Tuesday, January 20, 2009

The Answer

Two young adults knocked on my door. Their church's youth group had sent them, door to door, to take a survey with three questions.

The first was: what "one thing" is responsible for the wars, corruption, pollution, domestic violence, etc.? They had a very long list of human tragedies, so I had time to be ready with my answer: Overpopulation is responsible.

They were astonished. They had never heard it before. That astonished me.

Next question: is lack-of-spirituality at the root of the problem?

In the light of the previous answer, this question confused me and I declined to respond. We went on to the last question:

Does the bible lead a person to spirituality?

No, bibles and religion are more likely to lead a person away from spirituality. I define "spirituality" as being conscious of one's personal relationship with God. Religious rhetoric, and all language, can help a little sometimes. But words also distract a person from their direct connection to God. Spirituality is sweeter, simpler, more personal than religion.

Predictably, I thought of my answer to question #2 a few minutes after they left. I chased them down.

Lack-of-spirituality is just another tragedy to put on the list of human tragedies in the world. Maybe this loss of connection to God is the worst tragedy of all. But, it is not the cause of the tragedies. The cause is overpopulation, and that is all.

We can make many individual, difficult, efforts to lessen our impact on the environment, to "reduce our carbon footprint". All these efforts: driving hybrids, saving water, vegetarianism, recycling, etc, sum to a molehill compared with the looming mountain of increasing population.

In addition to the obvious environmental impossibilities of increasing overpopulation, there are subtle biological forces at work when the population intensifies and when females are forced to bear young under stress. Discovering these forces, because they are part of us, is as difficult as seeing our own eyes. However, here are a few links that point toward this type of phenomenon in nature:

- Mother rabbits may kill newborns

- Locusts and cannibalism

- Legalized abortion and crime effect

Our population is uncontrolled, or rather, controlled by societal bans and stigmas on abortions and contraceptives. This societal "control" is steering us toward ever-increasing disaster.

The natural and effective way to control population is for society to release control to the individual woman; to support the woman, in any way she wants to be supported.