Genesis 1:28

[Jon Louis Mann]

> Julia wrote:
> > Would you consider some excuses to be reasonable?

> Of course.  The one I think is lame, though, is that they
> are somehow saving
> the planet by deciding not to have children.
> > And, if responsible, enlightened people are having
> children, at what point
> > do they get to decide how many is enough?
> Of course I'm not proposing that anyone be forced to do
> anything.  I just
> think that the idea that a couple is being more responsible
> by _not_ having
> children is pure bulls__t unless there are real mitigating
> circumstances; if
> you don't have the means or the temperament or even the
> desire to have
> children.
> I just don't want to hear that there is some beneficent
> altruistic sacrifice
> being made.
> Doug

"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it."  surely you don't believe that gawd created man to have dominion over every living thing that moves on the earth?

it is not a sacrifice, doug, it is a duty to the planet.  no righteous deity would justify destroying habitates to accommodate human expansion.  even by reducing materialism and careful husbanding (no pun intended) of resources, we are destroying habitats at a prodigious rate just to feed over six billion hungry humans.  

sure the planet can sustain higher human populations, but there is a limit. surely we have already reached the point where your deity would say that enough is enough.  

responsible, enlightened people are too rational to compete in the birthrate race, but they still hold the upper hand in the arms race.

as the various fundamentalist schisms succeed in their over population 
goals they'll continue to war against the heretics, and those who leave the fold.   people have a right to breed irresponsibly, but at some point it is going to bite us all in the buttocks!~)
jon