Modernity is a virus

Well, it does seem to counter your idea that the world will be mostly Muslim.. They move to the West, they are westernized in a generation or two, and then their birthrate falls.

I would guess it is an increase in prosperity. (Though there are always exceptions, of course) one of the primary indicators that I've noticed between very large families is actually not how religious the family is, but poverty.

Unless you are going to make the claim that they become less religious. (Not different in how they practice it, but how religious they are.)

On the other hand, I have a ton of non-practicing families go through the shelter with a couple of kids before they are 20, and more families of 5+ kids easily.

Seven or more isn't uncommon, and 12-13 more than a few times. And they've lived in this country all their lives, as their parents and grandparents before them.

And before this becomes a welfare rant, no, other than WIC and medical benefits, they aren't getting check increases because most of them aren't getting CHECKS. Most of them either already have or are getting jobs. (Low wage, little advancement, but still.. jobs.)

Berlinski said nobody really understands why fertility falls off a cliff when people fully embrace modernity.

Is it really all that mysterious? Modernity causes people to focus on the here and now, whereas many traditionally religious societies are more focused on the future, even if they think of that future in terms of an afterlife. And having children is the greatest act of faith in the future.

What I mean is that the focus on the past found in so many traditional societies means, ironically that they are also focused on the future. If you see yourself as being part of a chain of generations stretching into the past, you are also more likely to think of yourself as part of a chain of generations stretching into the future. But because modernity causes people to dismiss the value of the past, in exchange for a focus on the here and now, it also causes people to disregard the claims of the future, with the relentless focus on NOW, NOW, NOW.

I think Karen's point about prosperity is a good one, too. Ironically, from everything I've read it's not that people who have fewer children become more prosperous (the standard argument from the population-control people), but that people who become more prosperous have fewer children. Why? Maybe people get used to a certain level of affluence and don't want to have to share it with too many other mouths to feed. But that's just a guess.

One of the big material accomplishments of modern Western society is that we have created societies where a majority of the population is able to satisfy their material needs pretty completely, and have been able to move on to trying to satisfy their material wants. After all, most of the people in this country don't really have to worry about where their next meal is coming from -- which is probably a great departure from the condition of most people throughout human history.

But once you get used to being able to satisfy not only all your material needs but also many of your material wants as well, it presumably gets harder to think seriosly about having a couple more kids if that means you won't be able to afford the vacation home or the boat or the trips to St. Moritz you've been thinking about, or even just a second car that you don't really need.

And, as someone on another thread pointed out, the social safety nets in so many modern Western countries mean that people don't have to have kids in order to ensure that they will be taken care of in their old age. Having children was once the primary means of old-age insurance. Except of course, people forgot that they still *do* need to have kids to ensure that they will be taking care of in their old age, because you still need to have younger people working to afford to support all the older people.

Modernity also brings about equality for women. Birth rates are high in pre-modern society not because women want to have 10 pregnancies because maybe half of those babies will survive to adulthood, but because they have no choice. When your options are limited, when you are unable to control your reproductive life, when you are treated as the property of men, you are going to have a lot of children.

The better educated the women, the lower the birth rate. This isn't a coincidence. It's about the ability to make choices and not be viewed as a birthing machine for the government or your family or for your husband.

Clearly, there is a consequence to his freedom for women and we are now coping with that. But we must determine how to incentivize women to have more children--if that's really the goal--realizing religiosity appears to have little to do with birthrates when it comes to modern women. And we must do it without limiting access to contraceptives.

That's a huge, steaming pile of BS Daniel.

Everyone needs 12 kids.

No food. No oil. Black Swan.

Decisions, decisions.

Steve

"I really wish people would not equate science with atheism. Science is not metaphysical endeavor and does not search for or depend on any ultimate truths. It's basically a search for pragmatic knowledge about the natural world and that's it."

MH, I agree with you. Unfortunately, many scientists, especially those writing those books for the masses, are convinced that there is nothing but scientific materialism. They argue that there is no God, and they hang their scientific credentials all over thier pronouncments.

Max you are correct and this is sad and counter productive as well.

If Islam leads to higher fertility, why is Iran's fertility rate (from what I've heard from multiple sources) collapsing dramatically?

In any case, I'm not overly worried about this demographic trend. Either traditional societies drop their fertility rates as they become more secular and enlightened, or they starve to death because they are backwards and primitive or they get wiped out by secular and enlightened societies if they act up too much. No big deal in the long haul, either we or our Chinese friends will handle the situation if it gets overly hairy.

Also, regarding - "Berlinski said nobody really understands why fertility falls off a cliff when people fully embrace modernity. But it does, and that is going to be fatal for entire cultures. As for Europe, he said, "We are living through the endgame of a grand experiment to see if scientific materialism is a good organizing principle for society. You want the answer? Look at the birth rates. That's a definitive answer, and the answer is no.""

How is that a definitive answer of no to that question? If anything, it seems like a statement that in a scientific materialist society, the population will drop a bit from previous eras, but the remaining society will be more affluent, more respectful of the individual as an end in themselves (i.e.: people will not be just replacement stock for the prior generation, excess stock to be spent in warfare or hard labor, or merely existing for the benefit of nonexistent deities), and more able to choose from different opportunities of lifestyle. I know, all those things are anathema to religious conservatives, and you can attack them on general principle, but there's nothing in this analysis that inexorably leads to the conclusion that modernity and secular materialism (and I actually reject that phrase, as most secularists I've seen aren't particularly materialistic, particularly when compared to the Prosperity Gospel crowd) leads to the end of civilization.

I suspect that conversation would have gone differently if it had started with moderately serious questions such as "Is it possible that Europe is insustainably overpopulated, given a mean population density in the hundreds of people per square kilometer and absolute dependence on importing minerals and petroleum from Africa and Asia?" Or, "Might reducing population be perfectly rational, given there is no danger of our society shrinking below cultural ability to maintain itself in our lifetimes, given limitations on material resources, given obvious diminishing need for Agrarian and Industrial Age quantities of manual labor and soldiers, and the trend of ever smaller amounts of meaningful work and real contribution to society per individual worker?"

But that would surely have ruined the premise of Gnostic indulgences and superiority to mundane worldly realities. After all, the battle of Demiurges identified with JudeoChristianity (white) and Islam (black) for the fate of the intracranial Universe is the real truth the foolish uninitiated 'scientific materialists' refuse to see. And it will evidently (and very satisfyingly) end in their selfincured and selfinflicted annihilation.

Except that if you know the young people of 'religious' and 'scientific materialist' Europe, like my fairly enormous set of up to 10th degree relatives there and those of my childhood friends, the population shrinkage doesn't strike them as reason for alarmism and Modernity is gaining- certainly hardly losing- ground among the young. There is no future in and no way back to the Agrarian Age and Industrial Age in their eyes and the opinion of their parents. But the polemicists are obviously not so much interested in the pragmatic reality.

Oh, come to think of it- anthropology shows that women choose to have more children when...conditions are favorable, and society at large supports a larger population size. And they choose to have fewer when society at large favors a reduction in numbers. (I know, it's a shocker.) It's almost as if overall chosen fertility were linked, in the big picture, to a rational assessment of social needs and material conditions of society to a much larger degree than to highly theoretical individual considerations. Almost as if women cared that their children have prospects for good and full lives, and value society to be large enough to be caring and successful. But not so competitive that it diminishes all lives and destroys the good.

Fertility rates have declined, yes, but so has infant and juvenile mortality so there is not need for that many children in modern societies. Consider this, in 1960, in the midst of the Baby Boom, the population of the US was 150 million. It is now, after a baby bust, over 300 million. That is too many people! We are reaching a point where we cannot handle our population but notion of population decline is self-evident nonsense.

Oh, and the graph is..

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/304859/World-Population-Growth-Through-History

Quite interesting.

Its like... flat, barely raising, for thousands of years. Then we hit the industrial age and it SPIKES.

@stefanie: You arte right a bout the Y-chromosome, but mitichondrial DNA is passed on from the mother to BOTH daughters and sons. Really. Look it up. Us males wouldn't survive five minutes without mom's mito-DNA.

MC: "They may not be white. Anyone have a problem with that? Speak now, or forever hold your peace."

Not about being white, no. If my son wanted to marry a black woman, I wouldn't care less. It's Islam that worries me, not race.

Just let me tell you about a programme on British TV last year. It was about the experience of three 12-year-old immigrant children - a Zimbabwean boy, a Pakistani boy, and a Russian-Uzbek girl. What the programme studiously avoided saying was that if (a big if, admittedly) the UK is to have Third World immigrants, we should make sure they are Zimbabwean rather than Pakistani. The difference was not one of class or economics - the Pakistani boy's father was an affluent businessman, whereas the Z boy's mother was a widowed nurse, struggling to make ends meet.

The Zimbabwean boy had learned English perfectly, was doing well at school, and was popular, in the soccer-team-and-Scouts rather than the hanging-around-on-street-corners sense. He lived in a white area, and had suffered racist hassle a couple of times, but seemed able to shrug it off. It was difficult to watch the programme without lionising the family as almost ideal pillars of the community - his mother was involved with the local Cubs and Methodist Church, etc. The difficulties the boy had were precisely with the family being old-fashioned and hyper-respectable, with his mother making him wear a jacket and tie for special occasions, and embarrassing him in front of his friends by saying grace before meals.

The Pakistani boy couldn't be bothered learning English, made no effort at school, listless from dawn prayers and watching videos all night. His house was full of expensive gadgets, and his father had flashy cars, but outside was a typical Islamoscape of burned-out cars, jerry-built minarets, and heroin. He had scarcely spoken to a non-Muslim in 2 years, and rambled on about his yearning for martyrdom.

Jillian: my god! It's almost as if women were rational creatures! Oh, no, that can't be...

Maybe it's not modernity that is to blame, but rather excessive prosperity in Western nations. Put simply there are too many distractions.

As a single, 53-year old, childless women, I can say that not having children was not planned. In fact, I had a boyfriend I might have married if he hadn't died in a tragic accident at age 25.

I also spent a number of my peak childbearing years in love with an abusive SOB. I do think that the greater personal freedom that women have today is one reason why they delay marriage and have fewer children. Also, those children are less likely to die at a young age, and aren't needed to work the farm.

Just a thought - the FLDS church have many polygamous families with dozens of children, sometimes more than a hundred. But, wait - they are doing it at the taxpayer's expense. Perhaps the government should earmark some pork to pay people to have children in the same way that they pay farmers to grow corn for ethanol?

I'm rather amazed at the assumption of everyone here that we should have this many people, or more. Our society, with the introduction of medicine, allowed everyone to live long and a lot less people to die before they could reproduce. With the introduction of shipping food, we allowed much denser concentrations of people.

Which has, as was pointed out, resulted in our world-wide population sextupling in 200 years from 1 to 6 billion. Whereas it took the previous 2000 years to sextuple from ~150 million to 1 billion. And about 2300 years for the sextupling before that, and about 3500 for the one before that, although at that point we're into serious guesswork. So it was slowly speeding up, but really started flying those past 200.

So, I ask everyone: Why would slowing or reversing this growth be a bad thing? Yes, obviously, we don't want people to die, but we're talking about less people having children and those who do having less children. It's not like people who want children won't be able to have them, in fact, they're more likely to have them.

The thing I actually hear people talking about is almost sounding like we're losing some sort of contest with other civilizations. But civilizations don't work like that. Western civilization, like it or not, is winning the civilization mind game. We convert people without force, which is why all recent totalitarian society, and even some that aren't that totalitarian but wanted to block western influences, have had to totally bar contact with us. Just our TVs and movies do it.

As for parts of England and Europe supposedly 'converting' to traditional Islam (Not to be confused to Western Islam)...that sort of crap happens all the time. Uproot a large enough population, and resettle them, and it looks like their culture is making inroads. It's not, it's fighting a losing battle.

Like rombald observed but maybe didn't think about: The Pakistani kid has culturely segregated himself, probably at the encouragement of his parents. It's because if he were to spend two hours a day interacting with non-Muslim's, they'd lose him culturally.

So, Western Europe in a century or two may not look like it does today. But somebody will be living there. They may look different and talk different. In fact, let's say it out loud: They may not be white. Anyone have a problem with that? Speak now, or forever hold your peace.

Secondly, continuation of the species is no longer only about passing on one's genes, it is also about survival of the memes. OK, if you detest that term, call it ideas, theories, cultures, thoughts, all of the above. And modernity is startlingly efficient in maintaining those. Most of the plays of Sophocles and Aeschylus have been lost, but there is little chance of losing plays by Shakepeare or Shaw.

Separating these two is a very American thing to do, but nothing in world history suggests that it makes sense to do so. We are already losing Shakespeare, Shaw, Sophocles and Aeschylus because of multiculturalism in the West, in other cultures these men are often ignored. If you believe, as I do, that Western power is responsible for their spread, it's not hard to imagine that they will be forgotten.

Modernity is terrible at spreading memes, because the difference between memes and genes is not as great as many believe.

i Why would it work here?

Because it does work there for women who want to have children. And the U.S. is different from Germany and France and Sweden.

Paid sick, family and maternity leave is part of the social contract with families and women. While it may not immediately result in tons of new babies, it would clearly aid families and women. Pro-family advocates should be jumping at the chance to help families through public policy. Instead, they worry about nonsense like the marriage penalty and the estate tax, which helps only the privileged.

"Unless, again, it isn't about how much breeding, but who is doing it?"

Of course it's about who is doing it.

MI: How do East Asian societies fit into this model...they don't strike me as being particularly non-patriarchal

The Asians don't have religion, so that alone is killing them off when exposed to modernity. Gotta have both the will to breed (religion) and the most resource-efficient means to do it (patriarchy) to compete with the big boys.

I think most of the commentators here have no understanding of natural selection. Points:

1) It doesn't matter how many children you have, only what you have compared to everyone else. You either maximize ferility to the limits of your environmnent, or you get replaced by those who do.

2) There is no room for ideology in science or nature, which doesn't care what your politics are, how comfortable you wish to be, what skin color you have, if you don't like the fact that women are dependent on men to breed in quantity, or if your tribe is "more powerful" than others. The genes are selfish, and the unfit breeders are doomed. Period.

3) Modernity is brand spanking new. Everyone seems not grasp this here; the genetic traits that made Caucasians successful in the past to reach 25% of world stock (such as agressive, independent females) are now breeding liabilities, and thus Caucasians are dying out, and will be down to 7% soon enough. They will get much lower before the unfit traits of atheism/feminism fade from the gene pool.

4) Infant mortality is rarely high enough to negate the breeding advantage. It's certainly not today anywhere.

5) Who cares if we see all our youth chosing feminism? Other breeders will be happy to take their resources (seen CA lately?), and we have many cases in the world today of large breeders living nicely amongst modernity. It just takes time for Darwin to work his magic.

s not a tale our grandmothers themselves would tell.

Just curious. Did you ever ask your grandmother if she wanted to stay on the farm and have 12 kids? One of mine had 12 and the other 13. They are both dead but I never asked them. For that matter I wonder if either grandfather wanted that many kids.

Steve

Natural selection has nothing to do with breeding to the limits of your environment (though the case could be made on the LIMIT of the environment), and that whoever breeds the most wins.

Indeed, the rule seems to be that the higher up the ladder, the LESS the species breeds.

We will never outbreed the bacteria, the insects, the reptiles, or, for that matter, the prey species like most rodents.

Nor should we.

And that 'brand spanking new modernity' was what brought the population SPIKE.

Look at the chart again. Those old, traditional, patriarchal societies? They were breeding at mostly just a hair above replacement rates.

Took all their efforts to do so.

Scientific advances changed things, increased survival rates, reduced such agents of attrition as plague, famine, poor hygiene and bad diets.

Again, it was the 200 years of high population growth that is the anomaly, not the 'just above replacement rate' we're apparently approaching again.

Aww, don't you know that Taoism, Shinto, Buddhism, and such aren't 'real' religions?

Just as most people like to practice what is slightingly called "cafeteria Catholicism," in which they select the aspects of their tradition that they find agreeable and shove the rest back in the mental closet, most people seem to prefer a kind of cafeteria Darwinism. In the natural world, populations discover the "carrying capacity" of their environment by exceeding it. Then there are mass die-offs via starvation and predation. In our case the predation would be human-on-human or virus/bacteria on human, the latter facilitated by crowding, pollution, and easy spread of infection in a globalized population. We're presenting a fat target to our little unicellular brethren, whom, strangely, God seems to love just as much as he loves us, since he gives us to them for abundant food. I trust they're all singing his praises in their own way. Though if they had consciousness, I don't suppose they'd envision him as a majestic patriarch. But I digress.

Also, as Steve Gould pointed out, natural selection doesn't select what is better in any philosophical or teleological sense. It just selects what happens to have worked at that particular time. It's really very tautological. What is, is. What survives, survives. Genghis Khan's strategy appears to have worked extremely well for the genes of Genghis Khan. Is there a serious suggestion being made here that all Christians should emulate him, since otherwise they'll be at a genetic disadvantage to those who believe as he did?

"The greatest joy a man can know is to conquer his enemies and drive them before him. To ride their horses and take away their possessions. To see the faces of those who were dear to him bedewed with tears, and to clasp their wives and daughters in his arms."

Hasn't Christianity generally offered the hope that perhaps there is, after all, an alternative to the competition to be the next Genghis Khan? How can that be combined with this pseudo-Darwinian hustle for the patriarchy?

Similarly, as far as I know, secular hopes are built on the theory that humans are unique in our ability to control our own destiny rather than having nature do it for us. At least, to some extent. Unlike, say, the deer of suburban Pennsylvania, we can observe that we've eaten everything in sight and now would not be a good time for me, and my cousins, and all my neighbors, to give birth to twins. The deer multiply to fill the carrying capacity of the landscape, then starve, get sick, and jump in front of cars. Can we do better? I always thought so, but I'm beginning to wonder.

Sigaliris, that's a brilliant post. Thank you.

Oh, and no, they don't win.

Read it again. Rich people don't BREED as much. The higher levels of the food chain don't breed as much, and aren't as numerous as the lower levels.

In economic spheres poor people always outnumber rich people.

If breeding in large numbers makes you 'win', haven't seen that yet.

As long as your species survives, it wins. If it survives by NOT being incredibly numerous (such as outbreeding your food source) then that is the way to WIN.

There's more rats and roaches right now than the entire human race.

Are they 'winning'?

Karen Brown,

Every species fills their own niche to capacity, and species evolve into new species to fill each possible niche, including humans. See California for a recent example of a rich people being pushed aside.

All this is Bio 101, and well documented. Humans are not an exception, as so many on this thread foolishly believe (public school). Oh, but we want, comes the ideological cry. Sorry, tough luck. No matter how far we advance, we are still animals, and must follow the laws of being animals. We are not yet gods.

This is why a dentist can spot Plains Indians by their jagged teeth, because they had already started to evolve. Aleuts have extra bone nubs and muscle on their arms, merely from 5,000 years of kayaking. Kenyans have much larger V02 max than others due to running at high altitude for years on end. So yes, humans always evolve to maximize their production of food and number of children. We are in competition with one another.

Regarding Darwin, he did cover competition within species, and here is what he said about man: they would soon split up into distinct hordes...thus the differences between the tribes, at first slight, would gradually and inevitably be more....

Matt, I took Max's response to be about books like "The God Delusion" and "End of Faith" and not methodological naturalism of science.

MH,

I would certainly concede the books by Harris and Hitchens are pure defenses of atheism. And while Dawkins' tome also is a robust argument for atheism, unlike the other two he devotes a great deal of text explaining that it was not and is not the intention of science to disprove god, as it were. Rather, he emphasizes that no scientific explanation in ANY field finds evidence of supernatural intervention.

Science and religion just do not intersect as far as evidence is concerned. If you accept the weight of scientific evidence, then your faith will--or should--conform to this new understanding. (There is precedence for this; heliocentrism, for example.) If you reject evidence in favor of faith, that's fine too. (Though I think, in the long run, this is extremely unhealthy for any faith.) Regardless, it does not change the way the world works; only new evidence will.

He did no such thing ElizabethAnne. His materialistic nihilism is certainly deplorable to the Christian mind, but let's not libel the man.

That was me at 3:59 PM

Elizabeth Anne, since when did anyone say anything about "inferior" hoards but you? I say that hoards are, by defnintion, genetically SUPERIOR.

In reality, all your anguish over Darwinian science is just a subtle and futile attemt to tell God to take a hike. Hey, it's God's world, not mine, so don't blame me. All this modernist angst over Darwinian science is merely the conceit of a dying race.

So what is the answer? I asked. How can we turn this around? Berlinski shrugged.

Doggone, Rod, I wanted to send you a copy of The Irrational Atheist, which deals with the same topic and many of the same New Atheists. That question is addressed in TIA, and the answer is provided by Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola. "Build the Church."

If it works in Nigeria, where the population is facing a more aggressive form of Islam, it will work even better in Europe. That is what the New Atheists most fear; it is why they concentrate on fundamentalist Christianity rather than every other form of religion in the world.

Sorry about the double posting ...

Michael Clasquin: @stefanie: You arte right a bout the Y-chromosome, but mitichondrial DNA is passed on from the mother to BOTH daughters and sons. Really. Look it up. Us males wouldn't survive five minutes without mom's mito-DNA.

True - and I have looked it up. Mitochondrial DNA is passed to both sons and daughters, but mtDNA in boys is a *dead end,* since sons do not pass mtDNA onto their children (since sperm do not contain mtDNA.) In the female line, mtDNA continues on unabated. Mitochondrial DNA lines die out when women have only sons (or have only sons that reach reproductive maturity, because their daughters were killed by infanticide, neglect, etc.)

Rombald: Why on earth would a 25-year-old secretary, with money in her pocket, foreign holidays, love affairs if she wants them, want a conventional Spanish or Japanese marriage?? Northern European countries, with more female equality, tend to have slightly higher birthrates.

Excellent point. I suppose she should do it anyway, though, For the Patriarchy. ; )

Other Jim: Separating these two is a very American thing to do, but nothing in world history suggests that it makes sense to do so. We are already losing Shakespeare, Shaw, Sophocles and Aeschylus...

Seriously true. In English (and if that's chauvinistic, well, so be it - it *is* my native language) many readers cannot read *with understanding* the King James Bible, Shakespeare, and the 1559/1662 Book of Common Prayer without copious notes/explanations. Forget the Greek playwrights. The memes we're going to leave behind are cat macros.

mdavid: Asians don't have religion? Did I miss Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto? Not to mention all the Asian Muslims (Malaysia, Indonesia, etc.)?

Steve: @forestwalker: Just curious. Did you ever ask your grandmother if she wanted to stay on the farm and have 12 kids? One of mine had 12 and the other 13. They are both dead but I never asked them. For that matter I wonder if either grandfather wanted that many kids.

My husband's mother was raised on a farm. She left right after high school; moved to the big city and lived in a "women's hotel" (SRO occupancy for young ladies working as secretaries; gentlemen only in the lobby, thank you); married quite late, and had two children. She was never positive in her views on farm life throughout the Depression (even though she admitted that they were not affected by the Depression in any way), because, as she said, "It was simply too much work."

I went out for a long walk today. There’s a patch of open land near my neighborhood. It’s flood plain for a little creek that gets surprisingly big half a dozen times a year, when there’s a long downpour. Tussocky grass, weeds and brush conceal many hidden ponds, where cattails and arrowroot are unfolding green shoots. I always try to sneak along the pond’s edge and catch the frogs basking. But as softly as I try to walk, and as careful as I am to keep my shadow behind me, they always see me coming. I hear the plip-plip-PLUNK of their departure, but I don’t see them. Only the arrow-shaped wakes in the water.

I finally caught sight of a really big turtle--a silt-covered dome of carapace sinking into sodden layers of last year’s leaves. I also saw the tracks of a really big deer. And the torn feathers and bleached breastbone of a bird taken by a hawk, and a backbone with fragile ribs still attached--I couldn’t tell just what that had been. Most of the trees that some conservation agency planted last year have, once again, been killed by deer, their bark stripped and their buds nipped to the quick like fingernails.

Blackbirds sang in the reeds and geese nested among the willow stumps. Foxes, butterflies, frogs, snakes, squirrels--so much life. Should all this life be wiped out? I’m sure developers could figure out a way to put houses there on stilts if we had a few million more people in our township. Or maybe it could be turned to an artisanal rice paddy. Shoot, you could build an apartment complex in my back yard, and if this were Hong Kong, you would.

I want to live in a world where I’m part of creation, where I can observe and rejoice in its complexity, and respect what is different from me. I don’t believe all this is here to be conquered, exploited, dominated, despoiled and eradicated. Is that what we really want? Do we want to live in a world that is little more than a human factory farm? Is that what God wants? It seems strange that he would go to so much trouble to create this world if what he really intended was for us to destroy it in favor of an infinite parade of mini-mes. If you want to argue that natural selection inevitably leads to the destruction of all that is not us . . . well, then I say that this, like death, is a process I intend to resist for as long as possible.

"Is that what God wants?"

Sig, there is no God. It's an illusion that was bred into us. People with false hope have more children than people with no hope, thus, there are more people with faith. If you can't see that, then the breeding program was successful for you, heh, heh. It doesn't work if you understand what is behind it.

"It seems strange that he would go to so much trouble to create this world if what he really intended was for us to destroy it in favor of an infinite parade of mini-mes."

Spoken in the true "Voice of Choice."

Mini-mes. How scurrilous. With that view on the new born, no wonder you dismiss the unborn so easily.

"Though I'm not so sure that people who don't believe in God don't feel hope."

Sure they do. Otherwise they would have clinical depression. But they don't have the false hope that life extends beyond death.

sigaliris, humans are not bacteria so we can make choices and respect other life on this planet. So there's room for hope with or with out a philosophy that includes God.

"Just not as much hope without God. But if that's the universe we find ourselves in, so be it. It is what it is."

I don't know meh I kind of prefer a universe with non-existence versus the one with eternal damnation.

"As it happens, I'm quite fond of children and have spent literally years of my life loving and caring for them--not just my own, but other people's as well."

Lucky for them someone approved their birth.

"My reference to mini-mes did not extend to any actual children, but referred to the imaginary offspring of those who fantasize about filling the earth with their own seed."

Whatever gets you through the night.

"My but it is fun to hear that feminism is genetic. I thought it was spread by a virus, since women seem to catch it so easily when exposed to a bit of education."

No, actually it has an animal vector--cats.

Jillian, you are made of win, as they say. Rombald, you are making more and more sense.

Max, you have introduced some irrelevancies here, but since you bring it up, I think you'd be hard pressed to find where I've expressed "want[ing] to kill" anyone, either. What I want is for women to be the sole arbiters of what happens inside our own bodies, as you are for yours. With that right recognized, if every pregnant woman decided to carry her pregnancy to term, I'd be quite happy with that outcome. In fact, I'm in favor of making it easier to do so via subsidized health care and child care, and by trying to create a society where no woman is impregnated unless she's willing and able to bear a child.

When you, like the Church, exhort society to permit women to suffer and die as you find it necessary, does that mean that you "want to kill" them? If we're going to assign blame here, let's establish a consistent standard.

"Where Cat is, is Civilization."

-- Robert A. Heinlein

"Max, you have introduced some irrelevancies here, but since you bring it up, I think you'd be hard pressed to find where I've expressed "want[ing] to kill" anyone, either. What I want is for women to be the sole arbiters of what happens inside our own bodies, as you are for yours. With that right recognized, if every pregnant woman decided to carry her pregnancy to term, I'd be quite happy with that outcome."

Yeah, like I said, the birth of the pre-approved. How heartwarming.

"In fact, I'm in favor of making it easier to do so via subsidized health care and child care, and by trying to create a society where no woman is impregnated unless she's willing and able to bear a child."

Great, more socialism and government control of every aspect of our lives, complete with, not only of pre-approved births, but pre-approved pregnancies.

"When you, like the Church, exhort society to permit women to suffer and die as you find it necessary, does that mean that you "want to kill" them? If we're going to assign blame here, let's establish a consistent standard."

Neither the Church nor I have ever exhorted women to suffer and die; what a crock. Really reaching on that one Sig. We just claim that the direct and willul killing of a child (the born or unborn) is never licit.

Okay, so you don't want to kill anyone; you just argue endlessly in favor of those who do.

Again, I'm not arguing that either of the two groups you mentioned (the born and unborn) can be killed simply because someone chooses. You are. In your world, the unapproved can be killed at will.

"You're shifting my words about in a subtle but devious fashion. You may not have exhorted women to suffer and die--but you have, as I said, exhorted society to allow them to do so, rather than to spare them by letting them terminate their pregnancy. Your approval would rule over their life or death."

ROFL! Talk about calling the kettle black! The fact is that it's you, not me, that calls for killing as a personal choice. And to continue to say that I exhort anyone or anything to let women die is a lie.

Yeah, and I love the tired sexist trope that you use here that men should not even be heard on the subject because they don't get pregnant. Well Sig, count your blessings, I presume you've never had someone kill your child. Those un-approved births have fathers too you know. As an aside, I once broke off an engagement with a woman because she was a staunch "pro-choicer". A man must be nuts to marry a woman who insists she has an unfettered right to kill his children.

Oh, and I loved you remark on the other thread that my natural argments are crap, and you know because your brother is a philosopher! Lord help us if you ever stay at a Holiday Inn Express!

btw, should you happen to rush to the keyboard, sure that you've come up with a really stunning rejoinder, I wouldn't want want you to wait in eager anticipation of my abject capitulation . . . and wait . . . and wait . . . . I'm away from my normal haunts today and will be otherwise occupied.

I leave you with this thought: there's one simple thing men could do to end abortion. We don't get ourselves pregnant, you know. So just don't ever have sex with women unless you are using a latex condom, or have had a vasectomy. Don't pressure women for sex, don't con them into it, sweet-talk them into it, bully them into it, or force them into it. Just keep your pants on. And talk all your friends into doing the same. Make it the same kind of issue and use the same kind of fervor and heated language you've used here, but talk to men instead of women. Work on that. Abortions would plummet. All you have to do is stop having sex, and you can stop abortion.

"What I AM saying, perhaps too subtly for you to grasp, is that if one spends any time talking about ideas like personhood, identity, humanity, etc. with people who are scholars in that area, one recognizes how complex this field of discussion is, and one can distinguish an argument grounded in a well-thought-out worldview from one that is, as I put it, "crap.""

Ah yes, the argument from authority. Reminds me of the quip attributed to Aquinas: "The proof from authority is the weakest form of proof...according to Boethius." (That's irony btw.)

Sig, run this by the philospher patriarch of your family, whoever he is, and see what he thinks.

Contrarty to what you seem to believe, not all knowledge comes from the syllogism. Indeed, the syllogism depends upon pre-existing knowledge. Since you obviously DIDN'T stay at Holiday Inn Express last night, I'll explain.

Logical knowledge is a process, a movement from A to B, from the more known to the less known.

But knowledge is prior to this. There is no logical argument that Granny Apples are green. There is no logical argument that the "whole" is greater than one of its "parts". These things are known, apprehended so to speak, from observation and definition.

What I put forth regarding the nature of the embryo is a claim from observation and definition. You can reject that claim, but only from ignorance or an act of the will. But the claim is not crap. But it is a fact that people like you must NOT accept, or the whole of the "pro-choice" position is revealed for the willful and unfettered killing that it is. So your claims of "crap" are a badge of honor for me. I know I'm over the target because I'm taking so much flak from Sig, the Queen of Nice. I thank you for that.

Regarding my "world view" I've spent four years in an very in depth study of the original texts of such men as the Pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, Galen, Lucretius, Linnaeus, Pascal, Harvey, Fabre, Mendel, Lavoisier, Pascal, Descarte, Rousseau, Kant, Galileo, Newton, Einstien, Maxwell, and many others. Additionally, I've read the "contemporaries": Gould, Singer, etc., as well as following what passes for bio-ethics. Gee, ain't our patriarchal legacy great!

It was nice of you to come back with additional information, Max, and I regret that I've been away and unable to respond. Considering that, in the last few pages here, you've suggested that I'm scurrilous, a liar, not very nice, and a would-be killer, I think it shows some magnanimity on your part to say that you think you and I are "so similar!"

By no means do I think that "all knowledge comes from the syllogism." So I'm willing to consider your claim that "What I put forth regarding the nature of the embryo is a claim from observation and definition." That, in itself, opens up a whole can of juicy worms. Whose observation and definition are we talking about here? Is it yours personally? I doubt that, since I'm pretty sure you are not a doctor or a scientist, and it seems safe to assume you aren't a woman.

You've mentioned a laundry list of great minds as your background, so I'm sure you must be aware that many of these people did not agree with each other about some essentials of their thought. Aristotle, for instance, based on his observation and definition of human gestation, did not view the embryo as a full human. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. There are many different observations and definitions of the world. Some conflict. On what basis do you choose to believe one over another? By what standard do you assert that your chosen view is more valid than all others?

I may be wrong about this, not being a professional philosopher, but it seems to me that you may be mixing up the categories of a priori and a posterior knowledge. In my admittedly limited understanding, a priori knowledge is that which DOES come by way of reasoning, knowledge that is inherent in the structure of the mind, as it were. A posteriori knowledge is that which comes from experience. So I think your knowledge by way of observation would be a posteriori knowledge, rather than "that which is prior." Perhaps the confusion is just in your way of expressing it.

I am not at all sarcastic in my suggestion about how to stop abortion. I agree with your earlier statement that you'd have to be crazy to have unprotected sex with a woman who was not committed to bearing your child. Feeling as you do, you should certainly never do such a thing, and I don't know why you would want any other man to do it, either. I'm constantly amazed by how hard men try to control women, when they could solve the problem by controlling themselves. I don't see why this is an unreasonable suggestion.

Any culture that oppresses any of its members to assure the birth of the next generation does not deserve to HAVE a next generation.

That's outstanding, Marian. You win this thread, as far as I'm concerned. ; )

"Any culture that oppresses any of its members to assure the birth of the next generation does not deserve to HAVE a next generation."

You know I wouldn't have any problem with that sentence except that I strongly suspect that by "oppresses...members to assure...ect." refers to pro-life activists. In that case it becomes little more than culturally genocidal agitprop.

Sig, sorry I've been away here. I must, and will, reply to your last post to me as time allows. Rest assured I want to give your comments full consideration.

"Okay, I'll be back for more. Real life intervenes at times. ; )"

Haha! [actually laughing] That's a good one Sig.

I'll post later tonight. You've forced me to dust off some texts for review.

David Berlinski writes about "The Scientific Embrace of Atheism"
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-scientific-embrace-of-atheism/

John Derbyshire responds with "Getting It Wrong about Atheism and Science".
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/getting-it-wrong-about-atheism-and-science/