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Contentious Comments

So as is appropriate, I am starting a discussion rather than posting comments. I was going to go back and look at the original comment that started all the controversy but it has mysteriously disappeared. I would be curious to know if the author is the one who deleted it. It seems to me that he was not treated with respect from the beginning.

Maybe it is unpopular, but I thought he made valid points. I believe the first was a question about why have biological children rather than adopt. The second was concerning respect for children and treating them like people rather than inferior people. I apologize if my summary is inaccurate as the original post disappeared.

My husband and I chose to have two children of our own rather than adopt. I admit that we made that decision for selfish reasons, but my justification is that we are just replacing ourselves. Which is weak, I admit. I would, however, be open to adoption should I want any more children or perhaps under the right unforeseen circumstances.

I think he made several other good points regarding parenting. I do agree that children can learn to control their emotional reactions. After all, how do adults learn it? Hopefully they begin learning it from their parents when they are toddlers.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by egan thomas penney on May 2, 2011 at 2:08pm

you sound like you're saying "i'm an unthinking drone and proud of it.", like whatever impulse happens to push you one way or the other at any given time ought simply to be obeyed.

Permalink Reply by Beach Bum on May 2, 2011 at 2:38pm

Atheists are never unthinking drones. If they were they wouldn't be atheists.

You are the one that asked how the hypocrisy could be explained and I explained it to you. Do you not ever make different decisions based on circumstances? Do you believe killing is always wrong? No matter what? Every time without exception? If not, then by your logic the only other choice is killing is always OK, no matter what, without exception. The world isn't nice and neat and black and white. We don't live in a vacuum.

Permalink Reply by egan thomas penney on May 2, 2011 at 2:59pm

you explained the cause. i asked for the reason. if there is no reason, then what else can it be but unthinking drone behaviour?

yes, giving birth is okay in some circumstances. circumstances like "not living on a planet with twice as many people as it can actually feed".we don't live in such circumstances. we live in circumstances where a quarter of the population live in excess and the rest live their brief lives at the point of starvation. the ONLY solution (unless you would advocate mass murder) is to educate people to not reproduce, and get our population to a manageable level. without doing so, trying to end poverty and ignorance is an uphill battle.

Permalink Reply by Beach Bum on May 2, 2011 at 3:28pm

Let's pretend you are right and no one should give birth until all of the children without parents are adopted. Then what? We still say, "No giving birth, the world is still overpopulated." Then everyone dies and the human race ceases to exist. Or do we let everyone die until there are only a few people left and then we let them reproduce with a severely limited gene pool. What if these few people reproducing carry genes that predispose them to low intelligence, cancer, heart disease, etc? What now?

Permalink Reply by egan thomas penney on May 2, 2011 at 7:42pm

you think 3 or 4 billion people are a "severely limited gene pool"? we had one billion in 1900.

Permalink Reply by Beach Bum on May 2, 2011 at 8:03pm

You missed the part where I said "Or do we let everyone die until there are ONLY A FEW PEOPLE LEFT and then we let them reproduce with a severely limited gene pool." Or you are saying no, we let everyone die with no one reproducing until we have 3-4 billion people. How is either scenario in any way realistic? China tried population control and while the population is growing more slowly, it is STILL GROWING. If you are trying to save the world by convincing people not to procreate then why are you wasting time on people who have already had children? Shouldn't you be starting a nonprofit to raise awareness about overpopulation and educate people about how to fix the problem? GIVE ME A REALISTIC SOLUTION.

Permalink Reply by egan thomas penney on May 2, 2011 at 8:11pm

what did i already say about top-down enforcement?

Permalink Reply by Gecko, Seth...brother of Richie! on May 2, 2011 at 1:35pm

Perhaps first you should start a thread on "over population" and let us investigate that assumption before you start with such certainty condeming people for contributing to it.

Permalink Reply by egan thomas penney on May 2, 2011 at 2:10pm

assumption? are you seriously going to go with "overpopulation is only a theory"?

Permalink Reply by Iva Viddal on May 2, 2011 at 2:12pm

Or maybe the assumption that any rational person would care more about over population than anything else

Permalink Reply by egan thomas penney on May 2, 2011 at 2:52pm

a rational person can't not care about overpopulation. it's not about caring about it more than anything else, just more than less important stuff, more than short term frivolities, particularly when they cause the very long term problem we're talking about.

Permalink Reply by egan thomas penney on May 2, 2011 at 2:50pm

"i felt like it, so i did it" is not thinking.