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Those Stories About Religious Groups Taking Over the World with Birth Rates Are for Suckers

Many have fallen sway to demographically data about cultural or religious birth rates -- here's why it's a fool's game.
November 14, 2009  |  
 
 
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"We are outraged and demoralized less by the impending end of our species, less even by our inability to prevent it, than by our failure to discover the cause .... For all our knowledge, our intelligence, our power, we can no longer do what the animals do without thought. No wonder we both worship and resent them." -- P.D. James, Children of Men

Who needs real-time terrors like catastrophic climate change? Religious authorities and viral YouTube videos alike are bemoaning waning faith-based power by blaming something much more boring, even for scientists.

Birth rates.

"Europe is dying," complained England's chief rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks at a religious conference earlier this month. "Europe today is the most secular region in the world ... the only region in the world experiencing population decline. Wherever you turn today the more religious the community, the larger on average are their families."

Sacks' merging of religious impotence and perhaps literal impotence, in the form of population decline, is but one of many offensive outbursts disguised as defensive indignation. It's also bad math: Europe is not the only region in the world experiencing population decline. According to the CIA's Factbook, Hong Kong and Japan are worse off, so much so that the latter explains that it could lose a quarter of its population by 2050. But Sacks can be slightly forgiven for his clumsy math, given that these numbers change annually. Which is to say, they are eminently easily to manipulate for the sake of solicitation.

The same cannot be said for one of the more egregious offenses on this subject, which has come in the form of a viral YouTube video called "Muslim Demographics." It has amassed over 11 million views since it was posted in March by an amateur videographer, ironically named FriendOfMuslim. "Islam will overwhelm Christendom unless Christians recognize the demographic realities, begin reproducing again, and share the gospel with Muslims," argued the YouTube auteur, who is allegedly from Lebanon, inciting explosive feedback, a BBC debunking and an eventual shutdown of comments to its YouTube page. But for all the BBC's efforts at correcting the questionable statistics of the video, the damage, so to speak, has already been done, long ago. And not just because the statistics, in themselves, are routinely questionable.

"They are trying to scare people," explained Carl Haub, senior demographer for the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), by phone to AlterNet. "As long as migrant groups aren't enormous, usually no one worries about it. It's once the culture starts changing that you get trouble."

That trouble has lately arrived as a full-frontal assault on demographic data, where cultural and religious polemicists alike have seized upon the murky numbers of population growth and decline to make their case for fortification and resurgence. But this is a demographic process that has been replicating for millennia, long before Genesis asked true believers to "be fruitful and multiply." But now instead of being cloaked in the righteous garb of faith, the crusaders' paranoia is white-coated in the lab jacket of birth-rate data. And the devil is in the details.

"The data it is politicized," added Haub, "because there is culture shock. But there are unhappy people on both sides of migration. It's a major cultural and climatic change for immigrants as well."


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Scott Thill runs the online mag Morphizm.com. His writing has appeared on Salon, XLR8R, All Music Guide, Wired and others.
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OMG!!! OMG!!! Islamofascists are EVERYWHERE!!!!!
Posted by: Lese Majeste on Nov 14, 2009 2:25 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
See for yourself and then wonder why Obama appointed so many of those Muzzies to his cabinet... like Rahm Emanuel, Axelrod, Orszag, Summers and that 'towel head' lover and bomb thrower HRM Clinton, who has threatened to nuke Israel numerous times. OMG!!!

Obama has appointed more of those Islamofascist types to his cabinet than former President Clinton, who had set a record for appointing Muzzies.

Check out the weg pages of the State and Treasury Departments and you'll be shocked at how many Islamofascists are lurking in the halls.

Wonder how Islamofascists have taken over the Federal Reserve and are not only fighting an audit, but have made veiled threats to take down the economy if an audit is performed and we keep asking questions about that 24 TRILLION dollars the Fed printed up and gave away to its buddies.

And all those Wall Street banks that pulled off the largest theft in history, robbing Americans and stealing their homes?

All staffed, owned and operated by more sinister Islamofascists types.

Those major MSM outlets that conjured up lies about Iraq and passed them on as news?
All run by Islamofascists who are so sneaky, they tricked the USA into invading TWO Muslim nations and are now leading us into more wars against Somalia, Pakistan, Yemen and Iran.


Those crafty devils!

Those DC 'think tanks' like AEI, WINEP, JINSA and Brookings that spend all their time 'thinking' about how to keep America bogged down in the ME fighting endless wars and sacrificing our kids and spending ourselves into poverty to support the wars?

ALL run by those sneaky Muzzies!!

Yes America, our country has already been taken over by Muzzies and you don't even know it happened.

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» You're afraid of ESL cartoons? Posted by: Biflspud

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Overpopulation is Profitable
Posted by: DrGeneNelson on Nov 14, 2009 4:00 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The folks that advocate for overpopulation want more economic power and/or more political power. Their advocacy tends to be of the "moral peril" variety where they reap those benefits without paying the costs. Overpopulation drives down wages and worsens working conditions via the law of supply and demand (greater supply = lower wages.) At the same time, the price of the necessaries of life are bid upwards. Curiously, the greedy economic elite are the most significant beneficiaries. The "little people" in the words of Leona Helmsley are the ones that pay the price.

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Breeding Recruits
Posted by: Purple Girl on Nov 14, 2009 4:16 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
No Doubt for their self fulfilling prophecy of 'Armegeddon', but also for their corp backers bottomline.
Nothing makes a Neo Con wetter than a Pro Life, Pro Defense, Pro Business End of Dayer.
Cha Ching!!

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» RE: Breeding Recruits Posted by: Sister_Lauren

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Becoming King With One Eye.
Posted by: melpol on Nov 14, 2009 4:19 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Monster populations exercise little power over government. The only power they possess is the power to produce more children. India is a perfect example where a billion people live in poverty while only a few enjoy riches. In a world where all are blind the person with one eye is king.

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Regular folks DO need to be concerned
Posted by: Todd Kimmell on Nov 14, 2009 4:27 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Regular folks who have made a conscious decision to have just a couple of much loved and well supported kids DO need to be concerned about cultures around the globe that still, in the face of what is happening in the world, promote that they're personal worth is based on how many, many kids they have.

Furthermore, the seemingly total surrender of the American African-American community to address the problem, publicly and from within their community, of the real and never ending ripple effects of unmarried and utterly unsupported births has put a self inflicted strangle hold on real broad based progress in the African-American community.

Yes, we can howl, and rightly so, as racists and the nutty American religious right wing grasp these statistics and bend and pervert them, then wave them like a flag of hate to incense their raging followers. But for sensible and clear thinking people to not recognize and be comfortable talking about the real problems our society and our world face by the dumping of endless, unwanted and unsupportable children into the streets is in itself a crime.

I listened to a Public Radio report recently from a birthing clinic in Afghanistan, in a region where the AVERAGE birth rate was 8 children. That is insane, but the focus was only on the immediacy of the need to have the mother survive this latest birth. That is certainly very, very important, but there was no discussion of how to educate the local populace to try a different approach.

I do not surrender this issue to the hysterics and racism of the right wing, and I present these thoughts as a challenge to clear thinking people everywhere to address the issue. Openly. Honestly. With love as the driving energy.

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Religious numbers
Posted by: robchapman on Nov 14, 2009 4:30 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Religion does not operate as a powerful force because of its numbers, instead it operates as a powerful force because it is organized and focusse.

In America, we have historically eschewed organizing our politics around political ideas.
In our day, the activist core of Supreme Court Justices, Scalia, Thomas, Alioto and Roberts have increasingly insinuated religious concepts and organizations into the government.

This trend is still making the conservative religious groups more poewrful at the national level. This follows the stealth campaigns of the eighties and nineties in which religious groups organized around groups lead by Ralph Reed and others focucces on low-turnout, off year elections to take over school boards, county commissions and other governmental organs.

Nothing sinister there, just political purpose, focus and organization. They are playing by the rules and making an impact.

Supposedly, that is what America is all about. The opportunity still exists for other more progressive groups to organize, stop bickering and make their impact felt, too.

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» dirty politics Posted by: luzmejor

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The Endgame For All Times
Posted by: ScoobyDoobyDoo on Nov 14, 2009 4:32 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
What both the article itself and the above comment miss is what is called "population overshoot", which is evidenced in China, much of Asia, Africa and Latin America, where babies are being produced faster than the food supply can be increased and potable water supplies can be monitored and preserved.

-Comment to first comment I found worth posting so it won't be missed.

What's appalling is that fundamentalist of all stripes, particularly christians, are notably tribal hate-mongers. Fundamentalist christians, for example, are amongst the most racist and un-christian of all, having turned anything that in anyway resembles true christianity and the teachings of Jesus into something to be vilified, feared and despised--like liberalism, Marxism, Communism, Socialism, public education, real healthcare reform and anything that might help the poor and the ill, or attempt to make the world a more just and equitable one, if helped rather than sabotaged.

They despise truth, science and reason. They alienate people from reality, supplanting it with the propaganda narratives of the hidden agendas of foxes in the hen house. They're as tribal as Nazis, having turned the Gospel of Jesus on it's head, whereby supposedly God loves those who love Mamon and rewards them thus. Calvinists, Later-Day Saints, Jim Dobsons and Tim La Hayes... they're all the same un-christian tribalist hypocrites. If anything today embodies the Anti-Christ it is Capitalism, and these fundamentalist stealth-satanists are fighting each other to be Satan's prefered acolytes, helping to enslave the world and praying they'll be accordingly rewarded. Unfortunately many are, which is why they get such blind masses of lemings following.

evolumental.com... rEVOLUTION OF THE MIND

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The point has surely been missed - by a country mile!
Posted by: BigRon on Nov 14, 2009 4:45 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If you want to see REAL differences between birth rates, you need to compare industrialised countries with third-world ones. The UK has (but only for about 50 years) accepted immigrants from its former Empire, allowing a transfer from developing nations to the oldest industrialised nation in the globe, (notably Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims.) But... guess what? If an Indian comes to the UK and has ten kids... then those ten kids AREN'T from India any more - they're from the UK. And THEIR birth rate starts to reflect that: they have fewer kids, and their kids in turn have fewer. My son't best friend (here in the UK) is a Sikh, born to first-generation immigrants. He has just ONE sibling.

Interesting to see the issue raised yet again - it's been a "hot issue" in Ulster for a long time, where the Catholic minority (it's claimed) are DELIBERATELY breeding themselves into a majority, so that they will one day outnumber the Protestants. If they are doing so, then they're in a race with growing secularisation, where a growing chunk of their offspring don't subscribe to either church. Looks like Secularisation is winning - by an increasing margin.

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veg*ism is the solution to overpopulation
Posted by: vasumurti on Nov 14, 2009 4:53 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
How did agriculture arise? One particularly interesting theory is put forth by Mark Nathan Cohen in his book The Food Crisis in Prehistory. This view is startlingly simple: agriculture developed because the world was overpopulated. Relative to the existing hunter-gatherer technology, the environment was incapable of supporting the existing population.'

"It seems odd at first to think of the world as being overpopulated...when the population was only a fraction of what it is today or to think of the world as environmentally exhausted, when it was more fertile then than it is now,'" observes author Keith Akers in A Vegetarian Sourcebook.

"But we must remember that the hunter-gatherer technology is extremely inefficient with respect to land resources. It is estimated that each of the Kung bushmen (a modern hunter-gatherer society) requires over 10 square kilometers of land -- more than 2500 acres. At this rate of land use, the world could hardly have supported more than a few million hunter-gatherers."

According to one theory, primitive men were anatomically ill equipped to be full-time predators. Plant food was thus the basis of their diet, and meat was eaten infrequently. Hunting with primitive weapons--bones, sticks, and spears--is far more difficult than most people realize. Even throwing a rock with accuracy demands great practice and skill. If this theory is correct, primitive man's time was spent mostly gathering and foraging for plant foods.

A study of the Bush People of the Kalahari in Africa found that, even during a serious drought, the most important source of food came from vegetables. Four out of eleven males never went hunting. The others killed 18 animals in eight days. Their chances of obtaining meat on any day was about 25 percent.

On the other hand, the women always returned from their gathering expeditions with food; a 100 percent success rate. The entire tribe was able to comfortably feed itself if each member contributed 15 hours of work per week--even better than our own society's achievement.

"It seems...the real heroes of our Stone Age period were the women, not the men," observes British author Peter Cox in his 1986 book, Why You Don't Need Meat: "...our ancestors ate much more plant food than is popularly believed."

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» RE: The Kalahari is a desert. Posted by: oregoncharles

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veg*ism is the solution to overpopulation (cont'd)
Posted by: vasumurti on Nov 14, 2009 4:54 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Half the water consumed in the U.S. goes to irrigate land growing feed and fodder for livestock. Huge amounts of water are also used to wash away their excrement. In fact, U.S. livestock produce 20 times as much excrement as does the entire human population, creating sewage which is 10 to several hundred times as concentrated as raw domestic sewage. Animal wastes cause 10 times as much water pollution than does the U.S. human population; the meat industry causes 3 times as much harmful organic water pollution than the rest of the nation's industries combined.

Meat producers, the number one industrial polluters in our nation, contribute to half the water pollution in the United States. The water that goes into a 1,000 lb. steer could float a destroyer. It takes 25 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat, but 2,500 gallons to produce a pound of meat. If these costs weren't subsidized by the American taxpayers, hamburger meat would be $35 per pound!

The burden of subsidizing the California meat industry costs taxpayers $24 billion annually. Livestock producers are California's biggest consumers of water. Every tax dollar the state doles out to livestock producers costs taxpayers over 7 dollars in lost wages, higher living costs and reduced business income. 17 western states have enough water supplies to support economies and populations twice as large as the present.

Overgrazing of cattle leads to topsoil erosion, turning once-arable land into desert. We lose 4 million acres of topsoil each year and 85 percent of this loss is directly caused by raising livestock. To replace the soil we've lost, we're destroying our forests. Since 1967, the rate of deforestation in the U. S. has been 1 acre every 5 seconds. For each acre cleared in urbanization, 7 are cleared for grazing or growing livestock feed.

One-third of all raw materials in the U. S. are consumed by the livestock industry and it takes 3 times as much fossil fuel energy to produce meat than it does to produce plant foods. A report on the energy crisis in Scientific American warned: "The trends in meat consumption and energy consumption are on a collision course."

Nor can fish provide any help here. There are signs that the fishing industry (which is quite energy-intensive) has already overfished the oceans in several areas. And fish could never play a major role in the worlds diet anyway: the entire global fish catch of the world, if divided among all the world's inhabitants would amount to only a few ounces of fish per person per week.

Nathan Pritikin, author of The Pritikin Plan, recommended not more than 3 ounces of animal protein per day; three ounces per week for his patients who had already suffered a heart attack.

Obviously, then, the idea of providing the entire world with a Western-style diet is absurd. But what about satisfying today's demand for meat--which provides only a fraction of the population with a Western-style diet? If the world population triples in the next 100 years, and meat consumption continues, then meat production would have to triple as well. Instead of 3.7 billion acres of cropland and 7.5 billion acres of grazing land, we would require 11.1 billion acres of cropland and 22.5 billion acres of grazing land.

But this is slightly larger than the total land area of the six inhabited continents! We are desperately short of forests, water and energy already. Even if we resort to extreme methods of population control: abortion, infanticide, genocide, etc...modest increases in the world population would make it impossible to maintain current levels of meat consumption. On a vegan diet, however, the world could easily support a population several times its present size. The world's cattle alone consume enough to feed over 8.7 billion humans.

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Not a strong article...
Posted by: drosera on Nov 14, 2009 5:48 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Thill says there are arguments, powerful arguments against the notion that demographics will make for a world populated by Muslims and fundamentalist Christians, but he only mentions them, never explains them to us. I don't care that the BBC debunked such scaremongering (and Thill gives us the link), but I want to know, in summary, what the BBC said. He doesn't have to write a doctoral thesis, only a short article about how demographics do not imply religious fundamentalism. I'll give him a D on this one. Expect better next time.

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» RE: Not a strong article... Posted by: luzmejor
» RE: Confused... Posted by: oregoncharles

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Our problem is that we demand too much of a good thing.
Posted by: luzmejor on Nov 14, 2009 7:23 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It is obvious that small families get better care and attention from their parents and extended families. Of course that will usually lead to better outcomes for everyone.

Try to think about what large families had to endure during America's Great Depression. Farming families actually needed more children to help with all that intensive farm work. But today's families, supported by lower wages and fewer caretakers are definitely in trouble.

If we care about our children, we will think more about what their experiences are in our so-called "free" society, and govern ourselves accordingly.

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This is what is really going on . . .
Posted by: bcainx on Nov 14, 2009 7:35 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Go to www.newagecitizen.com to see what can be done to stop all immigration. This must happen immediately, before Obama makes 26 million illegal aliens US Citizens after breaking into our country.

Corporate American (e.g., MultiNational Corporations) have basically decided to displace older Americans with younger foreigners: both legal and illegal. It is all about the "Benjamins" my friend. And here is the smoking gun. This author is purposely misdirecting the public with this article because foreign population growth should be our foremost concern right now.

The following excerpt explains why most corporate executives should be put in jail or much, much worse. Can you smell the Bastille in the air?

===================
The only problem? From a purely economic standpoint, insuring illegal immigrants makes a lot of sense—and not just for them, but for everyone.

Consider a few statistics. According to a July article in the American Journal of Public Health, immigrants typically arrive in America during their prime working years and tend to be younger and healthier than the rest of the U.S. population. As a result, health-care expenditures for the average immigrant are 55 percent lower than for a native-born American citizen with similar characteristics. With the ratio of seniors to workers projected to increase by 67 percent between 2010 and 2030, it stands to reason that including the relatively healthy, relatively employable and largely uninsured illegal population in some sort of universal health-care system would be a boon rather than a burden. "Insurance in principle has to cover the average medical cost of all the people it's serving," explains Leighton Ku, a professor of health policy at George Washington University. "So if you add cheaper people to the pool, like immigrants, you reduce the average cost." More undocumented workers, in other words, means lower premiums for everyone.
Wait a Second. Why Shouldn’t We Insure Illegals?
By Andrew Romano | Newsweek Web Exclusive Sep 14, 2009
http://www.newsweek.com/id/215340

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Cool music
Posted by: Chickensh*tEagle on Nov 14, 2009 9:07 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
in that Muslim Demographics video. Can I get it without the voice-over?

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» Thanks! Posted by: Chickensh*tEagle

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THE DEMOGRAPHICS GAME
Posted by: VZEQICVA on Nov 14, 2009 9:37 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Any human condition anywhere in the world can be matched up with a set of demographics and statictics to prove just about anything.
Women living in poor countries have alot of babies, because few of them survive. The women themselves don't live to be old. They simply procreate so the race can survive. In countries such as ours family size is a choice. When times are bad fewer babies are born. We are very conscious of the cost of having a child. But to search for a formula that applies around the world is crazy. Money, religion, choice just do not allow for coming up with anything but a bunch of numbers with so many variables that they tell us nothing. It seems like a fool's erand. ANNA

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Severely corrupt governments + corporations are why so many people are suffering!!!
Posted by: JohnTruth2001 on Nov 14, 2009 9:50 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
There are abundant resources on this planet for EVERYONE to have clean water, food, shelter, decent jobs, medical care, etc.!!!

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Don't worry, we will corrupt the Muslims
Posted by: billwald on Nov 14, 2009 10:14 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
with consumer goods and the sexual/marriage revolution just as we did the USSR. The problem will start when they out "Ugly American" us ugly Americans.

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WHY IS THIS RABBI WORRIED ABOUT DE-POPULATION?
Posted by: marat on Nov 14, 2009 11:06 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This story is convuluted and doesn't make any sense really. Any talk of population explosion growth has worrisome overtones of eugenics. Any talk of re-population has fear mongering of Christians and Muslims having too many children.

There is something sinister about this Rabbi. The whole article is subversive.

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gilhowcan
Posted by: gilhowcan on Nov 14, 2009 11:14 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
How about "viral" religious authorities and "viral religion?" And all those "virus-ridden followers?" They all display Soren Kirkegaard's "Fear And Trembling" with a "Sickness Unto Death."

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Zero Population Growth
Posted by: maxsmart on Nov 14, 2009 11:45 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We must control population to a sustainable level and we are not going to be able to have ethnic purity. What we do need a some protection of regions for cultural sense of indentity rather than just a world melting pot.
Religion figures into that somehow but mainly no area or groups should be allowed uncontrolled birth rates versus everywhere else and it is an international not a national issue that we will have to address because it impacts everyone and the available resource on this tiny jewel of life called Earth which we all share.

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Nature Bats Last:
Posted by: oregoncharles on Nov 14, 2009 1:30 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"Mother Nature, not Jesus or Mohammed, could end up solving the population endgame without any assistance from the natalists."

Most certainly, and we're not going to like it. At all.

On the other hand: the only point this article makes is that nobody knows for sure. It does, however, note that some of the highest birthrates are in poor countries dominated by Christianity and Islam. The Indian example is pretty clear. Isn't that the essential point it's trying to question?

What we do know is that certain religions actively advocate overbreeding, making them a menace to all of us, and especially to their own members.

What are we going to do about it? God knows.

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» RE: What can we do about it? Posted by: Sister_Lauren

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Euthenics is the key---better living through a better environment
Posted by: Changling on Nov 14, 2009 2:33 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We need to stop fighting wars, using our power to subjugate others to take their land, food, resources ect...no more pirating.

Too many people not enough food, living space, electricity, sewage treatment etc. which is why a billion alone are starving and another 2 billion barely getting enough calories to live.

As I have said time and again the oligarchs here want large poor populations to have a ready and cheap use-and-dispose work force. [Cheaper than robots.] So they are against reducing the population to a level that would benefit you me and everyone else not of the oligarchs.

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» BOTH! THEY WANT SLAVES AND SOLDIERS! Posted by: ScoobyDoobyDoo

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Maybe Americans Can't Emotionally Handle Their 26 Year Old Children Coming Back From WAR
Posted by: tony_opmoc on Nov 14, 2009 4:57 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The Gig Tonight Was Seriously Brilliant

And So At Half Time I Started Talking To This Guy...

Just Another Human Being - I Meet Down The Pub...

And I was talking to him just me to him not consciously even noticing his disability.. well of course I noticed - but I pretended not to - and just talked to him - as if - O.K. He May Have a Disability - But It is Not an Issue So Far as I am Concerned - I Just Want To Talk To You as a Person....

And so at full time after the Encore I went back to have a cigarette in the Garden - and of course everyone wanted to know who my New Friend Was...

And I explained to him - about my own Disability - and I Stood Up and asked Him - Mate - Can I Help You?

Shortly Before and After - My Beer went Spraying Everywhere...

I apologised to his Mum

And then Introduced Him To My Wife

He Was Really Fit - Really Good Looking - All The Girls Would Want To Shag Him...

What The Fuck Am I Supposed To Do?

I Watched Him Stand Up With The Support Of His Crutches

And I Ain't Fucking Stupid

Tony

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Western Sage
Posted by: Western Sage on Nov 14, 2009 6:48 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is a diversion. The point that matters is that we as a species, in this context religion does not matter at all, need to reduce our birth rate dramatically in order to live within the means of our small planet. Another point missed is that, for the most part, the best educated societies on the planet and those with the lowest rates of child mortality tend to have the lowest birth rates. Again, these are factors completely unrelated to religion... unless it can be shown that better educated people tend not to be religious, but even then specific religions would not be relevant.

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Here Today, Here Forever
Posted by: folkie on Nov 14, 2009 8:09 PM   
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No, the threat to survival, ours and the planet's, isn't overpopulation.

We overpopulate, we die off, our bodies are biodegradable, rinse and repeat.

The threat is what we produce that is NOT biodegradable, the toxic chemicals, radioactive substances, all the stuff we can't clean out of the air, soil, and water even if we knew how to safely dispose of it (which we don't) because it is too widely dispersed.

We, my friends, are ephemeral, transient, just passing through. But our toxic wastes are here forever.

In ancient times the rule to live by was to treat your neighbor as yourself. Today it should be to never make a mess you cannot clean up.

Overpopulation by most of the world, those "no impact" people living on less than a dollar a day, isn't anything to worry about. They don't fly, drive, use energy derived from nuclear power, throw away plastics, use disposable diapers or toilet paper, etc. A million of them disperse fewer non-biodegradable toxic substances in a year than a single high-impact American does in in a day.

Maybe there's not enough of them and too many of us.

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» RE: Here Today, Here Forever Posted by: Sister_Lauren

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KP
Posted by: KPelley on Nov 15, 2009 12:53 PM   
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After 40+ years of working in public welfare, I always heard the common legend that poor people had too many children. Yes, poor people in the USA had too many children before birth control was available, but after birth control became available, poor people had less children than the general population. The other group that had less children was immigrants. The first genration, consistent with their home culture, often had lots of kids. The second generation discovered, as the the rest of us have, that one is a better parent by having less children.

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30 years of right wing propaganda has convinced us that managing this planet is folly
Posted by: Paul_C on Nov 15, 2009 7:32 PM   
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This is really the core of the problem today.

We have the science and management tools to manage this planet professionally so that it functions as a healthy system.

But it benefits Corporate America in the short term to have zero management outside of the boardroom, something just short of anarchy, while having the best management money can buy inside the boardroom.

Institutionalized religions similarly prey upon ignorance, poverty and human misery within developing countries. Within developed nations, especially within affluent areas, it becomes a country club providing moral justification and cover for the ravages of predatory capitalism.

These are the reasons why poverty is increasing rather than decreasing, why the gap between the wealthy and everyone else continues to grow, and why our government has become utterly dysfunctional.

peace,
Paul

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On 11/16/09, 78,408 People Died Worldwide...
Posted by: p.ray on Nov 16, 2009 11:43 AM   
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... however, 339,024 babies were born.

At a rate 8.67/1000 Deaths:20.05 Births = 11.38/1000 persons are added to the worldwide population each and every day.

On Nov 16, 2009 the U.S. Population was 307,948,914 and Worldwide 6,797,438,026

Since yesterday, ~260,616 additional people were added to the worldwide population. From Baltimore to Bangladesh, this occurs each and every day.

Even your most addle-minded adherents' gods must know... this is unsustainable.

The only possible solutions to our planetary problems: Stop Breeding and/or face a massive die-off caused by engineered (war) or natural (famine, disease, cataclysm) means (and I'm sure that all those "pro-lifers" out there will paradoxically choose the later over the former.)

For a minute-by-minute population update: http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

Phala
Whys=Wise

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http://www.ebuyings.com
Posted by: jacklang0001 on Nov 17, 2009 5:59 AM   
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http://www.ebuyings.com
Posted by: jacklang0001 on Nov 17, 2009 6:04 AM   
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http://www.ebuyings.com
have some cheap things ...
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free shipping
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any size available
accept the paypal

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Way too many people on Mother Earth
Posted by: willymack on Nov 22, 2009 7:42 AM   
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It hardly matters WHO the people are when they're ALL dirty, destructive savage brutes, now, does it?
We're collectively so goddam stupid that we'll deny we have a problem, even while the world as we know it disintegrates around us.
Oh, well; it's time for the coyotes ravens, and rats, anyway.

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