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

*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.*

This is overstated. The science-skeptical Christians who oppose global
warming initiatives tend to be science-skeptical in a particular way. That
is, many of them would approve of "Baconian" science done by observation
and induction, which would include practical engineering, but would exclude,
in their opinion, most origins science and other historical or "speculative"
science such as climate modeling. You might not agree with how they
demarcate "science" or even of how they read Bacon (I don't), but it just
isn't so simple as saying "they're greedy and we're living examples of the
Sermon on the Mount."

Ted's concern is right -- different people can mean different things by
"population control." I would turn this around, though, and suggest that
evangelical environmentalists are most in danger of mixing up meanings
here. We need to be clear that environmentalism has historically been tied
to government sponsored population reduction programs that are inimical to
any sort of Christian anthropology or Christian politics (IMHO). We
shouldn't speak of "population" at all, and should rather speak of
increasing the opportunities of families and women around the world to rear
and raise their children in a context of political, economic and religious
freedom.

On 3/6/07, Rich Blinne <rich.blinne@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> 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 12:13:18 2007