The Over Population Problem

Hey 'Nate, this is Science and Society - stifle the god talk. As there is no good reason to believe in any god, there is no reason to think supernatural deities have anything to do with any of this.

I could just as easily say that there is a god that is angry at humans for tearing up the planet, and causing widespread extinctions of species. And I'd have just as much proof as you do. Stop abusing Christianity to justify your insane views.

Considering the famines, plagues, natural disasters, and birth defects the god you believe in is responsible for, said deity seems to be ambivalent about increasing the number of humans on this planet.

 

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No. See, about by the second pregnancy, my partner or I catch on we're not going to be able to afford medical twice and cut that off. It ceases to "just happen."

Look, have you even been pregnant? Until you have, I will take your opinion for what it's worth: Not a hell of a lot.

I don't think you'll meet a person who loves children more than I do, but I understand the importance of taking care of myself for the sake of my baby in the future. I exercise, take prenatal vitamins (ladies, there's no better vitamin for a young woman to be taking, even if you don't want a baby), eat a balanced diet, and am probably a hell of a lot more conscientious about keeping my body in good condition.

I have things to do right now that makes having a baby impractical, and being a parent is not entirely about how much you can love a child. You have to be able to provide fiscally, emotionally, and be done with youthful narcissism.

MOST WOMEN who have more than four children will have a prolapsed uterus and/or a herniated cervix. They're more prone to a myriad of health issues. People aren't going to tell you their personal gynecology issues at church. Did you know very young mothers are prone to fistulas? That's when shit is leaking into your vagina because of pressure in a too-small pelvis. And it will almost ALWAYS have to be repaired surgically after every single baby after it occurs, that is, if the mother doesn't die of septic shock.

Yes, women have periods. So what? Pregnant women get morning sickness. Neither's fun.

No, we're not "supposed" to wean babies by age one :bugeye: They still benefit from mother's milk in their toddlerhood. It boosts immunity, has all the vitamins a small child needs if the mother's responsible, is always ready. Most professional women I know breastfeed and utilize a breastpump, and I fully intend to breastfeed any child at least a couple years. My mother breastfed all her children at least a year, and amazingly, all are educated, healthy, average weight adults who have significantly above average IQs. Titties travel, and one does not have to be a stay-at-home-mom. Just because you hate working women doesn't mean they're not great moms.

While I realize you are ignorant of gynecological medicine, breast milk production affects estrogen/progestin production. Most women don't even menstruate while breastfeeding; it's like taking a bunch of birth control pills without the week of "blanks" to allow a period. It's got nothing to do with poor nutrition. All good nutrition means is you're going to have quality breast milk that resembles very nice whole milk and smells REALLY good.

The bod's rather traitorous in that way. You're not getting pregnant if you're breastfeeding because a body cannot split up resources like that. You probably could manage it, but it would put a huge stress on your body.

Okay. No modern medicine for you, and no assisted childbirth. You want to keep squeezing them out, and you want "all natural," then you don't get ANY unnatural support, because if you don't practice birth control in a natural setting, YOU WILL DIE in child birth. Ever notice in more primitive societies that the women who are alive past 35 don't have more than four children? There's a reason for that.

Sometimes a woman can't breastfeed. I fully recognize that.

I don't recommend infertility treatment for women as I'm not in favor of hormone supplements, either. This is why I take a low dose birth control, because as a student/young woman, I don't need a baby right now because I can't provide everything for that baby that I should. What people choose is their business. I only offer my opinion in terms of health and tax money.

Children have to be supported with money and emotional support, not a bunch of hooey.

 

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Fair enough. Of the 99 other reasons to have children, most are emotional reasons to me but it's definitely important to almost everyone I've met (women moreso than men). When I ask why, the most answer most often give is a form of, 'it feels right.' Indeed it does. I've met two couples who wanted to have kids, had two of their own and now adopt the others. I don't see how this could still feel as right, but somehow they've convinced themselves it's good.

What of the couples unable to conceive? Should these people take advantage of unnatural means of conception (like IVF) or adopt?

 

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I thought I was playing nice..

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Yikes.. crocodile dung. Why.. WHY ?
Or was it more like a repellent ?

 

I doubt that, but have read there are several references to the contraceptive powers of a plant in ancient Greek literature. It grew mainly on a particular Greek island and is not found any where now. (There were some carved images of it in temples etc.) Possibly this is all myth or possibly it was harvested into extinction. Any Greek scholars reading?

 

Croc waste doesn't smell particularly bad, FWIW.

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While I looked up a silly reference, no, the croc shit was used, sadly. You're thinking of laserwort. You may enjoy this list: http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/book-sum/contra1.html

 

What if any relief would we get from moving out onto the oceans,large lakes in helping ease overpopulation? Of course,people would need to grow their own food too.There is a hell of a lot of water out there to live on/in.Am I crazy? I was inspired by that huge ship called "Freedom Ship" as it was supposed to be a city in itself.I guess it never got the funding needed.

 

Can you back that up with solid data?
Women in primitive societies, as well as men, generally don't have a very long life-span to begin with. Until recently, Afghanistan had an average lifespan of approximately 40 years.

Do women take birth control regardless of whether they are sexually active, just to eliminate periods? Maybe a woman can best respond.
http://www.noperiod.com/
I probably would if I were a woman, because I would hate having to deal with the blood loss on a monthly basis...

Hooey? As in idealistic-lovey-dovey-dewy-eyed-wispy-clouded-dreams-of a Biblically-"perfect"-natural-way hooey? With Jesus smiling in approval at it all?

 

99?

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There's really that many more so-called reasons for breeding as much as possible?
If you can list even 10 such reasons, I'll be willing to give you some credit for it...

Oh, jeeeezuz!

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Not even a trillion is too many people! At our current level of technology, I don't know the Earth could even sustain 12 billion people, let alone hundreds of times that amount.

What is the purpose of living in crowded, smog-filled cities of monotonous high-rise apartments if you don't have to? I think "because there's that many more people experiencing life" is a poor excuse.

Your constant refrain of how these unborn, uncreated people WANT (we're talking about NON-living, NON-created, NON-existent people) to live, sounds like a very fundamentalist Catholic philosophy, where the unconceived babies who do not exist on this planet somehow have wants and needs that can only be met by coming to this planet in unstoppable droves through childbirth.

Just because you believe in the veracity and infallibility of the Bible (assuming you do, because you sound like it) and in one particular verse about being fruitful and multiplying, doesn't make it automatically true, nor does it mean that you'll be able to convince anyone who doesn't already think like you do.

 

Please!

Can you or anyone point me to the Bible verse that states unequivocally that all these unconceived, non-existent humans are somewhere, just waiting to born, and that not giving them that chance to experience life is somehow being self-centered rather than God-centered???

A previous post:

Maybe idealistically in a utopian paradise, every human life is worth living. We don't live in a utopian paradise. Reality is quite a bit different.

YES? I wonder if this child has a wondering mind? Exactly WHAT would it be wondering?
The only potential happiness in that picture, to ME, appears to be from the onlooker...

Maybe you ought not to focus so fervently on multiplying and procreating ad nauseam? Maybe there are more pressing issues to be dealt with first???

 

It's not so much about feeling, but about obediently welcoming the sacredness and value of each and every human life.​

Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

Why is God's commandment to man, so difficult for modern man to understand?

Because people are depraved, and this modern generation is incredibly wicked and in rebellion to God. Much of the rebellion has been institutionalized into what many call "education."

Of course "it feels right." They say what populates the planet is extremely pleasurable. I would say, for some profound reason God made it to be such. So it stands to reason, that in some ways, getting pregnant and enlarging human numbers, to quite many, should tend to "it feels right" or feels good. Especially to parents who are good nurturers of children or who love children.

But the 99 reasons I list, or however many they be, aren't just emotional. They are also practical, philosophical, religious, and logical. More and more people would be glad to live. Most everybody wants or ends up having children. Most every child is glad to come alive. Each and every human being is valuable and sacred and created in the image of God.

Why do people find it so hard to understand?

I'm not saying everybody should have large families. I am saying that the old natural way that our ancestors had babies when they had babies, makes so much more sense than our modern way of "deciding" how many and when to have our babies, depending upon Big Pharma's shoddy contraceptive potions and poisons and unnatural torture devices.

I believe God can best determine, at least the size of my own family. It's not so much my aim to necessarily have a "large" family. It's well worth it to raise and welcome children, but also quite a lot of work. Our rebellious society has promoted all the burdens of parenthood, while minimized all the benefits. That's rebellion against God who commanded Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

In that commandment, I see no requirement to seek unnatural artificial infertility assistance. God can heal infertility issues that are no fault of our own. But infertility assistance or adoption doesn't appear to be rebellion, since seeking artificial infertility assistance would seem to be also choosing life. Sounds to me that IVF and adoption would be a CHOICE. Free to accept or decline.

A choice I suspect I would decline, although I'm always open to reconsider, and very sensitive to what my future wife would want in that.

The problem with adoption, is that it is absurdly expensive and complicated. Many people at my Church have adopted, maybe I might find a path to do so?

But my main beef is with the unnatural contraceptives. I do not believe in imposing unnatural "control" upon human fertility, as I see that as leading to paganism, abortion, and slavery. I consider it simpler, more pro-life, to welcome babies to happen as they happen. I am no Catholic, so I don't prefer Catholic-tolerated rhythm either. The method of "family planning" I find most in compliance with God's commandment to Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, would be the most natural "no method" method. Which means then I would be free to enjoy natural reproductive sex during the most fertile time of the month as well, never "pulling out," as we should not fear that a pregnancy might result, but rather be grateful to God, should God allow us to conceive a child or another child or a 12 child.

But if my future wife isn't all that fertile, then we may just have 2 children naturally, if that's all God gives. It's not so much that I want necessarily a "huge" family, but accept that natural sex does suggest the possibility, although not really so likely. I hardly think the typical 5 or 6 children to be unmanagable. Since usually babies come but 1 at a time, and by then, we ought to be pretty great parents?

But I do believe in keeping the door to life open, and not blocking the natural flow of human life, with contraception or the so-called more natural methods. I wouldn't want to practice rhythm, because the aim is still to prevent human life. I consider human life a wonderful thing, not something I wish to engage in effort to prevent. Better to let it happen if it will. Obviously, within marriage and building the responsible family nest, so we may be more open to or eager for life to happen, should God allow.

I do not consider myself to be "better" than my children, so I don't consider it my place to block their path to life with contraceptives. I want my children to know how much they are wanted, in knowing why their parents don't practice any means of birth control. Because more children are always welcome, should God allow. Nor do I believe human population growth should be "under control," other than under God's control.

 

Pronatalist
what do you think of this guy?
http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2270100&postcount=1

 

Remember, these sort of numbers reflect high rates of infant mortality. It isn't as though healthy forty year olds suddenly drop dead. The average net worth of Bill Gates and myself is fifty eight billion dollars.

 

I spoke a little out of turn, but women who start having children in third world countries are three more times likely if they start at ages 15 to 19 vs. 20 to 24, and far more likely to hemorrhage if they have lots of children.

The other stuff I can't find, but if you ever want to read third world gynecology journals for fun, it'll back me up, although they were journals about little African countries. The jury's out on the rest of the world, I guess.

Taking enough hormones to eliminate your period doesn't seem to be very healthy. Some women do with the Depo Provera shot, but it's associated with a significant weight gain, depression, etc. It certainly caused those reactions in me.

The mini pill regulates my periods enough so I'm not in terrible pain to the point where I can't function. It includes a week of "blanks" so I can have a period, which I don't want that crap building up in my system, anyway.

It's not fun, but it's okay. You don't want to hault a process of expelling something that builds up in your body because it's inconvenient. The period I had after my Depo shots was horrible. I didn't get up other than to use the bathroom or shower or mop up blood or look for pain medication.

I'm a big proponent of low hormone pills. This is what I take: http://www.thepill.com/thepill/

Few risks of side effects and about a .5% chance of getting pregnant with perfect use, 5% with typical use.

That's the one.

 

Not for the religiously insane.

 

I'm not sure we should breed more wicked jerks.

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Are they sacred or wicked?

They say? Don't get coy with us. I don't think you'd be encouraging sex nearly so much if you didn't know how fun it was. And if the good lord didn't intend for same sex love, why'd He make women so much better at cunnilingus than men?

 

I would tend to agree, but making the interval between them, say 3 months, seems to be OK. Barr got FDA approval for a product, taken daily I think, which did this. It was called "extendal" or something like that. I say "was called" as Barr was purchased by Teva about half a year ago. I had stock in both so did not care, except I now own 362sh of Teva and like to only hold "round lots" (multiples of 100sh). Most of my Barr stock was cash compenstated but they gave me 62 shairs of Teva too as part of the take over.

Barr was the world leader in woman's care drug products and Teva was weak in that area. (Barr developed "Plan B" etc.)

 

Yes, but that's going to be a helluva menstruation.

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I'll take my ladies' roses I get now.

 

it is not that simple unfortunately.
i know how to wake up the dreamers, it is just getting them to behave in the right way WHEN you wake them up.
It is kinda like putting a druggie on cold turkey.

 

I strongly suspect that they wrote this story about Pro.

You have to hand it to him, he stands by his position. But we can all dream of a better future.