As reported in this CNN article, the pope has reaffirmed the catholic position on birth control. It is difficult to imagine a single policy which has been responsible for ensuring more poverty of women, disease and the blocking of development in Africa and other impoverished nations of the world. The catholic church does not love preventing suffering - the catholic church actually loves suffering.
Go read this post at Violent Acres. It’s hysterical!
Church services always started off quiet enough with the organ playing and parishioners quietly whispering greetings and shaking hands. But among the kids, there was a kind of electricity in the air. Half of the time, we could barely contain ourselves. We knew that if things went well, it was likely we’d see some crazy ass shit.
I found a good blog called Playing Chess with Pigeons, by Troy Britain. He mostly focusses on evolution and creationism. He has a lot of good articles. You should check it out.
What really caught my fancy was his explanation of the blog’s title. I’m going to reprint most of it here, with my comments:
The title comes (apparently) from a very amusing description of what it is like to debate creationists about evolution Scott D. Weitzenhoffer made in a comment on Amazon.com regarding Eugenie Scott’s book Evolution Vs. Creationism: An introduction (2004):
Debating creationists on the topic of evolution is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon — it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.
I love it! That’s a great description. My blog has received its share of creationists, and the metaphor is pretty accurate. Troy continues:
Man, have I been there. It’s not just that antievolutionists are often completely ignorant of evolutionary theory, the state of the evidence, and the history of science. There have also been numerous times where I have been debating an antievolutionist or responding to their claims that I would have to take time to explain their own arguments to them. [emphasis added]
“No, you meant to say ‘Piltdown Man’ was based on a human skull and an orangutan jaw, not on a pig’s tooth. That was ‘Nebraska Man’ and it was based on a peccary tooth.”
That sure sounds familiar! Not only do they get it wrong, but they all seem to get it wrong in the same way!
Troy finishes with:
Add to this their constantly moving goal-posts, their tendency towards scatter-shot (keep throwing stuff against the wall and hope that something sticks) mode of argument, their constant digressions to irrelevancies, non sequiturs and other logical fallacies, and it gets pretty breathtaking.
I was going to flag a few examples of that from my blog, but that pretty much covers every creationist who visits us.
…Earth. He’s down on the whole Earth Day thing. Here’s what Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council wrote about Earth Day:
An estimated billion people are celebrating Earth Day around the world, but few seem to understand its true motivation. Today isn’t just another reminder to use recycled paper or drive energy-efficient cars.
That’s right. A billion people are wrong! Only wise Tony Perkins knows the true agenda. And what is that, Tony?
It’s a calculated attack on the sanctity of human life.
Holy crap! Here he goes again! Everything Tony doesn’t like somehow always comes back to abortion. In fact, let’s see far Tony can get before using the A-word:
Ten words!! Woo Hoo!! Tony made it into double digits! The man’s a stud! Now let’s see how long he can go before calling somebody a radical or an extremist:
For1 years2, the3 Sierra4 Club5 and6 other7 green8 militants9 have said that the best way to consume fewer resources is to have fewer children.
Only nine this time. Poor Tony’s staying power isn’t what it once was. Let’s see what other thoughts Tony is spooging at us:
Their own website says, “Talk to your decision-makers and demand an increase of funding for voluntary family planning programs and access to comprehensive sex education for young people.”
And this is bad how? Let’s try not doing those things and see what happens to the abortion rate.
Last year, Optimum Population Trust released a paper that was even less subtle. It claimed that children are “bad for the planet”…
That’s because they are. The amount of resources one member of the developed world consumes in his lifetime is staggering. Does Tony deny this? Does Tony even think about sustainability? Or is he too busy thinking that God created this world just for him and his fundie buddies to despoil any way they can?
…and called on nations to reduce the global population by five billion—which would only be possible by forced abortion and sterilization.
OPT said nothing of the sort. Their web site calls for a gradual decline to a world population between 2.7 and 5.1 billion people. This does not require, and nowhere do they suggest, “forced abortion and sterilization”. Tony is just making stuff up, and his followers are too stupid to know they’re being manipulated by this devious slimeball.
The slimeball continues:
And how could we forget Barry Walters? The Australian professor published an article last year advocating a “baby tax” for every couple with more than two children.
That’s exactly the sort of thing that governments should be doing, especially if you don’t want “forced abortion and sterilization”! It’s the government’s job to look out for the common welfare. Global population growth is out of control. Populations are already on the hairy edge of being unable to feed themselves. Add in the environmental degradation caused by decades of non-sustainable resource exploitation, plus the expected changes in rainfall and growing regions caused by global warming, and it would be suicidal for any government not to try to curb population growth. Just how suicidal is Tony Perkins? I thought this guy was “pro-life”.
The crisis du jour is global warming, but even that is just another excuse to fund “Planet” Parenthood and similar groups.
Har har. Tony sure is funny with the puns! No, Tony. Global warming isn’t “just another excuse to fund” Planned Parenthood or “murder babies”. Global warming is a real problem today, and an even bigger problem tomorrow. We have to take serious steps yesterday if we want to prevent some serious catastrophes.
Stewardship of God’s creation is the responsibility of every Christian.
So then why are you such a colossally piss-poor steward, Tony? You’re breaking God’s heart!
But we must realize that there’s a greater threat to the environment than climate change or scarce resources—and that’s the threat of environmental extremism that elevates the planet above people.
Guess what, Tony? We aren’t valuing the planet over people (well, most of us aren’t, anyway. There are extremists in all movements.). The concern over global warming is based on our concern for every other human being on this planet, and their ability to survive into the future. You only care about people between conception and birth. For once, why don’t you think about the people who have already been born?
Fundie “news” site OneNewsNow allows readers to comment on their articles. Looking through those comments can be funny/scary.
Obama Hates Religion!
Brian Fitzpatrick wrote an opinion piece titled “Does Barack Obama disdain religion?” The article is about this widely-reported comment of Obama’s:
It’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Fitzpatrick thinks Barack Obama hates religion and religious people. I find that hard to believe, because Obama is one of the more thump-happy Biblers of the three candidates. I agree that his quote seems to contradict his prior statements about how important his religion is to him. I’ll leave it to others to resolve this contradiction. It’s more fun to see what the readers of OneNewsNow have to think about the issue. Here are a few choice comments left by the readers (all are anonymous):
Barry Obama seems to hate American and, as President, I can’t trust him not to destroy us or deliver us into the hands of foreign powers. With the exception of a few top traitors, we’ll be a nation of slaves.
God help us if Obama gets elected. You can say good bye to this once great nation.
This is just another sign that the Rapture [is] very near. Does anyone else see the path being prepared for the anti-christ’s arrival? By the time politicians and media leaders are finished feeding us their watered down versions of Christianity a one world religion will be welcomed with opened arms by those who don’t know the one true Christ.
As I mentioned recently, fundies seem to embrace global warming denialism. Jim Brown wrote an opinion piece (that OneNewsNow presents as news) titled “Authors raise concerns about Bush’s new stance on ‘global warming’”. Note the scare quotes around “global warming”.
The article acts like global warming isn’t real, and it bemoans the fact that George W Bush has grudgingly set forth some weak guidelines to combat climate change. Here are a couple of reader comments:
I can’t believe President Bush fell for this global warming baloney. I thought he was smarter than that. Sheesh. [emphasis added]
Imagine trying to save the Earth from global warming. The same Earth that God is going to destroy in His own time.
Thank God for Captain Stubing!
Steve Gallagher’s column, “Could the apostasy be upon us?”, was inspired by a Gavin MacLeod movie. Gallagher tells us about the film Time Changer. He writes:
The storyline occurs in 1890 and revolves around Bible professor Russell Carlisle, who is unwittingly transported by a time machine into modern-day America. For five days, he finds himself trapped in a wicked world to which you and I have become shamefully accustomed.
The rest of the article pretty much follows that tone. Here’s what the OneNewsNow readers have to say about it:
May God come quickly and put an end to the evil world filled with anti-God, anti-family homos and murdering Islamo-fascists.
I beleive Gallagher is right on. I pray that God will begin a great revival in this country or we will see the end of it in short time!
Praise GOD the end is very near.
Don’t just make the end times excuse to sit and do nothing while the liberals take over.
A new report commissioned by four policy and research groups finds that high rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births cost American taxpayers a minimum of $112 billion annually.
Divorce definitely has a social cost, and probably a cost to the taxpayer as well. I don’t know how reputable this particular study is. What I’m more interested in is the fundie response. Let’s see what the OneNewsNow readers have to say:
As soon as God got pulled out of public schools it all went downhill from there. This is the consequence - if you take the light out darkness results.
Making divorce illegal would go a long way in stopping this!!!
Many “Christians” support the agenda of the Satanic left - an agenda that contributes to the problem of disentegrating families.
Efforts to strengthen the family will go nowhere as long as American keeps distancing itself from God and allowing the homosexual agenda to move forward.
Cover Those Offensive Magazines!
Allie Martin’s article “Online petition drive asks Wal-Mart to cover offensive magazines” is about people who are offended by Cosmopolitan and other racy magazines being on display at the checkout counter. Most of the comments to this article are fairly reasonable. But there is one fundie jewel:
I don’t want to see this trash myself. It is immoral for anyone to look at. When younger people look at this it awakens feelings that shouldn’t be awakened until a person is married.
Christian educator Finn Laursen says the recent incident in which third-graders were caught conspiring to possibly kill their teacher highlights the need for educators to teach children the difference between right and wrong.
Here’s what the OneNewsNow readers think about that:
Here’s a novel concept and the only legimate reform: ‘Returning the Bible and Wisdom principles to our public school children by exercising our First Amendment Rights.
I’d be interested in knowing how many of those girls were taking anti-depressant drugs, as most of the recent high-profile killers have been.
As long as kids are taught they’re nothing more than animals…they’re gonna act like animals.
The Ten Commandments belong back in the schools, along with prayers. Our children and some adult have no guideline anymore.
As we discussed in part 2, fundies like to deny that there is a problem with overpopulation, because traveling down that route leads to things they don’t like, such as birth control and abortion. And if stabilizing the population is bad in their eyes, imagine how bad any efforts to reduce the population must be!
Well, as if they didn’t have enough stuff to worry about, the fundies are actually looking decades out, and they think they see a depopulation boom. Here’s an email I received from Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council:
You are Cordially Invited to Family Research Council for the documentary Demographic WINTER: the decline of the human family.
If you’re in Washington on May 12, you should RSVP. Penetrate the belly of the beast! Anyway, they go on to describe this film:
Demographic Winter: the decline of the human family explores the severe economic and social consequences of family decline and plummeting birthrates worldwide. In Demographic Winter scholars from many backgrounds give economic, social scientific, demographic and historic context to population decline and the impact families have on the strength and stability of society.
As you can see, the film is about the population issue, which already has the fundies concerned. But look at that other element: family. Somehow they managed to drag families into this. That gives them a one-two punch on this issue. Because, after all, only fundies care about the family.
OK. Let’s find out more about this movie that Tony Perkins is so excited about. The trailer is on YouTube. Please take a few minutes to watch the trailer now, and then we’ll discuss it on the other side.
There were a lot of claims jammed into that trailer. Obviously we need to see the movie to be able to discuss these issues thoroughly. But I do want to discuss what we can now, based on what they said in the trailer. Let’s start with some of the overblown fears.
Overblown Fear #1:
Economic Prosperity Requires Population Growth
Yes, our current economic model requires population growth, but our current economic model is wrong. The current economy requires consumption. It depends on the conversion of non-renewable natural resources into consumer goods. It is actually an illusion of prosperity, because we’re living off of a savings account, in this case the accumulated resources of the Earth: Forests, fishstocks, water, minerals, etc. All of these things are extracted from the Earth, consumed, and thrown away. As long as we keep extracting resources, we can continue our current lifestyle. More people means more consumers, which accelerates the depletion of resources, but generates even more money in the process. If population reverses, consumption declines, and the amount of money being created declines.
The problem, of course, is that resources are finite. Whether the population is growing or shrinking, once a resource runs out, the money stops.
What is needed is a different approach to economics. We need to create a sustainable economy based on sustainable levels of resource consumption. In fact, having a lower global population makes this goal much easier to achieve.
Overblown Fear #2:
Nobody to Run the Trains
Because of automation, robotics, computers, and other advanced technologies, today’s worker is way more efficient than the worker of days past. Every indication is that this trend will continue. This is a non-issue.
[Semi-] Overblown Fear #3:
Too Many Old People Sucking Services;
Not Enough Young to Pay for It
This one is a legitimate concern, but it is partially the fault of weak politicians. People are living way longer than they used to, and they will probably live even longer in the future. There is absolutely no reason for the retirement age to be where it is currently. If the government would raise the retirement age now, there would be enough money in the Social Security Trust Fund to carry that program through the end of the century.
(Or maybe not. The dirty little secret is that the government has already spent that money. The Social Security surplus has been financing deficit spending for years. When that money is due to be paid back, there won’t be enough taxpayers to foot the bill. That’s the other problem with weak politicians. They’ve destroyed the system from two different directions.)
There’s more to this issue than just Social Security. Health care is probably a bigger issue than that. We’re extending the sick end of people’s lives. We’re letting people get older, but they’re doing it while consuming medical services, usually the really expensive services.
I don’t have an answer for this problem, but you can’t solve it by increasing the birth rate. What happens when these new people get old? Now you’ve got an even bigger group of people who need expensive care. This is a pyramid that will collapse.
Somebody needs to come up with a clever solution to this problem.
Overblown Fear #4:
Depopulation
This documentary pretends that there actually will be a declining global population this century. There’s not much reason to believe that’s the case. Current projections show that the population is still rising and will continue to do so until the middle of this century. The projections suggest that a gradual decline will begin after that.
The problem is that we really don’t know what’s going to happen in the latter half of this century. You can only make projections so far out. We don’t know what economic, social, and scientific changes will occur in the future. The population could rise as easily as it might fall. Even if it does fall, as I pointed out above, that is not a problem.
How Does the Family Fit Into This?
One subject they focussed on was the family. Their experts said that the traditional family structure is the strongest, and it’s the best environment for children to grow up in.
I have seen data that suggests there is at least a little truth in these statements. The problem is, that one structure of the father, mother, and children is not realistic. Humans are more complex than that, and it’s naive to think you can force that structure onto every member of society.
This part of the documentary really appeals to the fundies, though. They can use this as a new way to attack all of those things they don’t like: women’s liberation; gay rights; divorce; pre-, post-, and extra-marital sex; etc.
It’s Not That There Won’t Be Enough People,
It’s That There Won’t Be Enough of the Right Type of People!
Much of the fear of declining birthrates is that it is the wrong people whose fertility is declining. They said in the trailer that it is only the developed nations whose rates were dropping.
That one guy said that there would be no native-born French who come from the traditional French population. He didn’t say there would be no native-born French. The country isn’t going to disappear. The demographic makeup of France will be very different. That’s what they don’t like.
The Nation magazine has a video, which discusses this aspect further. Check it out:
In part 1, we looked at how fundies don’t seem at all concerned about the environmental problems we face, apparently believing that their magical sky daddy will somehow fix things or prevent things from getting too bad. Not only are they not concerned, but many fundie leaders actually parrot (sorry, PL!) Bush administration talking points on issues such as global warming.
The issue I wanted to focus on today is overpopulation. Like global warming, fundies seem to be in complete denial. Let’s look at the reasons.
First of all, you should know that fundies hate Ted Turner. Ted Turner is a big supporter of the United Nations. Fundies hate the U.N., because they view it as the world government foretold in the book of Revelation. The end result of this is that fundies will hate anything that Ted Turner likes. If Ted likes environmentalism, then the fundies will hate it. If Ted likes nuclear disarmament, then the fundies will hate it. If Ted likes puppies, then the fundies will hate it. If Ted likes Jane Fonda, then the—oh wait. They already hate Jane Fonda.
The article begins:
In a wide-ranging hour-long interview on PBS, CNN Founder and billionaire environmental extremist Ted Turner…
Everybody on Ted’s end of the political spectrum is an “extremist” to these people.
…let the cat out of the bag on the real goal of climate change extremists—depopulation.
See? Anybody who believes in global warming is an extremist. I guess the majority of the population are extremists too, then.
Now here we begin to see the link between overpopulation denialism and global warming denialism. As we’re about to see, the overpopulation issue treads on fundie turf. So in fact it may be that the fundies’ anti-global warming stance is actually the result of their anti-overpopulation stance. (Since anti-abortion activists like to call themselves “pro-life”, I guess we should call the anti-anti-global warming people the “pro-warmers”. We can call the anti-anti-overpopulation people the “Duggars”!)
Before looking at the entirety of the next sentence, I want to examine one piece of it first:
…global warming, retooled to ‘climate change’,…
What’s wrong, fundies? Don’t like “climate change”? Tough, because it’s your word, or more accurately, the product of your beloved Republican White House!
Let’s take a side trip down mammary memory lane (Sorry. I shouldn’t daydream when I write these.). The substitution of “climate change” for “global warming” is the handiwork of Republican political strategist Frank Luntz. He found “climate change” to have more positive connotations among viewers, vs. “global warming”, which was more negative. I guess that’s one talking-points memo that the fundies never got.
Now let’s get back to the entire sentence:
Pro-life activists who have attended UN environment meetings where such issues were discussed have often been the subject of ridicule and derision for pointing out that the massive movement behind global warming, retooled to ‘climate change’, works hand in hand with the culture of death with the aim of depopulation.
So you see them admitting right there that the reason they refuse to acknowledge global warming as real is because they think it’s a clever plot by the Liberal Agenda to promote abortion!
And abortion, as well as other forms of the “culture of death”, is the reason they refuse to acknowledge the problems caused by overpopulation.
Although you mostly hear about abortion, the other half of this so-called “culture of death” is the pro-euthanasia, or death with dignity, movement. If somebody is terminally ill with a painful disease—or worse yet, brain-dead—the fundies absolutely refuse to allow that person to end the misery and die with dignity. Instead, they have to hang on and suffer in misery for many more months.
Fundies love suffering. The more you suffer, the closer to God you are. And it’s probably true that you are closer to God at that point. If you read the Old Testament, you’ll see that God inflicts more suffering than any other character in the book.
BTW, to a fundie, death with dignity is more than just allowing somebody who is suffering to end his life. Fundies apparently think that death with dignity is just step one on the Liberal Agenda to kill all sick people. And that is part of the “evolutionists” plan to remake society in the image of God Darwin’s survival of the fittest Nazi master race plan. As near as I can tell anyway. Fundies have such muddled logic, it’s hard to follow.
Turner stated plainly that next to nuclear disarmament the most pressing world concern is “global climate change”…. “We’re too many people. That’s why we have global warming,” explained Turner….
“Too many people” goes into the fundie brain, where it is translated into “Babies and sick people must die!”
Last year China boasted that its one-child policy, which has been criticized by many nations for including forced abortion and sterilization, had reduced greenhouse gases.
Nobody is in favor of forced abortion and sterilization, but here the article is implying that if the rest of the world tries to control population, they will all adopt such policies. China has a brutal totalitarian government. How they implement population control is in no way indicative of how it would be implemented elsewhere.
There are actually two parts to the population problem. The first is arresting our insane population growth, before we outstrip the carrying capacity of the Earth. The second part is bringing the population down to a sustainable level.
As I’ve shown in this article, the fundies are opposed to any population control measures, because they assume that means more abortions and Terry Schiavos. The fundies are already thinking ahead to the matter of depopulation. They don’t like that one bit. We’ll look at that in part 3 of this series.
