So material things and how much of these material things you can provide to one or two kids is more important than having a large family that God has blessed you with? I'm sorry, Lori, but your attitude is exactly what is wrong with society today.... Who cares if they can't send their 15 children to montessori school, girl (and boy) scouts, summer camp, have math tutors, dance lessons, and whatever other materialistic things that other people think are so important and that their children just have to have. Huge families like this used to be the norm.
26 comments
Huge numbers of births used to be the norm, but families usually weren't much larger on average than they are now, partly because the mortality rate for infants and children was nearly as huge.
If you actually have 15 kids who live, that presents serious logistical problems for feeding, housing, and clothing them, to say nothing of seeing to their nonmaterial needs (such as education and even simple attention, hard to get when you're one of a herd). To think otherwise is a sign of mental impairment, and reality does not share your delusions.
~David D.G.
Crosis, I'm glad that your dad's group came out all right. I don't mean to say that a condition of abject squalor and misery is a definite outcome of having a large family; however, because resources are inevitably stretched much thinner, it becomes a much stronger possibility, and I just see no need to deliberately increase the odds in that direction (especially in today's economy, as opposed to that when your dad's generation was growing up).
Also, in further response to SapphireGirl, what exactly is so "materialistic" about education? She denigrates Montessori schools, math tutors, and dance lessons -- what's up with that? (Okay, dance may not be that essential, but if the kid has great talent and wants to use it, it would be tragic not to cultivate it.) I could understand (and agree with) saying that kids don't need every new videogame or fashion accessory, but saying that they "don't need no education" (to quote Pink Floyd) is just sheer bloody-mindedness.
~David D.G.
Many if not most civilized countries are below replacement level with births.
Thomas Malthus was discredited long ago and there is a ton of evidence exploding the overpopulation myth. Regardless, with so many childfree or opting to have only one child, those who do still have large families aren't posing a great risk; the levels are still below replacement.
Of course the quote is rather ignorant, but no need for ignorant rebuttals.
The population is too large already. We need to reduce the birth rate or we will run out of room and food in a few generations. But then, you lot figure the world is going to end, so I guess you don't care about little things like that.
And that is why the Rapture doctrine is stupid.
Actually, Paul Ehrlich in the Population Bomb assured us that there would be mass starvation due to overpopulation by the 70s or 80s. Oopsie! Malthus said pretty much the same in 1798. Oopsie! Both discredited.
There is more food now per capita than there was 200 years ago. Sorry, but the reality has just not borne out the dire predictions. Even with lots more forestation than there was a hundred years ago (can't grow crops in a forest, heh) and leaving half the world's arable land as preserves, estimates show there can be enough food for 30 billion, pretty easily. Not saying the earth can sustain that many; we just don't know. The population that now exists can all fit, given 2'X2', in Jacksonville FL. Not that they could live there, but all the people in the world could literally fit on a pinpoint on the globe.
I'm sorry, but your doomsaying is just as ludicrous as the fundie doomsaying. Facts just don't bear it out.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=19076
By the way, "and that is why" - your conclusion does not follow from the facts or assertions preceding it. The rapture teaching may or may not be nonsense, but what you said does not lead to that conclusion, logically.
Skeptical:
WND is not an unbiased or credible source.
As for "materialistic things" -- education is materialistic? I think my brain exploded on that one. And huge families used to be the norm for two reasons -- lack of birth control, and the need to breed a few backups in case some of your kids never made it out of childhood. It's a relic of poorer and less sanitary days when child mortality was as common as bread.
David DG:
Don't get me started on that song. Oh, wait, you already did MWAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Essentially that song makes no context outside the backstory of The Wall -- Roger Waters had teachers in school that tried to force him into science and technical classes that he wasn't really interested in. A lot of classic rock stations play ABITW2 in combination with "The Happiest Days Of Our Lives", which comes right before it in the album sequence and, if you can understand Waters' menacing sotto voce lyrics, gives the backstory to ABITW2 that seems to be lacking.
I heard it quite a bit in middle school and high school sung by the wannabe-nonconformists in my classes. Without context, singing that song just makes you sound like an idiot.
That is hardly the only source, Brian; just the first I came across. Do some research; I promise they are both discredited by facts.
As to "education is materialistic?" it looks like she is saying *special*, private, education, as in Montessori schools, private schools, tutors, etc. is "materialistic." Not that education PERIOD is materialistic. We all have access to those WONDERFUL public schools so we all have access to the best education anyone can get anyway right? ;)
Not to mention that home education is a successful and viable option, a lot cheaper than costly extras, and can provide a highly diversified and extensive curriculum you won't find in public schools. (Gnaw on that one all you want; the results have been excellent regardless.)
By the way, I've never heard the proliferation of children = unsanitary argument before. That's a new and interesting one. By the by, who do you think bears the burden of paying social security for your elderly ass? (When and if you are elderly.)
Huge illiterate, innumerate, ignorant families like this used to be the norm, with just enough income to stay alive in poor health, malnourishment and misery; their only tiny moments of happiness brought by being told fairy tales about eternal paradise after their early, agonising death from overwork and exhaustion.
//Fixed.
15 kids = 1 slave-labour squad
PS @skeptical
15 fundie kids per fundie family will soon outbreed the on-fundies. If they get theeir hands on power they'll never relinquish it - hell they'd change the US constitution to enshrine their power structure if they could!
My dad was the youngest of 10 kids (5 boys, 5 girls). To survive, he had to get a job on a market stall, and get up hideously early to do his work before school. He was lucky he got to uni and met my mother.
@Skeptical: you can thank Norman Borlaugh and the Green Revolution for there not being any Malthusian crisis in the 20th century. But genetic engineering of crops can only go so far. That food for 30 billion statement that you quoted makes very specific assumptions about what people are eating - do you think that everyone will agree to become vegetarian?
If everyone keeps having lots of kids and those kids all live to have kids of their own, we will eventually run out of resources. That is inevitable. Malthus got that one right: a exponential process, like population growth, will eventually overrun a limited resource base.
>>Many if not most civilized countries are below replacement level with births.<<
Is China 'civilized'? Is India? That is not a helpful definition. Yes, the rate of population growth has slowed overall. But that isn't anywhere near the world population being stable or decreasing.
Fortunately, all of the evidence says that increased education for both men and women and equal rights for women and men leads to a lower birthrate and a much better quality of life for the children that are born. If public education programs worldwide continue as they have been for the next few decades, the population should eventually plateau - the UN mid-range estimate is about 9.5 billion in 2070 or so, followed by a slow decrease. That is going to be hard to manage without a lot of misery for the poorest half of humanity, but it is better than it could be.
SapphireGirl is a member of a thankfully small and shrinking minority.
Yes, huge families used to be the norm, and if you were lucky most of the kids survived their fifth birthday. That's why you had so many; to insure that you had at least one male heir to take over when you died of old age, at age 45.
My parents gave us time, love, respect and a love for knowledge.
If you have 15 children, you can hardly give each enough time, love and respect.
Home education, as in parents teaching their children, can never be as specific or as diversified as in a school with many teachers, each an expert in her/his field. It takes years to become a good Biology teacher or a good Home Economics teacher or a good Astronomy teacher or a good English teacher. A parent can't be as knowledgeable in all these and 10-20 more subjects as all these teachers are, combined.
Owning people and castrating all but the eldest son to make sure you had a direct and single heir also used to be the norm. We stopped having twenty kids the minute we stopped needing free labour down on the farm.
Having lots of kids puts a big strain on finances and resources- unless you can breed photosynthetic kids, you're gonna have to feed them. Then there's the emotional toll. The elder kids will most likely turn out to be assholes, since they'll have gotten the most attention, while the younger ones will be mostly left to the whims of their elder siblings, if not outright forgotten.
My mother was the 13th out of 14 kids, and I'm something like 28 grandkid out of fifty-something, so I kinda know what I'm talking about.
Brian X:
"We don't need no education"
Obviously you do. You used a double negative. (Yes, I get the point is to stick it to the man/teacher by using double negatives, but if you do that, at least try to prove you won't be living in a box behind Arby's or something.
"It takes years to become a good Biology teacher or a good Home Economics teacher or a good Astronomy teacher or a good English teacher. A parent can't be as knowledgeable in all these and 10-20 more subjects as all these teachers are, combined."
Addendum. I know what I'm talking about here. My parents were both pedagogues (they're retired now), they taught future teachers how to teach. My older younger brother is a Biology teacher, My younger younger brother is working at an English School in Gothenburg, where his wife works as a Home Economics teacher. The younger brother has just started his new work, so I don't know what he will be teaching.
I love to introduce new employees into the workplace and teach them how our systems work. I learned that at McDonald's, were there were an enormous amount of new employees. I must be fairly good at it, because people praise my teaching skills, and manager after manager lets me teach new employees.
Sadly enough, my family consists of only two people and two cats. I have not been able to produce any kids. But, my family is still a close-knit unit who love each other, and often spend evenings together in the sofa in front of the TV, whether out on the porch or indoors in the living-room.
Well, what about those children when they grow up?, without education, how are they supposed to take care of themselves?
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
To post a comment, you'll need to Sign in or Register . Making an account also allows you to claim credit for submitting quotes, and to vote on quotes and comments. You don't even need to give us your email address.