Go Forth And Multiply--It Works! |
by Zoe Sandvig |
It surprises me how long it can take a secularist to recognize that faith works. I just watched Demographic Winter, a documentary on population decrease and the decline of the family. In June, Chuck delivered a series of critiques of the film here, here, and here.
Here's the reality, folks: contrary to hype, we're not overcrowding, but de-crowding. If things continue as they are, we could be facing a depopulation of extreme and disastrous proportions. The birthrate in Europe is only 1.38 children per woman (2.1 is needed to sustain the population). Since 1989, the population in eastern Europe has decreased by 13 percent. And, in the U.S., younger generations are looking at going broke to pay for older generations' Social Security.
Here are a few of the proposed causes:
- Selfishness--we want to keep more of our money for ourselves and not share it with children.
- Sexual perversion--we want lots of sex, but without the "consequences" of children and the responsibility they bring.
- Promiscuousness--we cohabitate, but don't want the commitment that marriage brings. This leads to higher divorce rates, and tons of wasted energy and resources to fund all the duplicate households.
So, what are scientists scratching their heads about? One commentator on the documentary said that what's happening on the demographic plain doesn't match up with his Darwinist upbringing that says that humans always strive to reproduce to their fullest potential. So, why aren't we having more children, if we're evolving?
From this perspective, maybe only people of faith are evolving.
The one exception to the population decrease are people who are motivated by their faith to reproduce. This is a defense of Christianity, if I've ever heard one: Christianity makes sense because it keeps society alive--because it works.
Here's an interesting (paraphrased) thought from Philip Longman, author of The Empty Cradle: Perhaps some human beings are on the verge of extinction because, for reasons of lack of faith, they don't go forth and multiply.
(Image © SRB Documentary, LLC)
Huh. By the title I was certain Allen had written this post. :)
I was flipping through 'The Quotable Lewis' yesterday (my wife was hogging the computer) and came across a quote on Marriage (I think from "Mere Christianity"). It was discussing the Christian ideal of God's intention/design in uniting a man and a woman, not just physically, but totally - in all ways. And that's why sex outside of marriage is so abhorrent to Christian thought, because it's inordinately trying to get one pleasure and avoiding others. His analogy was : It's like chewing and spitting out your food and not swallowing to get nourishment. (I didn't remember that analogy, even though I've read it a few times. Sorry, don't have the quote with me).
Anyway, I think those proposed causes are right on.
That, or we are evolving to prepare for the population explosion of our robot-overlords.
Posted by: Steve (SBK) | October 17, 2008 at 10:34 AM
I've had to sit through a hyper-liberal spiel in my geography class at college about how if we don't slow the population rate universally through birth control, abortion, and sterilization, we'll exceed the earth's population limits, then, massive famine and war will blight the earth.
The professor chose not to respond to my question about the future of Japan given that its population is rapidly aging and declining with no one to take the place of the workers, or my question about how the world economy will sustain itself if the next generation's work force is significantly smaller than our own.
Posted by: Kari | October 17, 2008 at 01:54 PM
It only works if you are allowed to educate your own children, or choose their education. If Caesar simply takes your children by force to indoctrinate them, then they are usually lost.
Posted by: labrialumn | October 18, 2008 at 12:38 AM
I remember the beginnings of the Zero Population Growth movement. (In my high school a group made awareness posters, including one with the supposed Pogo quote "We have met the enemy, and he is us.") In fact, I remember listening to a live lecture by Harry Harrison (author of "Make Room! Make Room!", which was later made into the Charlton Heston movie "Soylent Green") in which he asserted that actually *Negative* Population Growth was essential - in the 1970s. It would be heavily ironic if Harrison's warning actually produced the condition he wanted to avoid.
One common refrain in those days was "I don't want to bring a child into a world as fouled up as this one is." True, some of it may have been a coverup for the symptoms Zoe lists. But I think it may point to a deeper cause.
I think faith isn't the sole missing ingredient. Hope is essential as well, and hope was definitely missing in the 1970s when ZPG picked up steam. In the view of that day, we were polluting and overpopulating our planet, and we and we alone could fix it. If we didn't, there was no hope for us. And many said it was already too late; we would strip the planet bare like a swarm of locusts, and slowly starve to death.
And combining faith and hope will of course make us think of love. A feature of apocalyptic science fiction was and is the idea that in the future violence will reign and only the fittest (such as Mel Gibson's Mad Max) will survive, knowing love only briefly and probably sacrificially. And this presupposes that the only love that exists is the love of humans for each other; no supernatural love is portrayed.
But if you have faith that all is well, hope that the future is in good hands, and believe that you and your fellow humans are loved, then you feel like it's safe to bring children into your care; they are cared for by One greater than yourself.
(As an aside, I'm mildly disappointed that my august colleagues haven't already mentioned a great historical irony: for centuries the pagans worshipped in fertility cults, and Christianity had to deal with "gods" like Ba'al and Diana/Artemis causing explosive population growth among unbelievers. Today, the pagans worship anti-fertility, and are wiping themselves out all on their own. Almost makes me wonder if we shouldn't be encouraging Dawkins/Hitchens/Harris, because their movement is self-limiting and accelerating it would cause it to disappear that much faster. Of course I'm being facetious, because I myself know the great personal cost of atheism, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone else. But it is still amusing to envision the Dawkins snake eating its own tail.)
Posted by: LeeQuod | October 18, 2008 at 01:36 PM
Zoe, I just read this Washington Post article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/02/AR2009010202231.html
I'm fascinated by the fact that here (and, I realized, elsewhere also) the media portrays this not as a problem of too few children, but rather as a problem of too many old people.
And it's not explicitly stated, but chillingly, the Netherlands (and my state, Oregon) have a solution for the problem of a too-rapid increase in those expensive, seemingly useless, elderly, sick people...
Posted by: LeeQuod | January 11, 2009 at 04:35 PM
LeeQuod,
You know, I read articles like that, and the first thing I think is how thankful I am that we are receiving a Kingdom that cannot be shaken. While secular culture shakes their head at the threat of depopulation, looming terrorist attacks, and the like, we, as Christians, can look over and above it all to One who is now working to make all things new. Thanks for sharing this and reminding me that while the rest of the world can resort to fatalism, we Christians have much to look forward to!
Zoe
Posted by: Zoe | January 12, 2009 at 09:14 AM