Re: Go forth and multiply
We do not have an obligation to anyone high above to reproduce ourselves. That decision is ours alone, and if we do it, it will be because we want it ourselves.Originally Posted by Vladimir
Selfishness? Oh please. Those who choose not to have kids are doing you a favour, by freeing up resources for and your mini-versions. In fact, we'd do the entire world a favour if we dropped our baby-rate quite a bit.
Still maintain that crying on the pitch should warrant a 3 match ban
Re: Go forth and multiply
Why is it that whenever I talk about belief you always think I'm talking about God?
--Paraphrase from Serenity
You have an obligation to yourself and humanity to reproduce. Even in the absence of a divine creator the failure to reproduce = epic fail. It's like a sad honorable mention at the Darwin awards. It's all down to personal choice (which, in your mind, automatically translates to "free will") we all loose out in the long run.
Dropping the "baby rate" isn't helping Scandinavia, Europe, or Japan. Look at what societies are doing to counter falling birthrates (or negative growth rates). They're consuming more resources and producing less. Don't do me any favors.
Reinvent the British and you get a global finance center, edible food and better service. Reinvent the French and you may just get more Germans.
Ik hou van ferme grieten en dikke pinten
Down with dried flowers!
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Re: Go forth and multiply
I have 19 pairs of aunts and uncles, 56 cousins, and 6 (including myself) siblings.
Yet I don't think I'll ever have children. I can't see myself giving a child what it would need to be succesful. I just can't emotionally attach myself that way.
There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford
My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation.
Re: Go forth and multiply
A moral obligation? A legal one? How? Why?
The only basis for such an obligation would be religious. Without a godly precept, man has no reason whatsoever to procreate.
Certainly no Darwinist ever said 'Go forth and multiply', even if survival were somehow a moral obligation it does not follow that multiplication is the way to go for a particular individual. Evolution works on the group level as well.
Survival depends on adaptation to (changing) circumstance. Circumstance may demand many or few children. In today's society the raising and enculturation of succesful off-spring is so labor-intensive that maybe (even probably) 'less is more'.
In short, a childless couple of lawyers who contribute the maximum to society may be more instrumental to group survival than a couple that devotes itself to kids.
The bloody trouble is we are only alive when we’re half dead trying to get a paragraph right. - Paul Scott
Re: Go forth and multiply
Adrian, you're too intelligent for my post. I'm not talking about the human constructs of morals, laws, and whatever keeps us civilized. I'm talking about A, C, G, T. Without a godly precept, what reason does anything have to procreate?
Come on now, these are the basics.
Last edited by Vladimir; 09-03-2009 at 16:44.
Reinvent the British and you get a global finance center, edible food and better service. Reinvent the French and you may just get more Germans.
Ik hou van ferme grieten en dikke pinten
Down with dried flowers!
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Re: Go forth and multiply
So we agree?
So we agree!
The bloody trouble is we are only alive when we’re half dead trying to get a paragraph right. - Paul Scott
Re: Go forth and multiply
P1: Without a godly precept, there is no reason to procreate.
P2: If humans fail to procreate, humanity will perish.
C: Therefore, one must believe in God (or a god, or godly precept) or else humans will go extinct.
Is that right? Anyway...
Or maybe you're mentioning the word "reason" for a, um, reason. Does there need to be a reason? How many of us have inhibited our higher cognitive functions in order to help satisfy our desire to procreate? After all, inhibiting those functions usually increases that desire.
+
=
+
then
Reinvent the British and you get a global finance center, edible food and better service. Reinvent the French and you may just get more Germans.
Ik hou van ferme grieten en dikke pinten
Down with dried flowers!
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Re: Go forth and multiply
May I propose the following alternative?
P1: Without a godly precept, there is no reason to procreate.
P2: If humans fail to procreate, humanity will perish.
C: Therefore, one must believe in God (or a god, or godly precept) or else humans will go extinct.
Is that right? Anyway...
1. Without procreation there is no reason for a god.
2. Whenever god fails, humans just can't believe it.
3. If all else fails, procreate!
The bloody trouble is we are only alive when we’re half dead trying to get a paragraph right. - Paul Scott
Re: Go forth and multiply
God? Who's talking about god?
And as I said, I certainly do not have an obligation to myself or anyone else to reproduce. The only obligation I have, is to enjoy my life. Period. We're no longer animals, survival isn't something to strive for anymore.
That's because we're racists and consider the Poles untermenschen. We could solve the problem by simply importing a bunch of them, no need to reproduce ourselves, there are more than enough unemployed people in the world.
Still maintain that crying on the pitch should warrant a 3 match ban
Re: Go forth and multiply
I suppose, if I should walk the childless path, that I shall feel a sting in my rotting heart some time in 2309 AD when I realize that I have failed my genes.
Great. Here I was thinking that I was getting hungry; but thanks to you, I now realize that such primitive instincts are way below me and those of my kind.
Last edited by Viking; 09-03-2009 at 22:14.
Runes for good luck:
[1 - exp(i*2π)]^-1
Re: Go forth and multiply
Survival of the human race is what I was talking about of course, and you knew itGreat. Here I was thinking that I was getting hungry; but thanks to you, I now realize that such primitive instincts are way below me and those of my kind.
Still maintain that crying on the pitch should warrant a 3 match ban
Re: Go forth and multiply
But we are still no longer animals? Hm...Survival of the human race is what I was talking about of course, and you knew it
Oh well, I shan't digress with semantics. I shall not breed just yet either; despite knowing that tomorrow might be my last day as a psychopath on the run from a failing psychiatry decide to push me into the metro tracks right before the train. The solution to this overwhelming danger, is obviously to donate to a sperm bank; knowing that my genome is safe, and that I won't have to go through the process of bringing up any children myself.
Runes for good luck:
[1 - exp(i*2π)]^-1
Re: Go forth and multiply
No, we are not. Animals aren't bright enough to care about anything other than survival and reproduction. Humans, on the other hand, are bright enough to enjoy life as it is, without needing to worry about petty things like reproduction, it's both irrelevant and unnecessary for us now, unless that is what we want to make our lives more fulfilling.
Still maintain that crying on the pitch should warrant a 3 match ban
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