The Catholic Agenda revealed

[Yahzi]

While trying to find some documentation to refute Muscleman's contention that the Catholic church teaches that rocks have souls (don't ask!), I stumbled across this little horror.

It's from Faith Facts, which you have to register to access, although you could just use my username and password: spirit and council.

Reading the Debunking the Overpopulation Myth, I found this gem:

Quote:

However, industrialization itself, and not the number of people per se, is responsible for environmental degradation.

So.. the problem isn't that there are too many people... the problem is that they are too rich.



They make a little joke about how if we antinatalists (thats what they call people that are for birth control) think the world is too crowded, why don't we volunteer to leave first? Which of course leads us immediately to the joke, if they think people are too rich, why don't they surrender their wealth first?


Doh.. a link would be nice, Yahzi.

http://cuf.org/facts.asp

[Gregor]

While I think birth control is a fine thing, the overpopulation is not damaging the environment as many argue.

[borrowing heavily from P.J. O'Rourke's book All The Troubles Of The World] - the argument that overpopulation is cauing world-wide calamity is a myth.

Bangladesh - poor, over-crowded Bangladesh. It's population density is the same as Freemont Calif. No one is walking around Freemont telling people to stop having babies. Singapore has a population density ten times that of Bangladesh. But the standard of living in Singapore is much better.

Those woo-woo doomsayers (see e.g. the Population Bomb) said the world could not survive with 5 billion people. We now have 6 billion.

Again, I'm the last to support Catholic dogma, and I'm for encouraging family planning - but it's not the cause of environmental destruction.

[Peskanov]

---
quote:

[borrowing heavily from P.J. O'Rourke's book All The Troubles Of The World] - the argument that overpopulation is cauing world-wide calamity is a myth.

Bangladesh - poor, over-crowded Bangladesh. It's population density is the same as Freemont Calif. No one is walking around Freemont telling people to stop having babies. Singapore has a population density ten times that of Bangladesh. But the standard of living in Singapore is much better.

---


And what do you make of deforesting? Don't you know the amazonic woods are called "the lungs of the earth"?
And the decrease of fishing? The seas are being exhausted.
Imagine all mankind using wood fire; now, technology allow us to economize our resources (with electricity distribution). But technology could not save us from fosil fuel caresty in a few hundred years.

I think you are too optimistic...

Quote:

Originally posted by Yahzi
While trying to find some documentation to refute Muscleman's contention that the Catholic church teaches that rocks have souls (don't ask!), I stumbled across this little horror.

Whats the matter little one? Cant find any to refute me? LOL, face it, you losed the argument, now go back to the corner and murmur to yourself....

Then ask yourself "Why should we include rocks as part of order? And muscleman saying that rocks does have a form of life that expires in due time in which turns into dust, but Im a moron and I CANNOT understand that, because when I think of the word "soul", i think of "ghosts" trapped in a rock, because Im a complete Moron, my name is Yahzi..."

[Akots]

Quote:

Originally posted by Peskanov
And what do you make of deforesting? Don't you know the amazonic woods are called "the lungs of the earth"?

Amazing, biological wonderland of teh world, perhaps. But i thought the ocean provided much of the atmosphere's breathable, "human exploitable" air.

[Yahzi]

Gregor

Quote:

Singapore has a population density ten times that of Bangladesh

Ya, my dad brought up Singapore, too. He knows because he's been there.

But later, he told me how some friends of his were building a retirement home next to a lake in Arkansas. Nice!

Except... nobody in Singapore is building a retirement home next to a lake.

The world is only underpopulated if you assume that other people can accept a lifestyle you would not. While Singapore is a very nice place, the people living there simply do not have the quality of life we have in the US. Open space is part of quality of life too, you know. Unless you never go camping, and think that other people should never go camping.

There is a word for this argument that other people should be poor so we can be rich: it's called hypocrisy.

If the world cannot support every single person on it with your lifestyle, then - from your point of view - the world is overpopulated. If it cannot support people in the lifestyle to which you would like to become accustomed to, then it is overpopulated. Any other position is hypocrisy.

You know, like the Catholic church's hypocritical position on how being wealthy is the problem, as long as it's your wealth.

Muscleman

Quote:

Cant find any to refute me? LOL, face it, you losed the argument

It is considered rude to hijack other threads. This thread is not about your idiotic theories, it is about the Faith Facts quote I posted. I realize you are too stupid to understand logic, but you can at least understand civilized behaviour, yes? Go post on your thread: I will answer you there.

[Michael Redman]

The Church is right: It's not the population that causes problems, it's the fact that all those people want to eat!

[fishbob]

From Gregor:

Quote:

the argument that overpopulation is cauing world-wide calamity is a myth.

Bangladesh - poor, over-crowded Bangladesh. It's population density is the same as Freemont Calif. No one is walking around Freemont telling people to stop having babies. Singapore has a population density ten times that of Bangladesh. But the standard of living in Singapore is much better.

-------------------------------------------
I have to disagree.

Fremont and Singapore do not produce enough food, within their boundaries, to support their populations. They purchase food from the world markets. Forests are cleared for farming in one country, runoff affects fisheries in another. There is a net world loss of habitat.

Fremont and Singapore are wealthy enough to purchase the resources they need. Bangladesh has little wealth and few resources. Fremont and Singapore are outbidding Bangladesh in the world markets.

The wealthier parts of the world will survive nicely thank you, while the poverty stricken parts of the world will continue to deal with periodic bouts of famine. The world population will eventually stabilize at some balance with the environment.

People can survive and reproduce on much less than we in the wealthier nations are used to. Therefore the level of misery in the world will likely continue to increase at a greater rate than the number of people.

[Number Six]

The Catholic Church doesn't teach that rocks have souls. I wouldn't think you'd have to refute that but rather would have to make him prove it.

[Yahzi]

NumberSix
In the Muscleman world, the burden of proof falls on the person doubting the claim.

But since I've found some free spots on my ignore list, I am no longer exposed to the Muscleman world.

[Gregor]

I don't mean to imply that I:

1. support any Catholic church program.
2. think unlimited population growth is a good idea
3. think that family planning should not be encouraged

I think everyone would agree - limited natural resources + fewer people to use them, may equal greater potential 'wealth' for the fewer people.

However, the doom-sayers about population are wrong.

Bangladesh struggles because the politico-economic system wastes money and natural resources. For examply, they burn millions of dollars producing a plant (I've forgotten the name, but it's like hemp) that no one will buy. The government has a cabinet-level department to grow, market, and sell this crap.

The point of O'Rourke's book and my posting (which I apologize for getting the thread off track) is that population 'control' is a fine thing. However, let's improve economic systems and people will live better and the environment will be spared. People don't live in the rain forest and cut down trees to graze cattle because they like the rain forest. It stinks. They'd rather have a job and a small house in a town. They hack down the rain forest because they cannot get the job and house.

I don't think the problem is either population or industrialisation, although both of these contribute.

The real problem is the failure to include environmental costs in the industrial balance sheet. When we calculate whether a certain activity can make a profit, we tend do so without including the overall loss the environment by the depletion of natural resources or the ultimate costs of polluting the environment with our waste products. If these costs were included then many activities currently seen as profitable would be recognised as non-profitable if the environment is taken into account, as it must be, because all those accumulated 'ignored' costs are mounting up and eventually make themselves felt. Basically we are stealing from our own descendents, for it is they who will eventually have to pay the environmental bills we are running up for them.

Humanity does not learn. The current state of cod stocks in the North Sea is typical. For centuries the biggest cod fishery in the world was off the Atantic coast of Canada - myth had it that all one had to do was lower a basket into the sea and it would come up filled with cod. Human beings harvested these fish year after year after year, but by the 80s factory fishing from fleets from all over the world were finally taking their toll on the cod stocks. Eventually, the Canadians closed their fishery to foreign fleets and just took the cod themselves. In the last year that Cod still existed of the Canadian coast some boats still pulled in reasonable size catches - this is because even the last few fish still collect together in shoals. But one day a trawler went out and took the last shoal of cod from Canadas fishery. Now there aren't any cod off the atlantic coast of Canada. There are shrimps instead, but no cod. The cod stocks have not and will not recover. Which brings me back to the North Sea. For the past 10 years scientists have been saying that cod stocks were critically endangered in the North Sea and recomended drastic cuts to allow them to recover. Each time the F*****G fishing industry whined that it would 'cost far too many jobs', and ended up taking 3 or 4 times the number of cod that the scientists said could be taken. Each subsequent year there were less cod, and the quota were reduced. This process continues, except now the scientists have said that NO COD can be taken from the North Sea or our fishery will be destroyed. What does the F******G fishing industry say? You guessed it - "It will cost too many jobs". STUPID A*****LES. We even have Canadian fisherman over here telling the STUPID A*****LES what happened in Canada. Will they listen to the fishermen? No. Because they are STUPID A******LES. Soon, there will be no cod in the North Sea and the stupid fishing industry can spend the next 30 years living on state benefits. The stupidity of human beings knows no boundaries.

[Q-Source]

Quote:

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
I don't think the problem is either population or industrialisation, although both of these contribute.

Once again, I agree with you (twice in the same day )

Quote:

The real problem is the failure to include environmental costs in the industrial balance sheet. When we calculate whether a certain activity can make a profit, we tend do so without including the overall loss the environment by the depletion of natural resources or the ultimate costs of polluting the environment with our waste products.

You won't believe this, but most of the clean industries are those who include environmental costs in their total costs.

But the real problem is the failure of the government to legislate pollution and supervise its regulation.

Quote:

If these costs were included then many activities currently seen as profitable would be recognised as non-profitable if the environment is taken into account

Not exactly. You can maximise profits with green costs included. In fact, those sectors that have a strong regulation consider environment standards as another element to reach efficiency and international prestige.

Anyway, your point is correct.

Q

[Yahzi]

Quote:

The stupidity of human beings knows no boundaries.

When the man is right, the man is right.

I agree that all of our problems could be solved by political and technological creativity. However, I maintain that we wouldn't have most of these problems in the first place if we didn't have so many people.

If the world population were only 100 million, you wouldn't ahve to regulate the cod fishing industry, because we couldn't eat them as fast as they grow.

Given how much difficulty we are having in implementing solutions, maybe we should concentrate on just making the whole problem go away instead.

Of course, we still have to implement those solutions just to get through the next 100 years anyway.

[c4ts]

I thought the Catholic agenda was twofold. The people are too rich and there are too many poor people, so the solution is take away all their money and then kill all the poor people.