Is Procreation a Moral Imperative?

[columbus]

True, but people have such a strong desire for children. Some people get depressed if they don't. What can be done about it?

I can totally answer that one.

My life started when a couple of ignorant college students had sex. Bio-mom thought that they were engaged to be married. Sperm-donor was engaged, but not to bio-mom. He was married to someone else before I was born.

Apparently, he wanted to marry a virgin. But he didn't want to be a virgin when he got married.

Luckily for me, this happened in 1958. If it had happened in 1978, I'd have probably wound up in a dumpster behind a Detroit hospital. The RCC rescued both bio-mom and me with their adoption agency. Bio-mom was taken care of until she gave birth and I was taken care of afterwards by a wonderful couple who wanted to parent, but had serious fertility issues.

That's what can be done. Generically known as adoption.
Tom

 

[PearlSeeker]

Sorry Jesus. Your supporters make you look like a huge fraud and poser. If you're really God, or "a person of God"(whatever that means), send a clear Message to the people who pray to you for guidance every day. Tell them something important.
Something more important than which Republican presidential candidate to vote for.
Tom

These "supporters" are nothing but a caricature trump-eted by the media.

 

[columbus]

These "supporters" are nothing but a caricature trump-eted by the media.

I've got decades worth of experience with Abrahamic religionists in general and Christianity in particular.
I know a lot about EuroChristian history.

I know better than to believe what you're claiming.
Tom

 

[Brickjectivity]

I think we already have.
Like the invasion of Iraq. Pretending that military operation was about US security or liberating Iraqis is ridiculous. It was about control of the strategic oil reserves in the Gulf region.


I think we would go to war for less. Or, at least, more abstract things. Global hegemony, mainly.
And by "we", I'm not talking about most people. I'm talking about the elite, who's kids don't go off to war and who don't pay the taxes that fund the war. They just reap the benefits of the little people doing so.
So they lie and buy media to get the less connected and informed to support the wars they want.

Rather like Trump, Bush's main supporters were evangelical Christians. They were all about war, raining down destruction on those diaperheads. Then they have the gall to refer to themselves as "Pro-life".

Sorry Jesus. Your supporters make you look like a huge fraud and poser. If you're really God, or "a person of God"(whatever that means), send a clear Message to the people who pray to you for guidance every day. Tell them something important.
Something more important than which Republican presidential candidate to vote for.
Tom

I think 'The stupidly-rich' is a better phrase than 'The elites'.

 

[PearlSeeker]

I've got decades worth of experience with Abrahamic religionists in general and Christianity in particular.
I know a lot about EuroChristian history.

I know better than to believe what you're claiming.
Tom

I don't understand. You've just shared your story that demonstrates how charitable are institutions and people that really follow Jesus.

 

[columbus]

I think 'The stupidly-rich' is a better phrase than 'The elites'.

I don't.
There are rich and stupid people, for sure.
The ones I'm talking about are very rich and very smart and very self centered.

That's the elite. The people who can buy US senators and presidents and global media outlets, and know how to use them to further their own interests regardless of what happens to the rest of us.
Tom

 

[Quintessence]

True, but people have such a strong desire for children. Some people get depressed if they don't. What can be done about it?

We could stop telling stories that enshrine childbearing, for one.

Storytelling is a powerful tool that shapes us throughout the course of our lives. Many of these narratives are not ones we created, but were handed down to us by surrounding culture. These stories convey a culture's values and expectations or norms. Going against these cultural norms carries with it various risks, some of which can be very severe depending on the culture. At a minimum, you get told there is something wrong with you by mainstream culture. Depending on how you internalize that, you may be unable to define your self-worth in other, healthier ways. Depression results. Such is the risk of going against any cultural norm, whether it is this or something else.

When it comes to the narrative that enshrines being a breeder, it is no wonder that women in particular might get depressed they can't have children when so often cultures tell the story that their only value to the world is as breeders. Those are the kinds of narratives that need to go away and be replaced. Feminism has been a wonderful thing in breaking these sorts of unhealthy narratives, but women are still told that they are "supposed to" want and/or bear children. They are still told there is something "wrong" with them for not wanting this, or that their lives will be "missing" something.

Stories are powerful and enduring. Changing prevailing cultural narratives typically takes a generation, at minimum, and usually more than that if it is something so entrenched that it is rarely questioned.

 

[columbus]

I don't understand. You've just shared your story that demonstrates how charitable are institutions and people that really follow Jesus.

That is one tiny story.
And frankly, my real parents had some serious pull with Catholic adoption agencies due to my dad's brothers. Bio-mom and sperm donor were also Catholics, and victims of Catholic teachings.

But what I was referring to is the centuries of Christian history. From the crusades to the conquistadors, from the 100 years war to USA slavers, from the Holocaust to the Reagan/Bush war on Iran to Pence's efforts to enforce Christian marriage standards on everyone in our state. Christianity is not a moral ideology.

Some Christians have adopted secular ethics and are moral people. Christianity as a whole, a huge and ancient ideology, is profoundly immoral. The teachings of the Bible make it too easy to justify immoral behavior by selecting verses that support whatever primitive morals anybody wants to have Faith in. The historical results are clear.
Tom

 

[Muffled]

The first thing God commands his newly created humans in the Torah is, "Be fruitful and multiply."

Do you believe procreation is a moral imperative for us as human beings? Is it an imperative for each of us as individuals, or just broadly as a species? If it's a moral imperative for our species, at what point does that responsibility become individual? If a person chooses never to procreate, have they sinned? If a society does not procreate enough to replace themselves (as we see with a number of Western countries), are they morally failing as a group?

I believe it was an imperative to "replenish" the earth. Perhaps it could be considered a moral action to love ones neighbors enough to bring them into life.

I believe it was a general imperative for when the earth was empty of people.

I believe individuals have family members who have passed on who would love to become members of the family again. It seems like a loving act to me to allow them to return.

I believe that depends on whether God has planned for them to have children or not.

I believe it could be viewed as a failure to keep the group from going extinct but I am not sure that God cares about that so much.

 

[Muffled]

In my system of beliefs, it is certainly NOT a moral imperative. If anything, I see it as slightly selfish and discouraged.

We have enough people. Time to slow down the population growth.

I believe the way God works that is to kill off a bunch of people as is the case with Covid-19. Then we are likely to not grow as fast. Of course the final act is to give everyone eternal life and end childbirth altogether.

 

[Muffled]

Fascinating. But it takes two to tango, does it not? Odd that a command that requires two sexes would only apply to one.



In Judaism, if God commands you to do something, and you disobey, have you not morally failed?

I believe wives were required to obey their husbands.

 

[Left Coast]

I believe individuals have family members who have passed on who would love to become members of the family again. It seems like a loving act to me to allow them to return.

This makes it sound as though you believe when people procreate, they are reincarnating their ancestors. Am I understanding you correctly?

 

[columbus]

I believe the way God works that is to kill off a bunch of people as is the case with Covid-19. Then we are likely to not grow as fast.

What an ugly God image.
Random smiting to keep the population down?

This implies that those of us working against C19, whether indirectly like masks or directly in hospitals and labs, are working against God and His Eternal Plan. Isn't that quite a major sin?
Tom

 

[Polymath257]

I believe wives were required to obey their husbands.

And I believe that husbands and wives should take each other's concerns into account. Neither should 'obey' the other without qualification. That just leads to an abusive relationship.

 

[Muffled]

This makes it sound as though you believe when people procreate, they are reincarnating their ancestors. Am I understanding you correctly?

I believe that happens often. I am different. I don't adhere to a family but like to sample new people and places and have incarnated on other worlds.

 

[Muffled]

And I believe that husbands and wives should take each other's concerns into account. Neither should 'obey' the other without qualification. That just leads to an abusive relationship.

If a marriage has two heads it goes nowhere and does nothing. As Jesus says a man can't serve two masters.

 

[columbus]

I believe that happens often. I am different. I don't adhere to a family but like to sample new people and places and have incarnated on other worlds.

Why do you believe this?
Tom

 

[Polymath257]

If a marriage has two heads it goes nowhere and does nothing. As Jesus says a man can't serve two masters.

if you think it is a master/slave relationship, then you don't have what I would call a real marriage.

A marriage should NOT have a 'master', but rather have *partners*.

 

[Muffled]

What an ugly God image.
Random smiting to keep the population down?

This implies that those of us working against C19, whether indirectly like masks or directly in hospitals and labs, are working against God and His Eternal Plan. Isn't that quite a major sin?
Tom

Are you saying you like the ugly results of overpopulation better. I believe God does what is best for all concerned.

I believe at least in some cases there is also judgment involved. So there are disasters in New Orleans and Haiti where voodoo was practiced. God tends to kill off the very wicked and take home early the very good.

I believe working to save people lives is God's plan. The fact that many more have survived than died implies that.

I believe it is no sin to try to save lives. I had Covid-19 and firmly believe that prayer saved my life.

 

[Muffled]

Why do you believe this?
Tom

I believe I see it in my family.