Tuesday, February 3, 2009

The elephant in the room

Population.

John Feeny from the BBC discusses the question of global over population - here .

Is the environmental disaster we seem to be heading into due to too many people? These questions always come to the fore in a recession. It raises questions for any Christian:

  • What about Genesis 1? Aren't we supposed to be 'fruitful and increase in number'?
  • What about Australia? Is the water shortage just going to get worse with increasing immigration?
  • What about immigration? Do we really want Pommies coming over here to our churches?

5 comments:

corn chowder said...

Look at the wording: "Be fruitful and multiple". It's a command to do both. Yet, there are people who are not fruitful yet still multiple (is it fair to say that about the career of Britney Spears and other people like Cletus the Slackjowled Yokel).

Australians need to populate the Outback as a solution to overpopulation. Clearly Naomi is leading the charge.

We need more Irish people in our churches. I've never seen one of them drink mere water.

John Smuts said...

Thanks Elwyn. I think.

Multiply is the word you are looking for. I'm not sure the Irish would be too keen either.

gregt said...

I think we ought to be wise stewards of the creation and, as such, should limit our offspring in these times of global overpopulation.

Aren't there enough people in the world already? Did God really mean to keep doing it (more than replacing ourselves) once the earth was full? I rather think that is taking Genesis to an extreme...

Cathy

Daily said...

Interesting post. lots of food for thought.

Ellen said...

Yes, the stewardship tie in is really important as we do need to be good stewards of God's creation so we should view population in a holistic sense with other elements of stewardship of creation (caring for people, water and land use, care for the environment...).

I don't think we are meant to use up all the resources just to satisfy wants when many people are not able to meet their daily needs. There is a lot of room for improvement in that area.