Well the good news is that 80% of fundie kids eventually fall away from the flock! WOOHOOO!!!
The fundie movement IS dying.
Awkward first date conversation…
“Would you like to have kids someday?”
“Oh, yes, about 15 or 16…”
“Check, please!..”
Best line from the article in the OP:
"But the Bible says, ‘All men come.’ "
I don’t even know where to begin with the giggling.
[QUOTE=Antinor01]
This is very true, but when you consider that this one man and his wife have generated a group of between 80-90 family members all dedicated to their cause…well, just shows it can add up fast even with attrition.
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In Phelps’ case, I don’t think they really believe the way the ol’ man does…I think they’re afraid not to.
The “captive audience” approach to recruitment is nothing new. I mean, jeez…the catholics make you promise them to the flock before they’re even BORN!
The Catholics tried the same trick in the Southern Netherlands during 1910-1970. Did it work ? Yes, for a while. Here are two pictures of the typical large Dutch Catholic family of those times, usually living in “decent poverty”. Then the Catholic scheme backfired, and the Southern Provinces had the lowest birthrate in the Neherlands for the next few decades. So in the end, the results sort of evened out.
[QUOTE=MerryMagdalen]
Best line from the article in the OP:
"But the Bible says, ‘All men come.’ "
I don’t even know where to begin with the giggling.
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Well, these families are living proof of THAT!
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
They are showing plenty of faith; what kind depends on what variety of End Timeism they believe. If they believe that the faithful will be Raptured and us sinners suffer the Tribulations, reign of the AntiChrist, etc, then they show faith by ignoring the logical inconsistancy you pointed out. If they think the Tribulation and so forth will happen first and then the Rapture, they are showing faith by producing an army for an imaginary need.
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Of course, a significant portion of the outbreeding fundies adhere more to Gary North & Rousas Rushdoony than they do Hal Lindsey & Pat Robertson. No Rapture OR Tribulation for them, but Theonomy & Dominion! Booyah!
I always thought it was sort of the backhanded point of eschewing birth control for fundies.
According to something Bush’s new family planning czar made up on the back of a napkin, lots of sex depletes your precious oxytocin reserves, making you a crazy asshole. So, we’re at a conundrum here. Do the crazy religious nutcases believe the claims of crazy religious nutcase science or not?
[QUOTE=MerryMagdalen]
Best line from the article in the OP:
"But the Bible says, ‘All men come.’ "
I don’t even know where to begin with the giggling.
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“Every sperm is sacred…” [obligatory MP reference]
[QUOTE=Apos]
. . . Bush’s new family planning czar . . .
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Right. All those overbreeding conservatives are just going to eventually lose out. Check out this article which points in the other direction.
If liberals are choosing to have fewer children in general and also support abortions, thus denying the future of more liberals, then eventually libs will be severely outnumbered.
So if you libs want to consistentaly beat conservatives then you better start popping out those babies! Throw out the rubbers, get rid of that diaphragm, pitch the pills, walk away from the abortion clinics and head directly to a fertility specialist so you can start a litter of liberals. The future is counting on you!
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Apparently it’s not enough any more just to eschew abortion and birth control. Some evangelical churches are now preaching that their brand of Christians have a religious duty to have as many babies as possible so as to provide multitudes of soldiers for the Lord’s Army in the Culture War – it’s called the “Quiverfull strategy” – and many of the congregation are taking those words to heart (or other, more relevant organs).
If this works, sooner or later it’s gonna lower our national average IQ by a full standard deviation. (Or would, if evolution weren’t a Satanic lie.)
Don’t suppose there’s anything we heathens can do about this?
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Why do you think the Catholic Church is against birth control? In any way, shape or form…
Um…I haven’t checked out the Papal Bulls recently, but AFAIK the Catholic Church is still against any form of birth control other than the rhythm method.
If pressed I will try to find cites later (I’m too tired right now) but there have been some controversies recently regarding Catholic missionaries being reluctant to advise condoms in Africa to prevent HIV, since premarital sex and most BC are both against Catholic doctrine.
Aw crap…
if6was9 I totally misread your post. I am that tired.
[QUOTE=MerryMagdalen]
Aw crap…
if6was9 I totally misread your post. I am that tired.
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Well, I still don’t get it. Is if6was9 equating Catholics with “heathens”? Or with evangelicals? Or just whooshing?
Flaw in the reasoning: you’re assuming that political tendencies are reliably genetic, i.e., that children of conservatives will reliably vote conservative. But recent election cycles are evidence that individuals frequently change their voting patterns or political stances based on their own experience and choices. They don’t just blindly follow whatever political ideology they were brought up with.
Within one five-year period, the US elected as President the liberal Jimmy Carter in 1976 and the conservative Ronald Reagan in 1980. Did we suddenly get a new generation of conservative voters in the interim? No, we just had a lot of people who formerly voted liberal now voting conservative. Same sort of thing happened in reverse between 2002, when we voted in a Republican-majority Congress in both houses, and 2006, when we voted in a Democratic-majority one.
The op-ed piece you linked to explicitly admits that voting patterns aren’t determined by genetic descent:
Moreover, IMHO, reactionary religious conservatives who try to establish for their kids a cult-like environment where homosexuality is portrayed as evil, evolutionary theory as a false Satanic conspiracy, etc., are raising a lot of future liberals. If you feed your children on lies, some of them are bound to figure it out at some point, and many of those will passionately reject the ideology that the lies came from.
[QUOTE=Kimstu]
Flaw in the reasoning: you’re assuming that political tendencies are reliably genetic, i.e., that children of conservatives will reliably vote conservative. But recent election cycles are evidence that individuals frequently change their voting patterns or political stances based on their own experience and choices. They don’t just blindly follow whatever political ideology they were brought up with.
Within one five-year period, the US elected as President the liberal Jimmy Carter in 1976 and the conservative Ronald Reagan in 1980. Did we suddenly get a new generation of conservative voters in the interim? No, we just had a lot of people who formerly voted liberal now voting conservative. Same sort of thing happened in reverse between 2002, when we voted in a Republican-majority Congress in both houses, and 2006, when we voted in a Democratic-majority one.
The op-ed piece you linked to explicitly admits that voting patterns aren’t determined by genetic descent:
Moreover, IMHO, reactionary religious conservatives who try to establish for their kids a cult-like environment where homosexuality is portrayed as evil, evolutionary theory as a false Satanic conspiracy, etc., are raising a lot of future liberals. If you feed your children on lies, some of them are bound to figure it out at some point, and many of those will passionately reject the ideology that the lies came from.
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I never assumed that political tendencies are genetic. It is nurture, not nature. To say otherwise would be foolish.
However, parents attempt to instill their values and beliefs upon their children. If it is done in a manner that is not oppressive or abusive, the values might stick. True, teens will rebel and go against what the parents might teach, but if the lessons being taught are not done in an overbearing manner, then the kids might take them to heart and even incorporate them in their live. Too many of the extreme liberals assume that conservatives are essentially beating their views into their kids. Not all conservatives are the pompous, overbearing version you see in Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh or Archie Bunker any more than not all liberals are Al Franken, Barbara Streisand or Teddy Kennedy.
And what about the extremist liberals? You don’t think it’s possible that their kids will turn to their parents and say, “Look, Moon Unit and Sundance. I love you guys but I think you are full of it! I don’t think people should be allowed to sit on their asses and have the government pay for their food, water, utilities and medical care while other hard working people have to take care of themselves. I don’t think that medical progress has to be hindered because some group thinks that lab rats have the same rights as people. I don’t think we should be bent over a barrel and screwed by OPEC so we should build more nuclear power plants even though it will disrupt the mating grounds of the rare Three-assed Snotslinging Frog. And, Moon Unit and Sundance, I happen to believe that I was a baby, not just a clump of cells and I’m pretty damn glad that you didn’t decide to have me scrapped out because it was your choice.”
I don’t preach to my son about my values. I tell him my opinions and what was the reasoning behind my decisions. I then let him make up his own mind. He is 14 and has a damn good head on his shoulders. I’ve been honest with him about my academic difficulties, my experimentation with drugs and even the fact that I had gotten a girl pregnant when I was 17 and that he has a half-brother out there (I signed away my parental rights so he could be adopted by the man that the mother eventually married).
By discussing things calmly, he has incorporated some of my views exactly and others he still isn’t sure yet. But he is at least open to discussing things as long as I don’t try to cram it down his throat.
Sure, they might, and no doubt some of them will. But that doesn’t mean that all of them will. Nor is it a given that even kids who don’t rebel against their parents’ values as adolescents will always agree with their parents in every election that they vote in once they’re adults.
This moderate, rational, nuanced understanding that some parents pass along some of their political values to some of their kids is a very different thing from the hysterical, exaggerated rhetoric (“Look out liberals, you’re being outbred! Save yourselves! Throw away those pills!”) that you came in here with.
[QUOTE=Zabali_Clawbane]
Here is a thread from last year, which discusses some world famous quiverfulls, who had just celebrated the birth of their 16th child. Here is a link to the family’s site. I saw the documentary they did a few years back, when they had less children. As long as they are paying for the food, clothes, medical costs etc. of all the children it isn’t so bad.
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Actually, the consensus over on Television Without Pity is that Discovery/TLC has paid for the majority of their new compound…errr…house, as well as their trip across the country, in exchange for the Duggars whoring themselves and their children out in several more specials.
E.