Religion is causing our planet to be over-populated.?

Question

People blissfully multiply due to the comfort and reassurance provided by a belief in God. Because of over poplutaion we will reach a point where the planet cannot sustain itself and various parts of the plantary life cycle will break down causing untold suffering and death. Which, in turn could cause the demise of religion or a return to dark ages.
Is this a viable glimpse of the future?

To all who feel this is ridiculous: Most people I know who would curl up and die if there were no God to help them through their lives. Whether you want to beleive it or not, belief in God provides the comfort necessary for people to live lives that they can handle and thus pass on their beliefs. Why else have religion?

And I see many of you miss the point that religion is very sucessful. It has many good attributes that allow us to survive.

If we fail to look to the future, we will fall victim to it.

Beatrice C. I'm happily married and the father of 2 children. Explain to me why our popualtion is 6 billion and growing and will be 50 billion within you're life time?

Please note this has nothing to do with religion and birth control. This has to do with belief in God allowing people to not go over the edge. God provides stability in peoples lives. Because of this they are comfortable enough create and nurture a society that easily allows them to reproduce.

Daize Girl -
To the last responder; This is not a black and white situation, everyone is different and certainly some of us function quite well without needing God to survive. Also, in the animal kingdom, they do strike a balance and when that balance is upset they do have mass die-offs.

Answer 1

OK David z what every your name is .. i think you need a girl friend .. cause .. your losing it ..
in France the gov is paying people to have children ... it is only in china that people are living on top of people and that gov has solve the problem .. they only let people have one child after the first one they tie the tubes ... so please don't tell me that cause of religion we are over populated ... cause people will always have sex and will aways have babies .. am pretty sure your just jealous .. cause ur singal and 30 and dont have kids .... get over it .. please


pce

Answer 2

The only religion I know of that was deadly set against birthcontrol was catholics. I would say poverty and lack of birthcontrol methods are other key players in this, Not just religions. Overpopulation and unsustainablilty can cause what you suggest for the future but if you read revelations in the christian bible, There is a different future and not a good one. The governments today are playing a big part in making it all come true. Our Native prophecies say much the same thing and they are older than the bible. Many factors could send us back to the dark ages as the earth is even now rebelling against all that has been taken from her, in minerals, plant life and animal life all destroyed for greed. Then there is the threat of more nuclear wars, global warming causing catastrophic weather paterns and earthquakes and volcanoes reawakening from thousands of years of sleep. It is close to earth's purging time as we have been shown through science, happens every few million years. How do you think the dinosaurs disappeared so suddenly? There is a huge crater in or just off the coast of mexico from a metoer hit. That alone could have caused an earth purge and there are more of them headed towards this planet now. The mayan calendar ends in 2012 and that is an acient civilization very advanced that created that calendar.

Answer 3

This is actually pretty accurate. I read an article recently about Christian Reconstructionism - basically, one of their beliefs now is to use up all of the Earth's resources without concern - because when they are all used up and the people have nothing to use to live, this is when Jesus will come back down to Earth and bring everyone up to heaven - the Rapture.

I am not making this up, I can scan and paste the article (from World Watch, I believe) online if you want. People in America actually believe this. Some are even using up resources as much as they can to do their part in hastening the second coming of Jesus...

Just when you think there is hope for humanity...

---
I do agree that it is more the people, and not the religion, that are the problem with overpopulation. But there is one thing to consider, and that is the motive of the writings in the holy books. At the times, the religions were more premature, still developing and growing, in competition with many other religions. The writers would encourage their followers to multiply after times of war, to increase the population and power of that religion.

Now a days, this is hardly practical, especially for Christianity...the world DOES have a finite carrying capacity for humans, especially with the standards of living we've set forth today. For people to just ignore this, is pure ignorance and/or denial.

Answer 4

There's the old Unix joke where you have the computer print out "/Earth is 98% full - delete someone". The solution to overpopulation is the same for humans as it is for any other species, population reduction from resource depletion, famine. As to seeking new resources. Nature is full of that too, such as locusts flying from field to field. However, colonizing Mars is merely a lack of imagination. It would be better to colonize space in O'Neill cylinders, Bernal Sphere's, Stanford Torus's and Hollowed Asteroids. You would have to build enclosed biospheres on Mars to survive anyway, so why not build them in space where large structures are easier to build, transportation does not have the planetary gravitational well or atmospheric re-entry to worry about, solar energy is constant and uninterrupted, and the structure could be spun to give 1 g of gravity. As to whether or not our world would no longer be over populated. What happened to the population of Europe when America was colonized? The Earth would still be overpopulated, it's just that humanity would have expanded beyond the confines of the Earth.

Answer 5

Honestly, we don't know what the future holds, however I don't think that it is viable to blame religion for the earths flaws. Believe it or not, our government tries to brain-wash it's people. The media tries to scare us into submission. Do you realize that over 72 million people are missing since the 1960's because of abortion? When you don't have young workers to replace the older ones you have to import them. Population isn't a big deal in comparison.

Answer 6

In the better devolved countries children are oven not more than two, for the cost of living and time moms are at home now. The counties increase because more people are moving into them. In places where there are a lot more children it is more likely "love" that is doing the increase.

Answer 7

You are right, religion is the number one reason for overpopulation, if you are Catholic, and you have ten kids that is ten more Catholics, for the church, or Muslim, etc,
The biggest enemy for any sect is education,, educated people don't care to live a life of being down trodden and servitude. So they chose to have smaller families. In reference to governments wanting more people, that is because we now live in societies, that need more people to pay taxes to support an aging population, but obviously this growth of population whether from having kids or migration will fall in on itself, and the world will be in one big human mess.

Answer 8

I am not religious and I had a kid. I do not feel discomfort in knowing there is not a god, and i also would not have another kid because of the way things are going now. there probably will not be enough land for our kid's kids to play on in 2050 (if you can even go outside from the blistering cancer causing sun rays) besides animals procreate and they do not know god all they know is eat poop play.

Answer 9

Of course! Be fruitful and multiply was what was used to make more people to be members of a given religion. Let us hope that our scientists find another place for our overflow to go before utter destruction takes place.

Answer 10

i SORT of agree. it's kind of wrong, i think, beause people give us all that crap about: "oh, GOD meant it to be this way" but that's their response to EVERYTHING, so oh well. i do think we're having huge population issues, and part of it is that, maybe, but a LOT is just poor conditions in places like Africa where women are forced to sell their bodies, cannot afford birth control, (sometimes are paid more if they DON'T use it), are not allowed to have abortions (can't afford them anyway), and so have to have children, many of whom will either die or go to orphanages.