FWIS3

I'm too tired to have lengthy words on how Pope Francis is being a turd this time, so I'll just link the Beaverton's article on it, which in any case is worded much better than I'd manage.

https://www.thebeaverton.com/2022/01/no ... en-palace/

Fuck the pope. Not only is he an out-of-touch hypocrite, his stupid statement ignores the fact that there are too many damn people on this planet right now.

Love the Beaverton take. Definitely better than The Onion these days.

Also: 100% unsurprising if you've ever been to a Catholic wedding. I did, at my brother's wedding (his wife is very Catholic), and basically the entire thing is about how marriage is to have children, and to raise those children Catholic. Not unsurprising if you want followers of your religion, I guess...

@geonuc

The even bigger problem is resource consumption IMO. Our planet could support more people with less suffering, if rich assholes (like the Pope LOL) could be satisfied with less; or if companies could put human lives before profit just a little, or if countries could spend just a bit less on highly polluting military shit.

Not saying there is no population problem, just... the enormously greater harm done by the wealthy and powerful tends to get downplayed in popular media, in favor of "personal responsibility" and "little steps everyone can take" etc. It's a very shortsighted view, and one that's very convenient for the people who make the rules.

@Rommie

Yeah, I am... also somewhat familiar with how bananas Catholicism can get. Not so much on the "make more Catholic children" angle, but...

One of my uncles married a Catholic woman, and the way she demanded their kids be brainwashed into it was probably abusive TBH. She wasn't a mean or violent person or anything AFAIK; she'd just pull shit like e.g. not letting the kids go to a Thanksgiving dinner with my uncle's side of the family, because she "didn't want them exposed to anything Jewish". Just refusing to let them see any other way of living, ensuring as much as she could that they'd grow up to be bigots like her.

Last I checked, said uncle hadn't officially converted, but had become an open Trump supporter. During the 2016 election he couldn't decide between Trump and Cruz. And early in the pandemic, my mom kvetched to me a bunch about how she'd been on the phone with him for ~30 minutes, and he just wouldn't stop spouting Trumpist bullshit. Needless to say, nobody has told him that I'm trans.

Most religions have some bias towards having more babies. It's the one certain way to grow your group.

I found this interesting article on Medium about why people are not birthing babies like it is 1940.

BLUF: Having children and raising them is hard. And society doesn't want to help.

@Fisher: yup. It's hard to afford having children these days.

Re bias towards having more babies, yeah, Judaism has a thing about that... sort of. It's less religious and more cultural, I think, and less about number of children than any children at all; probably because half of us were wiped out in the Holocaust, and we still haven't really recovered (and are paranoid about another genocide happening). There tends to be a lot of pressure on young Jews, especially AFAB people, to settle down and have kids so the tribe doesn't die out. In a lot of cases it rises to a level that I consider frankly abusive.

lady_*nix wrote:@Fisher: yup. It's hard to afford having children these days.

Re bias towards having more babies, yeah, Judaism has a thing about that... sort of. It's less religious and more cultural, I think, and less about number of children than any children at all; probably because half of us were wiped out in the Holocaust, and we still haven't really recovered (and are paranoid about another genocide happening). There tends to be a lot of pressure on young Jews, especially AFAB people, to settle down and have kids so the tribe doesn't die out. In a lot of cases it rises to a level that I consider frankly abusive.

Not justifying it. However, when a group of people share a unique identity and there is a threat to that identity it is amazing what they will justify in the name of survival or keeping that identity. Look at how hard some whites fight to keep believing that anyone who is not white is not as human as whites are. In the face of overwhelming evidence that all humans come from exactly the same DNA they still insist that "whites" are different than everyone else. Maybe not the best example but it's the one that popped into my head.

Yup, I get that, though I think in this case it's... I'm not gonna say more justified, but more logical at least? Because white people as a whole don't really have much of an identity to erase, and the threat of "white genocide" has always been a crock. I think that's more just a privileged in-group not wanting to accept people who are Different among their ranks.

But yeah, you can really see the lengths that fear drives people to with Israeli politics. The treatment of Palestinians is frank genocide at this point, especially with the pandemic now, but people like Netenyahu are so invested in ethnic survival at all costs that they don't see what monsters they've become, or that they're destroying beautiful Jewish culture by turning it into a violent self-parody.

Re: Catholics, SIL is (as I said earlier) very Catholic, and frankly a credit to what that actually means. She hates a lot of American Catholicism because she finds it so conservative and out of touch even by the standards of the Church (she's super pro-choice as are most Catholics in Europe, for example), yet is so blase about a ton of the things that make you Catholic (like how everyone gets communion, even toddlers who don't get what it is). So I know all their theoretical future children will be raised Catholic, but I don't worry about them, because she's got a good view about what's really important and doesn't mind discussing these things with her atheist sister in laws.

People with different views who love and respect each other, crazy in these times, I know.

Re: kids, I am at the age where I can heartily confirm that a lot of people pressure you about them, over all races, creeds, religions, etc. But I'm also at the age where I realize people just pressure you about a lot of shit, and you've gotta just know how to keep saying "when we do, you'll be the first to know!" and change the subject. But yes, I'll also confirm, my biggest hesitation in remaining in the USA would be raising children in a society that clearly doesn't care about them or families in any way, but that's probably a rant for another time.

On a positive note the Pope just fired someone who was involved in writing an anti-LGTB letter that used to be the official position of the Catholic Church. And there is this: Pope Francis has written to pro-LGBT New Ways Ministry, praising and thanking the group and its founders, despite its long-standing opposition to Church teaching on matters of sexual morality and consequent censorship by Church authorities. This was last year apparently around spring.

I admit the Church and the Pope are often at odds with my own personal beliefs but I think this one is better than some of the past ones.