Go Forth and Multiply

[tinner666]

Was talking to some religious friends and noticed that all religions expect their members to marry, have children, and 'create new members' by procreation.
Is this an admission that there is no common ground?
Each 'group' will increase in size, not by converting anybody, but solely by procreation. Or die from lack of procreation.
Sorry if I put this crudely, but I woke up with this on my mind and 'it' might not be functioning yet.
At least they encourage sex!

[Naturist Mark]

Not all religions. Some discourage procreation. A good example in America was the Shakers - all but gone now, seems they didn't reproduce.

-Mark

[Rabid_Clam]

The procreation would increase numbers of supporters. Marriage outside that or those groups was discouraged in order to keep the group pure and free of in bred alter societies.

This causes genetic problems in smaller groups so really is not practical but is what has been done for several millenums.

[tinner666]

Originally posted by Naturist Mark:
Not all religions. Some discourage procreation. A good example in America was the Shakers - all but gone now, seems they didn't reproduce.

-Mark

You never cease to amaze! You are a fount of information. My hat is off to you, sir.
And I stand corrected!

[namedun]

Can you say evolution? There could be millions of religions that told their members not to procreate, and like the shaker example, they simply aren't around to tell us about themselves now.
What I find disturbing though is the reckless self-rightiousness involved in the idea of a duty to procreate. I'd guess that the world is overpopulated as it is; the idea that we MUST keep multiplying in number is already giving catostrophic results.

[Bob S.]

Those religions that expect their members to "be fruitful and multiply" are simply trying to take control of the adherents' sex drives by mixing with the commandment a moral message that surrounds the sexual act.

In fact, marriage is part of that morality. They expect the adherents to keep sex within the marriage whether the marriage be between two people or more.

Bob S.

[Boreas]

Originally posted by namedun:
Can you say evolution? There could be millions of religions that told their members not to procreate, and like the shaker example, they simply aren't around to tell us about themselves now.
What I find disturbing though is the reckless self-rightiousness involved in the idea of a duty to procreate. I'd guess that the world is overpopulated as it is; the idea that we MUST keep multiplying in number is already giving catostrophic results.

You might enjoy reading John Shelby Spong's "Sin's of Scripture". He says much the same thing about the "go forth and multiply" concept. He also addresses how the bible has impacted women, homesexuals and such. It is a veyr interesting and thought provoking book, even if you don't agree with everything he says.

[David77]

Surveys show that 90% of Unitarian Universalists were raised in some other religion, and merely chose to becone Unitarian Universalist. This fact lends no expectancy that the membership will merely increase from procreation of the Unitarian Universalist members.

Unitarian Universalist are not evangeligal, (no one persuaded them to become a member) so they become members by merely discovering this Unitarian Universalist religious group.

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/CY-WUU.html

[Von]

Is this an admission that there is no common ground?

At most it's an admission that family is a foundation of the human experience worldwide and throughout time. The fact that Christianity acknowledges and advocates this truth does not dilute the truth of the matter but actually accentuates it even further.

I hope I understood the question correctly!

[tinner666]

Originally posted by Von:

quote:

Is this an admission that there is no common ground?

At most it's an admission that family is a foundation of the human experience worldwide and throughout time.

I hope I understood the question correctly!

You could be right, but my wife is a fallen Catholic. When she confessed she wanted to tie her tubes, the Father told her she had to keep having babies. Little Catholics, as it were.
She was told to have as many as possible.
My neighbor has 1 about every 18 months. 6 so far and going strong.

[Rabid_Clam]

The catholic structure has been a noose to much over time that has hurt society imeasurably, but I am not going to get into an argument over the viability of the catholic philosophy. You are welcome to beleive however you want. Yet I do not support catholic anything.

We now have over 3 billion people on the planet, we cannot feed or care for many and the suffering is abundent. Disease is rampant where we cannot control it. Aids is one, cancer is another.

That is not to say we need to stop procreation until disease and other scars on the human race run out of control but we need to work on things like disease control so those that live can live a normal life span absent of suffer.

After all, the priest does not marry. That is the ultimate birth conrtol, exactly opposite of what he preaches!!

[Eric6420]

In fact, we are already about 6 billions persons on this planet...

Half of theses persons are living with less than 2 dollars a day per person.

[hm0504]

Originally posted by Eric6420:
In fact, we are already about 6 billions persons on this planet...

Half of theses persons are living with less than 2 dollars a day per person.

As of U.S. 21:39 GMT (EST+5) Aug 25, 2006 (time of this posting) [1], we are at
6,539,876,084 worldwide and
299,565,801 in the U.S.A. (closing in on the big 300,000,000 I see).

[1] http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/

[namedun]

The number in itself doesn't carry so much shock value as does the rate at which humanity is multiplying. For example, I remember in school when we watched the world population clock (on some website) hit 6 Billion. And it's not like I'm an old man, I'm going into my fourth year of university and at the time I was in the 9th grade. So in the space of about seven years, I've watched the human population expand approximately 8%, and this will continue to rise. Now, I may sound alarmist, but I'm not so easilly convinced by people like my high school geography teacher or first year sociology prof that this growth rate will neatly cap off as projected. In fact, I think we're seeing the effects of overpopulation RIGHT NOW with starvation and disease in many places in the world. Sure, the population will cap off eventually, but it's going to be messy, hungry and crammed together where we will all have others aggrivating differences also crammed in each others faces. Picture Soylent Green. Basically, an unending period of starvation and strife so long as we now carry this carefree attitude of "let's get more life on the planet. Life is a great word, how could we not want MORE people around?"

[Bob S.]

namedun:"In fact, I think we're seeing the effects of overpopulation RIGHT NOW with starvation and disease in many places in the world."

The problems of starvation and disease are not simply due to overpopulation but rather greed and corruption of the governments and warfare between factions within and between countries.

Bob S.