[asa] Re: caution urged on "population control"

On 3/6/07, Ted Davis <TDavis@messiah.edu> wrote:
>
> It is not IMO inappropriate to point this out, and to
> suggest that Christians ought to be concerned about the sheer number of
> people chasing scarce resources--including living space, which does in
> fact
> mean that there is less of it for other creatures that God has also
> created
> and that God also values highly (if not as highly as God values us).

A position that trying to keep the number of people down regardless of how
is inherently wrong is a position that is defensible and I can respect. What
I do not respect is then not following through and paying the cost of our
convictions. The cost here is for us not to hog the limited resources which
are now more limited due to greater population. Taking so-called population
control off the table just makes the rest of the methods to tackle the
problem that much more difficult.

Adam Smith, Malthus, and Darwin are all cut from the same cloth. They all
took the concept of competition to its reductio ad absurdam. Scripture on
the other hand, stresses cooperation and charity. It's the widow and the
orphan and not the ubermensch (I know I skipped to Nietzche but I couldn't
resist ;-)) that has value in God's eyes. Dobson et al want Smith without
Malthus and Darwin. They also want technology without science. Those of us
who are technologists know both the limitations of our craft and the debt we
owe to science. When one side of this debate reminds the other of the
dangers of population control they don't realize to be true to their
convictions they need to switch sides. The fact that they don't shows their
greater concern is holding on to material possessions rather than being
consistently pro-life.

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Received on Tue Mar 6 11:59:19 2007