Thursday, September 8, 2011

Perhaps the worst news article I have read. Ever.

This is not a parody. From the Associated Press:


One-child policy a surprising boon for China girls

By ALEXA OLESEN - Associated Press | AP – Wed, Aug 31, 2011BEIJING (AP) — Tsinghua University freshman Mia Wang has confidence to spare.

Asked what her home city of Benxi in China's far northeastern tip is famous for, she flashes a cool smile and says: "Producing excellence. Like me."

A Communist Youth League member at one of China's top science universities, she boasts enviable skills in calligraphy, piano, flute and ping pong.

Such gifted young women are increasingly common in China's cities and make up the most educated generation of women in Chinese history. Never have so many been in college or graduate school, and never has their ratio to male students been more balanced.

To thank for this, experts say, is three decades of steady Chinese economic growth, heavy government spending on education and a third, surprising, factor: the one-child policy...

So killing tens of millions of baby girls has improved the lives of the girls they didn't kill. It's kind of like if a serial killer kills a bunch of kids in your dorm, you get a better choice of rooms! There's a bright side to everything!

In 1978, women made up only 24.2 percent of the student population at Chinese colleges and universities. By 2009, nearly half of China's full-time undergraduates were women and 47 percent of graduate students were female, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

In India, by comparison, women make up 37.6 percent of those enrolled at institutes of higher education, according to government statistics.
If population control officials kill tens of millions of Indian women, the survivors beneficiaries will get better slots in elite colleges. Population control agencies had better get on this quick...
Since 1979, China's family planning rules have barred nearly all urban families from having a second child in a bid to stem population growth. With no male heir competing for resources, parents have spent more on their daughters' education and well-being, a groundbreaking shift after centuries of discrimination.

"They've basically gotten everything that used to only go to the boys," said Vanessa Fong, a Harvard University professor and expert on China's family planning policy.
Supply and demand. Reduce the supply of girls, they can demand more. For example: better seats in college classes, better violin lessons, better dance classes, better jobs in alphabet-soup agencies...

Also, the opportunity to be raped is substantially improved if women travel to heavily men-only areas, if the ladies are into that...
Wang and many of her female classmates grew up with tutors and allowances, after-school classes and laptop computers. Though she is just one generation off the farm, she carries an iPad and a debit card, and shops for the latest fashions online.

Her purchases arrive at Tsinghua, where Wang's all-girls dorm used to be jokingly called a "Panda House," because women were so rarely seen on campus. They now make up a third of the student body, up from one-fifth a decade ago.
'Tens of millions of my sisters were exterminated, and.. I got into college and got an iPad!'
"In the past, girls were raised to be good wives and mothers," Fong said. "They were going to marry out anyway, so it wasn't a big deal if they didn't want to study."
Now actually it's the men who won't be burdened by hopes of marriage. Tens of millions of men will never have wives or children or families. This tends, of course, to make a society more stable and makes the few women left alive climbing the ladder of success so much safer.  Every girl wants to be surrounded by men with no roots and no hope and no women.
Not so anymore. Fong says today's urban Chinese parents "perceive their daughters as the family's sole hope for the future," and try to help them to outperform their classmates, regardless of gender.
When you've only got one kid because they strapped you to a table and killed your second kid and then sterilized you, you tend to view your first kid as your "family's sole hope for the future". You'd be right.
Some demographers argue that China's fertility rate would have fallen sharply even without the one-child policy because economic growth tends to reduce family size. In that scenario, Chinese girls may have gotten more access to education anyway, though the gains may have been more gradual.
Chinese girls would have been less likely to get iPads if there hadn't been so many forced abortions and infanticides.
Crediting the one-child policy with improving the lives of women is jarring,
I'm certainly jarred. I actually feel sick.
...given its history and how it's harmed women in other ways.
'Hold still, honey. Your second daughter will be dead in a moment, as soon as we can get the scissors in. This will help your first daughter get into college. What color iPad will she want?'
Facing pressure to stay under population quotas, overzealous family planning officials have resorted to forced sterilizations and late-term abortions, sometimes within weeks of delivery, although such practices are illegal.
'Overzealous final solution officials have resorted to gassing..." Don't you hate it when officials tasked with such enlightened policies get a bit too eager...
The birth limits are also often criticized for encouraging sex-selective abortions in a son-favoring society...
 'The Final Solution is often criticized for encouraging extermination of Jews in a non-Jew-favoring society...'
Chinese traditionally prefer boys because they carry on the family name and are considered better earners.
 Population officials had no way of knowing this before they instituted the policy...
With the arrival of sonogram technology in the 1980's, some families no longer merely hoped for a boy, they were able to engineer a male heir by terminating pregnancies when the fetus was a girl.
No, the male heir wasn't 'engineered'. He was conceived, born and cherished, unlike his sister. Killing one person isn't 'engineering' the survivor.

And how could the 'terminated fetus' be a "girl"? I thought that fetuses weren't human beings? Are there non-human girls?

"It is gendercide," said Therese Hesketh, a University College London professor who has studied China's skewed sex ratio. "I don't understand why China doesn't just really penalize people who've had sex-selective abortions and the people who do them.
I don't understand why China doesn't put population control officials and advocates on trial for genocide.
"The law exists but nobody enforces it."

Who would have thought that a law preventing the killing of girls in a boy-preferring society limited to one child per family might be ineffective? Population control officials have been such victims of the unexpected...
To combat the problem, China allows families in rural areas, where son preference is strongest, to have a second child if their first is a girl. The government has also launched education campaigns promoting girls and gives cash subsidies to rural families with daughters.
'You've got a daughter? Here's your complementary iPad.'

That'll help.
Still, 43 million girls have "disappeared" in China due to gender-selective abortion as well as neglect and inadequate access to health care and nutrition, the United Nations estimated in a report last year.
They didn't disappear. They were murdered. Every single one.
Yin Yin Nwe, UNICEF's representative to China, puts it bluntly: The one-child policy brings many benefits for girls "but they have to be born first."
"but they have to be born first."
Wang's birth in the spring of 1992 triggered a family rift that persists to this day. She was a disappointment to her father's parents, who already had one granddaughter from their eldest son. They had hoped for a boy.

"Everyone around us had this attitude that boys were valuable, girls were less," Gao Mingxiang, Wang's paternal grandmother, said by way of explanation — but not apology.
The One Child Policy markedly diminished the value of girls. But... I thought it was "a surprising boon for girls"...
Small and stooped, Gao perched on the edge of her farmhouse "kang," a heated brick platform that in northern Chinese homes serves as couch, bed and work area. She wore three sweaters, quilted pants and slippers.

Her granddaughter, tall and graceful and dressed in Ugg boots and a sparkly blue top, sat next to her listening, a sour expression on her face. She wasn't shy about showing her lingering bitterness or her eagerness to leave. She agreed to the visit to please her father but refused to stay overnight — despite a four-hour drive each way.

Fong, the Harvard researcher, says that many Chinese households are like this these days: a microcosm of third world and first world cultures clashing. The gulf between Wang and her grandmother seems particularly vast.
The grandaughter survived the lottery imposed by her grandmother's generation. Maybe she understands.
The 77-year-old Gao grew up in Yixian, a poor corn- and wheat-growing county in southern Liaoning province. At 20, she moved less than a mile (about a kilometer) to her new husband's house. She had three children and never dared to dream what life was like outside the village. She remembers rain fell in the living room and a cherished pig was sold, because there wasn't enough money for repairs or feed.

She relied on her daughter to help around the house so her two sons could study.
If she had killed her daughter, other girls could have gotten iPads. How selfish of her.
"Our kids understood," said Gao, her gray hair pinned back with a bobby pin, her skin chapped by weather, work and age. "All families around here were like that."
"..like that.." With girls and boys.
But Wang's mother, Zheng Hong, did not understand. She grew up 300 kilometers (185 miles) away in the steel-factory town of Benxi with two elder sisters and went to vocational college for manufacturing. She lowers her voice to a whisper as she recalls the sting of her in-law's rejection when her daughter was born.

"I sort of limited my contact with them after that," Zheng said. "I remember feeling very angry and wronged by them. I decided then that I was going to raise my daughter to be even more outstanding than the boys."
This is so inspiring. Maybe the One Child Policy wasn't so bad after all. Survivors Girls were raised to be even more outstanding... . I'm sure Jews after the Holocaust felt the same sense of fresh opportunity.
They named her Qihua, a pairing of the characters for chess and art — a constant reminder of her parents' hope that she be both clever and artistic.From the age of six, Wang was pushed hard, beginning with ping pong lessons. Competitions were coed, and she beat boys and girls alike, she said. She also learned classical piano and Chinese flute, practiced swimming and ice skating and had tutors for Chinese, English and math. During summer vacations, she competed in English speech contests and started using the name Mia.

In high school, Wang had cram sessions for China's college entrance exam that lasted until 10 p.m. Her mother delivered dinners to her at school. She routinely woke up at 6 a.m. to study before class.
I thought excellent scholarship in China was the fruit of culture. Now it seems to be the fruit of genocide. 'Study hard, Ming-Ling, you're a survivor...'
She had status and expectations her mother and grandmother never knew, a double-edged sword of pampering and pressure.

If she'd had a sibling or even the possibility of a sibling one day, the stakes might not have been so high, her studies not so intense.
Dead siblings are less of a distraction.
Beijing-based population expert Yang Juhua has studied enrollment figures and family size and determined that single children in China tend to be the best educated, while those with elder brothers get shortchanged. She was able to make comparisons because China has many loopholes to the one-child rule, including a few cities that have experimented with a two-child policy for decades.
How about a 'keep your totalitarian government out of my family' policy?
"Definitely single children are better off, particularly girls," said Yang,

Better off than dead children, to be sure.
...who works at the Center for Population and Development Studies at Renmin University. "If the girl has a brother then she will be disadvantaged. ... If a family has financial constraints, it's more likely that the educational input will go to the sons."
"Xiu, your dad and I are concerned about your sister's education. Kneel down here, and close your eyes... "
While her research shows clearly that it's better, education-wise, for girls to be single children, she favors allowing everyone two kids.
Isn't she generous. Ms. Himmler favors allowing us two kids.
"I do think the (one-child) policy has improved female well-being to a great extent,
I guess 40 million dead girls don't really have "un-well-being" because they no longer exist, so technically she's right.

...but most people want two children so their children can have somebody to play with while they're growing up," said Yang, who herself has a college-age daughter.
Right. Children are primarily valuable as playmates, as long as they don't interfere with their sister's education.
Ideally, she said, China should relax the policy while also investing more in education so that fewer families will be forced to choose which child to favor when it comes to schooling.
The policy-makers should be on trial in the Hague for genocide. Population control apologists should be shunned from civilized society.
While strides have been made in reaching gender parity in education, other inequalities remain.
So kill more women. It's worked well so far.
Women remain woefully underrepresented in government, have higher suicide rates than males, often face domestic violence and workplace discrimination and by law must retire at a younger age than men.
Women are killing themselves!  Wait!  That's the government's job...

It remains to be seen whether the new generation of degree-wielding women can alter the balance outside the classroom.

If they pile their dead sisters high enough, there's no limit to how high they can climb.

Some, like Wang, are already changing perceptions about what women can achieve.

She's a Chinese woman and is alive, for example.
When she dropped by her grandmother's house this spring, the local village chief came by to see her. She was a local celebrity: the first village descendent in memory to make it into Tsinghua University.
'We just wanted to see what a woman looked like...'
"Women today, they can go out and do anything," her grandmother said. "They can do big things."

Besides die.

Population control is pure evil. The Chinese One Child Policy is the most evil manifestation of this pure evil. This article, which highlights the 'positive' effects of genocide,  is the most disgusting article I have ever read.

A trifecta.

41 comments:

  1. Truly horrible.
    An example of Orwellian pseudo-journalism.
    Dr Goebbels would be proud to see his evil ideas still in practice...and from the AP feed to news organizations around the world.
    Little Suzy can print it out for current affairs at school.
    Nasty stuff.

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  2. Crus:

    I agree. Perhaps the most frightening aspect of this article is how mundane it is. Banality of evil.

    Mike

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  3. Correction: the atheists will not defend the holocaust of females, but merely point out that discriminating on the basis of sex while executing children in utero is the height of unfairness.

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  4. @mike,
    That Banality is perhaps why Goebbels and the the Third Reich jumped to mind. The idea of all those millions and millions of people submitting to the inverted morality of a twisted few. The horrible, yet work-a-day nature of it. Normal, every day, clinical murder. Done by the millions. Truly evil yet, as you say, mundane and banal. Explained away as a human interest story.
    "This is the 21st century!" is the cry of all these pronoid futurist types as they hail the rise of China. All the while this horror continues.
    The mind shudders.
    @Matteo,
    The Monist gang is unusually quiet on this one. Perhaps they also see this 'policy' as horrific and such media coverage as indefensible? Maybe there is just a good shadow play on back in the cave :P
    Only they can tell us that, I suppose.

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  5. @Crus and Matteo:

    [The Monist gang is unusually quiet on this one.]

    It's like bring up the topic of Ponzi schemes at a Madoff family reunion. Quiets the room.

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  6. @Matteo
    Correction: this has absolutely nothing to do with atheism.

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  7. @anon:

    [Correction: this has absolutely nothing to do with atheism.]

    It has everything to do with atheism:

    1) It is the policy of the largest atheist government on earth.

    2) There has been no opposition to the policy from any athiest organization that I am aware of. Utter silence.

    3) There is massive opposition from Christian groups. Massive. Catholic Church, Protestant Evangelicals, etc.

    4) The three moral issues on which the policy is based-- contraception, abortion and population control-- are strongly supported by atheists. For example, atheist opposition to abortion is so rare that you can name the opponent- Nat Hentoff.

    5) The whole enterprise of population control is based on the metaphysical assumption that human beings are animals to be culled and bred, and that humans lack intrinsic spiritual worth.

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  8. I meant "athiests' not "Communists" in the West, but it's an easy mistake to make.

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  9. Mike Egnor wrote
    "I meant "athiests' not "Communists" in the West, but it's an easy mistake to make."
    Sh!t and flies.

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  10. Nick,
    You wrote:
    "Yes, atheists are truely evil. They'd kill you if they could get away with it. I don't understand why the police aren't hunting them."
    You may be surprised to learn this, Nick, but the Atheists control the police in China. It is an Atheist state. So while they are not 'hunting' each other down, they are literally killing their own young. While I cannot speak for the individual Atheist or Communist official, I will say the policy is oppressive, sexist, immoral, and utterly Evil. Won't you?

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  11. Ah, I finally got it. This blog is a parody. Nobody can say "I meant "athiests' not "Communists" in the West, but it's an easy mistake to make." seriously.

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  12. @to all atheists...

    If God does not exist, everything is permitted...
    Nietzsche

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  13. “There will be an accounting in due time”

    Wow, this would make a great campaign slogan for Rick Perry! There's nothing like the promise of a good pogrom to get out the religious base.

    -KW

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  14. “If God does not exist then everything is permitted.”

    Considering the great depths of depravity regularly displayed by man, it certainly looks like everything is permitted. Where then, is God?

    I'm often amused by Christians who can't understand how an atheist can act morally. It's as if they imagine they would be an ax murderer without the staying hand of their invisible friend .

    -KW

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  15. “All communists are atheists.”

    Except for these guys:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_communism

    "all who owned property or houses sold them and lay them at the feet of the apostles to be distributed to everyone according to his need." (Acts 4:32-35; see also 2:42-47)

    Isn't Google wonderful. It took all of 3 seconds to learn to learn that Christian apostles practiced communism.

    -KW

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  16. @KW:

    [Wow, this would make a great campaign slogan for Rick Perry! There's nothing like the promise of a good pogrom to get out the religious base.]

    I was referring to Judgement Day. Not surprising that an atheist would think of a pogrom, though.

    [I'm often amused by Christians who can't understand how an atheist can act morally.]

    Of course you act morally, as morally as we all do, more or less. We all have God's law written in our hearts.

    What Christians don't understand is how atheists can defend an ideology that denies the existence of an objective moral law that transcends human opinion.

    [Isn't Google wonderful. It took all of 3 seconds to learn to learn that Christian apostles practiced communism.]

    Yea. Those early Christians certainly believed that faith in Christ was the opiate of the masses, good dialectic materialists that they were.

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  17. @Anonymous a.k.a KW
    “If God does not exist then everything is permitted.”...I'm often amused by Christians...

    Was Nietzsche a Christian?

    I think not...

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  18. What about an abortion meter.
    Aren’t you glad the meter missed you?

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  19. Isn't Google wonderful. It took all of 3 seconds to learn to learn that Christian apostles practiced communism.

    What is it with atheist tools who don't know the difference between collectivization at gunpoint and voluntary living-in-community?

    And he brags that he put all of three seconds of thought and research into the retort. Most impressive.

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  20. Anon/KW wrote:
    "It's as if they imagine they would be an ax murderer without the staying hand of their invisible friend ."
    Reading that, I see: A) No understanding of the concept of free will, or B) A deliberate attempt to feign ignorance on the subject. Maybe some weird combo of both?
    Either way we still have heard nothing from our atheist pals on the article, Red China, and/or the 'one child' policy. Just 'invisible friends'.

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  21. “What Christians don't understand is how atheists can defend an ideology that denies the existence of an objective moral law that transcends human opinion.”

    I can defend it quite easily. I believe morality and moral law should remain a fast evolving consensus based on continues discussion and debate. Of course there have been setbacks, but the general ark of history is one of increasing liberty and freedom. A conservative religious morality fixed by some transcendent opinion has been and is the great break on the evolution (change) of morality. The period of religious rule in Europe isn't called the “Dark Ages” for nothing.

    -KW

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  22. @KW:

    "evolving consensus" is subjective, not objective. You assert that there is nothing intrinsic about murder that is wrong, above and beyond people's opinion about it.

    In Germany under Hitler, there was a consensus that harming Jews was moral. Does that mean it was in fact moral?

    [The period of religious rule in Europe isn't called the “Dark Ages” for nothing.]

    It isn't called the 'Dark Ages' anymore by most historians. And the period of 'religious rule' was really a mixture of secular and religious authority. In Europe, it produced the greatest civilization man has known.

    Atheist rule has produced the most brutal totalitarian rule man has known.

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  23. “I was referring to Judgement Day. Not surprising that an atheist would think of a pogrom, though.”

    Yes sugjesting Infinite tourture of millions of innocent people is much more acceptable then using the word pogrom. Way to grab the moral high ground Dr.

    -KW

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  24. No innocent people end up in Hell, Anonymous. As you'll find out on Judgment Day, which is coming regardless of your feelings toward it.

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  25. @KW:

    You're not innocent, nor am I, nor is any sinner.

    We are offered a chance to be redeemed despite our sins, by One Who is innocent.

    Judgement Day will be profoundly unjust. We all deserve to be separated from God, but He will bring many of us to Him, even though we don't deserve it. All we need to do is accept His offer.

    There will be much injustice, thank God.

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  26. Regarding the one child policy in China, I don't consider abortion murder so I don't object to it on those grounds.

    I certainly object to forced abortion. It's outrageous, but only slightly more outrageous than forcing women to give birth. Perhaps big tax breaks for couples that have only one child would be better approach for the Chinese government.

    The practice of selective abortions of girls is stupid because it will harm Chinese society. I hope the sake of Chinese morality isn't fixed by some transcendent opinion, and that the Chinese can learn to love their child no matter their sex.

    China is trying to save China, and in so doing the help to make the earth more sustainable for the rest of us. I know that many, if not most, of American religious conservatives simply don't believe that we can ruin the earth because we are not in control. Others believe and want their best friend in the sky to save their righteous asses as it all goes to hell. Unfortunately the rest of us, living in the real world, have to suffer the consequences of your faith based politics.

    The world is indeed going to hell in a hand-basket, and it's religious conservatives the world over that are fighting the hardest to make sure we do nothing about it. If every person really understood what was happening to our planet, and wanted a future with a minimum of human suffering, they would use that knowledge and their intellect to suppress the genetically driven, religiously mandated, drive to reproduce like lemmings. Education and the shedding of illogical religious dogma is the key to a prosperous, just, and happy future.

    -KW

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  27. We are all innocent in the face of eternal torture. For if you torture just one man for eternity, that is inflicting more suffering than all the crimes man has committed against man combined. To top it off, Christian dogma and Dr. Egnor would have us believe that Hitler can go to heaven with a sincere deathbed conversion, while Gandhi burns in hell for not worshiping the most vainglorious of Gods. This is more than profoundly unjust, it is the antithesis of love, compassion, and justice.

    -KW

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  28. KW--

    It's pretty simple, really. God will simply not force anyone to go to Heaven against that person's will. Fair enough?

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  29. Well I thank you for your honesty, Anon/KW. You're the ONLY atheist on here that had the STONES to answer my question and address Dr Egnor's points, and I appreciate it.
    I don't like your answer, as you can imagine - but at least we know know where you stand on the subject of communism, population control, abortion, and population control.
    I thank you for responding, but implore you to reconsider your position.
    In doing so, you're defending a system HATED by the Chinese themselves and imposed on them by a tyranny. They (the Reds) are not trying to save the planet, KW - but CONTROL a large portion of it. China is one of the WORST polluters in the world. They engineer their environment DISASTROUSLY all the time.
    The Reds are not trying to 'save the Chinese' they are killing them, by the tens of millions - in and Out of the womb.

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  30. Egnor said: "Population control is pure evil. "

    OK, the Earth's population is around 7 billion and there are 57 million square miles of land. That's about 120 people per square mile.

    Imagine a world with five times that population - 35 billion people. Are contraceptives still pure evil?

    Imagine a world with ten times, 20 times, or 100 times the current population. 700 billion people, or 12,000 per square mile. Imagine that.

    At what point does your right to have another child infringe upon my right to life and liberty? At what point does the Pope say "well, ok - Trojans and Norplant aren't ENTIRELY evil."

    Is there no level of population on the Earth where control might be a good idea?

    Is that what you're saying, Michael - that ANY population is just fine. We regulate car driving, leaf burning, fishing, gun usage, and where you're allowed to empty your bladder. All of these were once unregulated, and regulation became necessary when population density demanded regulation for the good of society.

    Michael, you're saying there is NO point EVER where it is right to regulate having children?

    Really?

    And before people jump in frothily declaring that I'm supporting China's policies, I'm not. I'm pointing out the archaic, short-sighted, inhumane (as in bad for humanity) policies of the Catholic Church. In the long span of history, these policies will cause more suffering than China's.

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  31. @RickK:

    [Egnor said: "Population control is pure evil. "

    OK, the Earth's population is around 7 billion and there are 57 million square miles of land. That's about 120 people per square mile.

    Imagine a world with five times that population - 35 billion people. Are contraceptives still pure evil?]

    South Korea has 5 times the population density of the world. Malta has 30 times the population density of the world. Gibraltar has 100 times the population density of the world. Monaco has a population density 300 times that of the world. New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts each have population densities about 8 times that of the world.

    Your hysterial about overpopulation doesn't have a shred of science. There is no correlation between population density and human well-being, except perhaps that more dense areas are better.

    [magine a world with ten times, 20 times, or 100 times the current population. 700 billion people, or 12,000 per square mile. Imagine that.]

    Science, RickK, science. Let's see the facts, before your totalitarian ideas get a free pass.

    Don't forget that people are a resourse, too.

    [a what point does your right to have another child infringe upon my right to life and liberty?]

    If you try to stop me from having children because of your batshit totalitarian fact-free ideology, you had better be armed.

    [a what point does the Pope say "well, ok - Trojans and Norplant aren't ENTIRELY evil."]

    There are many reasons for the Church's stand. Many are spiritual. I'll post on it.

    [s there no level of population on the Earth where control might be a good idea?]

    The question is: is there any population level at which the downside would justify totalitarian control of a family's most intimate choice? Not that I can see.

    [s that what you're saying, Michael - that ANY population is just fine. We regulate car driving, leaf burning, fishing, gun usage, and where you're allowed to empty your bladder. All of these were once unregulated, and regulation became necessary when population density demanded regulation for the good of society.]

    Totalitarianism is in far greater need of regulation than family size.

    [Michael, you're saying there is NO point EVER where it is right to regulate having children?]

    Not that I can see. Show me some facts that would justify crimes against humanity.

    [And before people jump in frothily declaring that I'm supporting China's policies, I'm not.]

    You are, obviously.

    [I'm pointing out the archaic, short-sighted, inhumane (as in bad for humanity) policies of the Catholic Church. In the long span of history, these policies will cause more suffering than China's.]

    No.

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  32. “It's pretty simple, really. God will simply not force anyone to go to Heaven against that person's will. Fair enough?”

    It’s not that simple. It’s not like choosing an item off a menu. I can’t choose to believe in God any more than I can choose to believe the sky is plaid. I could say I believe in God but it would never be sincere. Perhaps If I had a major brain injury…

    -KW

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  33. @KW:

    [It’s not that simple. It’s not like choosing an item off a menu. I can’t choose to believe in God any more than I can choose to believe the sky is plaid. I could say I believe in God but it would never be sincere.]

    Interesting viewpoint, and one that I've had at one point in my life. I could not force belief, and I would have been horribly dishonest if I had tried.

    What changed me, and made me a believer, was a number of things, some emotional and very personal, and some intellectual. I read CS Lewis (Mere Christianity, Miracles, and Screwtape Letters). I read a George McDonald anthology. I read Chesterton (Orthodoxy, Heretics, Everlasting Man). I read debates between Christians and atheists.

    I came to see that belief in God was rational, and that belief in atheism was irrational.

    Once I understood that Christianity was more rational than atheism, I opened my mind (and heart). I came to understand, and as my faith deepened, I understood more. Faith is not belief without warrant (that's stupidity).

    Faith is fidelity to a conclusion reached (as all conclusions are) with incomplete evidence.

    St. Anslem: "I believe in order to understand."

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  34. Michael, you repeat your argument that since there are densely populated place in the world like Monaco and New Jersey, that human populations can therefore, obviously, grow forever. This is, of course, so absurd that it can only be the result of dishonesty. Monaco and New Jersey are not self-sustaining, whereas the total population of the Earth is.

    Monaco imports food, Michael. Earth doesn't. So stop your false comparison.

    Or at least have the guts to list Manilla and Delhi and Kolkata and Mumbai when you're concluding "more dense areas are better" (your words). Interesting how you skip over dozens of the world's densest cities to cherry pick places like Gibraltar and Monaco.

    Honesty, Michael, honesty. Tsk tsk.

    Michael, you asked "is there any population level at which the downside would justify totalitarian control of a family's most intimate choice?" as if you're not familiar with attempts to control a family's most intimate choices?

    Let's see: how about severing a person, against their will, from their family and community because they chose to have a loving relationship with someone of their same gender. How about severing a girl from her family and community because she chose to abort the pregnancy forced on her by a rapist?

    In fact, Michael, the world's biggest regulator of a family's choice to have children is the Catholic Church.

    A global, well-funded, organized campaign to prevent people from choosing not to conceive is a crime against humanity.

    And your excuse that the Church's reasons are "spiritual" are just as meaningless as if the leaders of China declared God told them to forcibly control the population.

    But you go ahead and hurl stones at China from your glass balcony. I'm sure nobody else will notice your hypocrisy.

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  35. @RickK:

    You have provided no evidence to back up your call for totalitarianism. Just speculation. I've heard speculation before, from Malthus to Ehrlich ('England will disappear by 2000').

    Show me the clear statistical correlation between population density and well-being. There isn't any. The world is better fed now than it has ever been. I need facts, not crazy-ass hysteria.

    [Let's see: how about severing a person, against their will, from their family and community because they chose to have a loving relationship with someone of their same gender.]

    That is not Catholic doctrine, nor practice. Try to separate your personal hate from what is actually true about the Church.

    [How about severing a girl from her family and community because she chose to abort the pregnancy forced on her by a rapist?]

    Ditto. Not Catholic doctrine. I take strong exception to your use of the term "abort the pregnancy". "Kill the child" is the correct term. Rape is a horrendous crime. Killing a child is a horrendous crime. One crime does not mitigate the horror of the other.

    [In fact, Michael, the world's biggest regulator of a family's choice to have children is the Catholic Church... A global, well-funded, organized campaign to prevent people from choosing not to conceive is a crime against humanity.]

    The Church is not a government, and does not use force. There is no "prevent" from choosing. The Church teaches Catholics about morality, and it proposes (not forces) some aspects of public policy. You're free to do the same.

    To compare a voluntary organization like the Church to a totalitarian institution like the Chinese government is disgusting.

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  36. I happened upon this article because I happen to have just met the lady in the story, as such I am in China. I would first like to ask mregnor if he's actually been to China or is studied in the subject. Or if he knows what totalitarian mean. I do happen to study China and you could not be more wrong. Please educate yourself on the that matter.
    Secondly, why this attitude that all atheists want to kill people? You make it seem like Christians are wonderful. The massacre of the Native Americans, the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition were all done in God's name. Christianity has smeared the pages of history with blood. Also, if everyone had no religion, things such as the holocaust would never have happened.
    Thirdly, this method of taking one sentence and deconstructing it and tearing it apart is a wholly flawed idea. If i did that with the Bible, you would have nothing left to believe.
    And finally, you said that atheists are an assault to reason and logic. Faith in a god has been defined as believing in something with no proof(hence blind faith). That is in itself illogical. Because logic is reason and facts, of which there are none in religion.
    P.S. Communism is a method of government and economy. It is not synonymous with atheism.

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  37. @anon:

    I've never been to China. I have never been to Nazi Germany, either. I have opinions about each.

    China's One Child Policy is a crime against humanity.

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  38. No, it is an intelligent decision, perhaps one carried out in folly. Comparing the two places such as Nazi Germany and China is also folly. They are unlike each other whatsoever, and to say that they are validates my statement that you are not educated enough on the subject to even dare discuss it. As my anonymous friend said, having more people is detrimental to our society. Perhaps not in terms of space, for we can always dig down or build higher, but rather in terms of resources. The Earth does not have enough silicon or lithium to support our growing needs of electronics in the next two centuries. Nor can it sustain the vast amount of CO2 and other gases that we increasingly pump into the atmosphere(and yes China contributes to that considerably). However, we can no longer sit and twidle our thumbs. The way I see it, there are three options to the threat of overpopulation and access to resources.
    1)Start a massive war, killing the majority of people, and making it roomier.
    2)Control birth rates, because death rates are controlled by medicine (if we can delay meeting God why not the opposite?)
    3) Fund our space programs and boogie on to more spacious areas/resource rich places.
    Or you can just hope the good lord kills everybody but yourselves and laugh later. But that's akin to option 1 and genocide.

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    Replies
    1. @anon:

      Your views are raw totalitarianism. You decide what's necessary, and you dictate the most intimate aspects of people's lives in order force humanity to comply with your idiotic views.

      We've seen this before, and we will fight it with every bit of our strength.

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    2. That's funny, because you claim to follow God and denounce everyone else's viewpoints, and gladly laugh while others will serve their time in hell. Isn't god then a totalitarian, if he says do this or you will die(in the sense of hell)? Look at your own hypocritical viewpoint before pointing the finger elsewhere. I grew up in the deep south and if there is one group of people who say "my way or the highway" it's the Christians.
      And my views are not totalitarian, they are simply grounded in reality. I won't force anyone to do anything, but it is only logical to think about the future, which again you don't care about because you look forward to Judgement day. But again, you follow faith blindly, which means you aren't logical.

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    3. I oppose totalitarianism of all kinds. Christianity is not inherently totalitarian-- we insist on respect for freedom. The most free and democratic societies in the world are those with long and deep Christian traditions.

      Population control has always and everywhere been coercive in substantial ways, and has deep totalitarian roots. The Chinese one-child policy is a crime against humanity.

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