Having pets instead of kids robs us of ‘humanity’, pope says - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15206218
Patrickov wrote:It's most unfortunate that the Pope is leading an organization whose leadership is forced NOT to have children on/of their own, yet they have to put forward messages like these to ensure the continuation of human race.

That said, I agree with his statement regardless of his position on the matter. Not that I am anti-pet-keeping, but I don't think I can bear seeing the one I rear die before I do. Besides, pets will always depend on you, while human beings will be independent in time.


Not all human beings grow up to be independent. There are some who have to depend on others or they want to depend on others.

I would rather have a pet than a rotten kid who learned to hate me because I would put restrictions on them. I would not want the kid to run wild and follow the crowd. Dogs and cats tend to love owners who feed them or care for them. I have seen too many ungrateful humans who behave rotten and leave messes like pigs. Imagine a 50 year old man who still leaves crumbs on the counter or leaves a mess on the bathroom floor. Yeah, the people at work are slobs. I'm glad I don't live with them.
#15206221
There is nothing wrong with pet spending as much time as the human in a house. The issue is lazy bastards that don't take them outside ever.

Anyway, back on topic indeed. The Pope is barking up the wrong tree. Dogs and cats are not the reason more and more people are choosing to live childless. Not even close. They are not a replacement, and have never been. We have been living alongside dogs for tens of thousands of years.

It's due to economics and the kind of lifestyle being promoted. Every facet of 21st century living promotes the idea of childless couples, both partners working full time and small apartment urban living. This is not conducive to building a family. If given the choice (and the choice is being given) both man and woman will opt for a brand new car every two years, vs a sniveling pronoun riddled child that turns to shit because the public school system is teaching kids that blue is pink, relationships are make believe and gender is as fluid as the clothing you choose to wear.

Why would parents want to invest in and raise a dead end kid with no future? So they invest in themselves.

To have a real family that works you're having to uproot and look further and further abroad. To leave the urban hellscape and go to the depopulated rural regions where a big home is still affordable and costs of living aren't obscene is a tall order. Even taller is going the extra step and abandoning this broken society entirely. There are societies that still function but you have to uproot not only your immediate life but your culture and the very language you speak.

Pope is being retarded and not seeing the forest for the trees.
#15206229
Catholics, especially people in Italy, are not having kids. The Pope is a biatch, he just wants a thriving flock instead of a shrinking one, i'm sure donations in the church are trending downward. I'm sure the # of people wanting to go into the priesthood and people getting baptized are trending very downward. Dude just wants the wealth and power. WAAAAAAA
#15206233
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2 ... wth-240341

Actually the Catholic Church's growth rate is outpacing the world's population growth year on year. And this only counts practising Catholics who at least attend once a year. "Catholic Believers" would be higher.

It's complete fantasy to believe the oldest religious organisation in the world isn't going to still be alive and kicking in 5-6 centuries.

Islam turned things around with reforms and reestablishing it's stranglehold in its traditional heartland, so can Christianity.

This Pope is the first Pope in a few innings to actually be struggling to cope with the church growing again.
#15206234
MistyTiger wrote:Not all human beings grow up to be independent. There are some who have to depend on others or they want to depend on others.

I would rather have a pet than a rotten kid who learned to hate me because I would put restrictions on them. I would not want the kid to run wild and follow the crowd. Dogs and cats tend to love owners who feed them or care for them. I have seen too many ungrateful humans who behave rotten and leave messes like pigs. Imagine a 50 year old man who still leaves crumbs on the counter or leaves a mess on the bathroom floor. Yeah, the people at work are slobs. I'm glad I don't live with them.


You are objectively right. Maybe I am being masochistic by believing it's more rewarding to raise an independent but rebellious being.

Funny that I am still not independent despite me being 50% or even more older than you.
#15206247
I've always kept a dog, and they were all working dogs 'til now. But then my middle granddaughter wanted a Cavalier without the responsibility of owning one, of course, she being the typical teen. So the wife bought one.

She made a mistake asking me to choose it, though. I picked the bully of the litter. It's the size of a Cocker, and for all its soppiness, it could be trained for the gun.

The wife is not pleased; she expected a toy.
#15206308
Pants-of-dog wrote:Who here does not have kids?

May I ask why you decided to be childless?

Or did you decide? Some people have no choice.


Me. No choice. (too poor and socially inept to breed)
#15206467
Pants-of-dog wrote:Who here does not have kids?

May I ask why you decided to be childless?

Or did you decide? Some people have no choice.


I chose to remain childless. It was not a moment but rather a process. I was not prepared to get married to someone I did not love simply because I wanted to have children. I spent my life, to my early 40's in the Army and moving constantly. I enjoyed dating but did not meet the person which whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life with until I was older.

Having said all that. I know a great many people who got downright frantic about age 30 because they wanted kids and were not married. They set out to find a brood mare and found one.

The Pope is way out of line here. What he needs to do is make sure his priests have pets and not kids.
#15208969
Whow.

"Pets rob you of humanity" ?

Now thats a pretty dumb thing to say. Why would caring for an animal reduce peoples humanity ?!?!?

"To substitute for children"

I doubt many people have pets because they dont want children.

I have no idea why people waste so much money on pets but then again I dont have any idea why people waste even so much more money on smocking, which additionally also endangers their health.


And too many children are a PROBLEM. The planet is FINITE. We have no second planet. We already have 7.5 billion people and apparently we can approximately feed up to 20 billion. After that, we would have a real problem at hand.

And that hasnt even addressed the problem of resources. We dont have infinite oil, gas, nuclear fuel, etc, either. In the long term, we will have to turn our society into 100% recycling.

This is all simple common sense. This is obvious. This isnt hard to understand. Whats hard to understand is why the church thinks having more people and ever even more people would be a good thing.










Sandzak wrote:There is no econimic reason to have children.


Of course there is an economic reason for children. Who else would pay for pensions ? And mankind dies out without children.

Just wanting unlimited amounts of children on a planet thats quite finite makes no sense. We could reduce the total population by 10% every generation and be just fine.



Unthinking Majority wrote:If the entire human race behaved like westerners, the human race would go extinct.

No.

If the entire human race would "behave like westeners", i.e. have reproduction rates around 1.8 per woman, our total population would sink to more healthy values.

Sure, in the long term you would want about one child per person in the previous generation, or about 2.0 per woman, but right now we have a lot of people and having a little less wouldnt hurt at all.
Last edited by Negotiator on 26 Jan 2022 16:00, edited 1 time in total.
#15209032
Negotiator wrote:And too many children are a PROBLEM. The planet is FINITE. We have no second planet. We already have 7.5 billion people and apparently we can approximately feed up to 20 billion. After that, we would have a real problem at hand.


This would have been true 2-3 decades ago, but if you look at the population trends the global population is going to start shrinking soon because many countries are not having babies. About half the world's countries have birth rates below replacement level. The world birth rate is 2.4 kids per woman, and you need about 2.1 for any growth or else the pop. shrinks. Africa and middle-east are now driving global growth, and the masses may eventually start using birth control eventually like the West.

That might be ok and even good for a short period but eventually people will have to start having kids again or the human race will go extinct.
#15209034
Unthinking Majority wrote:That might be ok and even good for a short period but eventually people will have to start having kids again or the human race will go extinct.


A bit of a strectch frankly. I am quite confident that humanity will do fine even with their numbers just half or even a quarter of the current size. The only issue is how our generation (and the few immediately following) will bow out in a decent way.
#15209047
Unthinking Majority wrote:That might be ok and even good for a short period but eventually people will have to start having kids again or the human race will go extinct.
:lol: What a stupendously dumb statement!

The world would THRIVE if it only had about 3 billion people to maintain. Humans are not about to go extinct, even if most people stopped having children.

This isn't about to happen, mind you.

Growing at a slower pace, world population is expected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050 and could peak at nearly 11 billion around 2100
https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/ ... -2019.html
#15209104
Godstud wrote::lol: What a stupendously dumb statement!

The world would THRIVE if it only had about 3 billion people to maintain. Humans are not about to go extinct, even if most people stopped having children.


How do we not go extinct if the world had reproduction rates like the West, which are well below replacement level? Population would keep shrinking indefinitely until there are zero humans. Unless we changed our culture and started reproducing at or above replacement level.
#15209165
:lol: The population levels are NOT shrinking, however. Your view ignores reality(You know... the one where our world population is actually still growing).

A country having a declining birthrate, NOW, does not mean that it will remain the same forever, either. To assume that is to be ridiculous.

Reasons for a falling birth rate
Image
https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/1670 ... irth-rate/

After the population levels out, and then starts to decline, globally, we'll probably be seeing it reach a certain level where it maintains equilibrium. Some scientists believe this to be around 2 billion humans. We are obviously a very long ways away from this happening, as rising world population is expected for at least the next century.
#15210187
Unthinking Majority wrote:How do we not go extinct if the world had reproduction rates like the West, which are well below replacement level? Population would keep shrinking indefinitely until there are zero humans. Unless we changed our culture and started reproducing at or above replacement level.



Let the West have a big rainbow, vegetarian feminist party...


The Middle-East had its opium-orgy at the End of Ottoman Empire... Therefore the region got colonized and is a nightmare for the next centuries.


China does it right: Chinese give their children milk to drink in hope they decelope a lacosis tolerance like the Indo-Europeans. This Nation will rule the planet and they deserve it...

In Europe people buy rather nuts mixed with water :lol:




https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/chil ... -per-woman


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