mean they should abandon their beliefs or traditions, but I do believe everyone needs to “play nice” (meaning you can’t take from others what doesn’t belong to you, such as property or life).  I don’t think people should leave behind their language, but they should learn the language of the country they’re moving to when at all possible.  As for jobs, well—so many of American jobs are being outsourced right now anyway.  Quite frankly, it’s been my experience that immigrants are willing to work harder and do more than a 2nd- or 3rd-generation American.  If they can do the job better, they deserve to have the job.  Likewise, if they have the job, they also deserve to be paid a fair wage.

And as far as I know, the teaching of the Church advocates for immigration, just wages, and a welcoming heart to all.  Being “traditional”  in the Catholic sense does not mean a reversion of society.  Rather, it understands that advancement in any field (science, math, philosophy, literature, etc.) must be illuminated with divine purpose—and divine revelation never conflicts with that which is true.  Because what is the point of science if it is not for the betterment of mankind?  It’s easy to get so busy with worrying about whether “we” *can* do something that “we” don’t take the time to consider whether or not “we” *should* do something.

Short and sweet. Here is where food comes from.
1. Sunshine
2. Stable climate
3. Fertile soil
4. Adequate water
5. Energy to plant and harvest

Threats to food can cause overpopulation by causing lack of equilibrium between food and people.

2. Climate change by supervolcanic eruption, sulfur dioxide from volcanic eruption, limited nuclear war, asteroid or comet impact, and/or CO2 or NO2 (nitrous oxide) accumulation, etc.
3. Top soil is eroding worldwide. You don’t make more.
4, Aquifers are being depleted worldwide, big example is California and Nevada. Desalination of sea water is expensive but necessary.
5. Here is the biggie. We have trusted oil energy for 100 years to drive tractors, combines, crop dusters. Trains, planes, and trucks to move freight to market, sometimes thousands of miles. Chemical base for fertilizer and pesticide as well as plastic wrap and Styrofoam. Energy to prepare, cook, heat, freeze, and reheat food.

What happens when the oil is either a. gone or b. too expensive to use economically?

When you add up a Catholic view of the Bible (anti-contraception and pronatalist), it could well cause the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Famine caused by a lack of or highly-priced fertilizer, pesticide, and mechanical energy. War as parents motivated by starving kids fight for food and oil. Illness as hungry people’s immune systems break down. Death all around. Unless they push the button quickly….

Things like oil are finite. They are necessary to modern agriculture and people need food. People will fight and die over them. Stay tuned.

Either reduce population now the humane way or population will be reduced the violent way.

Chris Marsh
saved
1993-

Hubbert’s curve demonstrates that you extract oil slowly, more and more, until you hit maximum, and then you get less, and less, and less.

The USA had maximum oil output in 1971. Since then we had the Arab Oil Embargoes of 1973 and 1979, the 1979-1981 Iranian Hostage Crisis, President Jimmy Carter’s 1980 announcement that we would use any force to protect our access to oil in the Middle East and then our Iraqi wars of 1991 and 2003-, and steadily increasing terrorism from the Tehran Embassy to our jet aircraft and finally to New York City and the Pentagon in 2001.

Declining oil output is likely to give the world something to fight over… now that we have probably passed the world’s maximum oil output late in the last decade.

So the USA, and the world as a whole, should find less, and less, and less oil as time goes on.

Hold on to your hats.

RMMT, I disagree. When you have people already on the bus, you have to find seats for them before you pick up more passengers.

Maybe you can throw people off the bus who haven’t paid their fare to make room for the people who have.

But the last thing you do is pick up more people before everybody has a seat. Standing room only? What is this? A Weird Al song?

America is a bus. There aren’t enough seats to go around. Stop picking up passengers from other countries.

I’d love the diversity if everyone could have a job, but the unemployment statistics say we can’t.

Not only that, but we need to readjust our fertility statistics to make less people over the next decade and two before we start talking about immigration again.

The last thing we want is unhappy unemployed people. Maybe Democrats (and I am one) want them to blame the Republicans and vote with them. But that is dishonest and cruel. Every country on the planet has to keep its population in line with available food or available jobs. America is not immune to this.

>>Regarding population, this means that we should be fertile, because human >>life is beautiful and valuable in itself, and also because each human >>benefits other humans - science, mathematics, philosphy and arts have >>network effects.

Can I take this to my boss and ask for a raise each time my wife delivers another baby? :-D

What might actually happen, according to Reader’s Digest, is if my boss doesn’t know I have kids, and she is prejudiced againat parents, she would try to find a reason to fire me.

Sneaky managers put pictures of kids on their desks just so kid lovers will open up, and be rejected.

@Chris Marsh

> “3. Top soil is eroding worldwide. You don’t make more.”

Erosion can be managed with decent agricultural techniques.

> “4, Aquifers are being depleted worldwide, big example is California and Nevada. Desalination of sea water is expensive but necessary.”

Desalination very energy intensive, yes? But solar energy is getting cheaper. Must importantly, we will expand fission and then in a few decades get fusion.

Also, there is a ridiculous amount of water waste. As water gets rarer, we can simply waste less.

> “5. Here is the biggie. We have trusted oil energy for 100 years to drive tractors, combines, crop dusters. Trains, planes, and trucks to move freight to market, sometimes thousands of miles.”

And now biofuels are getting cheaper and cheaper. Bioethanol is already economically viable in Brazil without subsidies. Bain predicts it will be economically viable in the US in 2019.

And the biofuel technology is exploding - improvements in sugar cane productivity, cellulosic biofuels, algae biofuels. In the long term, with chemical improvements, agricultural improvements (including genetic engineering) things will be really, really awesome.

Similarly, we can replace oil as a chemical base for fertilizer and pesticides. In the meantime, we can use our vast current reserves, and then shale oil, tar oil…

@Chris Marsh

> America is a bus. There aren’t enough seats to go around.

There is space for many times our current population.

> “I’d love the diversity if everyone could have a job, but the unemployment statistics say we can’t.”

Each immigrant is not only a consumer, but also a producer. He pays for himself with his labor. The unemployment percentage won’t increase just because more immigrants arrive.

The problem with using the metaphors of a boat for the earth or a bus for American is that it exchanges to very different obstacles as though they are the same.  In both the case of the boat or the bus, the argument is that there are only enough seats for a certain number of people.  This is an obstacle of physical space, or geography.  I agree with the fact that on the earth (and, similarly, in America), there is a finite amount of physical space or geography.  But having enough physical space is not the problem being discussed here (or with regard to the idea or overpopulation in general).  Rather, the challenges come down to things like food, water, and other such resources.  These variables are completely seperate from the issue of physical space.

Now, you can argue all up and down that there aren’t enough resources for a certain amount of people based on some idea of geography, but the fact is that we as a human race continue to innovate and be creative in determining ways to increase resources such as food and water—not only in how these are produced, but also how they’re stored and distributed.  Furthermore, resources such as energy continue to grow—not because of discovering some new way of generating energy, necessarily (though that does happen)—but because we continue to increase our efficiency with the resources we have.  For example, the average appliances (or even light bulbs) use a fraction of the energy of those from 10, 20, and 50 years ago.  This will continue because the resourcefulness of humanity is dynamic and ever-evolving.

Lastly, it is important to remember where these advancements come from—they don’t just fall out of the clear blue sky and invent themselves, they come from individuals with ideas—and this is, perhaps, the most important reason why PEOPLE are our most valuable resource, and always will be.

“This will continue because the resourcefulness of humanity is dynamic and ever-evolving.”

... you hope.

That’s the problem. You want to continue a destructive behavior in the hope that someone invents and unfurls a safety net in time. Someone else, I assume. 

What investment is the Catholic Church making in the technologies that would be part of the solution? I don’t know. *Are* they spending money on developing solar, or asteroid mining, or replicators? Are they part of the solution?

“this is, perhaps, the most important reason why PEOPLE are our most valuable resource”

Which is a nice slogan, but we all need water, air and a means of getting food.

I think we’re all agreed that overpopulation is *possible*. That the Earth does not have infinite resources. That there could come a point where there are ‘too many people’ or, if that offends you, ‘not enough stuff’.

So the question becomes one of working out how to delay reaching that point, yes? Regardless of whether we’re at that point, a generation away, five generations away or a thousand years away, it would be bad to get to ‘overpopulated’. So anything we could do to defer that would be good. ‘Consuming less’ is a strategy that can be played alongside ‘producing more’, it’s not its opposite.

At a very simple level, if you can get where you’re going by driving a smaller car now, there will be more oil available in the future. And regardless of how much oil there is left, whether it’s one barrel or one trillion, that’s a good thing.

And yes, you’re right - food production will probably become more efficient, new energy sources could well be discovered. That will help defer the point where the planet is overpopulated. But there will come a point where that snaps, where a key resource is just past the point where there isn’t enough (fresh water, oil, uranium, fertilizer, whatever).

The real problem here, and the reason Jennifer’s posts on this very serious topic (it kills far more babies than anything Catholics get their knickers in a twist about) are always so flippant and defensive, is that deep down, I think, Catholics understand that an overpopulation crisis would mean, by definition, having lots of kids is part of the problem, not part of the solution. You get mindnumbingly dumb stuff like ‘well, someone’s sixth child could invent cold fusion’, but I think Catholics realize that if overpopulation is true, current Catholic teaching on contraception is false. And the cheap way to square that circle is to say that overpopulation *can’t* be true.

All I’d ask is by all means remain skeptical about overpopulation, but when a true skeptic is faced with two contradictory accounts, they don’t decide one is true and make jokes about the other, they look at the world - the whole world, not just out of their window - and decide which aspects of both sides have merit.

I would love there to be as many people as possible, all living happy, healthy, self-determined, lives of true human progress. I’d rather have ten billion people doing that than twenty getting their water from a standpipe. And that, basically, is the choice of what the world looks like a hundred years from now.

Not to be disrespectful of the argument above (and which, because of its length, I have not fully read and apologize if my suggestion for a snappy-ending has already been proffered):

Bob, slightly woebegone at the prospect of no more flirting over the latte counter, but determined to discover beauty, grace and good vibes originating from the remaining offspring of three-children families, looks down and sees his hand slowly take on the quality of a lace curtain.  Flash back to the joy of his parents at his own birth, as they face the tragedy of the slow death of their eldest child.  When Bob is six-weeks old this older sibling dies, and Bob grows up as the youngest of three.  Although in a world where no one has more than three children, Bob’s family’s quota had in reality been filled at the time of Bob’s conception (and this ‘scenario-machine’ sorted out such cases lastly), so Bob would never have been born.  We see his parents, returning home from the hospital after the death of their eldest child, looking into an empty crib that had once held Bob, now empty.  Flash-back to Bob, whose latte (he found a coffee shop owned and run by a really cool second child) drops from his lace-curtained hand as it slowly shreds to – nothing.

“Flash-back to Bob, whose latte (he found a coffee shop owned and run by a really cool second child) drops from his lace-curtained hand as it slowly shreds to – nothing.”

... and a voice says ‘there was someone who could have solved this problem. In one world, she was an only child and her parents could afford to send her to college and that person went to college and helped invent a revolutionary new form of energy. In Catholic World, though, she was the first of nine and spent her teenage years babysitting. She got knocked up at eighteen and had eight children herself, she died in childbirth the day the oil ran out.’

Instead of playing absurd cartoon parallel universe games, or banking on dying and getting relocated to the ultimate gated community, perhaps we could worry about the world that does exist?

My dear Jemima!  I do worry about the world that exists.  In my own small way I encourage my students, show kindness when I feel irritation, open literary horizons that may lead to better places - even if they are only cerebral -, and gladly go out for caffe latte with people who for whatever reason are seriously unhappy.  If an ocean and a continent weren’t separating us, I would drop by to exchange (stress on ‘exchange’) some ideas about how to get the venom out.

‘exchange (stress on ‘exchange’) some ideas about how to get the venom out’

I think your idea for an ending was peculiar, I don’t think it was particularly venomous.

Catholic teaching on contraception is not, nor will it ever be, false.

You can invent all kinds of ways as to why it is *inconvenient* because it doesn’t solve this or that theoretical problem.  But family size is not the problem here.

The Church has very, VERY clear teachings on proper discernment of family size—and it is NOT “everyone should be a baby-making machine so that we have as many souls as possible for our Church.”  This is completely out of left field and has no basis in theology.  The Church recognizes (and has ALWAYS recognized) that there are serious reasons for avoiding pregnancy and increasing one’s family size.  Viable access to basic needs is one of those reasons.  (And this means things like food, water, shelter, medicine; not iPods, XBoxes, cars, and vacations.)

From a biological, philosophical, and theological perspective, there is a chasm of difference between artificial contraception and natural family planning.  The latter is licit, and it is just as effective (actually, moreso in terms of “typical usage”) at pregnancy prevention.

A reminder: there wasn’t a single religious entity in the Judeo-Christian tradition that believed *any* form of contraception was morally licit until about 80 years ago.  (And most of Western culture was of the Judeo-Christian tradition.)—And no, it wasn’t because those things hadn’t been invented yet—they had.

Also, the Church has VERY clear teachings on the proper use of resources—it’s called “responsible stewardship,” which is something I think you can agree *most* people in Western culture are clueless about (in practice, if not in understanding), not “just Catholics.”

I challenge anyone to take a hard look at the idea of responsible stewardship and apply it to the families you know.  I think you will find (and there are studies that actually back this up) that larger families use far FEWER resources per person than small families.

I will sign off from the discussion with these final thoughts:
-The term “overpopulation” as used in the vernacular is a blanket term that really means there are some places that don’t have enough resources for the people there.  Again, I submit that the problem isn’t “too many people”—it’s that they don’t have access to basic necessities.  If there is a certain “ideal family size” then that should apply to everyone, worldwide, but it doesn’t.  Families in America (and other places) can readily support 6+ children because we have access to basic necessities.  If other parts of the world don’t have that access, then we should work to make that happen.  (No, I’m not advocating for an American lifestyle worldwide—I’m talking basics here.)
-The argument that Church teaching is wrong on contraception because of overpopulation is disingenuous.  These are two seperate issues.  Artificial contracption is morally illicit (a subject for another time and place) and doesn’t solve a single problem that is supposedly the fault of overpopulation.  If the true concern is about “giving families a choice to reproduce,” then why not teach natural methods of family planning?  It uses far fewer resources, causes no waste, imparts no pollution (either on the production side or on the excretion side), and works easily as well as artificial methods at pregnancy prevention.  Plus, once it is taught, it is known for a lifetime and doesn’t require ongoing cost and maintenance.  The truth is that people who believe in overpopulation also tend to believe that contraception is something so vital that it should be given to every person on the planet capable of reproducing.  If it were truly about “choice,” then why shouldn’t someone be able to “choose” a large family?  I suspect it’s because they find large families offensive (for a variety of reasons, I’m sure) as well as the philosophy behind it.
-I have yet to see proof—real evidence—that “overpopulation” exists.  I have yet to see a logical argument that the problems mentioned above are solved by telling people in poor parts of the world that they should not reproduce in order to fix those problems—this is elitism in it’s truest form.  Instead, many would rather spout rhetoric, blaming the Catholic church (an easy target) for a myriad of problems instead of looking to themselves to be a part of the solution.

Haha, ‘Natural Family Planning’ sounds like a term Orwell made up that actually means ‘Grow Population ASAP’. Are readers out there actually not aware of the extreme degradation that has been inflicted, not just on nature, but on countless humans as well, as population spreads without measure into every part of the world? While burning more than 80 million barrels of oil a day, I might add. A recipe for planetary destabilization that is happening now. One that could be somewhat ameliorated by policies that would encourage smaller families.

Nicholas, you are extremely ignorant about the nature of NFP as well as its effectiveness (its method failure rate is equal to that of the birth control pill).  Please see here for more information: http://archive.irh.org/nfp.htm

It may make you feel good to think I am ignorant about NFP, but I am not ignorant of the fact that population is rising at an unsustainably fast rate. Human resource use per capita is increasing, new technologies will never be efficient enough to replace what has been lost already. I can see the human condition is falling, and it is in large part due to the fact that too many people are using to many resources too quickly. Everybody is familiar with the so called laws of supply and demand. When humans are scarce they are valued more highly, and when they are to common they become disposable, like they are today. I know a better world is possible, but it can’t be achieved by people who won’t consider the problem in the first place.

So, Nicholas, you feel it’s acceptable to unjustly slander NFP because you’re worried about overpopulation?

How does that work, exactly?

Madam, I simply know that NFP is not doing the job of protecting the future of humanity at the current time. And I have know MANY couples who once practiced ‘NFP’, and most of them have several children now. That is why I laughed at your assertion about the superiority of NFP. If people were taught Natural Family Planning techniques, do you think they would practice them?

Nicholas, that didn’t answer my question. Why do you feel it’s acceptable to unjustly slander NFP because you’re worried about overpopulation?

Can you provide proof for your assertions that “NFP is not doing the job”?

As for anecdotal experience, I’ve used NFP to both achieve and postpone pregnancy since 2003. It can be used for both, and given that you aren’t aware of that fact, it further highlights your ignorance of what NFP is and what it can be used to do.

It’s always worked excellently well for me, for both purposes. Please go to http://archive.irh.org/nfp.htm and educate yourself, instead of further spreading ignorance.

I wish you (and everyone else) the best of luck in limiting their fertility. By whatever method works. And I’m glad you believe in the concept of overpopulation, and are trying to do something about it.

“A reminder: there wasn’t a single religious entity in the Judeo-Christian tradition that believed *any* form of contraception was morally licit until about 80 years ago.”

Is this another example of how the Church’s teaching now is the opposite of what it used to be and would horrify a priest from a hundred years ago, but that doesn’t mean it’s ‘changed’, it’s merely ‘evolved’?

Once you accept you can have sex with the intention you won’t conceive, that contraception can be ‘natural’, then why go all Amish and insist that you can’t use reliable modern methods? Isn’t that like saying you can whoop it up in Vegas, but only if you go by train?

“I have yet to see a logical argument that the problems mentioned above are solved by telling people in poor parts of the world that they should not reproduce”

No one is *forcing* people to *not reproduce*. I’m *suggesting* that we educate women that they, as individuals, should have control of when they conceive, and that there are many methods that can be available and suitable. And where that happens, women tend to have *fewer* children (and later). It remains their choice.

“I know a better world is possible, but it can’t be achieved by people who won’t consider the problem in the first place.”

IF overpopulation is true THEN the current Catholic teaching on family planning is irresponsible.

I can see how people might be so wrapped up in Catholic dogma, or so insular as to believe that if there’s not a problem in their town right now it won’t be a problem somewhere else or in the future.

What worries me is the evidence here of conspiracy theory thinking - that ‘overpopulation’ is some kind of plot against Catholics. That’s like saying forest fires are a plot against flicking matches. A destructive behavior will tend towards destructive consequences.

Take Easter Island, for example. That seems to be able to sustain, without imports, about 3000 people. When the population rose to 15,000 in around 1500AD, they cut down all the trees, ran out of food and starting eating each other. Would people accept *that* as a case of ‘overpopulation’?

Would people agree that whatever the number actually is, there’s a number where there would be ‘too many people’ for a given area?

Jemima,

You’ve been correct on this time and time again.

The Catholic Church has never been opposed to spacing pregnancies.

The Catholic Church has always been opposed to contraception.

The Church is not opposed to couples using moral methods (NFP and/or abstinence) to space pregnancies.

The Church is opposed to couples using immoral means (contraception) to space pregnancies.

Please read this article, which explains the history of Church teaching on this matter as well as the distinction in much more detail: http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0002.html

Please tell me you see the distinction.

That should read, “You’ve been CORRECTED on this time and time again.”

“I think you will find (and there are studies that actually back this up) that larger families use far FEWER resources per person than small families.”

I’ll think, if you read those studies, you’ll find that stops being true once they’re past early childhood.

You have to heat a house, so broadly if you have two kids, you spend a lot more per kid on heating them than if you have eight. That holds for many fixed costs. If eight people watch the TV, it uses as much electricity as if four do.

So you’re right so far.

You can hand down clothes, make bulk savings on food and so on ... but I suspect parents here will laugh off the idea that feeding eight costs less than feeding two. It costs less *per capita*. You end up buying more food, more clothes and so on. Raising eight kids in eight houses costs more than raising eight kids in one house.

So you are sort of right so far.

And then the kids leave home. And that’s where your argument collapses. Because now they all get a house of their own.

Let’s look at two scenarios and play it over three generations. A couple have children. Those children leave home, set up their own home. They, in turn have has many children as their parents.

One couple (2 people, obviously) have one child, that child marries and has one child. Four people, and they need three houses (and they only *need* small houses).

One couple have eight children. They marry and all have eight children. So the original couple have eight children and sixty-four grandchildren. They’d need seventy three (large) houses.

And that’s where your argument looks very silly indeed. Do you accept that 73 large houses is not ‘fewer resources’ than 3 small ones?

“And that’s where your argument looks very silly indeed. Do you accept that 73 large houses is not ‘fewer resources’ than 3 small ones?”

Also, this only gets more and more serious with each generation. The next three generations of kids would see 512, 4096 and 32768. I make that 37449 houses. If they had one kid each: 6 houses.

So, yeah, when they’re babies, you can hand down clothes. When they’re having their great-great-great-grandkids ... well, you’re going to need a bigger planet.

“The Church is not opposed to couples using moral methods (NFP and/or abstinence) to space pregnancies.”

And it’s *always* said that? Well, no, what it used to teach was that the fertility of a woman was a baffling mystery and women got pregnant due solely to the will of God, and that was why sometimes it happened and sometimes it didn’t, there was no rhyme or reason to it humans could fathom. Then science popped along and gave the right answer, that was pretty much the exact opposite of that, and the Catholic teaching changed.

“The Church is opposed to couples using immoral means (contraception) to space pregnancies.”

And this is the baffling bit. If your husband plans to jizz into a towel, it’s moral. If he jizzes into a condom, it’s the sinful thwarting of God’s plan to create human life.

It makes the means (the little bit of latex) the sin, not the ends (planning not to have children). Isn’t that a bit like saying you can kill someone, but only if you use poison, because that’s moral, not knives which are immoral? Surely it’s the thwarting of conception that’s the bad bit?

Yes, Jemima, that has been the consistent teaching of the Church for 2,000 years. Until science became more familiar with a woman’s reproductive cycle, abstinence was the only moral option for spacing pregnancies. In the 1800s when periodic continence (aka the rhythm method) was discovered, the Church did not object to its use in spacing pregnancies. See here: http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0502fea2.asp

Regarding your crude analogies, the Church also teaches that masturbation (into a towel or otherwise) is immoral. Please read this article so that you can discover what the Church ACTUALLY teaches instead of what you THINK it teaches: http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0002.html

“Until science became more familiar with a woman’s reproductive cycle, abstinence was the only moral option for spacing pregnancies.”

Yes. Catholic teaching has changed. Which is fine. It’s the pretending it hasn’t which isn’t fine. It’s saying for 1900 years that the timing of conception was entirely up to God when actually, no, it turns out God has nothing to do with it, it’s a predictable cycle once you know how.

I know what the current position is. It’s silly, though. It’s saying that a woman who deliberately waits until a point in her cycle when she can’t conceive ‘intends’ to have children.

In the ancient days of 1968, when this nonsense was first dreamed up, the Vatican adopted an attitude to contraception that denies one scientific discovery (the birth control pill) but freely adopts another (knowledge of the menstrual cycle). That allows women to have sex knowing they can’t conceive one way, but not another. To square a circle that doesn’t even exist: ‘it says in the Bible that you can’t use contraception’. 

Now, instead of half-baked nonsense, what is wrong with saying ‘we understand these things and have more control over them now’ and then working out how to use that control for the good?

No, Jemima, the teaching did not change. Once a new way was discovered to space pregnancy that was moral (that is, that worked WITH God’s design and not AGAINST it), it was permitted by the Church. That is not a change. A change would be if the Church taught that spacing pregnancy was wrong (which they didn’t) or if the Church taught that periodic continence was wrong (which they never have) and then taught the opposite. That has NEVER HAPPENED.

Please read these two articles, which prove your assertions about Church teaching and history (both of which you are sorely ignorant) to be both blatantly false and ridiculous:

http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0502fea2.asp

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0002.html

“Once a new way was discovered to space pregnancy that was moral (that is, that worked WITH God’s design and not AGAINST it”

Oh good heavens, we’re back in this Wonderland, the one where the Church can say ‘no’, then say ‘yes’ but it hasn’t ‘changed its teaching’, it’s merely refined its understanding of God’s Truth.

I’m not playing this very silly game again. Fine. The Catholic Church has always been at war with Eurasia.

“your assertions about Church teaching and history (both of which you are sorely ignorant) to be both blatantly false and rid-’

Let me stop you there.

Do you deny that the Catholic Church used to teach that life began at the quickening, not at conception? Do you deny that the Catholic Church used to teach conception and gestation was a highly mysterious process?

Changing your beliefs in the light of new evidence, or your practices in the light of new technology is wonderful. Pretending that’s not what your doing is absurd, though. And pretending that some new inventions and techniques are part of the natural way of things but others aren’t is just silly.

Once again, Jemima, read these two articles:

http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0502fea2.asp

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0002.html

As for the Nancy Pelosi version of Church history, it’s also blatantly false and ridiculous. Might I suggest you get your information from actual Church historians as opposed to pseudo-Catholic politicians and the mainstream media?

The Church actually never officially taught that LIFE began at quickening. It believed that ENSOULMENT began at quickening, but this was theory and not official teaching. The Church has ALWAYS taught that abortion at ANY STAGE of pregnancy was a sin.

Yes, the Church taught that conception and gestation was a mysterious process back when we didn’t have ultrasound technology and the other scientific advancements that we have now, which allow us to see the clear humanity of the unborn from the moment of conception.

Jemima - please see this article for a bare-bones explanation of how Nancy Pelosi (as well as yourself) are entirely wrong about historic Church teaching on abortion and when life begins.

http://www.lifenews.com/2008/08/26/nat-4204/

“The Church actually never officially taught that LIFE began at quickening. It believed that ENSOULMENT began at quickening, but this was theory and not official teaching.”

But if you’d asked any Catholic priest in 1800 if life began at conception, he’d have snorted at you and asked where got such a peculiar idea, yes? ‘Life begins at conception’ was neither ‘what the church taught’ nor ‘church teaching’?

“which allow us to see the clear humanity of the unborn from the moment of conception.”

I’m ... sorry?

So. Simple question. You look at this: http://tinyurl.com/3wc4fft and see something that’s clearly human?

Jemima, if you’d asked any scientist or biologist in 1800 if life began at conception they likely would have said the exact same thing. Does that mean that it was not true in 1800 that life began at conception?

Are you aware that it was a Catholic priest who essentially founded the study of genetics in the mid 1850’s? (Google Gregor Mendel.)

Also, regarding the picture, I do see a human being. But you know what? Perceptions don’t equal reality. When Larry Flynt looks at Trig Palin, he doesn’t see a human being—but that doesn’t change the fact that he (Trig) is indeed a human being. When Adolf Hitler looked at a Jew, he did not see a human being. Does that mean he was right, and that particular Jew was not? When the Supreme Court looked at Dred Scott, they only saw 3/4ths of a human being. Does that mean they were right?

Just because a blastocyst does not look like a newborn baby doesn’t mean that it isn’t a human being. A newborn baby doesn’t look like a toddler, but they are both humans—they’re merely human beings in different stages of development. It’s the same with a blastocyst and a newborn. Both human beings in different stages of development.

“Jemima, if you’d asked any scientist or biologist in 1800 if life began at conception they likely would have said the exact same thing. Does that mean that it was not true in 1800 that life began at conception?”

It means that you should be very wary of people who dress up what they say in the robes of ‘God’s truth’ or ‘eternal values’.

What Catholic priests currently teach about conception - whether it’s ‘Catholic teaching’ or not - is (a) not consistent with what was said in the past and (b) a hodge-podge where half of it is based on anachronistic views that conception is some sort of mystery, and the other half is just some retroactive law they cobbled together when they realized women were now able to look at their menstrual cycle.

OK ... say that next year science proves that ‘life begins’ at three weeks into gestation. Just as a thought experiment, don’t sweat the philosophy. What the Pope, Vatican and all the clergy would say would change, wouldn’t it? 

“Are you aware that it was a Catholic priest who essentially founded the study of genetics in the mid 1850’s?”

Yes. Everyone is. So what?

“Also, regarding the picture, I do see a human being ... Just because a blastocyst does not look like a newborn baby doesn’t mean that it isn’t a human being. A newborn baby doesn’t look like a toddler, but they are both humans—they’re merely human beings in different stages of development. It’s the same with a blastocyst and a newborn. Both human beings in different stages of development.”

Yeah. You ‘see a human being’ but I got the image from a fish breeding website. 

http://www.marinebreeder.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=189&t=4624

It’s a sixline Wrasse: http://www.aquahobby.com/marine/img/sixline1.jpg

Let me guess ... you saw a human being, but the fact you were actually looking at a fish in no way undermines your argument?

Now, I appreciate that’s a cheap trick. But, well, it wasn’t that hard to get you to fall for it. The website hosting the image was called ummfish.com, after all.

Thank you for proving my point, Jemima. :) I looked at what I assumed wasn’t a human being, and it wasn’t. Conversely, you can look at what you assume isn’t a human being, and it is. It shows that we should not rely on our own faulty human perceptions to tell us what is and is not human, correct?

The Catholic Church is a theological body, not a scientific institute (although its members and clergy have made great contributions to science over the years—Mendel et al). Its purpose is to tell us what is and is not true about God and morality, not make declarations about what is and is not true according to the current popular opinion among scientists. The Church has no opinion or official teachings on scientific matters except how they pertain to moral theology.

You should go read the blog Accepting Abundance (http://www.acceptingabundance.com/). It’s written by a woman who has a PhD in chemistry and is also a faithful Catholic. She has a great series of posts going on about personhood and the scientific study of embryology.

If the Catholic Church was so ignorant about science, how is it possible that a Catholic priest is the father of the study of genetics?

Once again, Jemima… educate yourself.

http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0502fea2.asp

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0002.html

sorry, that should read, “I looked at what I assumed WAS a human being, and it wasn’t.” It’s my lunch break and I’m typing quickly. :)

“I looked at what I assumed wasn’t a human being, and it wasn’t.”

... but then you said ‘I see a human being’.

This does not ‘prove your point’. It proves that someone with an entrenched position will see what they want to see.

Which was *my* point. If you take it as axiomatic that the Catholic church teaches the truth, then you will believe that what they teach is true. Even if they tell you one thing one week and the opposite the next.

We can not trust people, all people are fallible. Agreed. Does Mr Ratzinger agree with you on that one? What’s the church’s teaching on infallibility this week?

I’m sorry, Jemima, where did I say “I see a human being” AFTER I said that “I looked at what I assumed WAS a human being, and it WASN’T.”

Like I said, it proves that our perceptions aren’t necessarily reality, and that when I’m reading blog comments on my lunch break I don’t necessarily do in-depth research on all images presented.

Jemima, do you know what infallibility is? Specifically, do you know the difference between infallibility and impeccability?

“Like I said, it proves that our perceptions aren’t necessarily reality”

All it proves is that you’re very happy to label bunches of cells that can’t possibly be human as human. 

“Jemima, do you know what infallibility is? Specifically, do you know the difference between infallibility and impeccability?”

Yes. And I don’t want to get into yet another discussion about it. Particularly as ‘don’t use condoms’ is the matter at hand and isn’t even infallible doctrine.

JoAnna ... you live in Wonderland, where what the Catholic Church teaches is not Catholic teaching. Where you mistaking a fish for a person proves your point that things are unmistakeably human.

I found a great quote this morning: ‘People who talk about how we must maintain the natural order of things always live in a bigger house than you do’.

Now that’s what I call an infallible statement.

*headdesk*

Jemima, come on. You seem like an intelligent person. I can’t believe you can’t grasp this concept.

The dictionary definition of a human being is, “any individual of the genus Homo,  especially a member of the species Homo sapiens” NOT “anything that remotely looks like a human being.” By your definition, a cartoon character is a human being if it looks like one.

Something that looks like a human being may not be a human being (a cartoon character, for example). Something that does not look like a human being may be a human being (a human blastocyst, for example). As my mistake showed, it is not a reliable gauge of what is and is not a human being to simply look at a picture of an organism in a particular stage of development and declare “that is a human being” or “that is not a human being” based on our visual perceptions ONLY.

Let me rephrase my earlier question. Do you know the differences between infallibility and impeccability AS DEFINED BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH? Because you’re demonstrating clear ignorance of these terms even though you claim to know what they mean.

I’ve spent nearly a decade studying the Catholic Church, and spent nearly a year before my conversion trying to prove it wrong.  Believe me, I know the history, I know the teachings, and I know with 100% certainty that you are wrong in that the Church’s teachings have changed. They have developed organically over time according to our increased understanding, but they have not changed.  An acorn looks nothing like an oak tree, but they are still the same entity even if they look dissimilar.

Jemima, I look to the Catholic Church for Truth. You look to the Church of the Holy Mirror. My source of Truth has 2,000 years of learned scientists, philosophers, and great theologians backing it up. You are… some random person on the Internet who may or may not be a UK statistician, and who thinks that the key to population control is to prevent all the poor people from reproducing. (Too many of them, just enough of you…)

I’ll take the Catholic Church, thanks.

“As my mistake showed, it is not a reliable gauge of what is and is not a human being to simply look at a picture of an organism in a particular stage of development and declare “that is a human being” or “that is not a human being” based on our visual perceptions ONLY.”

OK. The only that this subject came up was that you said:

“ultrasound and the other scientific advancements that we have now, which allow us to see the clear humanity of the unborn from the moment of conception.”

They allow us to see no such thing. Ultrasound allows us to see what’s happening as an organism develops in the womb. It does not act as some ‘clear humanity’ super-scope. You were wrong to suggest otherwise.

Ultrasound AND OTHER SCIENTIFIC ADVANCEMENTS (DNA analysis, etc.). Ultrasound technology is useful for pro-abortion advocates who claim that a 9-week-old fetus is nothing but a “ball of cells” (I had a pro-“choicer” tell me this a few weeks ago, when I was 9 weeks pregnant).

OK ... you said this,

“ultrasound and the other scientific advancements that we have now, which allow us to see the clear humanity of the unborn from the moment of conception.”

then you said this:

“Ultrasound technology is useful for pro-abortion advocates who claim that a 9-week-old fetus is nothing but a “ball of cells””

Do you not see that you’ve performed a complete 180 on what you’re saying? You say ‘X is true’, then ‘the opposite of X is true’.

Is this an example of your own position staying exactly the same and merely ‘evolving’ until it’s the exact opposite of what it was before?

There isn’t one clear ‘test of humanity’, it depends entirely on your definitions. There isn’t one single indisputable moment where we ‘become human’. You use the analogy of an acorn and an oak tree. OK. At what moment does the acorn ‘become an oak tree’?

To extend that to contraception, here’s how ridiculous the current Catholic position is:

1. I know that acorns only fall from trees when it’s windy. I wait until it’s windy and an acorn falls from a tree. I catch it. It doesn’t hit the ground, so never germinates. This is ‘natural’.

2. An acorn falls from a tree. I have laid a sheet on the ground. The acorn lands on it, and never germinates. This is a terrible sin. 

“My source of Truth has 2,000 years of learned scientists, philosophers, and great theologians backing it up.”

No, the current Catholic position on contraception has 43 years backing it up. It was published in 1968, meaning it’s less venerable than Pamela Anderson or Jimmy Kimmel. Find the bit in Aquinas or Augustine that talks about menstrual cycles. This is precisely my point - even if ‘eh, we’ve been doing it this way for centuries’ was a good argument, rather than a terrible one, the current line on family planning is not traditional Catholic teaching, it’s the opposite of it.

Okay, Jemima, you need to start actually reading what I write.

I said that ultrasound technology can be helpful in showing certain pro-abortion advocates that a 9-week fetus is not a “ball of cells.” I said nothing about that fetus’ humanity. Whether or not that fetus is a human being is dependent upon DNA analysis, although, of course, if used to show a fetus within a human woman, one can safely assume the fetus is also human, as human women don’t gestate other species.

As for the nonsense you blathered about the Catholic position on contraception being only 30 years old—that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, and any halfway decent scholar of history can tell you the same.

For example, ALL Christian denominations forbade contraception until the Anglican Lambeth conference in 1930 in which the Anglicans caved to social pressure; furthermore, 1930 was also the date of Pope Pius XI’s encyclical “Casti Connubii,” which also explicitly condemned and forbade contraception. The encyclical is here for anyone to read: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_31121930_casti-connubii_en.html

That was over 80 years ago, not 43, and Catholic teaching against contraception remained consistent both before and after the writing of that document.

You really, really need to read these articles. They quite expertly shred your little theories to absolute pieces, especially the first article:

http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0502fea2.asp

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0002.html

Seriously, Jemima, I pity you. I don’t know if you realize the depth of your ignorance on this subject against which you’re railing, but it’s pretty pathetic.

OK ... Let me explain one more time. You say *now*:

‘I said that ultrasound technology can be helpful in showing certain pro-abortion advocates that a 9-week fetus is not a “ball of cells.” I said nothing about that fetus’ humanity.’

*after* saying:

“ultrasound and the other scientific advancements that we have now, which allow us to see the clear humanity of the unborn from the moment of conception.”

IF you say ‘ultrasound allows us to see the clear humanity of the unborn’, THEN you *are* saying ‘something about that fetus’s humanity’.

That you’ve changed your own position when outflanked in an attempt to argue that the Catholic Church has never done the same is ironic, at least.

All you’re doing is telling me to read links (I have, I did the first time) and trying to redefine terms midway through. Which has stopped being fun, now.

Yes, Jemima, ultrasound technology can ASSIST, especially at later stages of development. But it cannot by itself prove the humanity of a newly-conceived blastocyst, for example, given that they are too small to be seen by the naked eye via ultrasound technology. That’s where other technology comes in.

I doubt you’ve read either of the links, as you continue to make ridiculous and nonsensical claims about Church history (for example, claiming that the Church did not teach against contraception until 43 years ago, when my first link CLEARLY shows that the Church had a consistent teaching against contraception since the 1800s.)

“Yes, Jemima, ultrasound technology can ASSIST, especially at later stages of development. But it cannot by itself prove the humanity of a newly-conceived blastocyst, for example, given that they are too small to be seen by the naked eye via ultrasound technology. That’s where other technology comes in.”

I don’t think you understand the problem. I’m not arguing about the ability of ultrasounds, I’m just pointing out that you said one thing, then said the opposite. Do you just not see that?

Let me help you out.

If I’d said: “sunglasses allow us to see the clear humanity of who we’re looking at” and then said: ‘I said nothing about anyones humanity.’ Then I’d be contradicting myself. Yes?  All I did there was take your exact words and change ‘ultrasound’ to ‘sunglasses’. You contradicted yourself.

“(for example, claiming that the Church did not teach against contraception until 43 years ago”

Again, no, even a brief glance at what I’m saying would show I’m not arguing that.

I’m saying - and I’m saying it because it’s true - that by making the distinction between ‘artificial’ and ‘natural’ forms of contraception Humanae Vitae changed Church teachings.

In 1930: “any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature”

In 1968, it was made clear that a woman could choose not to have sex when she was fertile, then have sex when she knew she wasn’t. ‘Any use whatsoever’ had become ‘except the rhythm method’. And the distinction between this ‘natural’ method and all the other ‘artificial’ ones was made for the first time.

Mr Wojtyla used the phrase “as wisely regulated by nature itself in its biological rhythms” in 1994, and it makes it sound like God told Adam and Eve about menstrual cycles. It was a deliberately deceptive phrasing.

Here’s the key: if we’d asked one of his predecessors as Pope, any of the ones from before the twentieth century, a hypothetical question about the rhythm method, and said ‘OK, a woman decides only to have sex when she knows she can’t conceive’, that Pope would *not* have approved. He’d have said ‘no, that’s contraception’. Most Popes had taken the line that even sex during pregnancy or after menopause was sinful, and that it was only acceptable because otherwise husbands went off and had sex elsewhere.

As the catholic.com article points out, there are many in the Church itself who see the contradiction (and as the other article - the one by that wild-eyed lady - points out, it’s complete academic, because pretty much every young American Catholic behaves just like every other young American). Now ... the two Catholic propaganda sites you pointed me to say that, so now try finding a few more neutral accounts of what actually happened, the ones that put the Church’s teaching in historical and political context, and quotes from the historical documents saved from the memory hole.

Women who use the rhythm method are making a conscious choice to have sex but not babies. The intention is to not conceive. So it’s contraception. You’re agreed on that point?

In that crazy lady article the line ‘there was never a Catholic teaching against the use of periodic continence’ is what’s known as a ‘weasel phrase’. Most people don’t realize that we didn’t know what a menstrual cycle was even a hundred years ago. So *of course* medieval Popes didn’t explicitly ‘teach against it’. They didn’t explicitly ‘teach against’ birth control pills, stem cell research or downloading porn from the internet. If, though, you’d asked any Pope before 1900 ‘if a woman uses a technique to prevent conception’, that Pope would not go ‘tell me ... is this a ‘natural’ technique or an ‘artificial’ one?’, would he?

And the catholic.com article demonstrates just how prevalent those weasel words are - Catholic teaching hasn’t changed, it’s just that the translation that was used wasn’t precise because the Latin takes the ablative? Do you not see the Church wriggling on the hook there?

In the early twentieth century, we discovered various safe, reliable methods of contraception that the woman could control. What happened was women started using them, including Catholic women. At that point, most Christian factions decided that was fine. Catholicism took a hard line, that proved extremely unpopular. So the Church basically just decided that *one* form of contraception was OK. And now Catholic women can pretend to their grandma and priest that they were virgins on their wedding night and the reason they’re 32 and don’t have kids is because of a technique the Pope approves of.

This represented a *change* in what was taught.

Now, I imagine I can’t convince you that. All I can do is demonstrate that I’m not the one contorting words, redefining on the fly and backtracking to make my argument. You’re clearly temperamentally suited to a Church that does that. Given your bizarre anti-Pelosi rant earlier, I suspect you’ve spent the weekend explaining that, yes, Paul Revere was warning the British. At some point, though, y’know, reality will hit you. If the answer was ‘no’ and now it is ‘yes’, it’s because the answer changed, not because someone made a mistake with a Latin ablative.

How many Angels can dance on the head of a pin? That’s what the argument here reminds me of. What you should be asking , though, is how many humans can continue to feast on the carcass of ole’ Mother Earth before all her children starve and go extinct? Oh well, the more the merrier.

Jemima, do you know the difference between Pelosi and Palin? If not, should I bother continuing this discussion? My problem with Pelosi is that she deliberately misrepresented historical Church teaching on abortion. I have no idea what Sarah Palin said or didn’t say about Paul Revere and frankly I don’t care, and it’s not relevant to this discussion, so I have no idea why you bring it up.

What I have said and have been saying is that unborn children are humans from the moment of conception. Ultrasound technology as well as other technology can assist, even prove, that humanity. Period. The comment thread is available for anyone to read to see the truth.

Church teaching on contraception has not changed. Natural family planning IS NOT CONTRACEPTION. Contraception literally means “against conception.” It is something that works to DELIBERATELY FRUSTRATE conception, either in anticipation of, during, or after the act of intercourse. Neither NFP nor abstinence frustrate conception because THERE IS NO ACT BEING FRUSTRATED, because no act is performed. Once again, if you’d bothered to read the links I posted, you would know the distinction.

Are you a Latin scholar? If not, I would prefer to discuss the Latin translation with someone who is instead of someone who thinks she knows what Church teaching is despite having it completely wrong.

Read “Casti Connubi” again. Pope Pius XI, in 1930, specifically teaches against contraception but says that it’s acceptable to use the occasions of natural infertility to space pregnancy. He taught this OVER 80 YEARS ago, not 43. Humane Vitae taught the EXACT SAME THING. Very consistent, very straightforward.

You also need to read your history in that contraception and abortion, reliable or not, have been around from time immemorial. That’s why the early Church fathers warned against using either.

Once again, Jemima, your apparent ignorance is just sad.

“How many Angels can dance on the head of a pin? That’s what the argument here reminds me of.”

I agree, and we have been sidetracked into a discussion of how when a Catholic priest reads out something from a Vatican-approved book stating what the Pope said about something it’s crazy to think that’s ‘Catholic teaching’.

There’s an important point, here, though: what Catholics are taught is not compatible with sensible solutions to overpopulation. And when we have people like JoAnna deciding that when reality conflicts with teaching, then reality has it wrong, we do have an extra problem. There are clearly crazy people here - people who think the whole world can be like Monaco are just ... well, so far divorced from reality as to make it impossible to engage with them. When we have people like RMMT saying that large families ‘use less resources’ than small ones, we can see just how deep down the rabbit hole a lot of sensible, well-meaning people are, though.

There is a tribal problem, basically. Loyalty to the current leadership of their particular subset of one branch of theist belief overrides a lot of critical faculties. Change will have to come from within, though, and it will have to be presented as ‘evolution’, rather than change. Fortunately, the Vatican is nothing if not pragmatic. I’m sure it will find a way to keep its wealthy American and European supporters worked up about abortion and handing over their cash (note that the lady who sees pornography whenever she’s in Macy’s that JoAnna linked to ended with ‘buy stuff from me!’) while engaging productively with the problems of Africa.

Jemima, seriously? You read “Contraception: Why Not”? and all you took from it was “the lady who sees pornography whenever she’s in Macy’s that JoAnna linked to ended with ‘buy stuff from me!’”?

Seriously? If that’s what reading comprehension in this world is coming to, I do indeed shudder for the fate of humanity.

The problem with your reality is that it is not reality, it is your opinion and a poor one at that. But you’re convinced it is reality, ergo everyone else must be wrong.

The funny (and pathetic) aspect of this whole situation is that you’re doing exactly what you’re accusing Catholics of doing (taking what you believe to be objective truth and insisting it is the only correct worldview, based on your own biased and subjective research), but of course we’re wrong and you’re right. Yawn. Second verse, same as the first.

“Ultrasound technology as well as other technology can assist, even prove, that humanity.”

JoAnna, are you two people, Jo and Anna? This is the only possible explanation for how you can say that after saying:

“it is not a reliable gauge of what is and is not a human being to simply look at a picture of an organism in a particular stage of development and declare “that is a human being” or “that is not a human being” based on our visual perceptions ONLY.”

If you can’t see this as you contradicting yourself, I am running out of ways of trying to explain it to you.

OK. If you say ‘my car is red’ and then ‘my car is not red’ are you contradicting yourself?

Now. If you say ‘if we look at a picture of a fetus that shows us its humanity’ and ‘you can’t just look at a picture of a fetus and say it shows us its humanity’, are you contradicting myself. Yes?

If you’ve got another human being over the age of about three around, they’ll be able to explain how ‘X has this property’ and ‘X doesn’t have this property’ can’t both be true statements. It seems to be giving you trouble.

“Church teaching on contraception has not changed. Natural family planning IS NOT CONTRACEPTION. Contraception literally means “against conception.” It is something that works to DELIBERATELY FRUSTRATE conception, either in anticipation of, during, or after the act of intercourse.”

OK. I’ve just grabbed a really basic dictionary of medical terms off the shelf:

‘Contraception - Intentional prevention of conception or impregnation through the use of various devices, agents, drugs, sexual practices, or surgical procedures.’

The rhythm method counts as a ‘sexual practice’, yes?

‘Rhythm method - a method of birth control involving continence during the period of the sexual cycle in which ovulation is most likely to occur’

Birth control is contraception, yes?

‘Birth control - 1 :  control of the number of children born especially by preventing or lessening the frequency of conception : CONTRACEPTION
2 :  contraceptive devices or preparations’

A woman using the rhythm method deliberately chooses to have sex only when she knows she won’t conceive. She sits there with a chart and calendar and perhaps a thermometer (this is apparently ‘natural’) and makes a choice to have sex knowing she can’t have a baby. She intends and anticipates not conceiving. By the definition *you just gave* it’s contraception.

And you are right. The Catholic Church has been consistently against contraception. But they are for the rhythm method. Which means they’ve come up with this absurd loophole of saying there are ‘natural’ methods of contraception. That if you sit there with a chart and a thermometer and work out months in advance that you’re not going to have sex on the eighth of July because you’d have a baby that this is ‘natural’, but if you buy a pack of condoms on the morning of the eighth that you’re subverting God’s will and engaged in a deliberate attempt not to conceive.

You seem confused about what I’m arguing. I’m not saying ‘the Catholic church used to like contraception’ (although I am saying historically they didn’t make it the central plank of Catholic belief it seems to be these days). I’m saying that NFP *is* contraception. And the Catholic Church approves of it. *That’s* the change.

(Oh, and NFP may kill more embryos other methods of birth control: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060526180749.htm)

‘Jemima, seriously? You read “Contraception: Why Not”? and all you took from it was “the lady who sees pornography whenever she’s in Macy’s that JoAnna linked to ended with ‘buy stuff from me!’”?’

She says:

‘I can hardly watch the advertisements on TV without being offended, let alone afternoon soaps which are surely soft porn, let alone the talk shows that introduce perversions into my mind that I hadn’t even imagined, let alone MTV which approaches being hard-core porn.’

So, yeah, I’m not all that inclined to trust her view of the world. Do *you* think ‘MTV approaches being hardcore porn’, or do you consider that to be a rather extremist position to take?

Anyway, do you not see that it’s basically just an advert for her books and CDs? Did you not click on the link at the end?

https://shop.mycatholicfaith.org/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=30

She’s got a product to sell, JoAnna. She says she’s sold a million CDs and she charges $4.95 for them. As a religious person, she can earn all that tax free, too. Sweet deal. She probably believes. If I got five million dollars for telling people things they already know, I’d probably start believing in one of the gods, too.

I couldn’t say, Jemima, as I haven’t seen MTV in over a decade. I do think many TV shows and even commercials are quickly approaching soft porn categories, though.

Do you object to authors offering CD versions of their articles for a minimal charge? $4.95 would just about cover the cost of the CD, burning, labeling, shipping, etc. I can’t imagine she makes any profit. Seems like a pretty poor strategy to offer the ENTIRE TEXT of the talk in written format; doesn’t give much incentive to purchase a CD, does it?

But if you object to anyone speaking their opinion who also makes a living off of writing or speaking, I can’t imagine where you get your news… last time I checked, news sources ran advertising to make a profit.

Yes, Jemima, I said that OUR VISUAL PERCEPTION ALONE can’t prove, definitively, the humanity of the unborn. Ultrasound technology CAN ASSIST, especially in later stages of fetal development, but if you want DNA analysis to prove an unborn being is of the species homo sapiens, then visual perception by itself won’t do it, especially in the blastocyst stage.

Jo wrote:

“$4.95 would just about cover the cost of the CD, burning, labeling, shipping, etc. I can’t imagine she makes any profit.”

Anna wrote:

“But if you object to anyone speaking their opinion who also makes a living off of writing or speaking, I can’t imagine where you get your news… last time I checked, news sources ran advertising to make a profit.”

Jo, Anna ... when you both post in the same comment, it gets very confusing. Which is it - she’s ‘only covering her costs’ or ‘she’s making a living’?

Oh ... what’s the use? Yes, JoAnna, you’re clearly right about both the things you said, even though they contradict each other. Well done. I don’t know what I was thinking.

I’m in the mood for some softcore porn. I’ll just see what’s on MTV ... oh a program about a woman with body dysmorphic disorder that’s educating women about bulima. Yay, just what I wanted!

Jemima, please pay attention.

MY CONTENTION is that she makes very little profit, if any, off of CD sales.

YOUR CONTENTION is that she does indeed profit, so my question is why she would make her talks available online, for free, in a written format if she is indeed profiting off of CD sales.

Like I said, I haven’t watched MTV in a very long time so I have no idea what their programming consists of currently, but I seriously doubt it’s 24/7 documentaries about bulimia—unless MTV has drastically changed from how I remember it (my husband remembers a time when they actually played music videos, for example…)

“MY CONTENTION is that she makes very little profit, if any, off of CD sales.”

http://www.newcyberian.com/ will copy 10,000 CDs and print the sleeves for 55c a copy. USPS (http://dbcalc.usps.gov/CalculatorSetPage.aspx) will charge a non-profit 19c to post those 10,000 CDs.

So the printing and mailing costs are about 75c each. There will be nominal costs printing and attaching shipping labels - call that 25c. So ... around four million dollars profit, given that she claims a million sales at $4.95 per CD.

I’m sure she’s sincere in her beliefs. But she also makes millions of dollars, and as she’s religious she doesn’t have to pay taxes like a normal business. If someone wants to send me five million dollars, I’ll record and distribute a series of CDs in which I say I used to be an atheist but for some reason I now think Catholicism’s just awesome, and so true. Why don’t people get that? There are so many misconceptions about Catholic teaching, and for $5 I’d like to explain some of them. Male only priesthood? Great idea. Gay marriage? It’s against nature. The Church around here is booming. Abuse scandal - the real scandal is that the media aren’t exposing all the child abuse that goes on in atheist organizations. I know what Catholics like hearing, so I’d be really good at it. It’s a serious offer - paypal five million dollars to jemimacole@gmail.com and I’ll do that. I’m an atheist, I have no soul or guilt. I wouldn’t be the first.

Dr. Smith makes millions of dollars, Jemima? Do you have the financial records to back that statement up as well? It’s amazing that she hasn’t quit her day job yet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_E._Smith

There are other costs that you’ve failed to take into account—marketing, advertising, the actual sound production (paying someone to edit the recording for sound quality and so forth), rental fees for a decent sound production studio, etc.

Also, given that you’re allegedly a UK citizen I’ll give you a pass on this, but non-profits do pay some taxes (payroll taxes and etc.): http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/nonprofit-tax.asp

Seems you are as ignorant of the mechanics of actual business ownership as you are with many other subjects.

“marketing, advertising, the actual sound production (paying someone to edit the recording for sound quality and so forth), rental fees for a decent sound production studio, etc.”

It doesn’t cost four million dollars to hire one a studio for an afternoon.

JoAnna, if she’s really sold a million CDs for five dollars each, she’s got revenue of five million dollars. It would have cost her a million dollars to make and mail the physical CDs. That leaves her with four million dollars. Yes? It doesn’t cost four million dollars to hire a recording studio for one afternoon. It wouldn’t have cost her four million dollars to *build* a recording studio.

Once again, you’ve managed to change your argument, but to go from an ill-thought through one to one where the facts simply aren’t on your side.

It doesn’t cost $4, either, but significantly more than that. YOU’RE the one making the million-dollar arguments, not me.

Once again, do you have the financial records to back up your assertion that Dr. Smith is a millionaire due to her CD sales?

“Once again, do you have the financial records to back up your assertion that Dr. Smith is a millionaire due to her CD sales?”

JoAnna, oddly enough I do not have detailed files that lay out the financial standing of everyone whose webpages I visit.

OK. She claims to have sold a million CDs. Let’s assume she’s being honest. She charges $4.95 for that CD (she also has many other products for sale). So the sums are really easy - she’s got revenue of close to $5M, from that CD alone.

So what are her costs? A million dollars for copying and mailing the physical CDs, something like that. Recording costs for an afternoon in a recording studio, plus post-production ... it’s just her speaking, it’s not going to take much work. A thousand dollars? That kind of range. Marketing and advertizing? Again, there will be costs there, but it’s not like she takes out TV adverts. Taxes? Sure, she will be paying some taxes. But she’d need to have a tax rate of 80% to wipe out her profits, and non profits and religions get tax breaks. Even if she’s paying 20% in taxes and spent a million dollars on marketing (both absurdly high rates) that leaves her with two million.

JoAnna, I get the recurring sense that you don’t know when you’re beat. Part of that is that you keep forgetting what it is you are arguing. Here’s what you said:

‘MY CONTENTION is that she makes very little profit, if any, off of CD sales.’

I’m sure she is completely sincere in what she says. I’m sure she thinks MTV really is ‘hardcore pornography’. I’m not arguing that she’s a scam artist.

If she is being honest about her sales and pricing, your contention is absurd. She could be paying twice the going rate for CD production, twice the amount of tax she should be *and* could have made a Superbowl ad and she’d still be pulling a profit. The end.

“OK. She claims to have sold a million CDs.”

You believe that she receives 100% of the profits? Her distributors, publishers, etc. do their end free of charge? Really? What proof leads you to this assumption? Again, if Janet Smith was a millionaire, there would be publicly available financial records to that end. Please produce them as proof of your assertion.

At any point, I’m done with this conversation. I missed it before, but I just saw that you have equated natural miscarriage to induced abortion. [This comment - “(Oh, and NFP may kill more embryos other methods of birth control: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060526180749.htm)]

I’ve made it a policy to cease discussion once a pro-abort makes this claim, because it tells me that the person who makes it does not know the difference between death by natural causes and death by murder. See this blog post I wrote on the difference: http://catholicphoenix.com/2011/05/24/i-can’t-believe-i-have-to-explain-this/

This principle is so elementary that anyone who does not grasp it is simply not worthy of my time.

“You believe that she receives 100% of the profits? Her distributors, publishers, etc. do their end free of charge? Really?”

No. And the way you can tell I am not arguing this is because I *argued something different*. I explained roughly what her costs were, and what her claimed revenue was and showed my working.

I’m sorry to hear you had a miscarriage, and I’m glad that you’re having a baby now and wish you all the best with that.

“This is a complex issue. It’s nuanced.”
Catholics don’t do “nuance”.  It’s against what the Pope has decreed.

Jemima Cole is extremely ignorant. I find it hard to believe that she believes in global warming and overpopulation and keep a straight face!!! These are both so obviously blatant lies. Well to that I will say my wife and I will try to have as many children as we possibly can. At least 12 would be great as a minimum and hopefully many more than that. That is the responsible thing to do-have children and lots of them.

Also her thoughts on the Catholic church are twisted and wrong. She clearly doesn’t have a clue what she is talking about.

Overpopulation a major problem:
Overpopulation has become a major problem for less developed nations. The greater the population is, the more depletion of natural resources and more competition for limited jobs.

US also has a problem:
Putting red on top and wood storefronts humiliating singles have encouraged population growth. I have noticed that although people are fond of babies and toddlers, once they get older parents callous about getting rid of them.

Horrible ways:
It is just awful how they get rid of their children. I just saw a PBS Frontline special on Wounded Platoon in Iraq. Other countries use HIV/AIDS. It is better to practice family planning or not to have children at all.

Overpopulation is a major problem with under developed countries. It seems the US has imported this problem to this country with red and wood storefronts humiliating singles.

The greater the population, the more depletion of natural resources and more competition for jobs. It is just awful how people get rid of their children once they get older: HIV/AIDS, war.

I just saw a Frontline special on Wounded Platoons in Iraq. It was absolutely a horrible nightmare. I was thinking that these young men age 19-20, may be people we may have known as children. One of the guys looked like a boy I saw at Catholic mass.  But they were being treated like meat products.

I cannot help but think how we let them down. We failed to provide them with job opportunities post 9/11, just exorbitant tuition and impossible technology really not necessary to get the work done. At the same time they were being pounded with underdevelopment, with migration of people form south of the border eager to take away even minimum wage jobs from them.

What is most sad about these wounded is that unlike our generation, they do not know how to express their gripes. They lack a sense of freedom of speech. They are bullied out of their own country without a whimper.
The Catholic Church needs to take a stance and have a public outcry about such callous crimes against humanity and abuse of youth by elected officials and the US government that has an obligation to provide jobs for American youth not only for foreign cooks.

I would also like to emphasize the need for adults world wide to practice family planning or not to have children. It is irresponsible to like them when they are children and then get rid of them later in the most inhumane ways.

In response to the shocking PBS Frontline program: Wounded Platoons in Iraq. Please provide a Catholic job register. Thanks so much.

The Christian Voice:
The fact of the matter is that there was special interest in the work place, and discrimination against Christians especially in the public schools in the Northeast.

No sympathy and sadism:
Anti-Christians like Centurians were ranting and raging to drive Christians out, driving them into their death bed or killing fields. 

Taking action:
I cannot say enough on behalf of Christian children who grew up and
were made to do criminal things and see their comrades suffer in blood bath due to a lack of jobs and miserable working environment in the US.

It is so important for the Church to provide an employment website for Christians, that can be searched according to state especially in the NE.

Going vegetarian:
It is also a good idea for Chrisitians to go vegetarian…

Yes. They were pushing irreligious education in the public schools in the NE. Now it may be spreading in the private schools. Check before sending child.

But Freedom of Religion is a Constitutional Right. Home schooling is a good option. Many worksheets according to grade level are available on line. And books are available in the library or can be purchased new and used online.

I will reiterate: The world is not overpopulated. Anyone who believes we are overpopulated has fallen for a lie the same way the Germans fell for Hitler’s lies about the Jews. I repeat we are NOT overpopulated! My wife and I will do the RESPONSIBLE thing and have as many children as we can!