Originally Posted by Derid
I wish I knew why the evangelicals were so in love with seeing so many young lives screwed over and sent into hardship, but can only guess.

Originally Posted by Sini
I can only imagine that this is an intentional (i.e. emergent behavior of crowds, not actual plan by a person) strategy to increase birth rate.


Having been raised in the largely church going southern U.S., I think I can shed some light on this. From Derid's perspective the Christians are advocating for the ruin of young lives. Sini appears to believe that it is some kind of evolutionary imperative to survive. The reality is that these people believe that a fetus is a human life (most from the moment of conception). They don't see it as punishment for the fully formed humans involved. They see it as saving the life of the still forming human in the womb. The only human involved in these situations incapable of defending itself. By that math, any suffering due to the birth of the child is consequence for choices made by the humans with agency. Isn't this the definition of maximum freedom/maximum personal responsibility? In my understanding of this libertarian philosophy, the limits for your freedom are only imposed by the rights of others. Like the right to not to have your life taken from you unless as a consequence of something you've done.

Having said all that, in my experience the idea that these people are advocating for teenage girls to raise their children into a life of dire poverty is a straw man argument. While they do condemn sex before/outside of marriage, they are typically generous people who will work to help people who need it. They also are advocates of adoption (last I checked there are tens of thousands of couples waiting in line to adopt) which doesn't condemn the mother to a life of dire poverty.

Originally Posted by Sini
Low birth rates in Western countries will eventually lead to Western values getting sidelined, probably in favor of some form of theocracy, possibly even Christian Theocracy.

I don't really understand this statement. Western values are largely descended from Judeo-Christian values. I don't really see how you get to Christian theocracy by eroding the values that it would impose.


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