I wonder what is the biggest number of offspring for an atheist couple living in the free world and choosing voluntarily having lots of kids? The reason why I ask, because most of the time couples having 10+ kids are deeply religious. Personally I don't mind if kids loving people want to have a dozen kids, but letting religion dictate how many kids you should have...
Let's play with the idea of having atheism spreading across the globe. How would it effect overpopulation? I must assume it would help a lot....
I don't have any - I force the women I knock up to have abortions - or eat the babies as soon as they are born
I don't think it really applies to quantifying the number of children one should have. In a secular-humanist sense, the best number is just enough to make up for the death rate, so- 2. We might want fewer, since a lower population seems to be more sustainable in the environment, at least with our present lifestyle.
Overpopulation is the result of a number of cultural factors and religion is not necessarily the dominant one. If you look at the countries with the highest growth rate, they're the ones that were recently dragged out of the Stone Age by the colonial powers. In the Stone Age high fertility was a survival strategy because so few fetuses survived to breeding age. Even up into the Industrial Era having as many as eight children was still sensible because: 1. Vaccines and antibiotics had not been invented and even asepsis was not practiced so life expectancy was still well short of puberty; 2. It took all the hands available to keep the family farm or business running; and 3. There were no pensions so everyone needed several surviving children to share the cost of their elder care. It is an instinct in our species to breed prolifically because without it the species would have died out. It took us twelve thousand years to advance from the Stone Age to the Post-Industrial Era that is just dawning. That was a long enough time for us to override that primitive reproductive instinct with reasoned and learned behavior--just as we have with so many other primitive instincts such as the killing of rival tribes who once competed for our scarce food resources. The people of sub-Saharan Africa and other pockets of Mesolithic and Neolithic culture have only had a few hundred years since they were "discovered" by Westerners and offered our "help" at building civilization. A few hundred years is not long enough to overcome an instinct that is built into a culture. To use your example, look at how the three Stone Age religions that are still widely practiced throughout the West continue to motivate people to have large families, even when the rest of our culture puts pressure on them to cut back. Imagine what it's like if your entire culture tells you to have a large family and then these weird foreigners come in and tell you to stop!
Education would help a lot as well, maybe more. But then again, increasing education would also increase atheism.
True. There are strong correlations between education and atheism and between education and having fewer children. Although it's not clear exactly what the actual causal relationships are - perhaps a person is less likely to be religious as they get more educated, or perhaps atheists are simply more likely to seek out higher education. Likewise, it’s hard to tell if more educated people are less likely to have children because they are more educated, or if the sorts of people who persue lots of education are also less likely to be interested in having large families.
hahaha. good one. to whoever's talking about natural selection being the reason for overpopulation, i reckon its interesting that natural selection can't get us out of the mess its put us in. people who don't want many children don't have many - their genes die out. we're all fucked lol. i suppose natural selection will allow those best suited to the issues caused by overpopulation to thrive though, so we're only a bit fucked.
well my parents are semi religious catholics and they have the 4 of us. Im not religious at all but i would like 2 of eachPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
My parents are religious and would have had 3. The eldest died of heart complications 3 days after childbirth.. and the youngest was a miscarriage. They decided to settle for just one (moi) after that. I'm an atheist, as is my husband, and we have two. And not planning to have any more.
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! You changed my quote and then drew conclusions upon the change ? And I never talked about evolution either.. :shrug: It is a FACT that more educated people have less children than less educated people.
Um you only need to look at families in China. Before the One Child Policy, many chinese families had huge numbers of children (I'm Chinese [parents born before that policy] and so I have *a lot* of aunts and uncles). And most people in China tend to be quite irreligious, if not explicitly atheist
my mum is one of 9 kids and her family did not go to church! religion shouldnt dictate how many kids you have, you should decide what is the best number of kids for yourself!!
I am not sure China is a good example, because I asked for free countries where the parents voluntarily choose to have a dozen kids and not because they think that it is their security when they get old...
