Science and (more often) engineering have been blind to the problems that were created by "solutions" to people exceeding the carrying capacity of thier environment. Religion has been the major impediment to population control.
Religion is only one contributing factor to the problems of population control. Education is the key to everything.
When you have decisions driven by poverty and ignorance, and not by education, nothing will get ever get any better.
Even in affluent countries, short sighted decisions about government spending in education results in whole sections of the community being perpetually disadvantaged for the very same reasons. Education could fix a lot of things, but the system keeps making these terrible decisions, sentencing more and more children to a life of poverty, drug abuse and crime. If more money was spent on education, then less money would be needed for prisons.....but now we see that there are big privately run prisons springing up all over the place and these are very lucrative enterprises. Is this co-incidence? Opportunism?......or planned?
In countries where the mortality rate in children is high, and education is low, people keep having children in the hope that some will survive to care for them should they reach old age. This is their 'old age pension'....their insurance against starving to death sooner than they would have with no one to care for them. Can we blame them?
Do the wealthy have the capacity to carry those who are in dire circumstances? Yes they do....but they will not share.
10% of people have 90% of the wealth. If we all shared instead of greedily feathering our own nest, we could do so much good....but the philanthropists are in short supply.....and the multi-billionaires are too busy making more money to care about anyone but themselves and the success of their next enterprise.
Sure, they've damaged the environment, permitted population growth far in excess of what had been thought possible and fed the human race better than was ever expected. But the basic problem is still the numbers of people.
When you say "fed the human race better than was expected"......do you mean "better" than starvation?
Do you think we are fed "better" by the scientific advances in mass produced, nutrient poor food than in keeping with the farming practices of by gone times when soils were actually biologically alive and fertilised with organic matter recycled from natural waste? Do you think that the farming methods used today are actually making us healthy? Do you think that the food we buy in our supermarkets is actually nutritious? Most of it has been kept in cold storage for months...sometimes years. It isn't about good healthy food (although that is the illusion) it's about profit and shelf life. How stale can we let something get before we can't sell it to you at full price? Has science aided and abetted this situation? Could it exist without the back-up of science? I don't think so.
I think you mean "herbicides" not "pesticides." I agree with you that the patenting of organisms should not be permitted.
You cannot patent something you didn't create. Science created the monster called genetic engineering. If used for a good purpose...all well and good....but if used for evil (and there always seems to be those who find an evil purpose for everything) it can destroy the world. The battle between good and evil is seen in all areas of life in this world.
Actually a documentary that I watched recently, stated that some plants are genetically engineered to kill insects and so they are legally classified as "pesticides"...so I meant what I said.
Both are poisons introduced after WW 11 and propagandised to farmers as some kind of revolution in farming...but I believe it was closer to the truth to say that there were vast amounts of chemicals left over from the war that they couldn't flog off any other way. Poisoning of the soils and our food was the result. How much poison....not enough to kill us obviously, but enough to keep us from good health and needing the services of doctors and pharmaceutical companies. $$$$$
There are natural farming methods that humans used long before mass production made its way into our lives. We aren't meant to live in cities with others supplying our food and catering to our every whim. We are supposed to grow our own food in rural settings.....rats exist in a rat race...and most "rats" are born into it without knowing that there is something better. Country people are often more knowledgable about a lot of things city dwellers see no need to know. What has this resulted in? A population that is completely dependent on the system to supply their every need. Self sufficiency is sacrificed and we have become useless at fending for ourselves. That sets is up for control. The Bible has predicted this.
I am likely more against that than you, since I understand it better, but until you come to grips with the numbers of people on earth you will simply have to accept two realities: 1) in the end density dependent phenomena are going to kill us all, unless: 2) we need to reduce the population which is hard to do when many religions oppose effective family planning.
Global problems require global solutions. But we know that man is not good at coming to the table to sacrifice anything for the common good of all.
Education again would solve a lot of these problems. Educating people about population control and creating a situation where the poor are not compelled to keep producing more children because of fears for their own future and providing a more even distribution of food by the nations who do produce well. We need to 'teach the man to fish' and share our knowledge and resources. All we seem to care about is ourselves and what is of benefit to us. We could eliminate poverty tomorrow if there was a more even distribution of the wealth and a more caring attitude, but politically the world is doomed to perpetuate the current situation with only more conflict in sight. When it comes to ruling over others.....humans suck!
Again, I agree, but to solve that problem you must either reduce the population of accept the status quo.
How would you solve these problems which seem beyond man's capacity to address in any real way? Will he adopt either of those options?
I find the Bible's solution very appealing, mostly because it doesn't rely on man to accomplish it. I believe that the Creator has the power to accomplish all he has stated that he will do. He does not have to prove himself to us. If we don't want to believe in him, we are free to reject the whole thing. He has told us that this is not the life he intended for us and we all know in the depths of our being that we should be living a much happier existence. In fact the pursuit of happiness is enshrined in what US citizens hold to be sacred...."life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"...no?
The trouble is, their pursuit of happiness is often at the expense of the happiness of others, so until we learn not to be selfish....no good will ever be accomplished in this world. Why are we doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes...why are there still senseless wars?.....because we never learn the lessons from the past. Shouldn't we have moved past all that by now?
No one likes where the world is headed....and science has played a large role in this planet's current state of chaos. In an age when things should be getting better, we are sinking further and further into self destruction with no excuses to offer for any of it.
I have not abandoned God because of what stupid religion has done in this world...he hates it as much as you do, but he is allowing us enough rope....can't you see it? We are not condemned by God......we are condemning ourselves by thinking we are so clever that we can determine our own future purely by our own means.....when do you see anything changing for the better, any time soon?
Then you not looked at the evidence, all you've done is blinder yourself with Awake and The Watchtower.
The material offered in the Watchtower and Awake are practical lessons about life and genuine Christianity. They contain valuable information on how to form lasting relationships and happy families who stay together to raise well adjusted and responsible children. To the extent that people apply that advice, their lives are happier for their selfless efforts.
So JW's are not part of the problem at all. We are well educated and we don't have an issue with population control.
Our religion teaches us to be law-abiding, self-sufficient individuals who share everything we have. We take care of our own, which, if all religions did the same, we would see a vastly different picture to what we see at present. The richest religious organization on earth has adherents who make up a huge portion of the world's poor, but their leader lives in a gold inlaid palace with servants....and yet they are still expected to give what little they have.
People have a brain and they should use it to figure out when they are being conned.
Just because the world is full of bad religion, doesn't mean that good religion can't exist. Just because religion paints God in a bad light, doesn't mean that God can't exist. Throwing the baby out with the bath water is a common knee jerk reaction by those who can't be bothered checking the dirty water before they throw God away.
Man is a spiritual being, no question about it, but evolution cannot explain traits in man that have no survival advantage. Art, music, literature, theatre.....where and why would such traits evolve and why do we see none of these traits in animals without man's intervention?
Where are the cave paintings of the apes or elephants?
Horse puckey, come out into the light and begin to grasp the real problems.
I came out of the dark a long time ago. The real problem is right under our noses but man can't see it for the fact that his nose is so far in the air.
