Social Assumptions about Sexuality

[TreyS]

Are nudists sufficiently critical of society's assumptions about sexuality?

[jon71]

You're going to have to explain your question more. Thanks.

[TreyS]

My question refers to assumptions about sexuality that (a) might be relevant to nudism and (b) that some nudists might also agree with.

[Croydon]

My question refers to assumptions about sexuality that (a) might be relevant to nudism and (b) that some nudists might also agree with.

I still have no idea what you are talking about

[Francoislux]

I do not understand the question either. I thought at the beginning it might be a language problem but apparently the problem is more philisophical...

[Connude]

Trey,
My thoughts go in so many directions with this, and none of them may follow your intended question. As assumptions about sexuality may relate to nudism, how do you mean? In terms of exhibitionism, voyeurism, preference/partner(s) or sexuality as part of the human condition in a more global sense? Please elucidate, this could be an interesting thread.

If my reply is too obtuse, what Croydon said...am I even in the ballpark? Respectfully,

[Fuzzy Nuts]

Please rephrase your question or try to tell us what it is you are asking. Frankly I haven't a clue as to what you are talking about and I have a master degree from university.

[fredm74]

Are nudists sufficiently critical of society's assumptions about sexuality?

Okay, I had to read your question like 10 times to decipher this puzzle. Are you trying to say do nudists criticize the views on sexuality based on societal assumptions? What societal assumptions do you mean in particular? That's where most of us are stumped on your question.

-Fred

[TreyS]

Are you trying to say do nudists criticize the views on sexuality based on societal assumptions? What societal assumptions do you mean in particular? That's where most of us are stumped on your question.

-Fred

This rephrasing of my question sounds pretty much like what I was getting at. On the issue of which assumptions, why don't we start the discussion with assumptions about sexuality in general.

[fredm74]

This rephrasing of my question sounds pretty much like what I was getting at. On the issue of which assumptions, why don't we start the discussion with assumptions about sexuality in general.

Treys, you are really being vague. Sexuality is a multitude of things, which part would you like to tackle first in regards to sexuality?

[TreyS]

Below are is a statement that I think express an assumption about sexuality that is common at least in the United States.

Possible Assumption: If sexual interest is part of the purpose of an activity then that activity is probably wrong.

Does this statement express a common assumption about sexuality? If so, how valid is the above assumption? Is the assumption relevant to nudism?

[NudonyII]

Below are is a statement that I think express an assumption about sexuality that is common at least in the United States.

Possible Assumption: If sexual interest is part of the purpose of an activity then that activity is probably wrong.

Does this statement express a common assumption about sexuality? If so, how valid is the above assumption? Is the assumption relevant to nudism?

Very briefly...

I don't think sexual interest + activity = wrong is a common assumption in the western world. If that was the case, people would be picketing singles bars. I think a more common assumption is nudity + activity = sexual interest. Or more culturally: sexual interest outside male and female private boundaries = deviant.

The nudity + activity = sexual interest assumption is what nudists have been fighting against.

[NatureFred]

Very briefly...

I don't think sexual interest + activity = wrong is a common assumption in the western world. If that was the case, people would be picketing singles bars. I think a more common assumption is nudity + activity = sexual interest. Or more culturally: sexual interest outside male and female private boundaries = deviant.

The nudity + activity = sexual interest assumption is what nudists have been fighting against.

I think you're leaving out some propositions here, and it goes more like this:

nudity + other person of attractive sex = sexual activity
sexual activity + more than one other person = deviance

(I say "attractive sex" rather than "opposite sex" to account for homosexual as well as heterosexual attraction.)

Thus, nudity with multiple persons of mixed sex is automatically deviant sexual activity, and thus wrong. Multiple persons of the same sex would be too, if one or more were homosexual.

This explains why singles bars are "OK": no nudity, so there's sexuality but supposedly no actual sexual activity. This also explains why folks (mostly men, in my experience) get uptight about the idea of homosexuals in the locker room: nudity, plus anyone might think YOU'RE of the attractive sex. In this formulation, they're having sex with you and you don't even know it!

Understand that I don't agree with any of this nonsense, but I think this is how the thought process works out.

[Yuppers]

I am critical of societies view of sexuality with the body for we only see the body shown when it has to be sexy. I some several years ago where they were selling working boots for men by displaying a woman with rather large breasts which I must say, is a funny place to wear footwear.:sneaky:

While we zealously pay for musis, movies, magazines and such for their unrealistic portrayal of the human form and sexuality, we then, as a society, refuse to talk about sex with our children or if we do, use silly terms such as 'choo choo' to describe a vagina.:confused:

A few months ago, I sat on a jury for a child sex crime. While deliberating, there were members of the jury who were surprised that a young teenage girl did not know that the name for the vagina, was vagina, only to go on saying that they refuse to talk about sex with their children and if they have to say anything, they refuse to use real terms. :(

As we as a society keeps pushing unrealistic views of the body as healthy which are really unhealthy, we are going to continue to see the rise in eating disorders appearing in children now as young as 8 years old, which is also now showing as problem amongst boys as well.

Society is sick and it needs to heal itself. This involves telling a lot of industries to go and get stuffed!

[Bob S.]

Trey: "Possible Assumption: If sexual interest is part of the purpose of an activity then that activity is probably wrong."

Taken to its ultimate conclusion, we see that in Islamic countries. Women in Taliban Afghanistan were required to cover their bodies in public, lest they cause a man to be aroused. In general, in the more restrictive Islamic countries, even going to the doctor is sketchy. Male doctors are basically forbidden from being gynecologists/obstetricians (of course, there are also very few female doctors to remedy that situation).

But as Fred mentioned, even in our society, we have single people meeting up in bars and other locales, but no one would ever think to ban all dates or get-togethers.

There is no blanket assumption that states that any activity that involves sexual interest between two people is automatically wrong. Heck, no one would say that sex is wrong, so long as it is in private.

Bob S.

[walter05]

Trey;

I think that nudists have as many or more hang ups.

There are way too many posts and threads on erections, shaving, and circumcision. If nudists don't care, why so many posts?

In addition, many nudist resorts have policies that inform males if there is an erection, cover it until it goes down.

Admittedly, there are a couple of other reasons for this concern. Some do equate nudity with sex. Nuidsts don't want to be vulnerable to predators. In addition, inappropriate sexual activities could bring unwanted law enforcement actions.

If nude penises are okay, they will sometimes be erect. If nudity to be natural is okay, then why the need to shave off the natural hair that indicates sexual maturity? If no one focuses attention, why so much concern over circumcision?

We were created with the ability to participate in the creation of human beings. Sex is not dirty but holy.

I think many nudists are attracted to the idea of nudity to learn that the body is wonderful and holy. Many bring a fear of sexuality into it.
However, the nudity is an attempt to overcome that.

[PaulFa]

Walter05, you came pretty close to hitting the nail on the head.

[Skinview]

I don't think sexual interest + activity = wrong is a common assumption in the western world.Not in current popular culture, but there is a big divide out there. Fifty years ago, good girls didn't have sex until they were married, homosexuality was an abominal deviation, and birth control was illegal. Even married couples were not allowed to be seen in bed together on tv or in the movies. Fundamentalist christians and the Catholic church hang on to these ideas, even though they have been abandoned by most of us. As ridiculus as these attitudes are to younger people, older people grew up in that culture. It still exists.

If that was the case, people would be picketing singles bars.Even prudes have to meet somewhere. They probably think church is a more proper place, but bars aren't necessarily a place to find casual sex. I am sure they have a dim view of singles bars nonetheless.

I think a more common assumption is nudity + activity = sexual interest. Or more culturally: sexual interest outside male and female private boundaries = deviant.
Sort of. Bathing suits for women have shrunk, but its always been the case that if a woman exposes more than is the norm, it is thought that she must be trying to arouse men. And some think that is baaad.

[Skinview]

Trey: Heck, no one would say that sex is wrong, so long as it is in private.But only by married couples. And even getting married is a lesser evil than having sex outside of marriage. A really virtuous person is celebate, like a priest or a nun.

[walter05]

I hope you are kidding.

The scripture commands us to be fruitful and multiply. We are commanded by our creator to have sex and children.

Truly virtuous people do what the divine commands us to. That means that truly virtuous people get married, have sex, and enjoy it.

Walter

[Bob S.]

walter: "I think that nudists have as many or more hang ups.
There are way too many posts and threads on erections, shaving, and circumcision. If nudists don't care, why so many posts?"

Nudists have issues that the textile population does not have to deal with. Erections are the number one issue. Textiles do not have to worry about erections as they are hidden. Nudists have to deal with them because they are out there in the open. The same with shaving.

As for circumcision, I don't think it is any more of a hang-up for nudists than textiles.

walt: "If nudity to be natural is okay, then why the need to shave off the natural hair that indicates sexual maturity?"

Because many men do not like facial hair while many women, especially in the US, do not like underarm hair. :p

Bob S.

[walter05]

I have worn shorts, or light thickness pants and had to deal with an erection. Therefore, wearing clothes does not make this issue go away.

In fact, most of the questions come from new nudists. I think that since they are used to unwanted erections with clothes on, they expect them nude.

The difference is that it is harder to hide a nude erection.

If we are not nude, no one knows who is circumcised or not.

I have never found any other type of site with such a fascination.

I don't shave anything. You may have a point that since I don't shave, I miss this.

However, there are more posts about shaving areas of the body usually covered by under pants than the arm pits, face, etc. It is clearly a fascination.

If people are really considering being nude normal, and no part of the body is different, there would be much less increase in fascination with erections, foreskins, and shaving.

Walter

[Bob S.]

walt: "If people are really considering being nude normal, and no part of the body is different, there would be much less increase in fascination with erections, foreskins, and shaving."

People talk about it on nudist forums because they are nudists and want other people's opinions on these topics, which usually aren't covered on non-nudist sites.
Erections are discussed because men, mainly newbies, have those fears about what to do if it "comes up." Others have myriad opinions regarding this topic. Circumcision isn't all too popular, but the discussions can get pretty animated. Shaving is just one of those popular nudist topics that is sometimes more about individualism than anything else. We don't have clothes to express ourselves, so tats, piercings, and hair styling are the three common ways to differentiate ourselves. People who shave just like meeting others who do so.

Bob S.

[Running Bear]

...If people are really considering being nude normal, and no part of the body is different, there would be much less increase in fascination with erections, foreskins, and shaving.
Walter
Naturists generally consider that there is no shameful part of the human body. They are therefore not ashamed to talk about sexuality, shaving, homosexuality which would be inappropriate in the textile world. Surely rather than a fascination or obsession with genitals it shows an acceptance of genitals?

[David77]

We don't have clothes to express ourselves, so tats, piercings, and hair styling are the three common ways to differentiate ourselves.

We certainly have enough body shapes and characteristics in unobstructed view to identify ourselves without "tats, piercing and hair styling".

As an aside - in the Navy since we all wore the same uniform we could not identify another by his clothing, when walking a distance down the walkway, but possibly by his shape and way he walked.

[walter05]

Bob;

I am not expecting people not to notice. Obviously, if someone is nude, all of the body will be seen.

However, clearly, there is more focus on shaving pubic areas than other body hair such as arm pits, chest, and back.

I am just pointing out that there is still more of a focus on the genitals by the nudists.

Walter

[Bob S.]

walt: "However, clearly, there is more focus on shaving pubic areas than other body hair such as arm pits, chest, and back."

walt, this is something akin to what Running Bear was talking about. Shaving other parts of the body is not anything to write about for the most part. Talking about shaving the face, top of the head, legs, armpits, etc. is done everywhere. However, discussions of pubic shaving is more taboo in general society.

Since nudists have no problems with the pubic area, discussions of shaving in that area is also not taboo, therefore, it is discussed much more than in the general public. It is for this reason that the focus tends to be more on the genital area. For nudists, that area is not so taboo.

Bob S.

[Skinview]

The scripture commands us to be fruitful and multiply. We are commanded by our creator to have sex and children.Thats the Old Testament. Do you follow the rest of jewish law?

Truly virtuous people do what the divine commands us to. That means that truly virtuous people get married, have sex, and enjoy it.

Walter

1 Corinthians 7:

1 "It is good for a man not to marry."
5-7 "...come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self control. I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all men were as I am."
8-9 "Now to the unmarried widows I say: It is better to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than burn with passion."
25-26 "Now about virgins: I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgement as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy. Because of the present crisis, I think that it is good for you to remain as you are."
27 "Are you unmarried? Do not look for a wife."
29 "From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none."
32 "An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs - how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world - how he can please his wife - and his interests are divided..." etc.
35 "I am saying this for your oun good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord."
38 "he who marries a virgin does right, but he who does not marry her does even better."

[walter05]

I am Jewish and I try my best to follow what you call the old testament.

I am starting to understand better some of my confusion with nudists in general. This seeming fear of sexuality and the need to separate it from nudity. I thought it was due to nudism. I am now starting to wonder if nudism might be an attempt to regain the perspective that human beings are wonderful and holy.

I hope those quotes from the new testament require some interpretation to understand them better.

When a married man and a married woman share their most intimate parts with each other, bring each other tremendous pleasure, and fall asleep naked together, it is a very special, intimate, and holy time.

If sex is evil, then all human beings are the product of an evil activity. If sex between husband and wife is holy, then all human beings are the product of a holy activity.

Human beings are holy, and the activity that leads to the emergence of another human being his holy.

We are commanded to have sex, we are supposed to enjoy it, and it is a very special and holy time for husband and wife.

Walter

[MoonShadow]

The scripture commands us to be fruitful and multiply. We are commanded by our creator to have sex and children.


Walter

Egad! No wonder we have an over-population problem!

[David77]

It is such as the writings in Corinthians 7, as quoted above, as well as other biblical writings, that I have switched and became a Naturalistic Humanists years ago.

[Skinview]

I hope those quotes from the new testament require some interpretation to understand them better.They do, a little. I think the "present crises" that Paul writes about was the expectation that Christ was going to return within the lifetime of the contemporaries of Jesus, as Jesus had said so. So as each year passed, it became more and more likely that the Second Coming was imminent. 2000 years later, christians are still waiting. But in any case, Paul's attitude towards sex has screwed up christian's heads for a couple thousand years.

If sex is evil, then all human beings are the product of an evil activity.Oh yeah, original sin. The Catholic Church thinks the apple is a metaphor for sex. All human misery is due to eve tempting Adam with her body.

[Skinview]

I am Jewish and I try my best to follow what you call the old testament.

Oh. Well, thanks for the warning.

"Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life..."
-Leviticus 25:44-46

"If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death - the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man's wife."
-Deuteronomy 22:15

"A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them: their blood will be on their own heads."
-Leviticus 20:27

"If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death."
-Leviticus 20:9

"If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."
-Leviticus 21:13

"anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him. Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death."
-Leviticus 24:16

"Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death."
-Exodus 31:15

[walter05]

Oh. Well, thanks for the warning.
"Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life..."
-Leviticus 25:44-46

The institution of slavery was very different from what we know now. The slave was entitled to the pillow if there was one, the same kind of bed as the master, same kind of food, etc.

The institution of slavery requires the Sanhedrin which is not in place now. Therefore, it is not permitted today.

I agree it is diffictult to understand.

"If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death - the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man's wife."

-Deuteronomy 22:15

"Given current morality, I understand why people find this hard to understand."

"A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them: their blood will be on their own heads."
-Leviticus 20:27

"Without the Sanhedrin, this can't be carried out. This only applies to Jews. Since there should be prophets, there is no need for other ways to seek guidance."

"If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death."
-Leviticus 20:9

"This is a law that the Talmud says was never carried out. It does show the importance of having respect for one's parents though.
In America today, we would be better off with some respect for parents."

"If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."
-Leviticus 21:13

"I know this is difficult for people to understand. This only applies to Jews"

"anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him. Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death."

-Leviticus 24:16
"We are created to serve the creator. Blaspheme negates the reason for creation."

"Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death."
-Exodus 31:15
"Impossible to explain to someone who has not observed the Jewish Sabbath fully."

All death penalties in Judaism required two warnings, and two witnesses.
I will not defend these but to say that context does make a difference.

Original sin of eating the forbidden fruit, of the tree of good and evil did not involve sex.

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, etc. are all said by the Bible to have had sex with their wives. These were all very holy men. When they made errors, the scriptures tell us. Their relations with their wives were holy acts we should emulate.

Walter

[Skinview]

The institution of slavery was very different from what we know now. The slave was entitled to the pillow if there was one, the same kind of bed as the master, same kind of food, etc.Oh, not so different.

"If a man beats his male of female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property"
- Exodus 21:20+21

The institution of slavery requires the Sanhedrin which is not in place now. Therefore, it is not permitted today.The Sanhedrin were not around when Moses was.

"If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death."
-Leviticus 20:9

This is a law that the Talmud says was never carried out.How would the guys who wrote that know? Are there complete records covering all cases over all the centuries?

In America today, we would be better off with some respect for parents.Yes, and we are better off because we don't kill our children.

"Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death."
-Exodus 31:15

Impossible to explain to someone who has not observed the Jewish Sabbath fully.

All death penalties in Judaism required two warnings, and two witnesses.
I will not defend these but to say that context does make a difference.Not so.

"While the Isrealites were in the desert, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. Then the Lord said to Moses 'The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp.' So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the Lord commanded Moses."
- Numbers 15:32-36


Original sin of eating the forbidden fruit, of the tree of good and evil did not involve sex.I agree, but the Catholic church is obsessed with sex, and they have some strange ideas.

[Centauri4]

Phew!!! I feel as though I have just gone through religious studies, history, sociology, psychology, human behavior and etiquette classes ALL at once!! Yikes! (head spinning)

I think there are some people who believe sexuality is an aspect of everything we do to some greater or lesser degree. We earn money to buy groceries to eat and sustain ouselves in order to survive to the next opportunity to procreate and pass along our [divine] DNA. Therefore "Work + Money = Sex" because I think we all agree that, "No work + no money = no sex" (in most cases).

The eternal arguments about when someone is old enough to be "sexually educated" will never end. The condemnations of those who ignore the community standards (or laws) about when someone is old enough to engage in sexual actitivy will never end.

If we were actually that paranoid and concerned about children not "experimenting" or being violated we would isolate them from each other and segregate the from society at large until they matured and could legally decide for themselves. But no, we selfishly continue leaving them in vulnerable situations and failing to observe them diligently enough to prevent MANY forms of abuse; in this regards we are all "guilty" to some greater or lesser degree.

How long will it be before electronic tracking and monitoring devices are attached to ALL PERSONS under the age of 18 to prevent them from doing ANYTHING society deems unacceptable? Sound Orwellian?; SURE!!

I loved reading some of the posts where Sexual activity was delineated from the Reproductive act without explaining that NOT all sexual activity leads to reproduction of the species. A simple caress is sexual TO SOME PEOPLE. A kiss is highly sexual TO SOME PEOPLE. A lingering stare and wink of the eyes is sexual TO SOME PEOPLE. So what kind of common ground do we share at this time? And what kind of common ground will we evolve to in a hundred or a thousand years?!?

People lack the imagination to take responsibility for their own behavior OR in many cases claim they did something "deviant" in a "moment of weakness". The truth is, we are all weak creatures simply hoping to survive in a harsh world! We have "creature comforts" and "comfortable ways" of engaging in any activity or defending it as "right", "proper" and "just", but what I think is...

"People need to mind their own freakin' business sometimes!!"

~

[David77]

I hope you are kidding.

The scripture commands us to be fruitful and multiply. We are commanded by our creator to have sex and children.

Truly virtuous people do what the divine commands us to. That means that truly virtuous people get married, have sex, and enjoy it.

Walter
On the "CNN Presents", a two hour TV program special tonight, it was said that Moses, Jesus and Mohammed were all single men. Was Moses single?

[Skinview]

On the "CNN Presents", a two hour TV program special tonight, it was said that Moses, Jesus and Mohammed were all single men. Was Moses single?
I don't recall any mention of a wife. But that doesn't mean he didn't have a wife or concubines. Some claim Jesus might have had a wife, but with his lifestyle, I doubt it.

[Sanslines]

1 Corinthians 7:

1 "It is good for a man not to marry."
5-7 "...come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self control. I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all men were as I am."
8-9 "Now to the unmarried widows I say: It is better to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than burn with passion."
25-26 "Now about virgins: I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgement as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy. Because of the present crisis, I think that it is good for you to remain as you are."
27 "Are you unmarried? Do not look for a wife."
29 "From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none."
32 "An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs - how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world - how he can please his wife - and his interests are divided..." etc.
35 "I am saying this for your oun good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord."
38 "he who marries a virgin does right, but he who does not marry her does even better."

Skinview,

What you post is another example that anyone can believe anything that they wish and find biblical scriptures to support those beliefs. There are plenty of examples of an "eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". Given that biblical scriptures all support the notion of going out and killing others for revenge, why is not killing even more widespread? Is it because man doesn't wish to follow that aspect and yet will selectively 'obey' others.

What most people will never comprehend in their blind allegiance to ancient scriptures is that there are numerous examples of where God allowed man freedom to think, question, make decisions, and ultimately pay the consequences for those decisions. Man is an evolving species and yet man can be so ignorant in so many ways. Those who follow ancient beliefs about going forth and multiplying disregard that such notions were made when the earth was far less populated and could tolerate unrestrained reproduction. Given the present exponentially increasing human population and the understanding that this planet has finite resources along with the myriad of problems associated with a rapidly expanding human population, it would appear that only the enlightened will dare to question and understand that we humans are responsible for our actions on this planet and it would be ludicrous and insulting to any God to blame God for man made catastrophes.

God gave us the ability to think and yet real thinking is in such short supply. It is far easier to search for ancient scriptures to justify our actions then dare to question our relation with God and accept that God "in his eternal wisdom gave man the freedom to chose".

[Sanslines]

"People need to mind their own freakin' business sometimes!!"

~

As long as no harm is caused for others.

[Sanslines]

On the "CNN Presents", a two hour TV program special tonight, it was said that Moses, Jesus and Mohammed were all single men. Was Moses single?


David,

Please understand that as a social worker, you have seen the 'dark side' of uncontrolled marriage and reproduction. I am certain that you have seen more failed marriages and throw away children then you would ever care to see. Most do not see and will not acknowledge this dark side of "being fruitful and multiplying".

[Sanslines]

God Commands Us To Be Fruitful and Multiply

One subtle mistake often made by “natural family planning” advocates is in their assumption that God has commanded the conception of children in Genesis 1:28. Raymond C. Van Leeuwen exposes this faulty assumption by demonstrating that “be fruitful and multiply” is a blessing and not a command.
Genesis 1:28 is not a commandment, but a blessing. It does not refer to what humans must do to please God, but to what God does for and through humankind. The text says, "God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply'" (RSV). Fertility is not a command but a blessing that God gives to his creatures, to animals as well as humans (Gen. 1:22). The filling of the Earth is a gift of God's wisdom and shows forth his glory as Creator (Ps. 104:24, 31; Isa. 6:3).Genesis 1:28 is not a “cultural mandate” (implying command) but a “cultural blessing” (implying gift). When compared with the blessing given to Rebekah in Genesis 24:60, it becomes obvious that the gift of children is not a divine right given in response to obedience but a divine blessing given out of grace. Later, when Rachel is unable to conceive, Jacob recognizes this by saying, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” (Genesis 30:2).
Because this is a cultural blessing it is not given to any one individual but to the whole human race: “God gave this blessing to the human race as a whole. He does not give it to everyone. Some couples are barren, and their earnest prayers for children are not fulfilled. Others, like the apostle Paul, are called to life without marriage.”
If the blessing were truly a command then single Christians would be guilty of disobedience in this area: “If Genesis 1:28 were a ‘command’ that applied to every individual, then Paul would have been disobedient in his apostolic singleness. Paul and everyone else would be obligated to pursue marriage and to order their marriages to produce many descendants.” Indeed, if the blessing were truly a command then even those advocating “natural family planning” would be in disobedience to this command to the extent that they in any way hindered conception. Why not enjoy God’s blessings to the full? Why hinder God’s blessings through “natural” birth control methods? Why not have as many “blessings” as possible? And why waste one moment in pursuing this end? In short, if the cultural blessing is really a cultural command, then the “no family planning” advocates have the most consistent position.
The Genesis narrative clearly distinguishes God’s blessing in Genesis 1:28 from God’s clear command in Genesis 2:16-17. This distinction carries through after the Fall. Adam’s sin consists in transgressing God’s command, not in transgressing the blessing. After Adam disobeys God’s clear command, he forfeits eternal life, but God’s blessing continues in full force. Yet now it is accompanied with pain, sorrow, conflict, and strife, so that what was once to be experienced as complete blessing is now necessary for survival and thus becomes part of the mankind’s universal frantic effort to preserve individual life at the expense of others. John Walton writes, “The need to secure survival adds an urgency that did not previously exists. What was enjoyed as blessing now becomes essential to stave off extinction. The blessing has not been lost, but the climate has changed considerably.”

http://www.theocentric.com/relationships/parenting/responsible_family_planning.html

[Sanslines]

Mankind woud clearly be extinct by now if Old Testiment Scriptures were fully and completely adhered to instead of the usual picking and chosing certain scriptures to justify carefully selected behaviours and intentionally ignoring other scriptures to deliberately avoid those behaviours.


Bible Study

Old Testament Cruelty, Hatred and Violence

Christian fundamentalists are fond of claiming that the God of the Bible is a God of boundless, perfect love. However, they appear to have a vastly different definition of "love" than most modern people. For most people, including most Christians, a classic description of "love" is that which Paul laid out in 1 Corinthians 13 (NIV):

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

It is for this reason that most Christians are careful to point out that they do not support or defend the violence of the Old Testament. The Old Testament God is neither patient or kind. He is jealous, he boasts, and he is proud. He is rude, self-seeking, easily angered, and remembers wrongs for all eternity. Generally speaking, Christians are quick to point out that modern Christianity has outgrown the Old Testament.

However, Christian fundamentalists are a different breed. They believe that every single word of the Bible is literally true and absolutely admirable, including the Old Testament. They say this as if it's a good thing, although in reality, they pick and choose the parts which they want you to hear, and they count on you not reading the Bible for yourself, to see the horrors that lie within.

While this reference page is not as awe-inspiringly comprehensive as the Skeptic's Annotated Bible (http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/), it is designed to repudiate the fundamentalists' claim that a literal interpretation of the Bible describes a "God of love". Instead, it describes a God of violence and cruelty, whose "love" for his subjects is entirely conditional and whose rules are so strict, so harsh, and so cruel that to describe them as love is to sully the very idea of love beyond recognition.

Note: the following Bible quotes are taken from the NIV (New International Version), since it is easier to read than the King James version. It is also less bloodthirsty than the King James version, and the differences make me wonder how both versions can be described as "inerrant". This list is restricted to acts of violence against humans which are committed, instructed, or condoned by God, excluding "normal" wartime killing of enemy soldiers. If we were to include all of the passages describing Israelite violence or demanding acts of wanton cruelty against animals, this document would become enormous.

The Book of Genesis

The Book of Genesis describes the origins of mankind, as well as the basic doctrines of inherited original sin, eternal unworthiness, fear of God, staggeringly harsh rule through violence, mindless obedience to arbitrary rules, and the definition of numerous victimless crimes.

Genesis 2:16-17 (God defines the first of many, many victimless "crimes" punishable by death)

And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.

Genesis 6:1-7 (What is the "evil" for which God punishes Man with the Flood? The "sons of God" are marrying the "daughters of men", and the Nephilim, "heroes of old, men of renown", walked the Earth! This is "evil"? This is yet another example of mankind being punished for victimless crimes; our "crime" in this case was simply living for our own happiness instead of worshipping God. There is no mention of acts we would consider "evil" today, such as murder or rape on a large scale. In fact, the first mass murderer of the Bible is God himself, right here with the Flood! Note that the supposedly omnipotent God can't kill humans without also killing the animals even though he obviously wanted them to survive, or he wouldn't have given Noah explicit instructions to save them)

When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years." The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also afterward--when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth--men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air--for I am grieved that I have made them."

Genesis 19:24-26 (God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah. A rape gang in Sodom is customarily used to justify this act, but while a rape gang is obviously evil, it's absolutely insane to respond by killing all of the women and even the little children and babies of two entire cities! Was everyone in both cities a rapist, including the small children and babies? And what about Lot's wife, who was killed for the victimless crime of disobeying instructions by looking back?)

Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah--from the LORD out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities--and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

Genesis 22:2 (God orders Abraham to commit the crime of murdering his own son, just to see if he'll do it. If a character in an action movie held a gun to a man's head and told him to slit his own son's throat, we would consider him evil. Even if he changed his mind just before forcing him to go through with it, we would still consider it a horrible, cruel joke)
Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."

Genesis 38:6-10 (God murders Er without bothering to say why. Judah tells Er's brother to impregnate Er's widow, but Onan commits the victimless crime of pulling out early (something I'm sure we've all done on occasion), so God murders him too).
Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the LORD's sight; so the LORD put him to death. Then Judah said to Onan, "Lie with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to produce offspring for your brother." But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the LORD's sight; so he put him to death also.

Thus endeth our examination of God's hatred in the Book of Genesis. He sentences all of mankind in perpetuity for a victimless crime, he murders every living thing on Earth save Noah and his Ark for another victimless crime, he murders everyone in Sodom and Gomorrah including women and children because of the attempted rape of his envoys, he murders Lot's wife and Judah's sons for yet more victimless crimes, and he forces Abraham to choose between divine punishment and murdering his only son.

The Book of Exodus

The Book of Exodus describes the Israelites' plight as a slave race in Egypt, and tells the story of how God broke their bonds, visited stunning cruelties upon the Egyptians in retribution, and made his covenant of cruelty with the Israelites in the desert. This is the book where the Ten Commandments are laid out, as well as a host of ridiculously harsh rules such as "Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death". It is also the book where religious hatred is first demonstrated. Not only is it acceptable to murder defenseless children if they are sons of the enemy, but Moses, with God's blessing, murders 3000 people for worshipping other gods.

Exodus 2:11-12 (Moses murders an Egyptian slave owner for beating a Hebrew, even though God would later tell the Israelites that it's OK to keep and beat slaves of their own, as long as they don't die on the same day as the beating. This is technically Moses' violence instead of God's violence, but it is nevertheless revealing because God would pick him to be his chosen envoy after this happened).

One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

Exodus 4:24-26 (After God picks Moses as his chosen envoy despite being a murderer, he suddenly decides to kill him. But Moses' wife seizes her son, mutilates the innocent boy's penis with a flint knife, and puts the bloody piece of shorn-away flesh on Moses' feet, presumably while the child is still screaming in agony. This pleases God for some incomprehensible reason, so he lets Moses live)

At a lodging place on the way, the LORD met Moses and was about to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it. "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me," she said. So the LORD let him alone.

Exodus 11:9-10 (God "hardened Pharoah's heart", so that his "wonders may be multiplied in Egypt". In other words, he deliberately made Pharoah refuse to release the Israelites, so that he would have an excuse to show off! The murder of all the first-born sons in Egypt was a cruel, premeditated act, in which God controlled both sides of the equation just so he could demonstrate his power).

The LORD had said to Moses, "Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you -- so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt." Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his country.

Exodus 2:29-30 (God carries through with his terrible promise, murdering innocent babies for the crimes of Pharoah; crimes of slavery which he would later permit the Israelites themselves to commit without penalty).

At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.

Exodus 14:2-4,15-18 (God sets a trap for Pharoah and then hardens his heart twice more so that he will fall into it)

"Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon. Pharaoh will think, `The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.' And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD." So the Israelites did this.

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. The Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen."

Exodus 14:24-28 (God springs the trap he laid out for Pharoah, and which he made Pharoah walk into so that he would "gain glory". He sows confusion in the Egyptians' ranks, and then after they decide to retreat despite his repeated manipulations of Pharoah's intentions, he kills them all)

During the last watch of the night the LORD looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. He made the wheels of their chariots come off so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, "Let's get away from the Israelites! The LORD is fighting for them against Egypt." Then the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen." Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the LORD swept them into the sea. The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen--the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.

Exodus 15:3-7 (Militaristic hero worship; and we wonder why Christian theocratic nations have been so militaristic throughout history)

The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his army he has hurled into the sea. The best of Pharaoh's officers are drowned in the Red Sea. The deep waters have covered them; they sank to the depths like a stone. Your right hand, O LORD, was majestic in power. Your right hand, O LORD, shattered the enemy. In the greatness of your majesty you threw down those who opposed you. You unleashed your burning anger; it consumed them like stubble.

Exodus 17:14-16 (God continues his tradition of making war against Israel's enemies (the Amalekites, who supposedly attacked them), and then carrying this war to insane levels of vindictiveness and cruelty by also promising to make war against their children and their children's children. And we wonder why ethnic and religious hatreds can persist for centuries between religious theocracies in Europe)

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven." Moses built an altar and called it The LORD is my Banner. He said, "For hands were lifted up to the throne of the LORD. The LORD will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation."

Exodus 19:12 (Whoever commits the victimless crime of touching Mt. Sinai must die)
Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, "Be careful that you do not go up the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death."

Exodus 21:15-17 (Hit your parents, kidnap someone, or even swear at your parents, and you must die)

Anyone who attacks his father or his mother must be put to death. Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death. Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.

Exodus 21:23-25 (Basic revenge mentality outlined)

But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

Exodus 22:2 (It's OK to kill a thief. Note that Americans still feel this way. In many states, it is perfectly legal to shoot a thief in your house without warning, because apparently, property rights are more important than the right to life. This is rationalized by claiming that an intruder in your house is automatically a self-defense situation, even if he is unarmed)
If a thief is caught breaking in and is struck so that he dies, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed.

Exodus 22:18-20 (The death penalty for bestiality (which should be treated through counselling rather than death), and the victimless crimes of sorcery and worshipping other gods)

Do not allow a sorceress to live. Anyone who has sexual relations with an animal must be put to death. Whoever sacrifices to any god other than the LORD must be destroyed.
Exodus 22:22-24 (Conmen who "take advantage" of widows and orphans must die)
Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.

Exodus 31:15 (Commit the victimless crime of working on Sunday and you must die)
For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death.

Exodus 32:27-28,35 (God has 3000 people killed for the vicimtless crime of worshipping a golden calf, and then he throws in a plague for good measure. Note that he initially wanted to kill them all, but Moses talked him out of it)

Then he said to them, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: `Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.' The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died ... And the LORD struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.

Thus endeth our examination of God's hatred in the Book of Exodus. He chooses a murderer as his anointed envoy, he is pleased by acts of genital mutilation committed against children, he commits wanton acts of murder and terrorism against innocent children and babies in Egypt and "hardens Pharoah's heart" to make sure he will have an excuse to do so (because he wants to show off), he causes Pharoah's army to pursue the Israelites so that he may destroy it (so he can show off again), he makes war against the innocent children of Israel's enemies, and he outlines a large number of crimes for which death is the prescribed penalty. Some of these crimes are victimless (eg. touching Mt. Sinai, sorcery, worshipping other gods, working on Sunday). Others are not, but death is too severe a punishment (eg. striking or swearing at your parents, kidnapping, bestiality, conning widows and orphans). And finally, we have the infamous "a life for a life" instruction, which leads naturally to the death penalty for murder. This last one is a source of some controversy, and while I don't want to get embroiled in a death penalty debate, I would merely like to point out that while I completely understand why we might want to kill a murderer, no one can seriously claim that revenge is a noble motive.

In any case, notwithstanding the controversy over that last example, the Book of Exodus is certainly a prime example of Biblical violence and evil. In a nutshell, it contains all of God's evil attitudes, not to mention the motivation for countless atrocities committed throughout Christian history. Future books merely repeat the themes outlined here. God's acts of violence and cruelty are often directed against blameless children and distant descendants of those found guilty, and he defines numerous victimless crimes for which perpetrators must be put to death. Victimless crimes such as prostitution and "public indecency" are still on the books of many supposedly civilized nations (indeed, they are still punishable by death in some places), and we have the Bible to thank for the longevity of this idiocy.

The Book of Leviticus

This is the mother of all the Biblical rulebooks. The entire Book of Leviticus is filled with rules, most of which cannot be quoted here because of their sheer bulk. The first nine chapters are full of rules governing the bloody animal sacrifices required by God, in which animals are to be cut to pieces, their bloody guts are to be waved around in the air, and their blood is to be sprinkled upon the people. Leviticus 13-15 contain instructions regarding leprosy, house mildew, and personal hygiene (you would think that an omniscient being would have better remedies for such problems than animal sacrifice, but I digress). In any case, apart from all this weirdness and animal cruelty, Leviticus contains many ridiculously harsh rules for humans.

Leviticus 10:1-2 (God kills Aaron's sons for making the victimless crime of making "unauthorized fire").

Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command. So fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.

The Book of Numbers

The Book of Numbers is the beginning of the Israelite military buildup. The 12 tribes are laid out, and the pecking order is established. This book also contains some of the bickering between the Sons of Aaron and the Sons of Levi, who represented two power groups within the Israelite priesthood and who both attempted to use the text of the Old Testament in order to cast doubt upon the other, when the priests wrote it around 600 BC.

Numbers 1:48-51 (Levites are exempted from the census, and from military service. If anyone but a Levite encroaches upon their holy altars, he must die for his victimless crime)
The LORD had said to Moses: "You must not count the tribe of Levi or include them in the census of the other Israelites. Instead, appoint the Levites to be in charge of the tabernacle of the Testimony--over all its furnishings and everything belonging to it. They are to carry the tabernacle and all its furnishings; they are to take care of it and encamp around it. Whenever the tabernacle is to move, the Levites are to take it down, and whenever the tabernacle is to be set up, the Levites shall do it. Anyone else who goes near it shall be put to death."

The Book of Deuteronomy

The Book of Deuteronomy continues the trend set by the Book of Numbers. It is a combination of glorious Israelite war stories and reiteration of insane rules.

Deuteronomy 2:30-34 (As with Pharoah, Sihon's heart is hardened by God so that he can use him as an excuse to show off. Naturally, he makes no distinction between soldiers and civilians. As usual, blameless women and children must perish for the glory of God)
But Sihon king of Heshbon refused to let us pass through. For the LORD your God had made his spirit stubborn and his heart obstinate in order to give him into your hands, as he has now done. The LORD said to me, "See, I have begun to deliver Sihon and his country over to you. Now begin to conquer and possess his land." When Sihon and all his army came out to meet us in battle at Jahaz, the LORD our God delivered him over to us and we struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army. At that time we took all his towns and completely destroyed them--men, women and children. We left no survivors.

The Book of Joshua

The Book of Joshua is famed for its violence, even when compared to the preceding books. Frankly, that's a bit scary, don't you think? In any case, the Book of Joshua is a God-sanctioned rampage of death and destruction. The Israelites destroy anyone and everyone in their path. Note that every one of these atrocities is specifically ordered by God, who is speaking to Joshua.

Joshua 6:20-21 (The fall of Jericho at the hands of murderous butchers)

When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city. They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it--men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.

The Book of Judges

The Book of Judges is best known for the bizarre Samson story (yes, the bit with the hair).
Judges 1:8 (Another city, another pointless butchery. If it weren't so horrible, it would be boring)

The men of Judah attacked Jerusalem also and took it. They put the city to the sword and set it on fire.

The Books of Samuel

The Books of Samuel are the ones in which we meet King David (yes, the guy who slew Goliath). As usual, women and children are killed indiscriminately along with enemy soldiers, and God kills people for bizarre, arbitrary reasons.

The Books of Kings

The two Books of Kings revolve around a succession of kings in Israel who alternately please God and then anger him. It's an exercise in Pavlovian psychological reinforcement: positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Like Pavlov's dogs, we're supposed to read the Books of Kings and mindlessly accept that obedience to God is rewarded, and disobedience is horribly punished. Naturally, we're not supposed to think for ourselves and question what kind of God would be so cruel.

The Books of Chronicles

The First Book of Chronicles is uneventful as far as we're concerned here, since its most noteworthy events are merely re-tellings of events already covered in the Second Book of Samuel (as usual, the Bible has to tell every story two or three times). The Second Book, however, contains some of the largest mass killings in the Bible outside of the Great Flood.
2 Chronicles 7:5 (Solomon kills more than a hundred thousand animals to dedicate his temple to God. I have thus far skipped all of the animal sacrifices of the Bible because I was concerned more with cruelty to humans than cruelty to animals. However, this is such a stunning display of pointless animal sacrifice that it merits mention, if for no other reason than to note that such an enormous sacrifice of livestock would be an agricultural disaster and it would undoubtedly bring much hardship upon the people)

And King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand head of cattle and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep and goats. So the king and all the people dedicated the temple of God.

The Book of Job

The Book of Job is understandably famous. It is entirely devoted to a single story: that of God's mindlessly loyal servant Job. The story is as follows: God is bragging about how loyal Job is. Satan answers that Job is only loyal because God has given him great material wealth and personal happiness. God becomes petulant and decides to test Job's loyalty by taking away everything he holds dear. Job, of course, shows what a great guy he is by mindlessly praising God even after this despicable act. Judeo-Christians use this story as an object lesson in the importance of unwavering loyalty, while atheists and members of other religions use it as an example of the priests covering their asses, by ensuring that the people would feel compelled to thank God for both good and bad fortune, thus ensuring that they would continue to get their donations through good times and bad.

The Book of Psalms

The Book of Psalms is a meandering list of sayings about God. It is very popular with preachers, who regularly quote snippets as part of their sermons. Psalms are often chanted ritualistically during Sunday services, and the choice of psalms tends to say a lot about the mentality of the preacher and his congregation. Pacifistic preachers tend to ignore the militaristic psalms, while militaristic preachers tend to trumpet them loudly.

The Book of Proverbs

The Book of Proverbs is similar to the Book of Psalms, except that the Proverbs are meant to be spoken rather than sung or chanted ritualistically.

Proverbs 13:24 (Beat your children)
He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.

Proverbs 22:15 (Beat your children)
Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.

Proverbs 23:13-14 (Beat your children)
Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death.

Proverbs 20:30 (Severe beatings "cleanse away evil")
Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being.

Proverbs 29:15 (Beat your children)
The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother.

Proverbs 29:19 (Verbal corrections aren't enough for a servant. He needs more, so you should resort to <drum roll please> beatings!)
A servant cannot be corrected by mere words; though he understands, he will not respond.

Proverbs 30:17 (Mock your father or disobey your mother, and God will send birds to peck out your eyes and eat your rotting flesh)

The eye that mocks a father, that scorns obedience to a mother, will be pecked out by the ravens of the valley, will be eaten by the vultures.


http://www.creationtheory.org/BibleStudy/Ref-Violence.xhtml

[walter05]

First of all, Moses appointed the seventy elders. They were the first Sanhedrin. The institution continued from that time.

Moses was married and had two sons.

The death penalty was rarely carried out. If it was more than once per seventy years, it was considered a bloody court.

Slaves did have rights under the law. However, a master did have the right to strike a slave for discipline. If the slave were injured too severely, the slave went free. The slave would also be set free with substantial financial gifts, etc. as prescribed by law and the courts.

The incident of the wood gatherer in the desert was confusing. The Talmud tells us this man did so to demonstrate the seriousness of braking the law. He was well intentioned but incorrect.

The Jewish Sabbath is not a day of rest. It is a day when we cease creative activities. We do so as a testimony that the world is created by a being that is also involved in our lives.

For someone who understands and observes the Sabbath, the violation is form of treason demonstrating that the individual does not accept the dominion of the creator.

Despite the severity of the act, and that the people were in the desert in a miraculous existence, and Moses was there, they wanted to consult with the ultimate authority. This is because they wanted a way not to punish the violator. The punishment was only when ordered to do so.

Your questioning and wanting an alternative is a process that Jewish tradition would support. The Rabbis in the Talmud and other Rabbinic giants have done the same for centuries.

However, when we question something that does not seem right, we accept that it is due to our limited understanding and strive to understand better.

If the slave were severely injured, and recovered, he was free. If he did not, then the master was punished for the murder. What seems to the untrained eye as a leniancy for the master is actually a severity. We are told that a master can be tried for murder of a slave.

The Rabbis in the Talmud did have records, sources, and information passed down. Some of the books mentioned don't exist now.

There is the commandment of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, etc.

There never was a commandment or permission to poke out an eye as retribution.

These were property laws. If an eye were accidentally poked out, then the one who caused the injury had to compensate for the loss. Any medical expenses, lost wages, etc.

There are rules for interpreting the scriptures passed down from Moses that are also codified in the Talmud. At times, based on these rules, we know that the literal meaning is not correct. We know that it is meant to teach. It is far too complicated for this forum to go into them.

However, when the Talmud raised a question, we see the dissenting views. If an opinion was incorrect, other Rabbis objections were recorded and the incorrect opinion refuted.

When an opinion is not refuted by those great experts in the law and scripture, it is strong evidence that it was correct.

Modern man thinks we can determine 2,000 years later something that was known as common knowledge then. This is arrogant, but false. Those closer to the original events who had more written and oral resources often had a better understanding than we can today.

Walter

[Sanslines]

Human Overpopulation - Fighting the Dictator

Romania, 1990 - the dictator Nicole Ceausescu and his wife have been overthrown and executed less than a year ago. Lines of pregnant women wrap around the block waiting for a legal abortion. In 1966, Ceausescu (http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/ceausescu.html) had made having less than five children punishable with heavy fines. Despite the fact that the country was bankrupt through government corruption, each couple had to have at least five children. The women that day were grateful for the abortions. In their cases, the abortions were acts of mercy.

Although Ceausescu ordered couples to have five babies, he did not order them to keep them. The babies, if they had lived, could have wound up in one of Romania's notoriously horrific orphanages.
http://www.celsias.com/media/uploads/admin/overpop.jpg (about:blank)And if the human population doesn't soon get under control, what happened in Romania could happen in every country in the world.

The Current Dictator

Ceausescu said that, "Anyone who avoids having children is a deserter who abandons the laws of national continuity."

Instinct to breed is our internal dictator. For millions of years, this instinct worked pretty well for us. Because of high infant mortality, each couple had to have a barrel full of kids just to assure that one managed to reach breeding age.

However, we have long passed the need to reproduce. In the 1900's, the entire human population of the world was estimated to be 1.6 billion (http://desip.igc.org/populationmaps.html). It is now about 6.7 billion, although some scientists argue that there are more people than that. If the trends continue, by 2100 there will be at least 13.4 billion. Each baby brings with it a whole slew of stuff - from how much food it will consume in its lifetime, to whether there will be a job available to how much trash it will produce at the expense of every other species on the planet.

According to Joel Cohen's How Many People Can The Earth Support? (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2004/nov/11/thisweekssciencequestions1), each person takes 2.1 hectares of land and water in order to live, although the average American needs 10 hectares of land.
Meanwhile, nearly every other species on the planet is dwindling. Currently, one in four mammals is threatened and the seas are turning into dead zones. We are also running out of water. Our planet clearly has a finite amount of life that it can support.

Combating Overeating
http://www.celsias.com/media/uploads/admin/Overpopulation.jpg (about:blank)We aren't doomed to drown in a sea of humanity. We do have the mental capacity to override our instincts (and reject religious brainwashing) when those instincts aren't working. Many people can do this when it comes to overeating, although there is still an epidemic of obesity in the world. The drive to eat is just as strong - if not stronger - than our drive to reproduce.
We are programmed to eat as much as possible because we don't know when we're going to get our next meal. Our instincts do not realize that we have easy access to food that was denied to our ancestors.

We have the intelligence to deny our bodies the food it doesn't need in order to live. This is proof that we can do the same thing when it comes to changing any of our behaviors that negatively impact all other life on earth.

"Be Fruitful and Multiply"

The key to changing our attitudes about having as many children as we can before we become infertile is in changing our perspective of our own species. For thousands of years, we have wrongly believed that our species is somehow more important than any other species on the planet. We even made up religions to emphasize this point. Every other living thing had to bow down to our greatness.

Time and time again, nature shows us that humans are not unique and are dependant on many other plant and animal species in order to survive.

Humans are no better than any other species. It's time to stop speciesism (http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/rights/speciesism.shtml) if we want to save the environment, or at least salvage what's left of it due to human arrogance and error.

Do we really want to doom our children to live in a world where there is only other people and no other animals? Without species diversity, the soul of this planet will be snuffed out.

Why do we have so many kids, even though we know the kids will be worse off than we are? Because we are scared to die. We still have a primal hope that we will somehow live on through our offspring even after our physical deaths. We also have kids because we are selfish and are too cheap to hire domestic help. We want the kids to take care of us.

But, all this could be moot if we continue at our pace in wrecking the environment, killing of species and destroying the very air we breathe. However, we will not be able to make any permanent strides in helping the environment without looking at human overpopulation and our inner dictator.

[Sanslines]

"Brainwashing involves emotional manipulation and denigration of the intellect. " (http://askville.amazon.com/Brainwashing-involves-emotional-manipulation-denigration-intellect/AnswerDetails.do?requestId=29185908&responseId=29220445)

by: Zuma (http://askville.amazon.com/view/ViewUserProfile.do?userId=3778322) on Nov 27 2008

I think that where you draw the line between religious "teaching" and "brainwashing" depends on what what you consider a religious education to be.

If your goal is simply to pass along the old familiar stories that serve as the touchstones of our moral educations, these can be easily taught and learned without any resort to the sorts of psychological manipulation we commonly associate with brainwashing. Unfortunately, many parents are not content with their child’s mere knowledge of his or her religion; they want their children to have Faith. They want their children to believe these stories as if their salvation depended on it. And, for some, this means believing these stories to be factually--even absolutely--true, even if such beliefs throw the child into conflict with his culture and reality itself.

In my view, a child should be allowed to come to Faith on his own terms. But, many parents feel that this is too much to be left to chance. They consider it both a right and a duty to inculcate Faith by any means necessary, even if those means are unwholesome and manipulative. Indeed, it is commonly considered good child rearing practice to keep one’s children away from "bad influences." But this can be taken to mean keeping their children away people who teach them to think critically, or who provide them with information from diverse and alien points of view. Some parents take this to mean sequestering their children in special religious schools in an attempt to create the (mistaken) impression that "everybody" believes the same thing, and that this is the way things ought to be.

Unfortunately, there are some articles of faith that are so unbelievable or unpalatable that they would die out if people were left to their own devices. For example, notions of sin and salvation are not something that innocent children pick up on their own. Rather, they they have to convince they are in danger--that they are teetering on the edge--of eternal damnation should he fail to believe. The parents have to create a cult-like environment in which teach the child to distrust and to disable his intellect. How do you get a child to believe that the world is only 6,000 years old and that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God? First of all you have to fervently believe it yourself. Indeed, you have to believe it so well that you automatically begin to withdraw your love when the child expresses any doubt.

Faced with a withdrawal of parental love, the child will develop "data blindness." I had one friend whose curiosity about the world shut down before he could learn anything about it. For him, God became an all-purpose abstraction and explanation. When asked to explain define words like "Romanticism" or "imperialism" or explain historical events, he would say it was God’s Will--in fact, all explanations led quite quickly to God. Needless to say, this played havoc with his grades in college, eventually forcing him to drop out and take a job in an intellectually non-threatening job, such as a technical support person.

Some parents do not consider their child’s religious education complete until they have reproduced in the child their own sense of guilt and shame; their own deep anxieties over being fundamentally flawed, incomplete, and intrinsically unworthy of being accepted and loved. The reproduction of this sense of innate sinfulness more or less requires requires emotional blackmail, deliberate shaming, and other assaults on the child’s sense of autonomy and self-worth. Its not for nothing that religious conservatives scoff at anything smacks of promoting self-esteem that isn’t contingent on worship and prayer. Unfortunately, defining a child’s autonomy and self-worth in terms of fealty to Christ, completely subverts and distorts the child’s sense of himself. It isn’t natural or healthy to raise children to be God-centered instead of human centered, since to do so makes them insensitive to the values and viewpoints of others.

Quite often people abused in this way completely reject all religion and any concept of God. In atheist groups, for example, they often call themselves "recovering Christians," and they share their horror stories of childhoods blighted by constant shaming and assaults on their reason by psychologically stunted parents who related to their children as "sinners to be saved."

I think that religion should be taught a form of history, using textual analysis, anthropological findings, and using comparative chronologies to verify reported events. But I know full well that any such project would be doomed from the outset, because teaching religion from the viewpoint of a critical outsider defeats the purpose that most parents have in mind. Unfortunately, the parent’s lack of regard for the intellectual integrity of the child in matters of faith, ultimately produces an adult who has little regard for reason and intellectual integrity. (Such people abound here on Askville.) You get adults who see nothing wrong with using the law to force others to believe as they do. And you get never-ending cultural wars.

[David77]

I believe that in "Sunday School" religious education of a child, that all seven of the world's great religions (plus, for instance, some American Indian religions regarding nature) should be explained and discussed freely with the group of children, without any proselizing applied, and with respect for intellect inquiry. The children should be encouraged to choose "cafeteria style" what he sees as most valuable and ethical in each studied religion and discuss this in the group.

As an activity, when they get around to studying the ideas of Buddhism, they could have a group experience of meditation (with traditional acccesories added). Possibly later, they could discuss the exercise.

Field trips are benificial which go to other places of worship for more knowledge and experience, with possibly church officials explaining their beliefs and customs. For instance, in a larger populated area, such as St. Louis, this could include a field trip to a Roman Catholic Cathedral and to a Greek Orthodox Catholic Church with their officials explaining their beliefs, customs and practices, as well as field trips to a Protestant Church, Jewish Temple, Islamic Mosque, Hindu Temple with explanation by the Swami, etc. and to other first hand religous sourses, such as that of Naturalistic Humanism, Wiccan, Buddhism meeting etc. (I don't know of any Taos group or Shinto group or Confusion group here, so an explanation must be sufficient thru study).

Hopefully, all these methods may lead to person's life-long free and responsible search for truth and meaning and foster the right of conscience - and even use of the democratic process. It will also encourage acceptance of the thought of the other unique persons, and encourage "mature spiritual" growth.

[walter05]

I find learning about other religions to be important. However, parents have a responsibility to instill values. I believe this includes religious values.

It is also important to instill respect for those with different traditions. Visiting others' houses of worship can help this process.

However, I don't want my children to simply pick their own. As a parent, I want to instill my values. That includes faith in our creator and the ultimate holiness of all human beings. It includes the importance of kindness as a major part of life's work as part of service to the creator.

Children can be naturally selfish and cruel. Children bullying others in school can be exceedingly cruel.

As parents, we must instill the right values in order to produce self-respecting kind people who respect others.

My values include the idea that we were not all created with the same national and/or ethnic background. All nationalites have specific strengths which they bring. Together as the human family we offer more than any single nationality. We can take pride in ours and respect and appreciate others' at the same time.

Sanslines;

I will respond to anly list that is short. If they are too long, I can't. It is a limitation of mine.

However, my wife and I have six children. My children are modest, humble, and exceptionally kind. They say yes sir or yes mam when they meet adults. They say please and thank you. They are wonderful kids.

More kids like mine would be great for the world.

Walter

[MoonShadow]

Sanslines, I must say, your posts here are the most indepth I have seen on this forum. Further, the depth of intelligence is refreshing. It would be good reading to see a debate/discussion occur with what you have written.

[David77]

However, parents have a responsibility to instill values. I believe this includes religious values.

There are all kinds of values, but I think that the only really utimate value in the world is ethical living. Some persons may call this a part of "religious values" but religous beliefs have not much to do with person's moral (ethical) living. Persons throughout the world can hold to a wide range of strong, diverse religious dogma and still be loving, kind, moral persons.

A child's upbringing has everything to do with his development into a kind, moral persons. Many other values are "caught or taught" by the parenting ones so that he can get along in society and to get ahead in life.

Good parenting most always "automatically" creates a child who has the capacity to identifies with other persons as if they were themselves and express kindness.

I think that this process of outward identification starts at the time of (breast?) feeding when the child is cuddled and becomes one with his nurturing one. If he does not have this nurtering, he can be warped in so many ways.

I am glad to hear that your children were nurtured so well. Do not give all the credit to religious teachings.

My post above, regarding religious education, is the method practiced by both the St. Louis Ethical Society and by the Unitarian Churches. Lovely children are readily seen there. True, some teen-agers choose a religion that is not their parent's religion, but this is not to be mourned. Persons, when they become teen-agers and older, (hopefully) choose what ideas seem most reasonable to them and become their own person.

Let us hope that a persons main motivation for doing good to others is not because "God is Watching".

[Pete Knight]

However, parents have a responsibility to instill values. I believe this includes religious values.


I don't have religion, I don't want religion, but I didn't try to force my opinion on religion on my children, they will make up their own minds in their own time, similarly I believe it is the duty of parents not to ram religion down their children's throats. Forcing children to do anything ultimately results in resentment and turns them away from the very thing you wanted them to do in the first place.

Children have minds of their own, what they don't have is life experience and knowledge of the world, and I believe it is the parents role to educate and inform, if after that they decide to take a path different to the one their parents chose then accept it as their choice, but be there for them when they need you.

That's what being a good parent is about.

Pete Knight

[David77]

Book that I must read;

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a746352646~db=all

[Sanslines]

God Does Not Want 16 Kids

Arkansas mom gives birth to a whole freakin' baseball team. How deeply should you cringe?


By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist (mmorford@sfgate.com)
Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Who are you to judge? Who are you to say that the more than slightly creepy 39-year-old woman from Arkansas who just gave birth to her 16th child (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/10/12/national/a105517D90.DTL) yes that's right 16 kids and try not to cringe in phantom vaginal pain when you say it, who are you to say Michelle Duggar is not more than a little unhinged and sad and lost?

And furthermore, who are you to suggest that her equally troubling husband -- whose name is, of course, Jim Bob and he's hankerin' to be a Republican senator and try not to wince in sociopolitical pain when you say that -- isn't more than a little numb to the real world, and that bringing 16 hungry mewling attention-deprived kids (and she wants more! Yay!) into this exhausted world zips right by "touching" and races right past "disturbing" and lurches its way, heaving and gasping and sweating from the karmic armpits, straight into "Oh my God, what the hell is wrong with you people?"

But that would be, you know, mean. Mean and callous to suggest that this might be the most disquieting photo you see all year, this bizarre Duggar family of 18 spotless white hyperreligious interchangeable people (http://www.duggarfamily.com/) with alarmingly bad hair, the kids ranging in ages from 1 to 17, worse than those nuked Smurfs in that UNICEF commercial (http://www.boingboing.net/2005/10/09/unicef_bombs_the_smu.html) and worse than all the horrific rubble in Pakistan and worse than the cluster-bomb nightmare that is Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise having a child (http://www.slate.com/id/2128041/) as they suck the skin from each other's Scientological faces and even worse than that huge 13-foot python which ate that six-foot alligator and then exploded (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9600151/).


It's wrong to be this judgmental. Wrong to suggest that it is exactly this kind of weird pathological protofamily breeding-happy gluttony that's making the world groan and cry and recoil, contributing to vicious overpopulation rates and unrepentant economic strain and a bitter moral warpage resulting from a massive viral outbreak of homophobic neo-Christians across our troubled and Bush-ravaged land. Or is it?

Is it wrong to notice how all the Duggar kids' names start with the letter J (Jeremiah and Josiah and Jedediah and Jesus, someone please stop them), and that if you study the above photo (or the even more disturbing family Web site (http://www.duggarfamily.com/)) too closely you will become rashy and depressed and you will crave large quantities of alcohol and loud aggressive music to deflect the creeping feeling that this planet is devolving faster than you can suck the contents from a large bong? But I'm not judging.

I have a friend who used to co-babysit (yes, it required two sitters) for a family of 10 kids, and she reports that they were, almost without fail, manic and hyper and bewildered and attention deprived in the worst way, half of them addicted to prescription meds to calm their neglected nerves and the other half bound for years of therapy due to complete loss of having the slightest clue as to who they actually were, lost in the family crowd, just another blank, needy face at the table. Is this the guaranteed affliction for every child of very large families? Of course not. But I'm guessing it's more common than you imagine.

What's more, after the 10th kid popped out, the family doctor essentially prohibited the baby-addicted mother from having any more offspring, considering the pummeling endured by her various matronly systems, and it's actually painful to imagine the logistics, the toll on Michelle Duggar's body, the ravages it has endured to give birth to roughly one child per year for nearly two decades, and you cannot help but wonder about her body and its various biological and sexual ... no, no, it is not for this space to visualize frighteningly capacious vaginal dimensions. It is not for this space to imagine this couple's soggy sexual mutations. We do not have enough wine on hand for that.

Perhaps the point is this: Why does this sort of bizarre hyperbreeding only seem to afflict antiseptic megareligious families from the Midwest? In other words -- assuming Michelle and Jim Bob and their massive brood of cookie-cutter Christian kidbots will all be, as the charming photo suggests, never allowed near a decent pair of designer jeans or a tolerable haircut from a recent decade, and assuming that they will all be tragically encoded with the values of the homophobic asexual Christian right -- where are the forces that shall help neutralize their effect on the culture? Where is the counterbalance, to offset the damage?

Where is, in other words, the funky tattooed intellectual poetess who, along with her genius anarchist husband, is popping out 16 funky progressive intellectually curious fashion-forward pagan offspring to answer the Duggar's squad of über-white future Wal-Mart shoppers? Where is the liberal, spiritualized, pro-sex flip side? Verily I say unto thee, it ain't lookin' good.

Perhaps this the scariest aspect of our squishy birthin' tale: Maybe the scales are tipping to the neoconservative, homogenous right in our culture simply because they tend not to give much of a damn for the ramifications of wanton breeding and environmental destruction and pious sanctimony, whereas those on the left actually seem to give a whit for the health of the planet and the dire effects of overpopulation. Is that an oversimplification?

Why does this sort of thoughtfulness seem so far from the norm? Why is having a stadiumful of offspring still seen as some sort of happy joyous thing?

You already know why. It is the Biggest Reason of All. Children are, after all, God's little gifts. Kids are little blessings from the Lord, the Almighty's own screaming spitballs of joy. Hell, Jim Bob said so himself, when asked if the couple would soon be going for a 17th rug rat: "We both just love children and we consider each a blessing from the Lord. I have asked Michelle if she wants more and she said yes, if the Lord wants to give us some she will accept them." This is what he actually said. And God did not strike him dead on the spot.

Let us be clear: I don't care what sort of God you believe in, it's a safe bet that hysterical breeding does not top her list of desirables. God does not want more children per acre than there are ants or mice or garter snakes or repressed pedophilic priests. We already have three billion humans on the planet who subsist on less than two dollars a day. Every other child in the world (one billion of them) lives in abject poverty. We are burning through the planet's resources faster than a Republican can eat an endangered caribou stew. Note to Michelle Duggar: If God wanted you to have a massive pile of children, she'd have given your uterus a hydraulic pump and a revolving door. Stop it now.

Ah, but this is America, yes? People should be allowed to do whatever the hell they want with their families if they can afford it and if it's within the law and so long as they aren't gay or deviant or happily flouting Good Christian Values, right? Shouldn't they? Hell, gay couples still can't openly adopt a baby in most states (they either lie, or one adopts and the other must apply as "co-parent"), but Michelle Duggar can pop out 16 kids and no one says, oh my freaking God, stop it, stop it now, you thoughtless, selfish, baby-drunk people.
No, no one says that. That would be mean.

[Sanslines]

Global Warming: The Left's Latest War on the Family
By Don Feder (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/authors.aspx?GUID=db7497e8-8c4c-4915-97f5-e14ea2fda5e1)
GrassTopsUSA.com | Tuesday, April 29, 2008


Procreation is killing the planet, and traditional religion is to blame, Global-Warming cultists insist.

First the industrial revolution had to go. Then it was to the wall with oil company executives, those malignant Carbon Interests. Next, SUVs were declared enemies of the planet.

Now, the left's attention has shifted back to its perennial targets -- large families and "patriarchal" religion.

In a commentary in the April 21st edition of USA TODAY ("Might our religion be killing us?"), Oliver "Buzz" Thomas quotes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- a tool of the global village idiots at the United Nations -- to the effect that Global Warming, caused by CO2 emissions, will lead to "drought, starvation and species extinction." (Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies... rivers and seas boiling... forty years of darkness... dogs and cats living together!)

The culprits are religions that oppose birth control and abortion and instruct us regarding fructification and multiplication. Thomas even names names: "Now, consider the Roman Catholic Church's continued opposition to modern birth control or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' (i.e. Mormons) encouragement of large families... . Many Orthodox Jews and some Muslims also eschew birth control."

Only "some Muslims"? Bet Planned Parenthood isn't doing a land-office business in Mecca.

These benighted faiths are literally drowning us in kids, causing CO2-levels to rise, the hole in the ozone-layer to grow, and polar bears to float away on break-away chunks of the rapidly shrinking Arctic ice cap.

But, what can you expect from churches mired in a literal reading of Scriptures? Thomas asks. "I recognize that religious organizations tend to be conservative institutions. Their continued opposition to equal rights for woman and gays is a good example."

By failing to ordain women and opposing abortion and homosexual marriage, conservative denominations prove their resistance to progress and human rights, Buzz sneers.

Said reactionary tendencies also are evident in their callous disregard for the environment. (For the left, the quintessential spiritual experience would be an abortion performed at a same-sex marriage ceremony, while transgendered ushers throw condoms instead of confetti, and bridesmaids confiscate handguns from passersby.)

Says Thomas: "In the interest of preserving our planet and our species, shouldn't religious organizations be encouraging smaller families? Do our spiritual leaders need additional divine revelation to realize that our current doctrines -- which threaten to take the entire world down with us -- have become ethically and theologically questionable?"

Welcome to the Church of Choice -- services performed by the Reverend Rodham, Sundays at 9 and 11.

For 200 years, the left has been fixated on an imaginary overpopulation crisis. In 1798, Thomas Malthus warned that wars, famine and plagues were needed to reduce the "surplus population" else we would soon inhabit Planet SRO.

In his 1969 book, "The Population Bomb" (the prequel to "An Inconvenient Truth"), Paul Ehrlich forecast worldwide famine by 1975. Natural resources would be severely depleted and arable land exhausted in a futile effort to keep up with the population explosion. Soon, we would be reduced to eating each other -- like Democratic presidential candidates in late April of an election year.
That none of these doomsday scenarios came to pass is irrelevant to the left. Hysteria is the only way to propagate their creed. The Today Show's Matt Lauer insists: "The stark reality is that there are too many of us. And we consume too much... The solutions are not a secret: control population, recycle, reduce consumption." Spoken like a TV personality feigning an idea.
How many people are too many? They never tell us. As Dr. Jacqueline Kasun noted in "The War Against Population: The Economics and Ideology of World Population Control" (1998), humans occupy 1% to 3% of the earth's land surface.
A decade ago, all 5.8 billion of us could have fit in the state of Texas, with each having 1,269 square feet of living-space -- the equivalent of a ranch house.

Since 1900, the world's population has quadrupled, while the planet's GDP has increased between 20 and 40 times.
In 1960, India had to import food to deal with periodic famines. Today, with twice the population it had then, India is a net food exporter. Worldwide, half as many people die of starvation today as in 1900, even though we have four times as many people. Those who starve to death now are mostly victims of government-engineered famine.

A 1990 report of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that by employing what were then the most up-to-date technologies, the earth could yield enough to feed 30 to 35 billion.

So, we're not running out of food or space. How about natural resources? In 1948, the world's oil reserves were estimated at around 600 billion barrels. By 2000, the estimate was revised slightly upward -- to 3 trillion barrels. The actual figure is anyone's guess.

Having failed with the foregoing, the left now has hit on what it believes to be the ultimate strategy to advance population control -- Global Warming. Families are about to feel the blade of the guillotine in the coming Green Terror.

In May, 2007, an outfit called the Optimum Population Trust warned that if the British didn't voluntarily limit population size, it would be up to the state to force them to be environmentally conscious in the bedroom. (FYI, in the U.K., the birth rate is well-below replacement level.) The Trust warned that the average lifetime "carbon footprint" of a child born in Britain was the equivalent of 620 roundtrip flights between London and New York.
Last December, Barry Walters, an associate professor of obstetric medicine at the University of Western Australia, urged the government in Canberra to levy a $5,000 "baby tax" and an annual $800 "carbon tax," for each addition child born to a family with two children. All of the left's crusades begin with proselytizing and end in coercion.

"Every newborn baby in Australia represents a potent source of greenhouse gas emissions for an average of 80 years, not simply by breathing but by the profligate consumption of resources typical of our society," Walters writes. The left is incapable of viewing individuals as anything other than polluters, never as producers or innovators -- let alone seeing them in spiritual terms, as manifestations of God's goodness.

Global Warming is the left's perfect storm -- a force to demolish faith, family and freedom. There's no area of our lives that can't be invaded -- taxed, controlled, regulated or obliterated -- in the name of serving and protecting the planet.

Unlike food production and oil reserves, the myth of man-made Global Warming is resistant to factual analysis. The left treats it as revealed truth and skeptics are scorned as heretics and troglodytes -- the scientific equivalent of Holocaust-deniers. Al Gore, the movement's P.T. Barnum-***-Grand Inquisitor, compares them to the cranks who believe the earth is flat.
If Global Warming didn't exist, the left would have to invent it. In fact, they did. As Nigel Calder, former editor of the British magazine New Scientist explains: "Twenty years ago, climate research became politicized in favor of one particular hypothesis, which redefined the study as the effect of the study of greenhouse gasses. As a result, the rebellious spirits essential for innovative and trustworthy science are greeted with impediments to their research careers."

Still, the evidence is there for those not blinded by dogma. Al Gore's brain is melting faster than the Arctic ice cap, which is making a spectacular comeback.

A February 18, 2008 story in the London Daily Express notes that Arctic ice levels, which had shrunk from 13 million to 4 million sq. km., between January and October 2007, are now almost back to their original levels. In the meantime, according to the paper, "Figures show that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than is usual for the time of year."

In New England, I spent much of the past winter shoveling Global Warming.

The entire Northern Hemisphere experienced the coldest winter in decades. Again, from the Daily Express: "Even the Middle East saw snow, with Jerusalem, Damascus, Amman and northern Saudi Arabia reporting the heaviest falls in years and below zero temperatures. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, snow and freezing weather killed 120 people."

So many inconvenient facts contradict the Church of Global Warming. In the United States, the 10 hottest years on record were all in the 1920s and 1930s. (Those Model A Fords have wide carbon tire-tracks.) Temperatures rose between 1910 and 1945, fell from 1945 to 1975, and rose again for the next 20 years -- which bears no relationship to the production of greenhouse gasses.

In an open letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon (December 13, 2007), 100 eminent scientists from all over the world observed: "It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity throughout the ages. ... The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued increasingly alarming conclusions about the climate influences of human produced carbon-dioxide (CO2), a non-polluting gas that is essential to plant photosynthesis."

Not only is there no reliable evidence that reducing CO2 emissions will affect climate change, the signers note, but "because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it."

Not that human suffering ever stopped the left. It wants and needs man-made Global Warming as a way to counter what it considers the most potent threats to its agenda -- faith and family.
The left must have its scapegoat. This is absolutely essential. For Marx it was the bourgeoisie. For the '60s New Left, it was America -- spelled with a "k." White males are the villains of multiculturalism. Now, it's babies and retrograde churches that are destroying the planet. The environment has assumed the role of the proletariat, the Third World and racial minorities in earlier models of damnation and salvation.

In particular, the left cringes at the thought of Catholics, evangelicals, Orthodox Jews and Mormons having lots of children -- passing their misogynistic, homophobic, species-centric, suicidally archaic worldview to the next generation.

The left has always worried about the reproductive patterns of certain people. As Jonah Goldberg explains in his book "Liberal Fascism," from the beginning, racial eugenics was a project of the left -- or progressives, as they called themselves then and now.
H.G. Wells, a hero of pre-World War II progressivism (a socialist who wrote science fiction, much like Al Gore), said that in order for humankind to move to the sunny uplands of utopia, "swarms of black and brown, and dirty (lower class) white and yellow people" would have to be discouraged from breeding -- or physically eliminated. Moreover, Goldberg explains, "The foremost institution combating eugenics around the world was the Catholic Church."
For those like Oliver "Buzz" Thomas (perpetrator of the aforesaid USA TODAY commentary), hordes of rapidly multiplying Catholics, Mormons, evangelicals and Orthodox Jews have taken the place of "swarms of black and brown, and dirty white and yellow peoples."

The irony here is that, unlike Global Warming, rapidly declining birthrates is a reality, not a theory. Worldwide, in 1970, the average woman had 6 children. Today, that average is only 2.8, with further declines forecast.

If current trends continue, by 2050, the world will hold 248 million fewer children under 5 years of age than it does today. The crisis which will confront us in this century isn't overpopulation, but a birth-dearth leading to population decline. When it comes to maintaining civilization, people are the one indispensable element.
By heeding His words and having large families, those reactionary believers indicted by Green Jacobins are doing God's work, as well as humanity's.

In his USA TODAY diatribe Thomas writes: "Population growth hits hardest in poor nations, and, as poverty increases, public health declines. I am quite certain that God is not the author of human misery, but by preaching against birth control at the same time we are preaching against abortion, it seems that we are making God out as cruel, a buffoon or both." Thomas believes the word of God is negotiable -- and must be constantly reinterpreted so as not make him "cruel, a buffoon or both."

Buzz has it backward. Poor countries are often rich in natural resources but lacking in human capital. By encouraging or forcing emerging nations to limit their population, Global Warming hysterics are dooming them to perpetual poverty.
God, on the other hand, tells us that children are the true source of prosperity as well as happiness.

Ultimately, it comes down to this: Do we listen to God or a guy called Buzz? Hmmm, tough decision.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=E22AE43A-FF8A-47EC-A8C2-AADD133A2E01


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why those Liberals must be crazy to even bring up the effect that large numbers of children are having on this planet. According to the author who wrote this article, there are NO shortages of petroleum or earth's resources and global warming is a MYTH invented by Liberals and promoted by Al Gore and his cronies.

[Sanslines]

Chapter 11. Why Large Families Today?

In a previous chapter we discussed at length some of the reasons that made large families the rule in past years, and the fact that some of these pressures still remain today, especially in some of the Third World countries. Yet it is difficult to explain the need to maintain small families even in some of the more highly educated and skilled communities. The facts are extremely complex and touch on some of the personal beliefs and philosophies that make this subject extremely difficult to discuss with many people.

There is the traditional and common saying that "our future lies with our children", and this is certainly true. However when we consider this phrase more carefully we have to agree that if our future is to be prosperous, it refers more to the education and ability of our offspring than to their number. In many of the Third World countries we see so many children who will grow into adults without the benefit of good health, education or the development of any skills. They have not helped to improve the lot of the country as a whole, in fact in many places they have placed an enormous drain on severely limited resources, that has pulled down the living standards of everyone. It is fascinating to see that in general when education and health standards are improved the number of children in the family almost inevitably decreases.
In spite of this, in many societies there is still the traditional belief that there is something wrong with a family which does not produce a large number of children. There is also the point that in many countries the size of the family reflects on the virility of the male. One family, here in the USA, had twenty children, of which 18 grew into adults. The husband, now an old man, was extremely proud of his performance and frequently mentioned how wonderful it was to have so many sons and daughters. In private, his wife told me that the family would have been very much smaller if he had been the one who had been forced to give birth but their religion forbad the use of any form of contraception.

There is also the "cuddly" factor of babies of both humans and other animals, that nature has built into our society, in order to enhance their chance of survival. Nature makes almost all the young animals extremely attractive to us, we all "Oh" and "Ahh" when we hold a tiny kitten or puppy in our hands and the same feelings wash over us when we see a small child. In our desire to enjoy these very attractive little creatures both animal and human, we frequently ignore the fact that they very quickly grow out of this delightful age. The new baby is just as likely to develop into a Hitler as a Mother Teresa? We often hear favorable comments on how lucky the parents are when the number of children in a family increases, with little or no thought as to their cumulative effect on our society as a whole. Consider the efforts that are made to spay and neuter stray cats and dogs to reduce their numbers and avoid the subsequent cruelty caused by too large a population of these animals. Yet we congratulate ourselves when this growth occurs in the human race.

The reasons why people in our major societies today want large families defy practical discussion. During a conversation regarding family size, one lady explained that she wanted four children, she and her husband could afford them and gave as the reason that she simply liked to have a lot of children around her. Another family initially had two daughters but ended up with a total of five children because the husband was determined to continue having children until they produced a son. These at least were planned births and all the children were well brought up, cared for and educated. However the parents could not comprehend that in having more than two children they were demanding more than their fair share of the world’s resources. At a meeting of environmental activists, one woman could not understand the outburst of laughter when she stood up to support a particular proposition and used the following words. "We must do something to stop all this pollution. I have seven children and I want them to have a clean and natural environment when they grow up".

Society as a whole generally admires and congratulates the parents of large families, without truly considering their eventual effect on the standard of life of the world as a whole. Parents with one or two children re frequently asked when they are going to have more children. This is doubtless the philosophy that remains from the days past when an increasing population guaranteed prosperity and the labor force that was necessary for the growing industries. This philosophy will be extremely difficult to change, although it is very easy to recognize that it no longer applies today. Consider the many unwanted children who are born because of accident or carelessness, and suffer a miserable childhood often leading to a less than happy life. This becomes very obvious when visiting some of the Third World countries. The hundreds of small children to be seen, lacking food, clothing and medical care, who will grow up with little or no education, can do nothing to lift up their families, indeed they will only drag the population further into poverty and starvation.

We also have the various religious factions that view large families as the requisite way of life demanded by their spiritual leaders. When I have discussed the problems of overpopulation with some of these people I have been told not to worry, God will take care of things in spite of the ever increasing problems that we see today. We have all heard the phrase "Be fruitful and multiply", and when this was written it was very obviously one of the duties of the faithful. But that was centuries ago when the death rate among infants was extremely high and the world’s population was a small percentage of what it is today. During the intervening years the population of the world has increased so enormously that from any reasoned viewpoint this phrase is now totally ridiculous. Indeed if we honestly look at the facts today, for the sake of us all, it is our duty to minimize the impact of the growing world population by keeping our families within the limits that will not overburden our rapidly diminishing resources.

Many of us may find the idea of deliberately limiting our family as intrusive and extremely difficult to accept, but the alternative is much worse and cannot even be considered. Of course we will have to assure our population that the lack of a large family will not affect their standard of life when they become old and possibly infirm and this will involve some kind of universal care program for the elderly. We have been told by some so called "experts" that we need a growing population to pay for this care for the elderly although it is obvious that the population cannot continue to grow for ever. There are in fact other method to solve this problem that have been effectively applied to a reducing population. Once this fear of old age no longer exists then there is no longer any practical reason for wanting a large family except the very personal and private desire to be surrounded with our children. But in producing a larger than replacement size family we reduce the standard of living for every other family in the world. We are not advancing our civilization by having more children, we are merely grabbing more than our fair share of the dwindling resources of the world.

In other words, we will have to control the natural desire to produce more children so that we can maintain the stable level of population that the world can effectively support. We hear of the tremendous cost of the medical resources that are used to attempt to produce a child when the normal process fails. We see cases of post menopausal women demanding artificial implantation of fertilized eggs, we hear of the use of surrogate fathers and mothers. Yet the world is full of orphans and other unfortunate children who need a home, parents and the love and support they can give. These artificial attempts to produce a child are surely the epitome of selfishness, especially when our world is already overpopulated.
There then comes the concern that some groups, be they for purposes of religion, politics, race or merely the desire for power, will pressure their people to have large families so as to exceed the population of other groups, and thus take control of a particular society. One small religious enclave in New Jersey proudly declared that they guided their followers to have at least 18 children in each family. We have seen this occur in the past, and to some extent it continues today especially among some religions. This is probably the most difficult aspect of the entire problem and suggests that we will be unable to solve the problems of overpopulation and limited world resources until we can obtain worldwide agreement.
If world agreement cannot be found, then the only alternative is for those countries that manage to control their population to put up the walls around their borders and strictly regulate the flow of immigrants. It is only natural for people in the less well organized countries to wish to live in a place that offers a good standard of life. But uncontrolled immigration will eventually bring all countries down to the same level. Surely it becomes the responsibility of each country to stabilize their population growth and provide the lifestyle their people desire. It can hardly be considered fair for a country that does not control its population to permit its people to flood into a country that has managed to limit its rate of population growth. However if the world population continues to grow at the present rate, the flood of people may be such that even well guarded boundaries will not keep them out.

There appears to be no logical reasons therefore, other than selfish desires, for producing large families today. However we have to recognize that the old emotions and the natural feelings demand very strict self-control if we are to maintain a stable population in the world. This requires education and publicity to assist in the struggle, and possibly incentives in some form or other to reward those who voluntarily limit their families. Perhaps as a start we should offer the standard income tax reduction for the first child born into a family, which should be reduced by half for the second but then becomes a tax increase for the third child increasing further for each additional child.

http://users.rcn.com/woudyet/chapter_11_why_large_families_to.htm

[walter05]

David;

At some point my children are likely to meet people more witty and knowledgable than me or my wife. We want to make sure that they have a system for resolving questions that come up. We believe the religious framework we are raising them with is an important part of that.

It may be possible without the religious framework. But we believe that is the best approach for us.

Sanslines;

First of all, I know nothing of the Duggar family. However, I respect their choices.

I have learned that my younger children get the most attention. Between older brothers and sisters as well as parents and grand parents, they get a lot of attention.

I expect the Duggar children get far more attention than most. They certainly get more than single children of two parents who both work outside of the home.

Considering the disrespectful tone of your assessment of them, it is clear you made up your mind without the facts. That is more of a statement on you than them.

Overpopulation is a problem in the third worlds. However, in Anglo North America, Europe, Japan, Australia, and other more modern countries, under-population is the problem. If we don't have enough children, we will not be able to be strong enough not to be over run by those from third world countries.

Countries in Africa, the middle East, and South Asia where over population is such a problem are also places where fundamentalist disrespect for women, human rights, and the environment are a way of life.

If you think having fewer children grow up to be loving, respectful, and considerate adults while the world is filled with intolerant murderous adults out to exploit the planet, then you are not making a rational determination.

As odd as this may sound, larger families in the more progressive areas may save the planet and smaller ones may doom it.

Walter

[Sanslines]

Walter,

I have provided one source after another and can hardly be accused of making up my mind without the 'facts'. I keep an open mind and question EVERYTHING. I accept no dogma (religous or otherwise) at face value. I know much more then you think. I know very well that many religions have brainwashed their followers into having large families so that their religious beliefs can dominate this planet. Such brainwashing has absolutely nothing to do with GOD and is purely another indication of mankind who is (ab)using GOD for his own selfish purposes.

As much of the above information has clearly indicated, intelligent and informed people will look beyond blind acceptance of what others (clergy or otherwise) demand that they accept and consider the effect of an exponentially increasing human population on this planet. Some will accept that GOD gave man freedom to make decisions concerning life on this planet. Others will never be able to understand this, and will always blame GOD for everything that happens on this planet (It's GOD's WILL). Man may yet be doomed to extinction based upon his own ignorance and blindness. In the end, we are all responsible for what occurs on this planet. Overpopulation is not some 'third world' problem. It involves all of us.

Concerning the Duggar family having 16 children, what 'facts' are there to support having such enormous families? My 'fact's demonstrate the effect that having so many children will have upon this planet. Any religion that promotes having 16 children is clearly promoting it's own selfish interests and is (ab)using GOD as a justification. How many wars have been started by (ab)using GOD as a justification?

I know that you will never agree with my information and understand why you cannot.

[Sanslines]

Even Fifth Graders Understand the Effects Of Human Overpopulation:

Reasons for habitat loss: Population Growth

(Created by Melissa and Dianne, fifth graders, during the 2002-2003 school year.)

In the words of the fifth graders...................

The growth of the human population has also lead to a decrease in animal habitat. Nearly 50% of the entire United States population lives in estuary areas and more people are projected to live in these areas as time goes by. People are taking up more and more land. Ten years ago in Maryland, each new person accounted for the loss of 1/3 of an acre of land. Today, that has doubled to 2/3 of an acre for every new person in the state. This is because you need more housing developments, shopping malls, roads and everything else people use.

[Sanslines]

The Strain Of Sustaining The Human Population

Since the 1968 publication of Stanford University biologist Dr. Paul Ehrlich’s classic book The Population Bomb, the potential consequences of the human population explosion have been a heated matter of debate. Today, the effects of overpopulation are merely becoming more and more apparent. Beyond the phenomenon’s obvious impacts on human societies-poverty, hunger, disease and the breakdown of social structures-its effect on our environment and the world’s animals is worsening. From problems such as the destruction of forest habitat to the die-off of coral reefs, our increasing population and consumption is largely to blame. Indeed, there is not an ecosystem on the planet that is not adversely impacted directly or indirectly by human population growth.

The latest figures from the United Nations (UN) predict the world’s current population of over 6 billion people will rise to 9.1 billion by 2050, adding more than 80 million people each year. Can the planet cope with the ever-burgeoning human population? While future technologies will provide some of the tools needed to feed, clothe and provide water to increasing numbers of people in both the developed and developing world, the space and resources required to sustainnumbers are finite. And with only a fraction of the Earth’s species identified, current human impacts on this planet’s biodiversity are already unprecedented.

As noted by Harvard Professor E.O. Wilson, one of the most respected biologists in the United States, “species are vanishing 100 times faster than before the arrival of Homo sapiens.” The loss of forest habitats is devastating orangutans, the nearly extinct Sumatran tiger, gibbons, Asian elephants, a host of bird species and a variety of other forest-dwelling species around the globe. Throughout the world, amphibian populations-the modern day “canaries in the coal mine”-are in decline due to the effects of global warming, habitat loss and disease. Within the Kashmir region between Pakistan and India, disappearing forests have led to a change in bird migration routes, a significant decline in wild deer, and a reduction in snow leopards from an estimated 80 to merely 20.

In total, 484 animal and 654 plant species have gone extinct since the year 1600 because of human activity. In addition to species becoming extinct before we even learn of their existence, today it is estimated that up to 25 percent of all species may become extinct over the next 25 years. At present, 11 percent of birds, 20 percent of reptiles, 25 percent of amphibians, 25 percent of mammals and 34 percent of all fish species are threatened with extinction, according to the World Conservation Union. Habitat destruction is the biggest threat to these animals, and it is almost entirely anthropogenic. A report by the UN states that an average of 85 percent of original wildlife habitat has been lost in countries with a human population density of over 189 people per square kilometer. Even when human density was only 29 people per square kilometer, an average of 41 percent of original wildlife habitat was lost.

This problem is not just about population numbers, since our consumption of resources is the real concern. While people living in developed countries are known to use far more resources than people in developing countries, the expanding economies in the developing world are feeding an explosion in the number of people increasingly consumptive lifestyles. This trend is placing an even greater demand on finite resources. While we cannot blame those with newfound wealth for wanting to live a Western lifestyle, the implications for the planet are severe. According to the UN, if the Earth’s entire human population were to have consumption levels equal to the average American, it would take three Earths to supply the necessary resources.

For example, with world meat production having quadrupled to nearly 220 million tons annually over the past 50 years, significant quantities of land and water are necessary to grow the biomass needed to feed the world’s livestock. Due to the inefficiency of converting plant products to animal protein, over 40 percent of the grain grown worldwide is fed to livestock. While the demand for meat from animals who are raised organically and humanely has increased, the world’s growing appetite for meat has led to habitat destruction to create additional lands for grazing and livestock grain production. It has also substantially increased the number of animals raised in deplorable conditions on feedlots and other factory-style operations.

In the ocean, our insatiable demand for fish products is destroying marine species and habitats. Another recent UN report shows that in the past 42 years, the capture of wild fish has increased from 20 to 85.4 million tons. As a result, over 75 percent of fish populations are fully exploited or overexploited, not even taking into account the effects of mounting pollution levels. Many fish are captured by trawlers, who scour up to 5.8 million square miles of ocean bottom each year, resulting in millions of tons of bycatch. Meanwhile, bodies of water such as the Aral Sea have receded dramatically and become too salty to sustain fish populations, as the rivers feeding the sea are diverted for human use. For the same reasons, the headwaters of the Yellow and Yangtze rivers in China are drying up and threatening thousands of people and animals. Deserts everywhere are expanding; the Gobi Desert grows by 4,000 sq. miles each year, and in Nigeria, over 1,350 sq. miles of land annually become desert.

The planet is facing serious environmental crises, but there is hope for the future. At present, there is sufficient food to feed the entire human population, while scientific and technological advances will likely reduce our per capita use of resources, extending the availability of critical resources such as water and productive soils. Population growth and fertility rates in many countries have declined in response to increased availability of family planning opportunities and improvements in women’s rights, education, literacy and health care. Attitudes regarding our responsibilities toward the earth and animals are also improving.
However, what good news may exist is not reason for complacency, and there are steps we can all take to improve the situation. Reduce your consumption of products and energy. Walk or use public transportation instead of driving, purchase organic and locally produced products, avoid overpackaged goods, and select energy efficient products. Avoid becoming part of the “throw-away society” by reusing, repairing and refurbishing products you purchase, and recycle what you can. While reducing our use of resources will not solve the overpopulation crisis, it will minimize our human footprints on the environment.

http://awionline.org/pubs/Quarterly/06-55-03/human_animal.html

[Fitz1980]

I don't have a problem with people who choose to have more than 2 children (the old Population Zero idea that each couple should have only 2 kids to keep the population from growing or shrinking) since many will also choose to have no kids and it's everyone's choice how they want to live their lives. I do have a problem with religious leaders who make responsible birth control difficult or illegal to acquire or learn about both in less developed countries and our own. In some nations the church is the only place for poor kids to get any education and their kids grow up having no clue about birth control and than getting pregnant at 14, casing the cycle to repeat. It happens here in this country too; my state of Florida spent years teaching abstinence only education in schools, I believe that Jeb Bush signed it into law. Unsurprisingly in the years since teen pregnancy and STD rates have climbed as they did in the other states that adopted President Bush's administration's abstinence only sex education. Of course no one likes the idea of their 16 year old daughter having sex with that deutsch-bag from the football team, you know the one with the leather jacket and the motorcycle. But that's still a better thought than that same girl coming to you and saying that she has an STD or is pregnant, because that means that her college plans are probably going on hold and you now have to deal with that same deutsch-bag for the next 18 years of breakups, custody hearings and arguments over child support payments.

Here's a really good video, it's the opening to a film called Idiocracy, written and directed by Mike Judge (Office Space, King of the Hill & Beaves and Butthead) who is the master of finding the absurd humor in everyday life.

****EDIT****
I tried to embed it but it won't work, so here's a clickable link. WARNING: Does contain language and talk of sexual situations.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1597642154209383351&hl=en

[walter05]

Your post of 12-26-2008 08:31 PM is the most cruel, arrogant, and obnoxious post I have even seen. It talks rudely about another family. Bad hair, etc. are used as parts of the criticisms.

Nobody should ever say the cruel things you posted about that family.

The U.N. makes no distinction between modern countries and third world. This is a weakness with that study.

In the U.S. most of the population growth has come from legal and illegal immigration from third world countries.

I am stating a simple fact. If only the ones who believe in large families and exploiting the earth reproduce, they will have power over the few who would be careful with the earth.

Your stats have not changed that simple fact.

Walter

[Sanslines]

Your post of 12-26-2008 08:31 PM is the most cruel, arrogant, and obnoxious post I have even seen. It talks rudely about another family. Bad hair, etc. are used as parts of the criticisms.

Nobody should ever say the cruel things you posted about that family.

The U.N. makes no distinction between modern countries and third world. This is a weakness with that study.

In the U.S. most of the population growth has come from legal and illegal immigration from third world countries.

I am stating a simple fact. If only the ones who believe in large families and exploiting the earth reproduce, they will have power over the few who would be careful with the earth.

Your stats have not changed that simple fact.

Walter

Walter,

You must have me confused with someone else. I have made no post on 12-26-08 at 8:31 PM. I did make a post at 3:31 PM. Perhaps this is what you are referring to.

I don't believe for a minute that this is the "most cruel, arrogant, and obnoxious post that you have ever seen." There have been far worse posts in this very forum (for example) but that is all besides the point.

As for large families reproducing and taking control over the minorities who care for the planet, my information indicates that there is much more awareness today then in the past and the 'minorities' with small families have just as much rights as those with large families. People concerned about an exponentially growing human population will continue to speak out. It is intuitively obvious that those large families in the USA are not going to speak out against large families in Asia or Africa. Therefore, human overpopulation is a global concern, and not some regional problem.

My information also demonstrate the harmful effects that religion can have upon people. As the information clearly indicates, far too many people pick and chose what they want to believe from religion and conveniently ignore many other aspects of religion that they don't want to hear about.

An interesting parallel to nudism can also be draw with your statement. That parallel is that the majority textiles can enjoy all of the rights and the minority nudists will have no say in the matter. Yet, history is full of cases where the minorities have risen up to demand more say and protections under the law.

Now, why not post some information from your viewpoint that large families are so beneficial to this planet? It would be far more interesting to debate the content within those posts then to complain about the 'tone' of the posts. Ad hominem statements don't make for interesting debate.

[walter05]

I am attaching a cut and paste from the offensive post. It is yours.

12-26-2008 08:31 PM
SanslinesWomen Who Are Nothing More Then Breeding Machines
God Does Not Want 16 Kids

Arkansas mom gives birth to a whole freakin' baseball team. How deeply should you cringe?



I am not arguing what should or should not be. I am arguing the real world.

If most people that have babies are destructive to the planet, and most people who care about the planet have fewer or no babies, over time, the planet is doomed.

Walter

[David77]

I am not arguing what should or should not be. I am arguing the real world.

Walter

It's "really real" to me, as I come from a family of eight children and I am the eighth, i.e., I am the youngest. All of my brothers and sisters were fine people and it was fun to belong to a big family. They have all died by now and I am quite old, but have good memories of them.

For some years, my mother belonged to a church that did not believe in birth control. She felt that some in-laws looked down on her for having so many children. Whenever I expressed the opinion to my parents that they had too many children, they countered this statement by saying that if they would not have had eight children, that I would not have been born. So what could I have said to that statement? Nothing!

I am sorry to say that my favorite uncle had 16 or 17 children (I lost count) but by two different wives. His first wife left him because she did not want to continue to have more children. They had about 7 or 8 children together.

In recent years I have seen these grown (old) children at family reunions and they are lovely persons, but I can not "bless" the fact of their father having 17 or 18 children.

[Sanslines]

I am attaching a cut and paste from the offensive post. It is yours.

12-26-2008 08:31 PM
SanslinesWomen Who Are Nothing More Then Breeding Machines
God Does Not Want 16 Kids

Arkansas mom gives birth to a whole freakin' baseball team. How deeply should you cringe?



I am not arguing what should or should not be. I am arguing the real world.

If most people that have babies are destructive to the planet, and most people who care about the planet have fewer or no babies, over time, the planet is doomed.

Walter

Walter,

Why would your offense (or mine or anyone else's) be relevant to the discussion? Life is full of offense. This forum is full of offense. Everywhere anyone goes they can find offense. So what? The author, in his own words, finds that having 16 children is 'offensive'. You stated that you do not. That's fine. However, you seem to be objecting to the tone of the article as if that is relevent to the message. Not everyone will phrase things as you wish. That's life. If you ever served in the military, you will know that every other word that is uttered is a descriptive adjective of the four letter kind.

You seem to be missing the point here and that is that the world cannot continue to absorb an exponentially increasing human population....... that's a fact. This planet has finite resources and a limited capacity to absorb man made pollution. Perhaps you believe in man made global warming.............then again perhaps you don't. Some people are slowely waking up and questioning man's effects upon this planet. That's a good thing. Some are questioning unrestrained population growth. That's a necessity. The large family beliefs of 50, 100, 1000 years ago may not be relevant anymore. More and more are coming to this conclusion. Vastly overpopulated countries such as China and India have. Others will follow suit.

I am only arguing that it would be highly beneficial to this nation and planet if more people would wake up and consider their own habits and effects upon the surrounding environment. Mankind can either flexible and take responsibility for his effects upon a changing planet or mankind can remain rigid and stubbornly cling to ancient beliefs that doom him to extinction.

[MoonShadow]

Goodness! Looks like a raw nerve was hit on with Walter.

Walter, I am sorry you found Sanslines' posting about the family in Arkansas having 16 kids offensive. I read the post and did not find it offensive at all. In fact, I am from the thinking that having that many children today is obscene and immoral! However, that is my thinking and if this Arkansas family wants to have 16 or more kids, then that is their choice. I do feel sorry for the older kids as they will not get the attention that the younger ones will. You cannot give good, quality one-on-one with that many children.

You should rest assured, Walter, that in the European countries as well as North America, we will not have a shortage of people. The population is increasing and this is from the numbers who are having the 2 to 3 children families. If anything "dooms" this planet is will be the people polluting it, abusing it, and exploiting it.

David, I agree that the Arkansas family is probably from a religious group that does not practice birth control and I, too, couldn't bless the family for having that many children.

It seems Walter has a definite dislike for Sanslines and his postings. You need to use your ignore button, Walter, and then Sanslines will no longer be as you call him --"arrogant" and "offensive".

[David77]

I wonder if there is also another consideration that possibly Walter has in mind. I do not know.

Jewish persons these days are more and more choosing the conservative Orothodox Jewish religious sector.

But be that as it is, there is so great a proportion of Jews who intermarry with gentiles, that there is a great fear that the Jewish culture and religion may be wiped out, or at least reduced drastically, by intermarriage.

Could that be another motivation for having a large family so as to contribute toward ongoing population of the Jews, and especially since millions of Jews were executed during WW2.

Pleas forgive if this post is offensive. I only wanted to ask a question.

[Fitz1980]

I wonder if there is also another consideration that possibly Walter has in mind. I do not know.

Jewish persons these days are more and more choosing the conservative Orothodox Jewish religious sector.

But be that as it is, there is so great a proportion of Jews who intermarry with gentiles, that there is a great fear that the Jewish culture and religion may be wiped out, or at least reduced drastically, by intermarriage.

Could that be another motivation for having a large family so as to contribute toward ongoing population of the Jews, and especially since millions of Jews were executed during WW2.

Pleas forgive if this post is offensive. I only wanted to ask a question.

That is essentially how the Mormons became such a big force of a religion, having only started back in 1830; because their religion tells them to have big families.

That is a legitimate concern but these days people defining themselves by their religion is declining anyway. How many people today are non-practicing Jews, people who self identify as Jewish but neither attend temple regularly nor keep Kosher. How many "Christians" are what my folks called "C&E People" who only attend on Christmas & Easter? More and more people identify themselves as spiritual but not into organized religion or even <GASP> atheist or agnostic.

[Sanslines]

David,

Another point that I wish to bring up is that the world in which we live changes at a faster and faster pace. Concerning human population growth, many of the diseases that killed infants 100 or even 50 years ago have been virtually wiped out. Premature babies that died 20 or more years ago are routinely saved now. Before social security and many of the other safety nets, children were the ultimate safety net for aging parents. In today's world, many children claim to be far too busy to have time to care for aged parents. The point that I am making is that many of the valid justifications from even 50 years ago no longer apply today.

I think that more people need to question and understand just how powerful religion is and how it is used by mankind to control or influence certain human behaviours that includes 'being fruitful and multiplying ad infinitum'.

[Pete Knight]

David,

Another point that I wish to bring up is that the world in which we live changes at a faster and faster pace. Concerning human population growth, many of the diseases that killed infants 100 or even 50 years ago have been virtually wiped out. Premature babies that died 20 or more years ago are routinely saved now. Before social security and many of the other safety nets, children were the ultimate safety net for aging parents. In today's world, many children claim to be far too busy to have time to care for aged parents. The point that I am making is that many of the valid justifications from even 50 years ago no longer apply today. Oh but they do, in third world countries infant mortality is still quite high, necessitating the need to produce enough offspring to guarantee that at least one survives to adulthood, to provide labour and parental care in old age.

I think that more people need to question and understand just how powerful religion is and how it is used by mankind to control or influence certain human behaviours that includes 'being fruitful and multiplying ad infinitum'. At least one widespread religion still encourages fruitfulness, and positively discourages the use of contraception, solely to ensure that its followers grow in number, a totally irresponsible docorine in this overcrowded world. The corelation between pollution, global warming, and most of the worlds problems and over population is a reality that some religions refuse to face up to.

This planet is infested with a malignant disease that threatens its very existence, unless we learn to control that infestation it will be the cause of its own destruction. The infestation? Mankind!

Pete Knight

[David77]

Jewish identity


Despite a 1973 Central Conference of American Rabbis resolution recommending otherwise, CCAR allows its rabbis to officiate at intermarriages. Recent surveys by the Rabbinic Center for Research and Counseling show that 40% of CCAR Reform rabbis now perform some form of intermarriages. However, the great majority of Reform rabbis will only officiate at intermarriages where both the Jewish and the non-Jewish spouse agree to maintain a Jewish home, and to raise the children as Jewish.

American Reform Judaism accepts patrilineal descent if the parents raise the child as a Jew by Reform standards. Gentiles may serve on Temple committees, and may count as full members of the movement. "In many congregations...non-Jewish choristers and soloists have occupied positions which seemed to make them into shelichei tsibbur [cantors, leaders of prayer services]." Various Reform teshuvot (http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Responsa/) (e.g. "Gentile Participation in Synagogue Ritual 5754.5") offer non-binding guidance limiting the role of gentiles in Reform prayer service, but local lay and rabbinic leadership have no obligation to accept this recommendation. Thus, 88 of Reform Temples allow gentiles to count as Reform Jews by being synagogue members if they are married to Jews; 87% of Reform Temples allow gentiles to serve on synagogue committees, 22% of Reform Temples allow gentiles to have an aliyah to the Torah. [Survey conducted by the Commission on Reform Jewish Outreach, see Wertheimer 1993].

In contrast, most Reform/Progressive Judaism outside the United States rejects patrilineal descent and intermarriage, and does not allow gentiles to lead prayers in Jewish prayer services, have an aliyah, or count as synagogue members.

[Sanslines]

Oh but they do, in third world countries infant mortality is still quite high, necessitating the need to produce enough offspring to guarantee that at least one survives to adulthood, to provide labour and parental care in old age.

I was specifically thinking of the USA and should have mentioned that. Concerning the third world, the technology exists today to prevent such high infant mortality. Even if the first world was willing to share that technology free of charge and with no strings attached, there are still numerous dictators in Africa that would prevent that.

At least one widespread religion still encourages fruitfulness, and positively discourages the use of contraception, solely to ensure that its followers grow in number, a totally irresponsible docorine in this overcrowded world. The corelation between pollution, global warming, and most of the worlds problems and over population is a reality that some religions refuse to face up to.

In some of my past posts, three specific religions were mentioned as promoting fruitfulness. Religions in many ways are still living in the dark ages and will doom this planet unless man wakes up and uses his God given reasoning ability and intelligence rather then allowing himself to be brainwashed by ancient dogma that no longer applies to today's world.


This planet is infested with a malignant disease that threatens its very existence, unless we learn to control that infestation it will be the cause of its own destruction. The infestation? Mankind!

Perhaps mankind is determined to make some of the prophecies from the Book of Revelation come true.

[Sanslines]

Jewish identity


Despite a 1973 Central Conference of American Rabbis resolution recommending otherwise, CCAR allows its rabbis to officiate at intermarriages. Recent surveys by the Rabbinic Center for Research and Counseling show that 40% of CCAR Reform rabbis now perform some form of intermarriages. However, the great majority of Reform rabbis will only officiate at intermarriages where both the Jewish and the non-Jewish spouse agree to maintain a Jewish home, and to raise the children as Jewish.

American Reform Judaism accepts patrilineal descent if the parents raise the child as a Jew by Reform standards. Gentiles may serve on Temple committees, and may count as full members of the movement. "In many congregations...non-Jewish choristers and soloists have occupied positions which seemed to make them into shelichei tsibbur [cantors, leaders of prayer services]." Various Reform teshuvot (http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Responsa/) (e.g. "Gentile Participation in Synagogue Ritual 5754.5") offer non-binding guidance limiting the role of gentiles in Reform prayer service, but local lay and rabbinic leadership have no obligation to accept this recommendation. Thus, 88 of Reform Temples allow gentiles to count as Reform Jews by being synagogue members if they are married to Jews; 87% of Reform Temples allow gentiles to serve on synagogue committees, 22% of Reform Temples allow gentiles to have an aliyah to the Torah. [Survey conducted by the Commission on Reform Jewish Outreach, see Wertheimer 1993].

In contrast, most Reform/Progressive Judaism outside the United States rejects patrilineal descent and intermarriage, and does not allow gentiles to lead prayers in Jewish prayer services, have an aliyah, or count as synagogue members.


Most non Jewish people are totally unaware of the broad diversity of beliefs within Judaism.

Forbidden Marriages According to Halacha
An Orthodox Perspective by Rivka C. Berman


Leviticus (20:11-21) fends for the health of the gene pool and the psyche by forbidding incestuous unions. Off limits pairs include relationships between mother and son, father and daughter, sister and brother, grandfather and granddaughter, grandmother and grandson, aunt and nephew. Though the verses see nothing out of place with a union between an uncle and his niece, American law does. An uncle may not marry the daughter of his brother or sister, but he may marry the daughter of his wife’s brother or sister. The Torah also forbids marriage between a man and his wife’s sister, if his wife is living. Marrying a son-in-law or daughter-in-law is taboo, as well.

Although ancient Jewish practice permitted a man to marry several wives, a woman could not marry several husbands. Before the age of DNA testing, paternity doubts were a major concern.

At the dawn of the eleventh century, Rabbi Gershom of Mainz, a hugely influential force in Jewish law, banned the practice of marrying more than one wife. His edict was accepted by Ashkenazic Jews, the majority of whom lived in Eastern Europe, but Sephardic Jews in Middle Eastern countries continued marrying multiple wives. They lived in Islamic countries where this was the local custom.

For all these off-limits relationships, even if a marriage canopy is erected and rings are exchanged, the marriage is deemed invalid in the eyes of halacha. Complicated intricacies surround a relationship between relatives by blood or marriage. A rabbi who is well-versed in halacha is an invaluable guide in these areas.

A Kohen’s Concerns

“A kohen has a permanent hereditary status of being holy to God,” wrote Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan. The privilege of serving in the Beit Hamikdash, the Holy Temple in ancient Jerusalem, came with Torah-ordained restrictions as a means of maintaining the aura of holiness.

The following rules apply only to men as women did not serve in the Temple. A kohen may not marry a divorcee, a convert, a woman who had sexual intercourse with a non-Jew, or a woman who committed adultery. As if to remind a kohen the impact of his decisions, the daughter of a kohen’s forbidden relationship may not marry a kohen. (A male kohen would be wise to gently inquire about his father-in-law’s marriage before getting serious with a daughter of a kohen. )

Before a kohen marries a woman who had premarital or extramarital intercourse, a knowledgeable rabbi should be consulted.

Keeping these laws, especially for a kohen who does not currently serve in the Beit Hamikdash the holy temple in Jerusalem, is not easy when emotions, attractions and desires are involved. Rabbi Kaplan offers an interesting explanation. Each religion has rules to follow, and the laws of marriage are ancient and fundamental to Jewish life. These laws, founded on Torah verse, were interpreted by the sages of the Mishna as early as 188 C.E. They were further defined by the sages of the Gemara in 500 C.E., which, Rabbi Kaplan notes, predates Islam. Since each marriage will affect the future of the Jewish people, keeping to one standard code of who may marry whom is essential.

The "Mamzer" Problem
“Lo yavoh mamzer b’kahal Hashem….” “A mamzer shall not enter into the congregation of God.”

The term mamzer means halachic illegitimacy and is more familiarly known by the unfortunate epithet “bastard”. A mamzer may not marry a person of Jewish heritage.

Who is a mamzer?A child born of certain forbidden relationships between two Jews. That is, one who is born from a married woman as a product of adultery or someone born as a product of incest between certain close relatives.

Adultery is prohibited to men and women alike. However, since men were biblically permitted to marry more than one wife, children born to a single woman as a result of a relationship with a married man are not classified as mamzerim.

Divorce has touched many, if not most, of us causing the specter of mamzer to dance darkly below the surface of hoped-for happiness. A child born to a divorced woman who did not obtain a Jewish divorce, a get, may be a mamzer.

Children born out of wedlock do not fall into the mamzer category.
Since "mamzerut" is equated to social death decree and its impact is far reaching, orthodox halachic authorities have traditionally taken principal approach to follow strict rules of evidence that typically render it impossible to prove either that a prior marriage ever existed or that a child was born of relations outside that marriage.

According to the Shulchan Aruch, the a codification, or written catalogue of halacha, composed by Rabbi Yosef Karo in the 16th century, if there are rumors that a married woman is having an affair her children are not suspected of being mamzerim since the majority of her relations are still with her husband, unless she is exceptionally adulterous.

According to the opinion of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein -- a Lithuanian Orthodox rabbi, world-renowned scholar and authoritative adjudicator of questions related to Jewish law, regarded by many as the de facto supreme rabbinic authority for Orthodox Jewry of North America -- a product of artificial insemination from a mamzer is not a mamzer; there are, however, those that disagree with him

A mamzer may marry another mamzer. There are other options for mamzerim that are best discussed with a rabbi who is well-versed in these areas of halacha.

Please note: When dealing with real life issues, with regard to the details of who is a mamzer, , consult a rabbi. The information included on these pages is for educational purposes and should not be regarded as halachic advice.

Marrying a Non-Jew

Judaism celebrates a couple’s decision to marry as it promises new worlds, new explorations of Judaism, and holds the potential for continuing generations of Jews. When a Jew marries a non-Jew these hopes are called into question. Despite best intentions, a marriage between Jew and non-Jew does not usually result in an enthusiastically Jewish home. According to one study, as much as 70% of children of intermarried couples are not being raised as Jews.

Rabbi Officiating at a Mixed Marriage
An Orthodox rabbi will not officiate at a marriage between a Jew and non-Jew.

Good intentions are behind a couple’s desire to have a rabbi’s participate in their marriage ceremony between Jew and non-Jew. They wish to honor their individual traditions, include all and avoid hurt feelings.

However, a Jewish ceremony is not a simple blessing, it creates a new entity – a married couple - in the eyes of Jewish law. Central to the ceremony is the statement Harei at mekudeshet li betaba'at zo kedat Mosheh veyisrael.Literally: "Behold you are consecrated unto me, with this ring, according to the Law of Moses and Israel." This Hebrew nuptial formula, with its mention of Jewish law, is only of any use to those who are subject to these laws, Jews and not non-Jews.

Words of the ceremonial marriage statement can be changed, however they will not solve the problem. Intermarriage is an anathema to orthodox Jews, as many believe it threatens the survival of the Jewish people. Conversions of the non-Jewish spouse to Judaism would solve this problem, but converting is a decision that should not be taken lightly. Only when the conversion to Judaism is embraced out of passion for the Jewish way of life and with a commitment to living the Torah way, does a marriage between two people of such diverse backgrounds has a possibility for success. The vast majority of mixed marriages do not result in a creation of a proud Jewish household. Though often, the Jewish spouse retains feelings for Judaism, statistics bare that the children do not.

Orthodox rabbis do not officiate mixed marriage ceremonies, as sanctioning such a union is contrary to a rabbi’s role and orthodox teachings..

Children of Intermarriage
The traditional halachic definition of a Jew is one who is born to a Jewish mother or one who has chosen Judaism through halachic conversion. Illegitimacy, the Jewish concept of mamzer, does not apply to children born to an intermarried couple.

[Sanslines]

Orthodox Judaism

Orthodox Judaism is a group of different movements adhering to common orthodox principles (strict interpretation and application of the laws (http://www.conservapedia.com/Law) and ethics (http://www.conservapedia.com/Ethics) of the Talmudic texts). They all share one key feature: a dedication to Torah (http://www.conservapedia.com/Torah). However, their attitudes toward modern culture and the state of Israel (http://www.conservapedia.com/Israel) could differ. Orthodox Judaism is the most traditional branch of Judaism (http://www.conservapedia.com/Judaism). There are about half a million Orthodox Jews in the United States.

Politics

Orthodox Jews are more likely to vote Republican than members of other branches of Judaism.


"The likelihood is there will be a very quick jump in the number of orthodox as the baby boomers age and die," said David A. Harris of the American Jewish Committee, a nonpartisan organization that conducts an annual survey of Jews. "They will be increasingly replaced by Orthodox children who are more" in line with Republicans.

Researchers commissioned by the American Jewish Committee found that the group most receptive to the GOP message is Orthodox Jews. They are much more likely to base their political decisions on a candidate's view on Israel than other Jews, researchers have found.

Bush has made small gains among Jews since his first election, but short of what some GOP strategists had envisioned. A staunch supporter of Israel who won the backing of a few prominent Democratic Jews such as former New York City mayor Ed Koch, Bush captured between 22 and 26 percent of the Jewish vote in 2004, based on various exit polling surveys. In 2000, he won 19 percent.

Growth

Orthodox Jews are the fastest growing segment of the Jewish population.

Orthodox Judaism is the only branch of Judaism in USA which has a net gain for each generation, for Conservative Jews there was on average 1.74 children per mother, for Reform there was on average 1.36 children per mother, for Secular Jews there was on average 1.29 children per mother, for Orthodox Jews there was on average 3 to 7 children per mother.

Amongst Orthodox the lowest rate of intermarriage was found at 6% while amongst Conservative Jews the intermarriage rate was 32%, amongst Reform Jews it was 46%, and amongst Secular Jews it was 49%. Amongst Orthodox Jews the intermarriage has been decreasing with each generation while amongst non-Orthodox Jews the intermarriage rate is increasing. Of children born through intermarriage only 28% of them are raised as Jewish. And of children of intermarriage who identify as Jewish only 10 to 15% of them end up marrying Jews. The combination of Jewish commitment and having experienced a complete K-12 Orthodox Jewish Day School education results in an intermarriage rate of not greater than 3%.Explaining why Orthodox have such a low rate of intermarriage. All the research indicates that it is essentially the Orthodox who are committed to such a complete Day School education.


Within three generations there will be almost no trace of young American Jews who are currently not being raised in Orthodox homes with a complete Jewish Day School education.

While only 7.8% of Jews aged over 70 are Orthodox, 9.7% of those aged 30-69 are Orthodox and between the ages of 18-29, the Orthodox percentage is 19.5%. Furthermore, approximately 27% of all Jewish children under the age of 18 are being raised in Orthodox families. It is also interesting to note that according to the NJPS 2000, although only 46% of US Jews belong to synagogues, that minority divides up 39% Reform, 33% Conservative, 21% Orthodox and 7% Other. If synagogue affiliation continues to be an important “bell weather” of the denominational forecast for the years ahead, Orthodoxy is capturing a growing market. More specifically, between the ages of 18-34, 34% of Jewish adults who are synagogue members have chosen to belong to an Orthodox synagogue.

This confirms another study which showed that Jews, who regularly attend synagogue are having children at a higher rate than other Jews.

http://www.conservapedia.com/Orthodox_Judaism

[walter05]

David;

I remember when the Soviet Union collapsed. We were shocked at the extent that the old Soviet Union abused the environment. The largest inland fresh water sea was practically killed by pollution and abuse.

We see Islamic terrorists committing indiscriminate murders. From Indonesia, because some find them not Moslem enough, to China, to India, etc. Moslems have a lot of children.

In Europe today, the growing proportion of the population from Islam and other parts of the world threatens the culture.

It is true the numbers in the U.S. Europe, etc. are growing. But it is due to immigration. It is also the immigrants having most of the domestically born children.

If the demographics don't change. the planet is doomed.

We need to make sure that those who are considerate and concious have enough numbers to help to influence the others.

That is my concern and no other.

Moonshadow;

When I read comments such as bad hair, etc. these are personal attacks. It is wrong to make negative characterizations of people just because we disagree with them.

I found that offensive when Sanslines did so.

P.S. I would personally find that 16 children is way too many. However, I also think that 0 or 1 is too few. None the less, I respect others, their right to make choices, and their right to live their lives the way they see best.

[Sanslines]

If the demographics don't change. the planet is doomed.


The planet is doomed because we stubbornly cling to old religion (and other) induced notions and refuse to deal with problems head on. Too many of us live in the past. Too many of us refuse to use our God given intelligence and instead cop out. Too many of us refuse to think, consider the minor details of problems, and then come to logical and practical solutions to those problems. We are a nation of sheep and a nation of far too many dummies.

No one is disputing that immigration is a major source of population growth in the USA. However, the solution is NOT for native born Americans to start having tons of babies. The solution is to deal with the third world if and where we can to lower their population growth. We instead do the exact opposite and preach religious dogma to places like China about the immorality of population control instead of acknowledging the fact that China MUST control its population growth. Notice that there may certainly be disagreements as to the MEANS to control population but that is a separate issue from acknowledging the basic need to control population.

None the less, I respect others, their right to make choices, and their right to live their lives the way they see best.

Even if it means that the actions of others have a direct and deleterious effect on others and this planet? Is it ok for others to decide to go out and kill all of the wildlife because they chose to do so? Is it ok for others to dump toxic waste next door to you because they chose to live their lives that way? Is it ok for others to have 16 children and then expect that you assist in supporting those children because they are unable to do so?

Any enlightened person would clearly understand that as more and more people are crammed into an area, more and more freedoms are given up, and more laws are passed to control the behaviour of individuals within that community. Southern California is clearly an exemplary example of this.

[David77]

Sanslines, the article above from the Conservapedia was extremely interesting.

Regarding Rabbi Officiating at a Mixed Marriage
An Orthodox rabbi will not officiate at a marriage between a Jew and non-Jew.

A Reform rabbi will share performing of wedding ceremonies along with the minister of our Unitarian Churches. Most persons I know think it is a beautiful ceramonial occasion to combine the traditions of each.

P.S. Although I am not Jewish, I have worked years ago as a casework at the Alfred Benjamin Dispensary under the United Jewish Social Services, serving both Jews and gentile recipients. The Jewish administration there required me to sometimes talk to clients about using birth control. Therefore we see that they were not opposed to using birth control to limit the number in the family.

They obviously were not Orthodox, it seems.

[Old Hippie]

Are nudists sufficiently critical of society's assumptions about sexuality?

"sufficiently critical" supposes that criticism is deserved
"society's assumptions" is too vague to be useful
"assumptions about sexuality" is also a rather large field of consideration

Trey, could you specify which assumptions you are referring to? Once we know the basis of the question, we might begin to discuss whether those assumptions are ones that nudists ought to be critical of, and if so whether that level of criticism is presently enough.

As we always used to begin high school debates, "define your terms!"

[walter05]

As a matter of fact, at times birth control is required for those who are Orthodox and married. This is because the command that is normally translated as "be fruitful and multiply" really means have sex and children.

If a couple is married, and there are good reasons not to have children, they may be told to use certain forms of birth control. This will enable them to fulfill the commandment to have sex.

For an Orthodox wedding, it is really a legal process. The man gives a woman a document, usually referred to as a "Kesuvah". This document spells out his obligations to her during marriage and after if there is a divorce. His father and/or brother also agree to fulfill those financial obligations if he can't.

It also spells out that the woman has conjugal rights over the man and not the other way around.

Sanslines;

We will not be able to preach to the third world and change them.

The reality is that so called modern westerners are not having enough children. It is below the replacement level. This is a problem.

Japan is already starting to suffer from this phenomenon.

In Europe, Denmark and the U.K. both have fast growing non-indigenous populations. The identity of both countries is threatened.

There are those in this world who don't agree with you and me on the goals. These people are willing to kill thousands of innocent people to get their way.

If you want to encourage people in general to practice family planning, I am all in favor of that.

However, we should not point to specific families and say that because they have too many or too few children that they are destroying the planet.

When we turn this into personal attacks we are wrong.

When we even talk about others' bad hair and refer to them as if they are deformed to have a large family, this is arrogant and rude.

I am taking an unpopular postion in this day and time. I have been within a mile of a bombing in Jerusalem. A woman paramedic set off a bomb in the back of a shoe store that backed up to a girl's high school.

This woman trained to save lives. Yet she decided to kill herself, and attempt to kill hundreds more innocent people.

In America, too few of us remember 911. 911 was an attack on innocent people.

Unfortunately, if we allow those who support the killing of innocents and the abuse of the planet to continue to have huge familes while the rest of us don't, the planet is doomed.

Until you can change the behavior of those murderous people, it is those of us who are having children raised to be loving and respectful of others and the planet that are contributing the most to save the planet.

You may not like reading this. But it is true.

[NudeAl]

Sorry if this is off topic,

I do agree that at the current rate of population growth we are going to be facing some serious worldwide famines in the near future. Population growth needed to be controled some generations ago however since we did not do that I am afraid we will see massive region wide starvation. Once that becomes the case chaos, civil unrest, disease all the things we nomally see in the third world countries of the world will begin to spread.

Now on to the environment yes we have abused the planet to the point of climate change. Climate change is real and no respected scientist will dispute that. However the degree to which man is enfluencing and accelerating this is what is in dispute. Look around Both the number and severity of hurricanes has increased to record levels. I have been experiencing severe weather in my region. We have been hit with the most snowfall in ever recorded in my region. My own very unscientific therory is that we are getting weather at my latitude that would normally be at a more nothern lattitude. I have no data to back this up. However I do have over 3 feet of snow in my yard and it is continuing to snow daily. The once fabled North West Passage is now a reality due to melting polar ice. The Polar Bears are facing extinction. I am afraid we have made a huge mess and only a serious shift in how we treat the environment will alter the course we are on. I don't think we are capable of doing the things we would have to do to change course.

In nature when a species reaches a population that the environment can not sustain that population comes down in a rather horrible manner. I know we humans have been successfully defying this correction for generations but I feel we are not going to be able to dodge a massive depopulation forced on us by our own unsound ecological practices.

I know I sound like a doom and gloom the end is near guy but I am just looking at the events that I see. I think if we had the ablility to get the nations of the world to accept the fact that climate change is real and get serious on controling things like greenhouse gases, population and reduce and then eliminate our dependency on fossil fuels we might be able to lessen the over population correction I see comming our way. I don't think we can prevent it from comming, only lessening the horrific results.

[David77]

When I was a child and teen-ager many years ago, everyone used coal to heat their homes in St. Louis. This made the air densely full of smoke in the wintertime.
The air in the city was unbearable but a new mayor, Mayor Tucker, an engineer, tackled this problem and cleaned up the air to a great degree. I do not know what laws and different practices were used.
We need more "Mayor Tuckers" supported all around the world to cause change. From what I heard, I would not want to go to Bejing China where the air is extraordinary.

[LamontCranston]

I do agree that at the current rate of population growth we are going to be facing some serious worldwide famines in the near future. Population growth needed to be controled some generations ago however since we did not do that I am afraid we will see massive region wide starvation. If an influenza epidemic, two world wars, and legalized abortion "some generations ago" wasn't enough population control for your needs, I hesitate to ask what you have in mind as a solution... :confused:

[Pete Knight]

If an influenza epidemic, two world wars, and legalized abortion "some generations ago" wasn't enough population control for your needs, I hesitate to ask what you have in mind as a solution... :confused:
Imagine what the human population would have been like had we not suffered these losses!

Being an evolutionist I believe that AIDS and new strains of disease are evolving to overcome the drugs we produce to combat them, conversely we are now so sterile that the immune system of younger generations are unprepared for these new strains. The immune deficiency debate has been going on in the CCBN forum for a couple of days now, so I'd be interested to hear opinions from the other side of the pond.

What of the future for mankind, are we the architects of our own downfall?

Pete Knight

[jon71]

Unfortunately it looks like a combination of war and famine for population control. The bottom line is we as a species aren't growing food fast enough and often when we do grow food we aren't getting it distributed well enough. Both of those problems are solvable but neither seems to be as high a priority as they should be.

[Pete Knight]

Unfortunately it looks like a combination of war and famine for population control. The bottom line is we as a species aren't growing food fast enough and often when we do grow food we aren't getting it distributed well enough. Both of those problems are solvable but neither seems to be as high a priority as they should be.
We are growing food faster than we have ever done before, the problem is that we are also reproducing faster than ever before.

It's not that there isn't enough food, more that there too many mouths.

Pete Knight

[walter05]

Actually, we have a distribution problem.

Countries such as the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Mexico, etc. are able to produce far greater quantities than any one can consume.

It makes the specter of humans starving worse.

Walter

[Skinview]

Its nether. We currently have plenty of food and a terrific distribution system. The problem is political. Various dictators, like Robert Mugabe, wreak their economies with authoritarian controls. South Korea is fat and rich, while North Korea suffers from famines. Others deliberatly prevent food from being distributed to ethnic minorities, like in Sudan. Some problems are still best solved with armored divisions.

[Skinview]

If an influenza epidemic, two world wars, and legalized abortion "some generations ago" wasn't enough population control for your needs, I hesitate to ask what you have in mind as a solution... :confused:

Birth control....

[TreyS]

It seems that this thread has gotten a bit off topic. My purpose in starting this thread was to encourage the exploration of societal assumptions about sexuality, particularly as they might relate to nudity. This thread started off rather interestingly with discussions of perennial topics like erections, shaving, etc. However, it seems to have degenerated into attacks on various people for their religious views. Part of my purpose for starting this thread was to encourage us as nudists to question some of our own assumptions. Below are a quote and a question for everyone's consideration.

"Nudity in itself is not sexual, it is what is thought in ones mind that makes it"

If sexuality is not bad why do nudists feel the need to constantly dissociate nudity and sex?

[Bob S.]

Trey: "If sexuality is not bad why do nudists feel the need to constantly dissociate nudity and sex?"

It's not necessarily nudity and sex that we are trying to dissociate. Every nudist acknowledges nudity and sex are intimately associated. However, we are here to dissociate nudism and sex. We are here to suggest that nudity can be asexual, that it doesn't always have to be sexual. Nudist nudity, skinny-dipping, family nudity, getting an all-over tan, these are examples of asexual nudity.

Too many textiles cannot see the difference between asexual and sexual nudity. Since it is nudity, it must be sexual and, therefore, should be avoided around others. Nudist parks, to them, have a sexually charged atmosphere. It is this kind of connection that we are trying to disprove. That nudity and sexuality are not always intricately connected. Sometimes, nudity can be asexual, even among others of the opposite sex.

Bob S.

[Fitz1980]

If an influenza epidemic, two world wars, and legalized abortion "some generations ago" wasn't enough population control for your needs, I hesitate to ask what you have in mind as a solution... :confused:

Contraception. A condom is a 50 cent item that can both prevent the spread of STDs like AIDS and unwanted pregnancy and lots of the world doesn't have access to them. I've heard that in lots of Latin countries the influence of catholic leaders is a big factor in simple contraception not being available to the general population. Even here in the US (I live in South Florida) it seems that lots of the Latinas I know have one child at home and one in the oven by the time they are 20.

[Sanslines]

The Catholic Church demands that there be no sex before marriage. The Catholic Church demands that there be no divorce after marriage and until relatively recent times anyone who divorced was excommunicated from the church. The Catholic Church is rigorous and steadfast in it's teachings. Close to 100 percent of American Catholics have disobeyed one teaching or anther and according to ancient biblical scriptures are 'damned to a life in pergatory' and should be 'put to death'.

Concerning birth control:

Catholic Church and Birth Control

History of Birth Control Ban

The Catholic church has said since its beginning that birth control was "wrong". Birth control was known at least since the times of the ancient Greeks and Romans. During these days birth control came in the form of animal skin condoms and various poisons to be used as spermicides.

The first mention of the ban on birth control was in Genesis 38:8-10. In this story, Onan is ordered to sleep with his brother's widow. He "pulled out" to not get her pregnant and was slain as a result.

The next mention of birth control being wrong is in Deuteronomy 23:1. It says "He whose testicles are crushed or whose male member is cut off shall not enter the assembly of the Lord." Pretty nasty ways of sterilization, those!

This message is reiterated many times in subsequent years by church leaders. Clement of Alexandria (AD195) says, "Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted". Reminds you of the "Every Sperm is Sacred" song from Monty Python, yes? You can find the messages over and over again through history. People are told, abstain if you don't want kids.

Over the centuries, all groups that broke off of the church agreed with the birth control ban as a "normal" part of life. It was never even thought of to change this mandate against birth control.

It was only in 1930 that the Anglicans began to weaken, and they are very careful to say it can that birth control could only be used for *family planning* (i.e. perhaps stopping after 3 kids if you were already starving). But with this minor change, the floodgates had been opened. Soon all 'reform' religions said birth control in general was acceptable. Keep in mind that this change in message came VERY quickly after over 1,000 years of solid belief.

Pope Pius XI was quite upset by this growing acceptance of birth control. He put out a Casti Connubii that said:

"Since, therefore, openly departing from the uninterrupted Christian tradition some recently have judged it possible solemnly to declare another doctrine regarding this question, the Catholic Church, ... in order that she may preserve the chastity of the nuptial union from being defiled by this foul stain, ... proclaims anew: any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin. "

So Pope Pius XI explicitly said that married people should have sex with the full expectation that children could result each time. To do anything else is a grave sin.

Modern Times

In 1966, there was a Papal Commission on Birth Control. This Commission voted 30-5 to relax the concerns on birth control. But in 1968, Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae reiterated the anti-birth-control stance. He said this was necessary because the commission was not unanimous, that governments could force sterilization if sterilization was "ok", and that men who used women for sex would lose respect for them. His final point is that God created sex to create children - and that man should not interfere with this system.


The ban includes all impediments with the sexual act - sterilization, withdrawl, the pill, condoms, etc. Note that the rhythm method (not having sex on certain days with the intent to avoid child-making) which once WAS banned is now considered to be OK. The church called this "Natural Family Planning". However there are priests who still argue that the rhythm method - since it involves sex for pleasure while trying to avoid kids - is therefore wrong. Even abstinence in a marriage is apparently wrong, since married people should follow God's will to try to have children.

When Pope Paul VI died in 1978, Pope John Paul I was elected. He only lasted 33 days before dying in mysterious conditions - after he said he was going to allow birth control and do a sweeping reform of the Vatican. (Was foul play involved?) The next pope was Pope John Paul II, from Poland. He was born in 1920, and was extremely powerful during his years of being Pope from 1978 to 2005. In 1995 he published the Evangelium Vitae - speaking against abortion and contraception as both being evil slayers of potential children God intended to create. He even says that developed nations who try to bring contraceptives to third world nations are doing it out of "selfishness" - that they want there to be fewer third worlders around so there is "more" for the wealthy people. He says children are the "supreme gift of marriage" that any couple should be waiting for gladly. He was very fond of the Virgin Mary and felt that all women should have children as often as God sends them.

John Paul II made sure he brought in believers to surround him who held these same beliefs. When his successor was chosen in 2005, and Benedict XVI took power, there was little hope that *anything* John Paul II had set into motion would change at all. In fact, in 2007 Pope Benedict XVI came out railing against the Italian people who he feels are having too FEW children and therefore causing the downfall of the Catholic religion (i.e. fewer kids = fewer paying Catholics growing up). He said this was "dangerous individualism" causing women to choose to do things other than kick out a new baby every year. Those women should dutifully be producing millions of new Catholics for the Pope.
Other Large Faiths

The Jewish faith believes fully in the ban on contraception. Genesis said "be fruitful and multiply" - to try to stop children from forming would be to try to stop God's will. There is an exception in the Talmud for women who would be medically harmed by pregnancy.


Islam allows birth control but only when used to "pace out" pregnancies - i.e. to delay pregnancy until you are settled in an appropriate place to raise the children, or to space out children so you can properly care for each one. Islam explicitly speaks out against NOT having any children at all, especially if your claim is "we don't have enough money". One relevant quote is: "Don’t kill your children for fear of poverty; it is We who provide sustenance for them and you; verily killing them is a most heinous crime!" (Al-Isra’: 31). While this quote talks about killing children, Islamic scholars feel it speaks directly to parents proving their faith in Allah by having children and then accepting that Allah will provide for their care.

The LDS church used to be very against contraception but said in 1998 "The decision as to how many children to have and when to have them is extremely intimate and private and should be left between the couple and the Lord. Church members should not judge one another in this matter. Married couples also should understand that sexual relations within marriage are divinely approved not only for the purpose of procreation, but also as a means of expressing love and strengthening emotional and spiritual bonds between husband and wife." So they now feel that sex without the intention of having children is acceptable.

Reason Behind the Ban

Religions promote strongly that sex should be primarily about a committed, married couple having children. The pleasure is a "nice side benefit" to encourage people to have kids. If people start having sex for the *pleasure*, they will treat each other as "pleasure objects" and not as "potential parent to my child". Also, people who have sex not to have kids might therefore have sex out of wedlock, or have affairs, or so on. It causes a breakdown of the entire moral fabric of society :)


The church has publicly claimed that condoms are full of tiny invisible holes that let the HIV virus through and therefore should not be used. They say this to help "prove" that only married, loyal couples should have sex - that any other sexual activity is risky even with condoms.

Interestingly, in March 2004 a Catholic Church organization in California was ordered to offer birth control coverage to its employees as part of its normal health plan, since it employed workers of all faiths.

In the US, up to 80% of all women are now on birth control. Even though the Catholic ban still stands in 2007, studies show that up to 96% of all sexually active Catholic women HAVE used some form of birth control other than the rhythm method at some point in their life. One Poll shows that 88% of Catholics (male & female) feel the official doctrine should allow use of pill and condom. Another poll had a result of 90%. A third poll showed 82% of Catholics felt that even in the current state of affairs, you COULD use birth control and still be a "Good Catholic".

A survey at an abortion clinic found that 40% of women getting an abortion were Catholic, 40% were from other religions and 20% were non-religious. This is even though only about 24% of US people are Catholics. It seems to indicate that because Catholics are pressured not to use birth control, they have to resort to an abortion if they accidentially get pregnant at higher rates than other groups are. That would seem to be a worse option. Abortion Rates Higher for Religious Women (http://www.lisashea.com/lisabase/aboutme/abortion.html)

What Can Be Done

Catholics merrily maintain this differentiation between "being Catholic" and "doing what the Pope says to do", while donating millions of dollars to fund the Pope's agenda. This agenda - that even most Catholics do not agree with - ends up influencing world-wide politics. Only 17.3% of the world is Catholic, but the Catholic doctrines on issues such as birth control and abortion end up affecting every single woman. This is true because of anti-choice laws passed in developing countries, demonstrations at local family clinics who may just *mention* abortion as an option, and doctors refusing to prescribe birth control pills. I in fact was trying to switch doctors recently and was told by a doctor who was convenient to me that sure, I could use her for check-ups, but I'd have to go elsewhere if I wanted to get a pill prescription. She would not give *anyone* - not even a married woman with children - access to the pill.

There have been countless studies that tie birth control and abortion rights to better living conditions (and survival rates!) for females and for entire families. That is, proper family planning ensures that the family has good living conditions - while having too many kids can cause death for the mother and squalor for the family members.
The full responsibility here lies with Catholic Church members. It's not like NON Catholics can get the Catholic church to change. 96% of Catholic women have used birth control - yet they give money and support to an institution which is the loudest voice against birth control. It is their responsibility to force the Catholic church to change - or to withhold that income so that the church does not have the power to mandate policy for others. Otherwise those women are directly responsible for the casualties caused across the entire world, because of their "paid representatives" in the clergy. Nobody else can possibly cause that change to occur.

http://www.lisashea.com/lisabase/aboutme/birthcontrol.html

[Sanslines]

One Legacy of the Catholic Church: Magdaline Asylum

Where the concept of 'fallen women; included not only prostitutes, but where any man could intern his wife, sister, or female family member for 'rehabilitation' for an 'eternity'.

Magdalene Asylums were institutions for so-called fallen women, most of them operated by different orders of the Roman Catholic Church (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Church). In most asylums, the inmates were required to undertake hard physical labour such as laundry work. In Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland), such asylums were known as Magdalene Laundries. It has been estimated that 30,000 women were admitted during the 150-year history of these institutions, often against their will. The last Magdalene Asylum in Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Ireland) closed on September 25 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_25), 1996 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d6/Magdalen-asylum.jpg/350px-Magdalen-asylum.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Magdalen-asylum.jpg)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/skins/common/images/magnify-clip.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Magdalen-asylum.jpg)
Magdalene Laundry in Ireland, c. early 20th century

History

Magdalene Asylums grew out of the rescue movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rescue_movement&action=edit&redlink=1) in Britain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom) and Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland) in the 19th century, which had as its formal goal the rehabilitation of women who had worked as prostitutes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution). In Ireland, the institutions were named for St. Mary Magdalene (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mary_Magdalene), who according to Catholic tradition, repented her sins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin) and became one of Jesus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus)' closest followers.

The Magdalene movement in Ireland was quickly appropriated by the Catholic Church, and the homes, which were initially intended to be merely short-term refuges, increasingly turned into long-term institutions. Penitents were required to work, primarily in laundries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laundry).

As the Magdalene movement became increasingly distant from the original ideas of the Rescue Movement, that is, to take prostitutes off the streets who would not find regular employment because of their background, the Asylums took on an increasingly prison (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison)-like character. Supervising nuns (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nun) were instructed to enact strong measures that would discourage women from leaving and instead encourage them into penance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penance). The Congregation of the Sisters of Misericordiae (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Congregation_of_the_Sisters_of_Mis ericordiae&action=edit&redlink=1), for example, is described by the Catholic Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia) thus:
In receiving patients no discrimination is made in regard to religion, colour, or nationality. After their convalescence, those who desire to remain in the home are placed under a special sister and are known as "Daughters of St. Margaret (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Margaret)". They follow a certain rule of life but contract no religious obligations. Should they desire to remain in the convent, after a period of probation, they are allowed to become Magdalenes and eventually take the vows of the Magdalene order.
Asylum records show that in the early history of the Magdalene movement, many women entered and left the institutions on their own accord, sometimes repeatedly. Lu Ann De Cunzo wrote in her book, Reform, Respite, Ritual: An Archaeology of Institutions; The Magdalene Society of Philadelphia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia,_Pennsylvania), 1800-1850 (published in Historical Archeology, the journal of the Society for Historical Archaeology), that the women in Philadelphia's Protestant asylum, "sought a refuge and a respite from disease, the prison or almshouse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almshouse), unhappy family situations, abusive men and dire economic circumstances."

Because of their background as prostitutes, inmates were regarded as "in need of penitence":
"The woman who has never known the pollution of a single wicked thought - the woman whose virgin bosom has never been crossed by the shadow of a thought of sin! - the woman breathing purity, innocence and grace, receives the woman whose breath is the pestilence of hell!" [Catriona Clear, Nuns in Nineteenth-Century Ireland, p.153; cited from Finnegan, p.20] Inmates were required until the 1970s to address all staff regardless of age, as "mother (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother)", and were called "children (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child)". As one priest wrote in 1931: "It may be only a white-veiled novice with no vows as yet; and it may be an old white-haired penitent giving back to God but the dregs of a life spent in sin. It matters not. In the Home of the Good Shepherd the one is ever the 'Mother' while the other is always the 'Child'." [Finnegan, p.42]
To enforce order and maintain a monastic atmosphere, the inmates were required to observe strict silence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silence) for much of the day. "The Rule of Silence was a major feature of the women's lives and continues well into the second half of the twentieth century." [Finnegan, p. 24] Corporal punishment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporal_punishment) was common, and passive-aggression (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive-aggressive_personality_disorder) was simply ignored:
"A sullen temper, often shown by refusing food (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_strike), is best dealt with by silence. When a girl wakes up to the fact that no one takes any notice, nor is troubled (apparently at least) by her self-starvation, she gets weary of her self-imposed martyrdom and learns sense." [Arthur J. S. Maddison, Hints on Rescue Work, A Handbook for Missionaries and Superintendants of Homes (1898); cited from Finnegan, p.31] As the phenomenon became more widespread, it extended beyond prostitution, to unmarried mothers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_parent), developmentally-challenged (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_difficulties) women and abused girls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abuse). Even young girls who were considered too promiscuous and flirtatious were sometimes sent to an asylum. This paralleled the practice in state-run asylums in Britain and Ireland in the same period, where many people with alleged "social dysfunction (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Social_dysfunction&action=edit&redlink=1)" were committed to asylums.

The women were typically admitted to these institutions at the request of family members or priests. Without a family member on the outside who would vouch for them, some penitents would stay in the asylums for the rest of their lives, many of them taking religious vows.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/ef/Magdalen-asylum-england.jpg/300px-Magdalen-asylum-england.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Magdalen-asylum-england.jpg) http://upload.wikimedia.org/skins/common/images/magnify-clip.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Magdalen-asylum-england.jpg)
Magdalene Laundry in England, early 20th century



Given Ireland's conservative sexual values (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_morality), Magdalene Asylums were a generally accepted social institution until well into the second half of the 20th century. They disappeared with the changes in sexual mores - or, as Frances Finnegan suggests, as they ceased to be profitable: "Possibly the advent of the washing machine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washing_machine) has been as instrumental in closing these laundries as have changing attitudes."

The sending of wayward women to Magdalene Asylums was an example of what many feminists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism) regard as the phenomenon in which even suspected sexual misconduct by women is punished more harshly than sexual misconduct by men.

Revelation

The existence of the asylums was little thought of until, in 1993, an order of nuns in Dublin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin) sold part of their convent to a real estate developer. The remains of 155 inmates, which had been buried in unmarked graves on the property, were exhumed and, except for one body, cremated and reburied in a mass grave in Glasnevin Cemetery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasnevin_Cemetery). This triggered a public scandal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandal) and became local and national news. In 1999 Mary Norris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Norris), Josephine McCarthy (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Josephine_McCarthy&action=edit&redlink=1) and Mary-Jo McDonagh (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mary-Jo_McDonagh&action=edit&redlink=1), all asylum inmates, gave accounts of their treatment. The 1998 Channel 4 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_4) documentary Sex in a Cold Climate interviewed former inmates of Magdalene Asylums who testified to continued sexual (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_abuse), psychological (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_abuse) and physical abuse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_abuse) while being isolated from the outside world for an indefinite amount of time. The conditions of the convents and the treatment of the inmates was shown in the acclaimed film The Magdalene Sisters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magdalene_Sisters) (2002), written and directed by Peter Mullan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Mullan). However the accuracy of this portrayal has been challenged. In addition, the story of one of the most famous alleged victims of the Magdalen asylums has been charged by relatives and investigators with being largely an invention.

Similar instances of abuse have been reported in Ireland's industrial schools (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_school). As a group these institutions were exposed in an RTÉ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT%C3%89) (Ireland's national broadcaster) series by reporter Mary Raftery (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mary_Raftery&action=edit&redlink=1) in 1999. Despite the Irish government convening of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_to_Inquire_into_Child_Abuse), attempts to obtain compensation for the victims of the system have proven frustrating. Essentially, to be eligible for compensation, a victim must have been resident in one of a number of specifically listed institutions; no Magdalene Laundries are included on this list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalen_Asylum

[Fitz1980]

Reason Behind the Ban

Religions promote strongly that sex should be primarily about a committed, married couple having children. The pleasure is a "nice side benefit" to encourage people to have kids. If people start having sex for the *pleasure*, they will treat each other as "pleasure objects" and not as "potential parent to my child". Also, people who have sex not to have kids might therefore have sex out of wedlock, or have affairs, or so on. It causes a breakdown of the entire moral fabric of society


Which is an ironic position to take. According to evolutionary biologists humans are one of the few creatures who have sex for pleasure. Most other species only have sex while the female is in heat and can become pregnant. Only a few other creatures, do that. The thinking is that while a dog, horse or cats can give birth to a litter that within a year will be fully mature adults who can survive and reproduce on their own human babies take around 2 decades to become self sufficient (and even than often aren't) so sex for pleasure helped bond the parents together to so that they will have two parents to help raise the child.

[Mutant]

Using religion as a blanket to make something pure and decent suggests that we don't believe that something is very pure and decent to begin with.

[walter05]

Sanslines;

You said:

[Quote]The Jewish faith believes fully in the ban on contraception. Genesis said "be fruitful and multiply" - to try to stop children from forming would be to try to stop God's will. There is an exception in the Talmud for women who would be medically harmed by pregnancy.[Quote/]

That statement is ABSOLUTELY FALSE.

Married men and women have commandments to have sex and children. If having sex might put her health or life in danger, Orthodox Rabbis will instruct them to use birth control. Rabbis will not only tell them to use it, but suggest the birth control method, and explain how to use it.

Some forms of birth control are always prohibited. But not all.

Walter

[Sanslines]

Sanslines;

You said:

[quote]The Jewish faith believes fully in the ban on contraception. Genesis said "be fruitful and multiply" - to try to stop children from forming would be to try to stop God's will. There is an exception in the Talmud for women who would be medically harmed by pregnancy.[Quote/]

That statement is ABSOLUTELY FALSE.

Married men and women have commandments to have sex and children. If having sex might put her health or life in danger, Orthodox Rabbis will instruct them to use birth control. Rabbis will not only tell them to use it, but suggest the birth control method, and explain how to use it.

Some forms of birth control are always prohibited. But not all.

Walter

Walter,

First of all, I cannot take credit for authoring the above article. I clearly gave credit to the appropriate person. Thanks anyway for seeming to think that I authored it.

Further to the topic at hand:

Judaism
Main article: Jewish views on contraception (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_contraception)
The Jewish view on birth control currently varies between the Orthodox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Judaism), Conservative (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Judaism), and Reform (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Judaism) branches of Judaism. Among Orthodox Judaism, use of birth control has been considered only acceptable for use in certain circumstances, for example, when the couple already has two children. Conservative Judaism, while generally encouraging its members to follow the traditional Jewish views on birth control has been more willing to allow greater exceptions regarding its use to fit better within modern society. Reform Judaism has generally been the most liberal with regard to birth control allowing individual followers to use their own judgment in what, if any, birth control methods they might wish to employ.

When Orthodox Jewish couples contemplate the use of contraceptives, they generally consult a rabbi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbi) who evaluates the need for the intervention and which method is preferable from a halachic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halakha) point of view.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_on_birth_control

Now let's look at what I posted versus what you have said:

I posted: "The Jewish faith believes fully in the ban on contraception. Genesis said "be fruitful and multiply" - to try to stop children from forming would be to try to stop God's will. There is an exception in the Talmud for women who would be medically harmed by pregnancy."

You posted: "Married men and women have commandments to have sex and children. If having sex might put her health or life in danger, Orthodox Rabbis will instruct them to use birth control. Rabbis will not only tell them to use it, but suggest the birth control method, and explain how to use it.

Some forms of birth control are always prohibited. But not all."

What I posted states that "contraception is banned except for situations where the health and welfare of thw woman is in danger. In such a situation, the Talmud allows for contraception."

Your statement about "men and women being commanded to have sex and children" certainly agrees with my posted statement about 'being fruitful and multiplying".

Furthermore, my posted statement about the "Talmud based allowance for the use of birth control when the health and welfare of the woman is in danger" agrees with your statement about "Orthodox Rabbis who will instruct women to use birth control when their health or life is in danger".

So far everything is in agreement and what I posted is NOT ABSOLUTELY FALSE as you claim.

Additionally, you claim that "some forms of birth control are prohibited, but not all". You do not elaborate and indicate which sect of Judaism allows what and you also do not mention that there are always local exceptions to general rules which are made on a case by case basis. You also did not elaborate upon the fact that there is conflict between the more traditional approaches to birth control versus the more modern attitudes towards birth control. Just because certain modern attitudes conflict with the more traditional attitudes does not automatically mean that either is wrong.

If you want to discuss conflicts within the Jewish faith, then consider this:

How does the Jewish faith respond to the overpopulation crisis?

A: Overpopulation is one of the most serious problems our civilization is facing as we enter the beginning of the 21st century and the third millennium. Current projections estimate that the human species will double its numbers by 2050, to nearly 11 billion people. Such a geometric progression in our numbers would continue to soak up the world's capital and prevent the poorer nations from making the necessary investments in technological development that might deter continued population growth.

If the worst case scenario occurs, countless millions will become environmental refugees, swamping the nations that tried to conserve their soil, water and forests. The great-grandchildren of today's young people would have to share the planet with only a ragged cohort of adaptable species dominated by rats, cockroaches, weeds, microbes. The world in which they survived would consist largely of deserts, patches of tropical forests, eroded mountains, dead coral reefs and barren oceans, all buffeted by extremes of weather.

For the Jewish people, the question concerning overpopulation is especially complicated. What are our obligations towards the world community? What are our duties towards our own people? Relevant to our discussion is a passage found in the Book of Genesis ((41:50-52) which states that Joseph the viceroy of Egypt practiced family planning prior to the years of famine that afflicted much of the ancient world. Based on this Scriptural passage, the Talmud in tractate Ta'aanit 11a observed " we learn that a man must practice abstinence during years of famine."

Let's examine this Talmudic passage:

If any person could have had children during the famine, certainly Joseph could have well afforded to keep on having children. Why then, did Joseph practice birth control during those harsh years? From this we may deduce an important principle that has far reaching applications in many areas of Jewish law and life. When a community is suffering, the wealthy and powerful are NOT allowed to act as if the pain of the community doesn't affect them. By each person lending their moral support, the suffering of the community diminishes. For the wealthy, the practice of birth-control is the very least they can do to show solidarity with those who are suffering. Such a show of communal support is indeed pious and praiseworthy. (Cf. Tosafos to Ta'anit 11a (s.v. asur).

The bottom line with all of this is that the human population continues to grow at exponential rate and WILL bring ruination and extinction to this planet unless this population growth is brought under control.
Each and every religion faces the difficult dilemma of pursing somewhat selfish interests that continue to justify and promote their own population growth so that they can at least maintain their influence on this planet versus a moral obligation for the overall good and well being of this planet. One belief system promotes a 'pyramid' type of human population growth scheme that is unsustainable and the other belief system promotes man's intelligent understanding of his relationship to this planet. Unless people from all religions wake up and stop misusing God and ancient scriptures to justify what will lead to the extinction of human life on this planet, man will doom himself to extinction. Such extinction will occur within a few short generations from now.

[walter05]

You can quote whoever you want. However, you are wrong!!!

There is a term called "Poskening Halacha". This is where a rabbinic authority rules on the application of the law.

There are all kinds of subtlelties to the application of the law.

Apparently your source never consulted with a real Rabbinic Authority.

I accept that it is the source in error and not you. However, the statement that Judaism is against all use of birth control is ABSOLUTELY FALSE.

If a man and woman are married, they are commanded to have sex. If the woman's life or health is threatened, they should use birth control.

If they have sex that puts her at risk, they are committing a sin.

If they fail to have sex, because they will not use birth control, the man is committing a sin.

[Sanslines]

You can quote whoever you want. However, you are wrong!!!

There is a term called "Poskening Halacha". This is where a rabbinic authority rules on the application of the law.

There are all kinds of subtlelties to the application of the law.

Apparently your source never consulted with a real Rabbinic Authority.

I accept that it is the source in error and not you. However, the statement that Judaism is against all use of birth control is ABSOLUTELY FALSE.

If a man and woman are married, they are commanded to have sex. If the woman's life or health is threatened, they should use birth control.

If they have sex that puts her at risk, they are committing a sin.

If they fail to have sex, because they will not use birth control, the man is committing a sin.

Walter,

You keep misreading what was said above. The article clearly stated that the Talmud makes an exception for birth control when the health and welfare of a woman is at stake. This clearly means that the ban on birth control is NOT absolute. Why do you keep insisting otherwise?

You also fail to mention the differences in beliefs among different sects of Judaism as well as the differences of opinions among Rabbis within one sect. Rabbis will rule and people will chose to follow and believe what they wish to believe. The article clearly did not distinguish between differences of belief within Judaism and neither did you.

One major difference that you do not seem to understand is that there are HUGE differences between generations today. What may have been applicable and accepted without question in your generation is not accepted without question today. In today's world, there is a much greater understanding of exponential human population growth and the effects that this growth has upon this planet. The younger generation today is questioning old beliefs and making different choices then what your generation did. If you have any doubts, then I would encourage you to attend a university shabbat gathering where many intelligent university students are questioning the meaning of faith as well as the application of ancient scriptures to today's world. Shabbat is, in may ways, traditional but some university Rabbis do actively encourage students to question everything and have deep and meaningful discussions. There is a standing understanding that university Rabbis 'earn their keep and then some' for they are perhaps bombarded with the most and deepest questions concerning religious meaning and faith. Standard answers such as 'be fruitful and multiply' are being questioned more and more by today's youth.

I can give you numerous exceptions to 'absolute Rabbinical rulings' that have been made by university Rabbis on a case by case basis in order to reach accomodation between specific university issues versus issues of faith.

Again, if you believe that you are right and numerous other sources are wrong then so be it. In the grand scheme of things there is much more diversity of belief and opinion then you may ever consider.

[walter05]

I will admit that as far as I am concerned Judaism is belief that we have a revealed set of instructions from our creator. Those instructions have been written and oral.

Those who accept that and reach a level of knowledge become Rabbis.

Experts in the law are known as "Poseiks".

If someone calls himself or herself a Rabbi and does not have that common belief, and is not recognized by his knowledgable peers, I reject him or her as a source.

I am aware of no university Rabbi, whether Orthodox or not that is a Poseik.

Walter

[Sanslines]

Walter,

I cannot speak for all university Rabbis but only for those that I have talked with. I consider university Rabbis to be the most modern of the modernists for they are bombarded with extemely deep and difficult questions and discusssions that tear into the heart of their own beliefs. The Old Testiment is full of contradictions. Different conclusions can be reached based upon equally valid logical arguments and specific Biblical passages.

The reason that I keep dwelling upon the 'be fruitful and multiply' phrase is that on one hand, there are those younger members of certain sects of the Jewish faith who are weighing responsibilities to this planet versus the need to increase the religion faithful to at least maintain a certain degree of influence and control on this planet.

Perhaps you have never considered the statements of how "God will not forsake his chosen people" and the numerous historical examples (starting with Moses and the Red Sea) to Mil'hement sheshet Hayamim where the ancient Israelites and modern day Israel have overcame what appeared to be insurmountable odds. Perhaps 'being fruitful and multiplying' to increase the population is in direct contrast with the belief that God will take care of his people and actually sends a message to God that his people don't trust him.

You have been to Israel and know first hand that everything is controversial and there are numerous opinions and beliefs that are in direct contrast with each other.

You may not wish to admit this, but ALL major religions use religious teachings as a basis and justification for purely man made reasons. These reasons clearly include influence, power, dominance, and control of others. These reasons have nothing to do with God and yet the uninformed are influenced by them and blindly accept them without question. Just as many biblical scriptures can be used to justify any action as other biblical scriptures can be used to prevent any action. It all comes down to interpretations and what an individual person wishes to believe and what they do not wish to believe.

As a previous posting elucidated, the Catholic Church has consistently taken a very strong stance against birth control. Yet, the vast majority of Catholics practice birth control in direct violation of the church's stance. The church tolerates this instead of doing what ancient scripture clearly demands and that is to put each and every person who practices birth control to death.

[TreyS]

Given that the issues of abortion, contraception, and family planning are not particularly relevant to the topic of this thread I decided to create a thread where they could be discussed. That thread is below:

http://clothesfreeforum.com/showthread.php?p=218440#post218440

[walter05]

My only point at that point was to refute the statement that birth control is forbidden by Judaism. That is now refuted.

The original question had to do with nudity and sexuality.

My simple view is that breasts get big to nurse babies.

Penises and vulvas are sexual organs.

When penises are to fulfill their purpose as sexual organs, they get erect.

I think as human beings we should not be ashamed of our nude bodies but proud of them. Nor should we be ashames of our sexuality but should be proudly enjoying it. Anyone who is not ashamed to see or display sexual organs should admit they are sexual.

[Sanslines]

My only point at that point was to refute the statement that birth control is forbidden by Judaism. That is now refuted.


Walter,

If you had read the original posting more carefully, you would have read that the author clearly stated that the Talmud allows for birth control under (at least) one specific situation. Neither you or the article went into any details concerning diversity within the different sects as well as diversity among people within those sects. Perhaps those details are best left to the 'deep thinkers' among us since you continue to avoid the deeper level of discussion that is required to properly consider and analyze this complex issue. You continue to make simplistic generalizations (and conclusion) based upon your own personal understanding of a very complex issue. This issue creates much controversy and disagreement within the entire community of faith as a whole.

Now you may return to the original topic at hand and I will direct my in depth discussions to the 'deep thinking' university Rabbis who might be more interested in engaging in the 'deep' discussions of faith.

[David77]

My thoughts on use of birth control is expressed by Doug Muder as follows;

Belief and worship are powerful tools for organizing thought and behavior. If others get control of those tools, they can make us dance like puppets. But if we’re careful, we can learn to pull our own strings.
By Doug Muder

[Naturist Zoar]

Right on, David.
By far, I have to commend you again, for your skillful articulation on another topic.