BobInget wrote:First, we need to come clean as to how babies are made.
Mormons tell young not only to 'go forth and multiply' and have five children.
The Roman Catholics never set limits. Birth control devices are prohibited.
Allah also said: "Wealth and children are the adornment of the life of this world." (al-Kahf 46)
Jewish Law has traditionally opposed birth control or abortion when practiced for purely selfish reasons.
Thou shalt not breed beyond the carrying capacity of your environment.
This missing (11th) commandment in all major religions has an obvious explanation. When the korans, torahs and bibles were being written we had disease, plagues and famines, high infant mortality and longevity was about 50% of todays. There are two important conclusions you can draw from this
1) Carrying capacity and care for the environment was not even a concept back then because like oxygen that is invisible and gives life our biosphere was invisible as well as there were no imbalances. No commandments required.
2) To go forth and bear children was a response to an environment that was reducing family size due to disease and famine and so the commandment was a direct response to environmental conditions.
What is important to note is that taboos, morals and religious commandments are framed within the context of the existing environment.
Going forward we are going to have a biosphere that will exert tremendous pressure on human culture. That will be the framework and context to which new taboos, morals and commandments will be framed.
There is an interesting opportunity on the horizon for this missing eleventh commandment to become embedded in our culture. Back in biblical days plagues and famines where not associated with human agency. They were acts of god. The consequences of human overshoot, creating disease and famine, will this time around not be seen as acts of god but as sins wrought by the hands of man.
In the christian story God sent his only son who gave his life for our sins. This was the new testament added on to an older book. Since we have done this before we will do it again. Adding another book. God will send The Overshoot Predator this time around and he will lay to waste the idolatry of materialism. Consequences will be biblical and will form the cornerstone of a new set of taboos.
In this newest testament the 11th commandment will be carved in stone on top of a landfill named New Mount Sinai.
Patiently awaiting the pathogens. Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
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