Regular readers know that I tend to discourage my conservative commenters from derailing threads by questioning the very suppositions on which this blog is based. This is a feminist blog, for example, and one which seeks to explore various things from a feminist perspective. This is not a place to question whether the feminist lens is an appropriate one through which to see the world; similarly, a Calvinist blog which seeks to offer a Calvinist perspective on current events is not the place to question the essential tenets of Calvinism. This is why I read quite a few very conservative blogs, but rarely — if ever — comment there. I’m interested in what is said, but since I reject the fundamental premises on which their worldview is based, I don’t think I have much to offer to the conversation. It would be like insisting on speaking Finnish to a group which prefers to dialogue in Thai.
That said, reading all these blogs, I’m increasingly convinced that the core of the split between social conservatives and progressives in this country revolves around not abortion or gay marriage, but a more fundamental disagreement: population. Religious conservatives have become increasingly vocal about their desire to see larger and larger families; indeed, their arguments against abortion and gay marriage seem less couched these days in an assumption that these are intrinsic evils, and more in the language of concern that these practices pose a threat to the large families which the right venerates above all else. Hostility to feminism is surely a sine qua non of contemporary social conservatism, but reading what the pundits on the other side have to say, it seems more and more obvious that their hatred of feminism is rooted in the recognition that increased sovereignty for women over their own bodies is inextricably linked with the reasonable desire to not have, in Amanda Marcotte’s happy phrase, their “vaginas turn into clown cars.”
Feminists and environmentalists have formed common cause over the vital issue of family planning. Those who believe that the world’s resources are already over-taxed by humans whose behavior is frequently parasitic have allies in those who believe that women can and should be encouraged to find fulfillment in pursuits other than motherhood. The longer women wait to marry or reproduce, the less likely they are to have large families; the more opportunities we can create for women to pursue happiness outside the home, the greater the likelihood they will delay marriage and childbirth. The intersection of sound environmental policy and the campaign to give women the precious right of personal autonomy is a fortuitous one indeed! And almost to a man and woman, social conservatives despise this alliance, one which is changing family structures across the western world — and increasing the possibility for greater happiness for the earth and its creatures.
Here, replete with grammatical error on top of grammatical error, is a piece by David Goldman in First Things: What Should Conservatives do about Obamanomics? It takes the “we must have big families” argument to a new level, by suggesting that the collapse of the real estate bubble is due — wait for it, can you guess? — to, yes, birth control:
The first thing that conservatives have to tell Americans is: “You are poorer because you failed to bring up enough children. The decline of the traditional family is undermining the American economy.”
Right. Apparently, that’s why the countries with the highest birth rates, like Sierra Leone and Chad are so rich, and countries with among the lowest, like Sweden and Switzerland, are so desperately poor?
This isn’t the place to point out the risible foundations of the “we must have more babies or the world will collapse” argument. Plenty of economists have pointed out that the “growth” model can be replaced by a healthy “sustainability” model. The transition may be wrenching, but far less so than the apocalyptic impact on our planet of ever-growing voracious human appetites.
What I’m wondering — to get to the point of this post — is why religious conservatives are so eager to have large families? I get the economic argument (we need more future workers to maintain retired ones), but the churches were urging their flocks to “be fruitful and multiply” long before anyone thought up modern pension schemes, or modern feminism. Beyond the instinct to reproduce and survive, what are the theological roots of this obsession with making babies?
I know my Mormon friends believe, or so they tell me, that there are countless billions of “pre-born souls” wandering around up in the ether, each longing to be born. Thus, having a large family is an act not of irresponsibility but of self-sacrifice: parents give up their freedom in exchange for the satisfaction of helping as many of these pre-born souls as possible become incarnate. (My LDS friends, please tell me if I’ve misrepresented the idea.) Some of my friends in the Kabbalah Centre believe that in the Beginning, God created a “vessel” which then shattered into trillions of tiny sparks. Each of these sparks is a sentient soul, and each longs to be born into human flesh for the sake of reassembling the broken vessel and completing what in Hebrew is called tikkun olam, the repair of the world. Thus for Mormons and Kabbalists, family size limitation is selfish on an eschatalogical level — it delays the final redemption and robs the “pre-born” (the term sends chills down my spine) of their shot at participating in the glories of incarnation.
But my orthodox (small o) Christian friends are not permitted to believe these things. Roman Catholics certainly don’t teach of the eager pre-born multitudes; the Church is rightly wary of claiming knowledge of just how many souls there are. Indeed, in teaching that life begins at conception (as the magisterium now does), the Church argues against the possibility of a soul existing before that moment. Indeed, the current catechism speaks of the soul being created by God “immediately” at the point of conception – and from that moment forth, the soul is eternal. From that perspective, the obsession of some conservative Catholic pundits and clerics with fecundity is much more difficult to understand than that of the Mormons or the Kabbalists; in the Catholic view, there is no multitude in heaven of as-yet-unconceived babies desperate for a chance at life, wailing and gnashing their teeth at every swallowed pill and every unrolled condom!
So, my dear Catholic and evangelical friends — for I too am washed like you in the Blood of the Lamb, though I understand His call differently — feel free to weigh in here. What do you see as the prime reason for bringing the maximum number of children into the world? Is it simply to act in accordance with the instincts of nature? Is it in the hope of glorifying God by adding still more voices to the chorus which sings His praise? Is it the hope of creating a critical mass of believers so that the Messiah will return? Jesus is still tarrying with seven billion people running around, drinking the planet dry and driving species extinct; will He be more likely to return if we get to ten billion? Twelve? Or are you really closet Mormons, worrying about the “pre-born souls”, desperate to grow in a woman’s womb? Inquiring minds want to know.
I’ve spent many years trying to bridge the cultural divide. I’ve marched with pro-choicers and pro-lifers and then pro-choicers again. I’ve worshipped with conservative Pentecostals, and known that sudden shock of being “slain in the spirit.” I’ve engaged and wrestled with friends on both sides of the abortion issue, the gay marriage issue, the pre-marital sex issue. I’ve always believed that approaching a discussion with the cheerful willingness to hear, really hear, the hopes and fears of one’s opponents can make for surprising breakthroughs. I’ve always believed in the importance of making one’s case winsomely rather than rudely, irenically rather than ironically. But when it comes to the debate over family size, I wonder what common ground can be found; indeed, on this issue more than any other, I despair of ever finding a solution that will unite two radically different world views.
Yes, economists and environmentalists can disagree about the ideal number of human beings we should have on this earth. We can construct economic and resource models that serve to make our arguments with greater clarity and effectiveness. But our underlying world views are so profoundly different that I see no viable avenue for rapprochement. As a Christian, I await the return of Jesus. But I have a strong sense that while no one knows the time and the hour, He is likely to continue to tarry — perhaps for another ten thousand, or ten million years. I think about environmental policy in terms of preserving the earth for eons, because I expect it to be around for eons, or at the very least, feel called to act as if it will be around for eons. Some of my friends on the other side of the culture war suspect — or hope — that we are living in the end times. They have little reason to worry about the long-term carrying capacity of our earth, and our sensibly alarmist models about global warming and species destruction carry no weight with them.
For at least some anti-feminists, the rage against reproductive rights is rooted less in a concern for the preciousness of a single life and more in a philosophical conviction that having babies is at the very core of a woman’s raison d’etre. Feminism and modern liberal thinking, with their insistence that individual happiness is possible for both men and women without reproducing, distorts not only the “natural order” of things but robs all of Creation what conservatives appparently believe it desperately needs more of: human beings. Apparently, God as they understand Him wants ever greater multitudes to praise His name, and those who do not do their part to bring those multitudes into the world dishonor the very purpose of Creation. (It’s a bizarre view of God that assumes He needs this constant increase in praise.)
The God I believe in created the heavens and the earth because at the core of His being was love, and life is love made manifest. But that is all life, not just human life. That is the life of the oceans, the life of the fowl, the life of the invertebrates, the life of the fragile desert ecosystem. We humans are God’s stewards of that creation, called to tend the earth with reverence because we are called to understand that every thing that exists contains within it a spark of God. When we reproduce wildly without regard for how our presence impacts the other, equally valuable living sparks of God, we misunderstand and misuse His creative gift. God is in my daughter; God is in my chinchillas; God is in the rain forests; in all creatures great and small. Preserving and protecting the earth for all of them is doing His work; preserving and protecting the earth means having fewer of one particularly destructive species on it.
A smaller and less voracious human population is the best way for those of us with the power to be God’s stewards to honor his gift. And while empowering women to have sovereignty over their reproductive lives may lead to the occasional Nadya Suleman, such sovereignty will lead far more women to have two, or one, or no children at all. The goals of invididual autonomy and the needs of creation — of feminism and environmentalism — thus happily coincide.
Little wonder then that this issue, above all others, is at the root of the culture war.
Hugo,
As a Catholic, I don’t understand the basis for your assertion that Catholicism advocates “bringing the maximum number of children into the world.” To quote Human Vitae:
“With regard to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised by those who prudently and generously decide to have more children, and by those who, for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an indefinite period of time.”
I would advise you - if you seriously seek dialog with those who disagree with you - to avoid characterizing their beliefs right out of the gate as an “obsession.” Starting like that makes the invitation to to dialog seem disingenuous.
Perhaps I ought to make it clearer — I’m responding to the First Things article and other “pro-big family” polemics, many (if not most) of which are written by Catholics. It is of course clear that many Catholics don’t hold the view that “bigger is better” (the same is true of some Mormons and Kabbalists and so forth); indeed, many Catholics dissent from church teaching on contraception and abortion and so forth.
And much depends on whether you consider individual preference and environmental stewardship to be adequately “serious reasons” according to Humanae Vitae.
I’ve never been a social conservative but I’ve read a lot of their publications, and my impression is that they don’t think of it primarily in terms of population size. A larger concern is the so-called artificial separation between sex and family obligations. Without the possibility (really, the threat) of pregnancy, they say, sex becomes purely about individual pleasure, and therefore there will be more sexual activity that is selfish, casual, unconnected to regard for the other person, etc. (I think your sustainable sexual ethic is a much better solution to that problem.) The child is almost a means to an end, namely the containment of sexuality within stable relationships.
Also, remember that the Old Testament sexual rules were designed for maximum fertility because the Jews were a small nomadic tribe in a hostile environment with high infant mortality. There’s a certain type of religious conservative who thinks it’s sacrilegious to look into the pragmatic reasons for a command, let alone alter it so that the underlying reason can be carried out in VERY changed circumstances, such as we have today.
Well it it seems to me that if responsible economic stewardship means having fewer children, than over time the descendants of less responsible stewards will inherit the earth.
More generally, why does having fewer children imply you are a better steward of the earth? It makes little sense to me either at a micro or a macro level. A small, affluent first world family uses far more resources that a large, poor, third world family. I don’t see the Chinese and their brutal one-child policy and their coal plants as being better stewards than we are.
The Catholic church makes a moral claim for its position, not an economic or an environmental one. The article you reference made sound economic claims, in my view. There are economic consequences to having smaller families. I don’t agree with its moral “culture of death” claim - that is a bit of a stretch. You claim that this article illustrates the deep Catholic obsession with fecundity is equally a stretch.
More generally, why not seek out the strongest advocates and arguments from the “other side” rather than pointing with scorn to the cheap, easily mocked polemics that you find?
STF, “First Things” is not cheap; it’s universally regarded as the flagship journal of American conservative Catholicism — and it reflects a view that’s stunningly common. They have a strict editorial policy to boot; what appears on their blog and in their articles is, all grammar problems aside, carefully vetted. If you read it on FT, it’s more than one man or one woman’s opinion.
And who said anything about China? I’m in favor of options, my brother; when women are given a plethora of educational and contraceptive options, the evidence is (from Western Europe, Japan, and much of North America) that a lot of them want smaller families. No need to pass laws to force them to limit themselves to one child — simply create a climate of social responsibility in which small families are seen as ecologically more responsible and physically less taxing. Love is not a pie, but resources are; the more for one, the less for others.
I’ll say this just once — and I hope I’m forgiven because the post kicked off with this very issue.
“Regular readers know that I tend to discourage my conservative commenters from derailing threads by questioning the very suppositions on which this blog is based. This is a feminist blog, for example, and one which seeks to explore various things from a feminist perspective. This is not a place to question whether the feminist lens is an appropriate one through which to see the world; similarly, a Calvinist blog which seeks to offer a Calvinist perspective on current events is not the place to question the essential tenets of Calvinism.”
If you can find a Calvinist blog where non-Calvinists are not allowed to express their views, let me see.
Conservatives comment at Tapped at prospect.org. Also at Washingtonmonthly.com and many other progressive blogs. There are also many commenters at salon.com. I never see any of those commenters told that they are being improper, so long of course as they don’t flame.
I never see Kevin Drum or Steve Benin say, “This is not a place to question the basic premises of liberalism.”
Feminist blogs are different. Non-feminist views are discouraged. I’ve seen it argued that female bloggers are susceptible to a great deal of hateful comments, but the examples cited are no worse than at many other blogs, and such a rationale would not apply to a *male* feminist like Hugo.
In short, feminist blogs reflect the “no dissent zone” of Women’s Studies. My view is that feminist bloggers, at bottom, fear that the often-leveled charge is true — that feminism cannot withstand open debate.
Hugo,
One of the things that the nuns taught me as a child was to look for an imprimatur on a publication in order to discern whether it should be considered as valid Catholic teaching. The FT article - which you characterized as a polemic, not me - doesn’t seem to meet that criteria.
I’m a conservative Catholic who agrees with the Church’s position on contraception and abortion. I don’t agree with your claim that the church advocates having the maximum number of children possible, or that this article is a fair representation of what the church teaches. I’m not sure who you’re seeking a dialog with.
Clearly there is a culture war. Nancy Pelosi’s visit with the Pope demonstrates that. I think the article you point to is a sideshow.
The example of China aside, I don’t see a the clear relationship you do between family size and ecogical responsibility. I’m thinking an Amish family with 8 kids may be more ecologically responsible than Madonna.
arrgh!!! I wish your blog supported a feature that allowed you to clean up typos :)
Hugo,
firstly, demography matters - but in ways that no one entirely understands, and that are, most likely far too complex for Conservative rules of thumb. I’d say that it’s basically misunderstood intergenerational electoral dynamics that leads Conservative thinkers to believe more kids equal more power - like in, say, Israel and Palestine, where the demographic dynamics are believed to radicalise the conflict because it’s only the Conservatives on both sides are giving birth.
http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2006/the_return_of_patriarchy
There’s a pretty good discussion of this article at Crooked Timber, but I couldn’t find the link.
sweating through fog - I found this Calvinist blog.
http://examiningcalvinism.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2009-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&updated-max=2010-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=4
I couldn’t find any responses which attempted to undermine the underlying premise of Christianity - a belief in God and Christ. Discussions are kept to the best path for Calvinism. I think that’s what Hugo is looking for on his blog - discussions about the best path for Feminism.
Plenty on this blog try to undermine the basic premise of Feminism - akin to arguing for atheism, or even satanism (and I DON’T mean that literally) on a Calvinist site.
Oh, sorry, my response above is for Captcrisis and not Sweating Through Fog!!
Thanks, Matey, that’s the point. A better example would be a blog for folks interested in evolution constantly besieged by creationists. And we’re done discussing this aspect of the post; the topic of large families as a key divide in the culture war.
I grew up (and still live) as a feminist in a conservative Christian family and region, and the reasoning about children and family size is that children are a gift, an absolute blessing from God. You shouldn’t have sex until you’re at least somewhat ready for children, because why would you want to refuse any blessing that God will give you?
Rita, what’s the attitude towards contraception and family planning? Is stopping at 2 kids a rejection of the blessing?
Hugo,
Wow, there’s a lot in this post that I have to (respectfully) disagree with.
I’m an environmentalist in terms of my beliefs, I worked for several years on sustainable-agriculture projects in Africa, and I’m currently a graduate student researching perennial grasses and their potential in sustainable agriculture. So it should be pretty clear that I care about the environment. I do think that overpopulation is a big problem in some parts of the world, and I certainly don’t want to see the world population increasing to much more than it is right now.
That said, I think that these issues need to be solved country by country (I’m pretty hostile to ‘globalist’ thinking in general). There are some countries where birth rates are much too high, and indeed when I lived in a country like that I occasionally gave talks about family planning and contraception to youth groups and women’s groups. There are other countries, like Russia, where birth rates are too low. It would be nice if there was a gradual decrease in global population, but I’d rather see that happen through many generations than a rapid decline. And it should be said that fast growing populations are no longer a problem in _most_ of the world. Birth rates in most of East Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe and the former Soviet bloc, North America, and South America are currently at, below, or a little above replacement. Only in Africa and the Muslim world are populations still fast growing.
I certainly don’t think that small families are right for _everyone_. I’d like to have three kids, personally. It’s fine if some people want to have one child, that just leaves more room for others of us (like me) to have three or four. I do think though that couples have the obligation to have at least one child, and I don’t think that childless marriages are a legitimate Christian choice. I don’t argue that sex must only be in the context of procreative marriages, but I do think that all sexual relationships should be open to developing into a procreative marriage. If procreation and marriage are ruled out from the beginning, then I don’t think that sexual activity can be licit.
It was somewhat generational, I think - my grandma had 11 siblings (not unusual), while my parents each have 3 siblings and I have 2.
In my church and small town contraception use is acceptable, desirable, even expected, but childless marriages are not really okay - the marriage liturgy used in my denomination includes a phrase in the “purpose of marriage” section about “raising children.”
There’s a gap between attitudes and practice, I think - at least there must be, since “children are a gift from God” is the line but most families have only three or so children. The Catholic towns around my Christian Reformed village tend to have larger families, however. Abortion is never okay and “oops” babies must be welcomed as blessings.
Here’s the relevant info from the Christian Reformed Church (I suspect the RCA and related denominations take a similar line:)
“a married couple’s decision whether or not to use birth control to prevent the conception of a baby is a private, disputable matter,” urged that married couples “consider the size of their families prayerfully before God,” and encouraged couples “in their family planning, to be motivated by a desire to glorify God and to further his kingdom and not by selfish reasons or fear of the future” (Acts of Synod 2003, p. 648).
This is total conjecture, but I suspect the shift in the the Christian Reformed Church away from more conservative denominations that still tend to have VERY large families has something to do with the fact that parents are encouraged to send their children to Christian schools but that the church rarely pays for it, unlike in more conservative denominations in which children are more frequently homeschooled or the church pays for their own schools. Parents then have a clear financial incentive to limit their family size, even if they would have liked to have more children (my parents were hoping for a dozen.)
Rita,
The Anglican marriage service also includes the bearing of children as one of the three purposes of marriage- in fact, it’s listed first and not by accident. I should clarify that I don’t think a couple has obligation to have any particular number of children, but I do think they should be open to having at least one.
What is it about our human race that we seem to be incapable of arriving at a reasonable medium on anything? On one side we have the Yemenite families with 7 children per woman, and on the other we have too many of my friends today who don’t ever want to have children. It’s like Luther’s proverbial drunkard on a horse, we always seem to be falling off to one extreme or the other.
Maybe it’s because I’m not religious, but I don’t understand at all why any individual’s child-bearing or child-siring is an abstract concept that can possibly be debated by anyone who is not directly affected by it. Is it a God thing, exclusively? Are there any freethinkers, agnostics or atheists or organizations that advocate some sort of duty to bear or sire some minimum quantity of offspring?
Judaism places the obligation of pru u’rvu (be fruitful and multiply) on men only. It would be unfair to put the obligation on women, since pregnancy and childbirth puts their life at risk.
As for childless marriages, celibate marriages are a legitimate Christian choice, as Paul noted.
LisaKS,
Well, sure, any particular couple may have reasons of physical, mental, or financial health that would make it a better choice for them not to have children. I’m definitely not talking to them. I do believe that the obligations I’m talking about fall under natural law, not specifically under Christian law, and therefore are binding on all people, Christian or not, who are healthy and equipped to raise a child. (In a _moral_ sense, I certainly don’t want the _law_ to get involved in compelling people to bear or not bear children.)
Mythago, yes celibate marriages are certainly an option. I’m not talking about celibate marriages here, any more than I am talking about women whose health conditions mean that they shouldn’t be asked to have children.
I’m not talking about women with unusual health conditions, either. Judaism holds that pregnancy and childbirth are risky to women’s health and can kill them - this is correct, and this isn’t limited to women who have “health conditions”. Therefore, it would be completely unreasonable to impose a commandment to have children on women. The commandment is binding only on men, and it’s satisfied by having one male and one female child, as I recall.
Lisa, it isn’t just a God thing; there are plenty of folks who use the same rhetoric but drop “nature” or “women were designed to….” language in place of divine imperative. I don’t suppose it’s surprising that most of these seem to be men.
“I’m not talking about women with unusual health conditions, either. Judaism holds that pregnancy and childbirth are risky to women’s health and can kill them - this is correct, and this isn’t limited to women who have “health conditions”.”
A truth that far too many people seem entirely unaware of. I was healthy as a horse right up til I develped pre-eclampsia, which is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality.
“Well, sure, any particular couple may have reasons of physical, mental, or financial health that would make it a better choice for them not to have children. I’m definitely not talking to them. I do believe that the obligations I’m talking about fall under natural law, not specifically under Christian law, and therefore are binding on all people”
I’m sorry, but I can’t make the above make sense. “Particular couples” are exempted, but “all people” are not?
So, Mormons believe there are “pre-born souls”. Very interesting. The more I hear and read about LDS, the more convinced I become that if blind-folded, I couldn’t tell LDS apart from the Church of Scientology if my life depended on it. Thanks for the info, Hugo.
“For at least some anti-feminists, the rage against reproductive rights is rooted less in a concern for the preciousness of a single life and more in a philosophical conviction that having babies is at the very core of a woman’s raison d’etre.”
This makes me think that those people might be afraid that their own mommy _might not have loved them to the exclusion of all else_!
Douglas,
While the belief in pre-born souls is not shared by most contemporary Christians, it has a long history. It was the belief of the Platonists, of at least some of the Jewish mystics (I believe that the ‘Book of Enoch’ puts forth this idea), and of a number of early Christian heterodoxies. I don’t believe it, but it isn’t blazingly silly.
There are tons of LDS beliefs that I disagree with, even as my reading of Russell Arben Fox has made me more sympathetic to that faith than I used to be. But this isn’t one of the more objectionable.
Apparently the book of the Wisdom of Solomon also argues for the pre-existence of the soul, as does 2 Esdras.
Hugo,
I’ve already dealt with the “creationists on an evolution blog” argument in comments to a previous post. I’ll leave it at that.
OK:
As to the thrust of your post, when conservative Christians seem to encourage big families, I don’t see them putting any less emphasis on the man as an equally responsible parent. They’re certainly not enouraging women to procreate while unmarried. They’re not letting the multiply-inseminating fathers off the hook. They are, as you seem to point out, enamored of the traditional nuclear family with the stay-at-home mother.
As for the culture war, I think a writer for Newsweek put it best, when describing the sides in the abortion debate: To some, parenthood is a way of life and children are a gift. To others, parenthood is an option and children are a project.
Hm, it’s been a long time since I’ve had these discussions with my parents, who are devout, if sometimes heretical RCs. I do vaguely remember the gift from god thingie, though actually, it seems I heard that more from my conservative-fundamentalist Catholic brothers, rather than my liberal parents.
My mom originally wanted a dozen, but I think my folks ran out of space after half that. Then my mother went on the pill, just like all the other catholic women she knew. They had at least 2 of each sex by then, and I think she kinda wanted to get out of the house, which she promptly did once we were all in school.
The reason she gave me for getting married and having kids was that I was self-centered and rigid, and sharing my life with others would make me a better person. I suspect that was a personal opinion rather than roman catholic doctrine, but one informed by her faith. And I probably am better for it, but I don’t think kids should be a punishment for sex, nor a prod to one’s self-improvement. People should have children because they want to, because they will love and cherish them.
Everyone else should be exempt.
“People should have children because they want to, because they will love and cherish them.
Everyone else should be exempt.”
Very nice and in a nutshell.
Re: I suspect that was a personal opinion rather than roman catholic doctrine, but one informed by her faith. And I probably am better for it, but I don’t think kids should be a punishment for sex, nor a prod to one’s self-improvement. People should have children because they want to, because they will love and cherish them.
I don’t know if it’s been propounded from on high as “official Catholic doctrine” but it’s certainly a logical and reasonable outgrowth of Christian teachings, and I would say that it’s in that sense true Christian doctrine, at least for the Anglican, Orthodox and Catholic faiths. This isn’t to say that a couple should have any particular number of children (just one child might be good for many couples) but to say that having a child, for most people, is an essential part of a Christian sexual life, which spurs us to sacrifice for another, to empty and diminish ourselves as we come more and more to live for the sake of others, and to participate in our small way in the creative process of the Father.
I certainly don’t think children should be seen as ‘a punishment for sex’, and I support the responsible use of things like the Pill so that people can plan their families appropriately. We would do well to remember, however, that birth control like other inventions can be used for bad reasons as well as good ones.
captcrisis, parenthood may be an option, but once you choose it, it’s a way of life. I’ve never understood the view that people to the left of Ronald Reagan simply must not love their chidren.
Maybe “project” is too cold a word, but technically it’s accurate. It’s something you plan on, weighing the risks and benefits. Of course, it’s a project that’s huge and never ends. And once that cute little face looks up at you from the crib, your perspective changes.
If you’re having children because it’s God’s will, then your kids are a task, not a gift. That’s cold.
I always thought that the ‘thou shalt turn thy spouse’s vagina into a clown car’ brigades were more or less totally motivated by the desire to tie women down to caretaking a huge family and, thus, have no time for ‘work’ or ’self-fufillment’. You know, typical social conservative claptrap.
Mythago,
Can’t it be both? Human labor, according to Genesis, was intended as a task and obligation. But many of us find fulfilment in our work, and I would think that a just society would be one in which willing and able people were able to find work that was fulfiling and remunerative as well as socially necessary- a gift, in short, as well as a task. And so it goes with children as well.
NBarnes,
Um, whatever. I don’t really agree with the central argument of Humanae Vitae, for reasons I’ve fleshed out on my own blog, but you’ve hardly stated its central thesis accurately, and I’d advise you to look into the actual document.
Hector: I never claimed that I was stating the central thesis of Humanae Vitae. For starters, I was responding to Hugo’s core point, which addresses both conservative Catholics as well as North American Protestant conservative fundamentalist evangelicals. Additionally, I certainly don’t believe that a breath of my suggestion can be read explicitly in Humanae Vitae; I didn’t speak to its arguments, but, rather, to its motivations.
But our underlying world views are so profoundly different that I see no viable avenue for rapprochement.
Indeed. You worship God in your way, and we in His. ;)
Hugo, you should remove Sweden from your list of example countries. Sweden actually has one of the highest fertility rates in Europe. This is mostly due to its pro-natal governmental policies and much stricter restrictions on abortion compared to the US.
In Sweden, an abortion performed after 18 weeks of pregnancy is legal only if the National Board of Health and Welfare authorizes the procedure. In general, such an abortion may not be performed if there is reason to suppose that the embryo is viable.
Checking about, Fred, it’s at 1.8 in Sweden, which puts it well below replacement rate (though higher, say, than Italy or Russia.) And most of Europe has more restrictions on abortion than in the States — but they also have such superb contraceptive education that they have far fewer unintended pregnancies. And most abortions in most countries are done before 18 weeks.
“Highest fertility rate in Europe” is a low bar by global standards. And if we could get down to Sweden’s rate, I’d be very pleased.
Interesting. But if the preborn souls don’t have any time limit by which they have to be born or bad things happen, wouldn’t they be better off waiting in line to be born into a less overpopulated world?
Back on May 3, I blogged about Pat Buchanan’s alarmist take on the “dwindling European” population — that whites are not reproducing fast enough to keep “us” in the running for power and influence:
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What strikes me most about this little screed is that Buchanan takes it for granted that this “fading away” of the white race is a terrible thing — because it pertains to the group that HE identifies with! Can you imagine if [African] or Asian people were facing a similar crisis of numbers — would Buchanan be lamenting their existence? Well, maybe… “Where ever will we find people to run our convenience stores???”
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Go back and ask the average “quiverfull” advocate if he thinks China’s restrictions on family size should be lifted; he’d probably throw a lot of words at you but wrap it up with something along the lines of “…they’ve got enough people already…”
Well, Robert, from my perspective you’re all a little off in how far your God-worshipping is correct, but don’t mind me, I’m one of those hellbound Christ-killers.
Hector, indeed it is both; I was just noting that captcrisis is simply parroting the idea that people with less conservative beliefs than he must not love their children.
NBarnes,
No, you responded to what you _thought_ to be their motivations, and the motivations of _Humanae Vitae_. It would be easy for me to attribute rather uncomplimentary motivations to Hugo and to feminist-leaning men in general (indeed, I’m prone to do that in my less charitable moods.) However, I realize that would be unproductive. The real motivation of _Humanae Vitae_ is right there in the text: natural-law concerns about the essentially procreative nature of the sex act. Pope Paul VI did not deny that overpopulation was a problem, and in fact suggested NFP as a legitimate methods of family planning.
Hugo,a fertility rate just around the replacement rate isn’t that uncommon these days- Iran and Chile, to name two quite religious nations, both have birth rates below the replacement rate, as do many developing countries as well as all of Europe and North Asia.
Volly,
I don’t want to see any race or culture fade away, whether they be white, brown or black (I’m not white, btw). With regard to places like Europe and Russia, I especially don’t want to see Christian cultures increasingly outnumbered by Muslims; I think that Christianity is, actually, better and truer than Islam, so the prospect of creeping Islamization through declining Christian birth rates frightens me.
Both Christianity and Islam are faith-based, not birth-based. If you’re afraid of the Muslim hordes, you need to outpreach them, not outbreed them.
At the heart of the ethics of Jesus, I think, is the belief that everyone is an end in himself/herself. Remember that children (pre- or post-born) were not considered full “persons” in the ancient world, but more like property; that’s why it’s radical when Jesus says “suffer the little children to come unto me”. Now that we have a more enlightened view of children’s full humanity and rights, it seems unethical to bring a child into the world for motives that have nothing to do with the child’s best interests, such as making the parents’ sexual activity licit.
Hector, I agree with your March 7 comment that “Christian sexual life…spurs us to sacrifice for another, to empty and diminish ourselves as we come more and more to live for the sake of others, and to participate in our small way in the creative process of the Father.” I just think that it’s arrogant to assume that this can’t happen in a childless marriage. I resent the implication that this is not happening in my marriage, as we are an infertile couple. We “participate in the creative process of the Father” by strengthening one another in our political activism, our writing, and nurturing our friends.
Why is it necessary to pass judgment on other people’s families? How can strangers judge any married couple’s interior spiritual life, based only on externals?
Re: Now that we have a more enlightened view of children’s full humanity and rights,
Jendi,
I’d just point out that I get very uncomfortable when I hear people talk about ‘more enlightened views’ of things. The architects of a great many very bad things, which both you and I would condemn, were considered enlightened in their day. Scientific racism and eugenics, for example, or Manifest Destiny. History should tell us that what is new is not necessarily better, and what is old is not necessarily worse. To talk about ‘enlightenment’ or inevitable ‘progress’ is to _assume_ that the newer is also the better, instead of trying to discern whether it actually is.
Couples who are infertile are not who I was talking about, obviously it’s no one’s _fault_ that they are infertile. I was more talking about couples who voluntarily choose not ever to have children, and even there I know there are exceptions. Some of the best and nicest people I know don’t want to have kids. That actually makes me very sad, as I think they would be great parents, but whatever. I think as a general rule, though, a society that encourages widespread childlessness is going to hinder the spiritual growth of many of its members. I wish you and your married partner all the best.
“the prospect of creeping Islamization through declining Christian birth rates frightens me.”
Really? You actually give this any thought whatsoever, ever?
…how to tell that you and someone else live in completely different universes. :)
Which leads me to wonder why we atheists, agnostics and freethinkers are absolutely unconcerned with the idea that we will never “outbreed” the religious–at least, I have yet to meet or read any that have expressed this as a concern. Actually, for me personally, the idea of “breeding” humans for any purpose whatsoever or to forestall any eventuality whatsoever is revolting.
Lisa,
Er, why would I _not_ give it thought? Lebanon was founded
as a Christian homeland, today it’s a majority Muslim country. Bosnia had a Serb plurality as late as the 1940s, today it’s a Muslim dominated area. Do you really want Orthodox Russia to become another Lebanon?
So if you discern that, in fact, the newer is the better, you mustn’t talk about it? Or if you do, please don’t use the terms “enlightenment” or “progress”? Yes, sometimes people assume newer is better, or call things enlightened or progressive that aren’t; but that’s not what you actually said.
And you do realize you just compared Jesus’s words to eugenics?
You have a bad habit of making sweeping pronouncements that you back off when you see what those mean to individual people. If what you mean is ‘we should not encourage widespread childlessness,’ say that, instead of sticking your nose in other people’s marriages.
Mythago,
I didn’t compare Jesus’ words to eugenics, I said that the notion of ‘enlightenment’ is not something I feel comfortable using. If you want to draw from that that I compared you, Jendi, or Jesus to Eugenicists, then be my guest, but the fact is that I didn’t.
Clearly, there are exceptions to many moral rules. Equally clearly, there are many good people who choose not to have children, sometimes for good reasons and sometimes not. I do, however, think that voluntarily childlessness _often_ (not always!) constitutes a form of self-love, and a refusal to submit our life to a higher power, that is opposed to the Christian life. And I think, further, that a voluntarily childless marriage can be filled with many good things but it can’t be a genuinely sacramental marriage in the Christian sense.
Hector, please don’t lecture me about the difference between facts and assertions and then follow up by asserting that you really know the motivation behind Humanae Vitae, whereas I am merely casting scurrilous aspersions. You don’t really know what was on Paul VI’s mind when he wrote it any more than I do. In fact, I’d go so far as to say, given that we are all seething cauldrons of conflicting drives, desires, and obsessions, especially with respect to sex and gender, it’s a near certainly that Paul VI himself was not fully in the know about what the motivations behind Humanae Vitae were.
Given that, many of us feel the need to wonder why it is that Humanae Vitae dovetails so very neatly with the historic gender prejudices of Western Civilization. How convenient for Paul VI and reactionaries such as yourself that God just happens to agree with you in every particular!
Lisa KS-
If I would hazard a guess as to why atheists/ agnostics/ freethinkers/ brights, et cetera don’t seem to waste any worry about anybody “out-breeding” us is because we are very aware that ideas aren’t heritable. Most people in those categories that I know of were actually raised in religious households, so they’d know first-hand.
Personal-like, I think that “out-breed” them talk is showing that they don’t have enough faith (hah) in their own philosophy (if it isn’t to hide very thinly-veiled racism). I believe in the free exchange of ideas; all things equal, people will pick up the best idea, or at least the one that works okay.
Oh, and I used to be upset when people like Hector talked about “duty to have children” but then I remembered; hey, they think it’s because we’re supposed to submit to god. So, they’re working off a flawed premise in the first place, because I certainly don’t care about submission to their (what I think is imaginary) god.
NBarnes,
Paul VI wasn’t a reactionary. He was next best thing to a socialist in economics, generally took the side of Third World countries against the West, and spoke out strongly for social and economic justice.
I don’t agree with _Humanae Vitae_, for reasons sketched out here:
http://patriabolivariana2008.blogspot.com/2009/02/my-point-by-point-argument-in-favor-of.html
But I sympathize with some of the sentiments behind it. Certainly Paul VI, and the Catholic Church in general, however mistaken I think they may be are infinitely less mistaken than the anything-goes sexual nihilists that call the shots in American culture today.
Hector, again, I must correct you; I didn’t call Paul VI a reactionary. I called you a reactionary. Paul VI’s views on social and economic justice were one of the highlights of the 20th century Catholic Church. It would have been a fine thing if the church had maintained it’s devotion to such issues after Paul VI’s passing.
In the area of gender and sexual justice, Paul VI was, yes, a reactionary. I don’t want to judge him as a person, as I very much respect the work he did in dragging the church’s attention away narrow concerns such as, yes, the imminent threat that gay marriage poses to the health of Western Civilization and onto the deplorable conditions and crimes we of the rich countries allow to be perpetrated in our names, so that we can live as we do, so long as the dirty work is kept out of our sight. A properly Christian perspective would certainly be to keep in mind ‘whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me’. A statement that has not always had the central position in the practical theology of the Catholic Church that it should.
No, you responded to a comment that Jesus’s love views on children were radical and progressive in his time by cautioning that some people thought ‘eugenics’ was progressive.
As for a voluntarily childless marriage, you have an odd habit of swapping out Christian doctrine for ‘natural law’ when you don’t like the strictures it imposes. There is nothing unChristian about a voluntarily childless marriage; marriage itself, as Paul taught, is the best alternative to fornication but is inferior to a celibate life of devotion to God. A voluntarily childless marriage by Christians who wish to devote themselves to good works or to spreading God’s word is arguably more Christian than one between a man and woman who just love babies.
Mythago,
I certainly wouldn’t call your couple who want to devote themselves to good works bad people or sinners. On the contrary, they seem like very good people. And indeed, I know many people like that, so it’s hardly hypothetical. I would say that their relationship is a good and healthy one as well. I’m not sure, however, that I would call it a Christian _marriage_, in the sacramental sense.
NBarnes,
If Paul VI wasn’t a reactionary then I fail to see why I’m one. I share his left-wing views- or go even further- on the envrionemnt, foreign policy, economics and social justice, and try to live out those values in my life. Of course I ground these views in my Christian faith and in natural-law reasoning, rather than in Enlightenment liberalism, which I think is deeply problematic at best, so perhaps I should welcome the term ‘reactionary’. As I made it clear I don’t share his specific conclusions in _Humanae Vitae_. I do think that modern society has gone too far in separating sex from procreation, but I don’t think this means that birth control or smaller families are intrinsically a bad thing- indeed, for environmental reasons they can be very good things.
Antigone,
I’m not white, so I can hardly be a ‘racist’. Indeed, I’m much, much darker-skinned than Muslims in Russia (i.,e. Chechens, Tatars, etc.) who were the point at issue.
Why not? St. Paul would.
Getting back to the actual article. Hugo, you are torn between two religions–Christianity and Environmentalism–and trying to reconcile the two. Your core beliefs are pretty clear in your prose… “still tarrying with seven billion people running around, drinking the planet dry and driving species extinct” or “the apocalyptic impact on our planet of ever-growing voracious human appetites”. Your premise is that population growth is unquestionably and irrevocably destroying the planet and our existence. You and other environmentalists have a rigid faith in this premise. This is what leads to the underlying hostility towards large families that we conservatives feel.
Speaking as a conservative Christian with a family of four children, I reject the premise that our current, greater population is a great despoiler of the planet. I believe that technology has taken us from significantly more polluted conditions from cities filled with wood-burning stoves and horse-borne transportation that the pollution yield per individual is significantly lower even if the population is higher. There is evidence in support of this case, incidentally, in The Skeptical Environmentalist and other publications which are viewed by liberals like Salman Rushdie is viewed by Muslims. Complain about big oil all you want, but in your alternate world what would be the footprint of hemp farms for ethanol or horses as a primary means of transportation?
When you reject this premise, then you quickly begin to bristle at the notion of government and social norms which eschew big families for the sake of some communal good such as the environment. As long as I can effectively raise my family to be productive members of society, I feel no pangs of guilt about its size. Who knows, one may grow up to be an engineer who designs the next great form of solar power transmission or the like, having a net positive impact on the environment as well.
This notion of unborn spirits and the like is a smoke screen. You can quickly comprehend the conservative position when you drop the religion of environmentalism and thus oppose the natural conclusions from it. We want the right to have any size family we choose, and we oppose anyone who wishes by force or cultural coercion to deny us this right.
No one’s talking force. Those who want large families can continue to have them, though I think that child tax credits ought to be dropped for larger families, though unlimited deductions could apply to those who adopt.
Though our individual cars emit less pollution than a generation ago, the average American lifestyle (meat-eating, clothes buying, driving, etcetera) costs an enormous amount in petroleum (plastics, corn, etcetera) that has an undeniably negative impact on the globe. A gradual, slow reduction in population over the next century is the ticket.
I’m happy to say that global population trends are, long-term, in our favor — people are having, in general, fewer children. Even in parts of the Third World, as women’s incomes rise (access to microcredit has helped enormously), family size slowly goes down. Some women will always want eight children. But a lot of women have had eight children when they would rather have had two; giving them access to a life other than that circumscribed by motherhood and marriage opens a window of possibility that more and more women, happily, are stepping through.
As for faith, shame on you for positing the false right-wing dichotomy of “Christian” or ‘environmentalist”. I was born again of water and spirit; living as Jesus would have me live is my first concern (though Lord knows, I am a very imperfect servant.) And when Jesus told Peter (and by proxy, all of us), to “feed my sheep”, I take that to care for all of His creatures, human and non-human alike. Environmentalism is, for me, part and parcel of living out that life of feeding the flocks.
Because you want to punish those people, or because you have the ridiculous idea that anyone chooses family size based on their tax base?
Hugo, speaking to you as a fellow biological parent: the choice to bring another human into the world rather than adopt a child in need is selfish, and adds to the burden on the planet. Period. Once you’ve decided to breed, trying to shame people with ‘large’ families with You Make Gaia Cry is hypocritical and frankly risible.
I agree, Mythago,that people aren’t going to make reproductive decisions based on tax policy. But I’m a believer (as are many these days) that government can give a “nudge” in one direction or another by incentivizing one behavior or another. Agreeing that there is something selfish about reproducing rather than adopting, I see no reason for tax policy to reward me for doing it.
Actually, the new California budget does this right by cutting the tax credit per child. I believe budgets and tax plans ought to reflect larger policy goals; this seems a good way to go.
Okay, so to sum up: tax policy doesn’t really affect people’s choices, but actually it does by “nudging” them; the government shouldn’t reward me with tax credits, but then again it should, as long as I don’t have too many children.
If your concern about family size is the environment, there is not “something selfish” about reproducing; it’s selfish, period. Turning around and scolding people for having more children than your middle-class mores find appropriate is just silly.
If your real concern is some kind of prissy middle-class revulsion at people who go beyond the approved number of children, why don’t you own that instead of hiding behind your recycling bin?
Married Tom,
Environmentalism is no more a religion than Mathematics is a beverage.
Hugo, I did not say that Christianity and environmentalism are mutually exclusive, hence the term “reconcile” rather than the term “choose” in my original statement. I instead was pointing out that both have similarities in terms of the degree of faith from their adherents. Consider the following statements of faith…
Christianity–Jesus was the Son of God who died for our sins, and only in accepting Him as your savior will you have eternal life.
Environmentalism–Humans and their increasing numbers are despoiling the earth and we must do something to save our own planet.
In both cases, if you do not believe the fundamental premise, then most of the remaining doctrine ceases to have meaning. I was merely pointing out that there are those of us who do not accept this doctrine when it comes to environmentalism. When you understand this, it becomes much easier to comprehend why conservatives are in favor of everything from capitalism to big families without having to ponder Kabbalah, unborn children and the like.
You once again demonstrated your belief in the precept of environmentalism detailed above in your response, indicating that petroleum products and people have an “undeniably negative” impact on the globe. Well, there are those heretics out there such as myself who do not see the impact of population as “undeniably negative” and reject this fundamental premise.
One final observation. You realize that when you advocate nudging people’s choices with the tax code to achieve your social purposes, you ARE advocating force. Any time you take resources earned by one individual through taxes, you are taking it by force rather than voluntarily. If I opt to cheat on my taxes because I disagree with the incentive being promoted through that aspect of the tax code, I will be subject to prosecution and punishment. If that is not “talking force”, I do not know what is. Perhaps this is not the same as China’s one-child policy, but only as a matter of degree rather than principle. Nudging people’s behavior through the tax code is simply a more indirect, mealy-mouthed way of advocating the use of force.
Jaxebad, you might want to leave the non sequiturs to professionals. Fish and their bicycles are much more memorable.
Mythago–hiding behind your recycling bin… Classic. I rarely agree with you, but you are certainly effective at stating your case.
Married Tom,
I’m an environmentalist, in fact my current graduate work in plant biology is focused on trying to develop more ecologically friendly crops, and I spent several years in Africa working on sustainable agriculture issues and doing some environmental education. I’m also a Anglo-Catholic convert who really believes the doctrines, and I’m fairly socially conservative and pro-life on some issues, and intend to have three children. Sure, there are some issues that have to take some trouble to reconcile, most notably the population size issue. But at bottom, my environmentalism and Christianity are entirely compatible. My Christian convictions tells me that our desire to control and dominate the planet is just another manifestation of the pride and the desire to “be as gods” that led to the Fall, and that a good society would be one in which we accepted our position as humans within the natural order instead of trying to change it. So I don’t think these are incompatible in the least.
I think it’s tragic and sad that so many species are going extinct (while I certainly reject the principle of animal rights). I think it’s sad that deforestation, soil erosion, overfishing, and climate change are destroying, probably permanently, the beauty, diversity, and healthy functioning of natural environments all over the world. We didn’t make nature, and when we destroy it we are destroying, at least in some measure, the work of God and His angels. Now you’re free to disagree, and you should be able to have as many children as you choose, and get a tax credit (bigger than we have now) for each one. But I think that the facts refute you. I lived in a part of Africa that was severely overpopulated for three years, and have seen firsthand the results. The soil is now so poor that that country is unable to feed themselves, and the natural forest is over 80% gone.
Hugo, I don’t see why you want child tax credit reductions. As you point out, education and modernization do the trick all on their own. (sometimes too well, as the birth rates in much of Europe are now lower than they should be). Reducing support for families with children will do nothing positive- all it will do is encourage abortions, reduce the birth rate below a culturally healthy level, and punish the poor and the middle class.
Married Tom, then it’s force to currently give people tax credits for having children. Hugo is saying that we should take those away when people have more children than fit his sensibilities. He’s not arguing for abolishing the child tax credit entirely, as it encourages and supports parents.
Your patronizing comment to Jaxebad aside, environmentalism isn’t a “religion”; it’s a philosophy. By your argument, any set of beliefs is a “religion” as long as it has a fundamental premise. I get that you want to mock environmentalism and call it silly, but pretending that it is just like Christianity is nonsense.
Hector, thanks for the interesting feedback. To be opposed to the current environmental agenda does not mean that I want to pave the earth. It means that I think that the movement is overwrought and rife with ulterior motives, and that market innovations will continue to improve our ability to minimize pollution and other problems once the demand for such innovations makes them economically viable. In any event, reasonable people can agree that there are two viewpoints on both the current state of the environment and the appropriate responses to deal with it. But among the true believers in environmentalism, such discussions are rarely reasonable, thus the comparison to religion.
The primary factor that differentiates environmentalism from philosphy to me, Mythago, is the unwavering faith and certainty in the position of environmentalists in the veracity of their position. I realize that it is not a religion any more than capitalism, communism or other fervently followed systems of belief. But the underlying premise, that man is destroying the planet, is a matter of unwavering faith and not open to debate. And there are reasonable differing viewpoints–the science is not “settled” as some would have you believe–so such certainty is best described as a matter of faith.
Disagreement or argument with this precept causes one to be viewed as an infidel rather than an individual with a differing intellectual viewpoint. This makes it appear, at least to me, more like a religious viewpoint rather than an academic or philosophical one, even if on other fronts it is admittedly not a religion.
Getting back to the original point of this whole dialogue, I was merely trying to provide an alternate premise as to why there was such a fundamental difference in the attitude towards the impact of population and its derivative effect on family size. Hugo and most others do not question the rectitude of the environmentalist’s viewpoint while many conservatives do. This is as plausible an explanation as any other that I saw proferred as to the source of the conflict between the two.
Hector/Hugo, I realize I do not speak for all conservatives and that Chrisianity and environmentalism are not mutually exclusive. But I am willing to bet that my viewpoint is shared among others and is thus a reasonable hypothesis for the chasm that Hugo has described in this essay.
And Mythago, your arguments are well stated on their own. There is no need to engage in hyperbole such as claiming that I mocked environmentalism, called it silly, or claimed that my argument was as unnuanced as saying it is “just like Christianity”. Please, make your case without assuming my position or putting words in my mouth (or post, as the case may be).
I come from what I consider to be a medium to small size family of four children. I was homeschooled and grew up in a fairly conservative environment and most of my friends came from larger families than my own. My parents viewed children as a blessing from God and larger families as a good thing though they didn’t go to the extreme of entirely letting nature take its course and planned and eventually limited their family size. I personally expect to have two to four children depending on my health and where God leads my husband and I (I am 30 and am expecting my first child in April). I to have noticed a decided upswing in conservative Christian thought in the last few years encouraging large families and it seems to go beyond the view of children as blessings to a more duty based assertion that more is better to build the kingdom. I suspect the some of this is because of the decidedly poor treatment and looking down of snobbish nooses that larger families receive from liberal friends and neighbors. My mother who is college educated in her thirties and had four well behaved and clean children was routinely berated in public places by total strangers for having too many children. My own grandmother expressed feelings that she had too many grandchildren quite openly this wasn’t exactly self-esteem building for the younger children to hear. All of this combined to make my siblings and I somewhat defensive and not at all open to family limitation arguments.
Married Tom,
For someone who claims to be a Christian, you sure are rude to people who disagree with you. Maybe you didn’t like my metaphor, but if that was the case, you should have just let it go.
I request an apology.
Man, am I sorry I missed this thread. Glad it’s still ongoing, or else I may have missed the post entirely.
For anyone who cares: in regards to the LDS (Latter-day Saint, or in other words, Mormon) thing: yes, we believe that their are “pre-born souls”–or, as we usually talk about it in church circles, there is a “pre-existence.” We know, by revelation or scripture, almost zilch about it, though–as one might expect in a lay church with little formalized or educated theology–there is a great deal of popular Mormon literature about it, from the speculative (”what did we look like before we were born?”) to the romantic (”we were destined for each other before we came to this earth!”). None of that has any real doctrinal weight.
The actual teaching has a much less simpler basis: we don’t believe in ex nihilo creation. That is, we don’t believe God created us out of nothing. Our understanding of God, as Joseph Smith outlined it in some of his revelations, is that He is more an organizer and giver of life, rather than some force which separates all creation from Nothingness. Hence, this suggests that, before we came to this earth, we had some reality–some spiritual “existence”–which was co-eternal with God. The teaching goes on to imply that these pre-mortal spirits, however, cannot become joint-heirs with Christ and live fully in God’s presence unless they become more than spirits: they need bodies, they need to learn about sin and temptation and righteousness–they need, in short, to come to earth and make choices between good and evil and accept God’s grace. Hence, to make a long story short, those Mormons who embrace this concept fully also usually embrace the idea that having children is furthering God’s plan, by providing bodies for spirits awaiting the next step in God’s loving plan.
It may sound hokey, but there it is. How that all plays out in terms of the cultural and social conservatism and anti-feminism you see in many (most?) American Mormons, however, is a different question. Hugo’s speculations are interesting, but I have to say I think they reach a bit too far.
Thank you for clearing that up, Russell; had I been more thoughtful, I would have dropped you a note in the first place!
Russell Arben Fox,
Thanks for your input. As I mentioned above, there’s a lot of precedent in Christian history for the ‘preexistence of the soul’ idea: it was held by heterodox Christians in the early few centuries of the Christian era, by at least one Church Father (Origen), by the Jewish mystics who wrote the ‘Book of Enoch’, and by the Platonists. I don’t think it’s a silly or obviously false idea, although I don’t personally believe it.
Parenthetically, I used to think that Joseph Smith’s personal failings discredited him as a prophet, but my recent readings about the raving anti-Semite Luther, and the serial polygamist Henry VIII, make me realize that sometimes God uses very, very flawed men to accomplish His purposes.
You’re making the rather odd assumption that all adherents to a belief system hold the same level of fervor and see those who disagree as ‘infidels’. This isn’t a reasoned position; it’s caricature. Believing something to be true because, at least in one’s opinion, scientific consensus currently holds it to be true is not fanaticism, nor is it taking a belief on ‘faith’.
Either you’re well aware of this and being disingenuous, or you really do believe that anyone with a belief system different than yours is part of a vast, undifferentiated, fanatic mass because, duh, if they were reasonable, logical people they’d agree with you instead! That’s not thoughtful analysis, MT, that’s rhetorical game-playing.
And your post is right up there for all, including you, to see, with your comparison mapping environmentalism onto Christianity.
“Checking about, Fred, it’s at 1.8 in Sweden, which puts it well below replacement rate…”
Thanks, Hugo - this thread could do with a little more demographic savvy along these lines. A fertility rate of 1.8 implies long-term population decline, but a *manageable* decline - you can imagine a society continuing on that path for a number of centuries without serious disruption. Really low fertility, as currently found in Southern and Eastern Europe, are a different matter: projecting forwards a few decades, it’s hard to imagine how they will be able to maintain their current standard of living with such a skewed ratio of younger people to older people. In the more pessimistic scenarios, it’s hard to see how they could pull out of this situation.
From one point of view, Sweden is indeed a high-natality success story.
Really, the difference between fertility are 1.8 and 2.2 (call it *manageable* growth) is not so great as between 1.3 (say) and 1.8. Intuitively, you’d think that a rate moderately below replacement would be best from a social and environmental point of view, but that’s not actually clear. For example, you’d think falling populations would discourage urban sprawl, but experience of former East Germany suggests the opposite.
Re: Thanks, Hugo - this thread could do with a little more demographic savvy along these lines.
This thread could do, in general, with a little more charity from all sides. I thought that your post was a welcome addition, bringing much more light than heat.
One expects too, that moderately below-replacement birth rates will eventually be self-correcting: a less crowded society and a lower cost of living could make it more economically viable for people to have more children. Russia is also in the process of turning around their fertility rates, and they actually saw birth rates increase in the last couple years, probably due to the recent moves to curb the abortion licence.
Hector, I think you’re right than some low-fertility countries bounce back to higher levels. The U.S., for example, has gone from something like 1.8 kids/woman to 2.2 over the last few decades, while Canada, in some ways so similar, has declined further. Lots of uncertainties here.
It seems likely that cheaper housing and better employment prospects for middle and working classes will encourage couples to settle down and have kids. State aid, which Hugo is very fond of, seems more problematic, since also means high taxes, which you would expect to discourage family formation. The empirical evidence is mixed: besides Sweden, Quebec is an example of a high-tax social-democratic society where state aid seems to have raised birthrates (from a low level in Quebec’s case).
The explosive question here is whether just an accident that these two countries also evince a high degree of ethnic and cultural cohesion. Quebeckers talk happily about their “social project” (projet de societe); but it’s difficult to imagine finding that language (let alone the thing itself) in a highly pluralistic like English Canada or the United States. Or maybe it’s a Anglosphere thing.
At very low fertility (say less than 1.3 births/woman), the risk is that that state will have to tax 20 and 30-year-olds at such a high rate to support pensions etc. that they won’t even be able to afford even one kid per couple - if they don’t emigrate. You can imagine the Netherlands hitting that wall.
Sorry for all the typos, running on 5 hours sleep today.
This thread could do, in general, with a little more charity from all sides. I thought that your post was a welcome addition, bringing much more light than heat.
I remember what mythago said to you last time you made this very comment, Hector (to Lynn Gazis-Sax, IIRC): be the change you want to see in the world. You’ve been a major participant in this conversation; you’re every bit as responsible for its tone as anybody else.
Largely due to immigrants; the birthrate will drop in subsequent generations.
Whether or not you can “imagine” a society continuing with below-replacement birth rates is very different from actual investigation of how lower birth rates affect those societies. I’m hardly an OMFG EVERYBODY BREED! type, but speculating out centuries is not really evidence.