That depends on your meaning of the word "properly".
With the grace of God, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have brought 17 beautiful children into the world and live, debt free. You may find the answer to your question at their website.
Posted on 05/09/2008 7:39:02 AM PDT by NYer
'Might our religion be killing us?' That's what a Baptist minister was asking recently in an editorial in USA Today.
Rev. Oliver "Buzz" Thomas writes:
Be fruitful and multiply," says the book of Genesis, and Lord knows we have. To the tune of more than 300 million at home and more than 6 billion abroad. But as we go about the heavenly task of multiplying, a poignant question arises: Might our religion be killing us?Insert the deep dark foreboding music.
We all remember the Aztecs. Some say their religion, with its penchant for violence and human sacrifice, played a critical role in the destruction of their civilization. We moderns are far more sophisticated, of course, but if we persist with some of our religious practices, we could be heading down the same disastrous dog trot. Sort of a reverse Noah story. Noah is credited with saving humanity during the big flood. We could be the ones who get blamed for destroying it.Now " Reverend Buzz" doesn't understand that he just hit on the most truth he's going to find in this piece. By comparing America to the Aztecs who destroyed themselves with violence and human sacrifice he actually hit on the truth of America today. But he's after a different kind of truth, you know the kind that doesn't make any sense to anyone not named "Reverend Buzz."
Of course, much of our environmental problem is due to overpopulation. There are simply too many people for the planet to sustain — at least the way we expect to be sustained. Each new person requires more food, water and oxygen. At the same time, each is producing more carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane (the big culprits of global warming). For each additional human, planet Earth (and the rest of us) pays a price.Your baby is just a methane producing machine! Stop them now!
Now, consider the Roman Catholic Church's continued opposition to modern birth control or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' (i.e. Mormons) encouragement of large families. This might not alarm you unless you realize that nearly one in every five humans on the planet is Roman Catholic and that the Latter-day Saints belong to one of the fastest-growing religions in the Western Hemisphere. Many Orthodox Jews and some Muslims also eschew birth control.Additional divine revelation...from someone named Buzz, maybe? So much for sola scriptura.
In the interest of preserving our planet and our species, shouldn't religious organizations be encouraging smaller families? Do our spiritual leaders need additional divine revelation to realize that our current doctrines — which threaten to take the entire world down with us — have become ethically and theologically questionable?
Population growth hits hardest in the poorest nations, and as poverty increases, public health declines. I am quite certain that God is not the author of human misery, but by preaching against birth control at the same time we are preaching against abortion, it seems that we're making God out as cruel, a buffoon, or both.Oh come on. You knew it was coming. First it was global warming, then it was poverty. You knew women being ordained was next right? What? It follows.
I recognize that religious organizations tend to be conservative institutions. Their continued resistance to equal rights for women and gays is a good example. A woman may be president of Harvard or speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, but in the largest religious organization on the planet, women still can't get ordained as parish priests. It's even worse for gays and lesbians.
How should people of faith respond to this gathering environmental storm?Is he out of his mind. Doesn't he read? The reproduction rates of mainly Christian nations in Europe are currently sub-replacement levels. The United States hovers just at replacement rate with 2.07 births per woman. Ireland is 1.87, New Zealand 1.79, Australia 1.76. But Canada's fertility rate is down to 1.5, well below replacement rate; Germany and Austria are at 1.3, the brink of the death spiral; Russia and Italy are at 1.2; Spain 1.1, about half replacement rate. That's to say, Spain's population is halving every generation.
First, we must stop having so many children. Clergy should consider voicing the difficult truth that having more than two children during such a time is selfish. Dare we say sinful? The average American might not listen to his elected representatives, but he darn sure listens to his pastor. Every week. This will be a hard message for pastors to preach and parishioners to hear, but without it we court disaster.
In addition, Americans should be having important policy debates as we anticipate a hotter, more hostile natural environment. Instead of providing tax breaks for having more children, shouldn't Congress be providing incentives for having fewer?
When Aztec society was threatened by disease and military defeat, their religious leaders appear to have let them down. Most likely, these leaders encouraged even more human sacrifice to appease the gods, thereby further weakening the society and ultimately facilitating its collapse.Well, if he's making a list I can point to at least one religious leader who's letting people down.
Let's hope we can learn from their mistakes.
That depends on your meaning of the word "properly".
With the grace of God, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have brought 17 beautiful children into the world and live, debt free. You may find the answer to your question at their website.
Perfect! Let me know what you think of the movie - Bill and Anoreth are talking about it.
It is called natural family planning (see below). Until the Lambeth conference in 1930, all Christian churches condemned birth control as sinful. Today, the Catholic Church is virtually alone in holding to this ancient belief, as one denomination after another has accepted artificial contraception. This should be a troubling fact for many who believe in Scripture.
It’s very rah-rah America. And the bad guys are in Afganistan and very Arab looking. Amazing!
My nephew (who runs the Movie theater) says it kicks. He’s really conservative so I trust his judgement.
Wait until Captain America comes out in 2010. The libs will explode!
They like war movies. So do I, but not enough to go to the movie theater when I could be running.
What do you mean by ‘aged out’? They do talk about there no long being a ‘Brain Drain’ of Indians and Chinese coming to the U.S. for tech jobs since most of those jobs are going there anyway. These demographics threads depress me like no others. For what it’s worth I believe Jews tend to have more kids than average.
This asshat is not a Baptist any more than the Westboro Church.
Please do not use potty language on the Religion Forum.
When the average age of a woman across the population is older than the prime childbearing age (42-45).
They do talk about there no long being a ‘Brain Drain’ of Indians and Chinese coming to the U.S. for tech jobs since most of those jobs are going there anyway.
That's an exaggeration, but a popular one. US employers still keep pressing for more visas for such workers - they wouldn't spend money on those applications if they did not have willing applicants.
These demographics threads depress me like no others.
Not me. I'm doing my part - i.e. reproducing at an above average rate.
And the demographic shift is the most solvable problem possible: it can be reversed more or less the minute people decide to - it's not as if the average American cannot afford to have as many children as the average Pakistani. The means are ample - all it takes is will.
For what it’s worth I believe Jews tend to have more kids than average.
Largely because Orthodox women tend to have almost four times as many children as average.
One of the few examples in the world of a high-achievement demographic reproducing at well above replacement.
As usual, the Jews are a source of hope.
I once had a KJV-Onlyist explain to me at length why artificial contraception and abortion are both eminently justifiable Biblically.
There are plenty of Bible-only Christians who are dogmatic contraceptionists.
And when I say Jews I don’t just mean Orthodox I mean the mostly secularized suburban family types who only take their Judasim seriously on Yom Kippur when they sort of fast...kind of.
Why? The Third World is normal. The West is messed up. Sadly, we’ve exported our dislike of children & mankind to them. Now they’ve slowed down, and we are headed for disaster.
One demographic segment that has bucked the trend of lower fertility in the USA are families in the top 10% of income.
Over the past 10-15 years they have begun having more children than the same demographic had in 1980-1995.
There are various speculations about why this would be, but I would point out that a large number of America's secular Jews fall within that demo.
No, socialism hits hardest in the poorest nations. India, Pakistan, China, Vietnam have all reversed generations of crushing poverty. Not by reducing family size but by freeing their economies. God made us all free beings and gave us the skills to care for our families. Governments infantilize and impoverish us.
Our new junior staff member is a 23 y/o Baptist who married last year. He told me one day that he and the wife chose not to have children. In my great ignorance of the Baptist faith, my jaw dropped. I was very tempted to tell him that he would not have been allowed to marry in the Catholic Church. Instead, I printed out the article above about the unbiblical nature of artificial birth control. He and his bride are now on my permanent prayer list.
That was a contributing factor. The primary one is the rise of the Feminist Movement. They are the ones who emasculate men. The Book of Ecclesiastes says it all: "Everything old is new again. There is nothing new under the sun." Throughout history, every time women rose to power, the homosexuals followed in their footsteps. These two movements generally foreshadowed the collapse of a civilization. Abortion, eugenics, relativism and its ugly sisters, usually follow suit.
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