Here is the logic: if murder as in the unprovoked taking of human life is one of the eviliest things a person can do would not conceiving a human life, being its exact opposite, be one of the most moral acts possible? Would it not be moral to create one more human life to advance to glory for God and for him or her to experience worship, love, kindness, pleasure, and so on?
If divinity were in fact the movivation behind sex, then yes! Absolutely. A healthy, happy child born to like-minded Christians spreading the Word would be the Most Divine Act.
However… theBiological Imperativetrumps most, if not all acts of sexual divinity, and the urge to mix up genetic information is a powerful thing that compels *all *carbon-based life forms.
You are making things too hard, Qin Shi Huangdi. A happy family trying hard for a child must certainly feel divinity in the hope and attempt for a much-wanted child. But all creatures, regardless of taxonomy, are compelled to pass down genes. That is why sex feels good, and that is why most living creatures are compelled to the act. And what of those who do not follow your beliefs? Have you noticed they are any less fertile? If not, why not?
I believe conception is good for anyone including non-Christians for I believe it is better to live and not be of the Elect than not to exist at all, for even those not of the Elect will ultimately have some meaning in the greater scheme of things.
And yes there is biological and national duty too in conception.
Resources are finite. Oil, gas, land to grow food, water. What say you about that? How many people would you will onto this limited Earth?
Energy efficiency is increasing and the vast majority of the Earth is still virgin. Indeed it is stated in one book that by 2100 energy efficiency will be so great a planet of 10 billion people can be in existence with a First World living standard.
That’s not logic, it’s religious wishful thinking.
However, Christians cannot have any objection to your proposition.
If they condemn a killer, they should exalt and praise the ones who give life to as many other human beings as possible.
But they don’t, because they all condemn women of a non-white color that have many children.
Hypocrisy has no limits.
What if the child was going to be born into a near-hopeless situation? To abusive parents in a place that overlooked that sort of thing? Or into extreme poverty? I’m not saying that people in those conditions shouldn’t be alive. But can an act be truly moral if it brings more suffering than joy?
Cite?
What the flying fuck, where the heck did you get that from? Where in the world do they spoon-feed you so much anti-religious bigoted Julius Streicher-style propaganda? North Korea? Pol Pot’s Cambodia? Or maybe you come from an alternate universe.
Physics For Future PResidents
So… rape is the most moral act possible, as long as it results in conception? Josef Fritzl wasn’t a sick motherfucker with a dungeon to rape his daughter and keep their incestuous children in; he is a shining example of the highest morality possible and a bringer of glory unto God?
I think you are trying to make good simple and absolute, but good is never simple and absolute. Life would be easier if it were, but it just isn’t.
No, I think he’s coming from this one, where it’s regularly suggested (by Christians and non-Christians alike) that women on welfare should have to be on hormonal birth control, or they should lose their welfare if they have another baby.
The idea that we should literally be fruitful and multiply served the church well when they were trying to control land and money. But aside from a few fringe groups (like the Quiverfull), it’s not really a current ideal. Even in Catholicism, where artificial birth control is not allowed, natural birth control by learning a woman’s fertility cycle and abstaining during her fertile days is taught and encouraged.
All else being equal - everyone having enough food, enough clothing and shelter and love in their lives - then yes, having a *wanted *child is a wonderful thing. I’m not sure it’s always “moral”, though. Many people have children by accident, or for selfish reasons like wanting love for themselves or wanting to live vicariously through their child or even (and this is horrid to think about, but true) with the intention of abusing or selling their children into slavery. I think “moral” speaks to motive as much as to act, and some people do have babies for immoral reasons.
Furthermore, it’s important to remember that all else isn’t equal right now. People are hungry, people are scared because they don’t have jobs, or don’t have job security. People die in agony of diseases that can be nearly eliminated with clean drinking water and mosquito netting, or $5 of pills a month. People right here in the US are starving, including children. Maybe that will change by the time you’re old enough to become a father. I certainly hope so.
In the meantime, I think we all need to put as much energy as we can into making the world safer and better, rather than encouraging people to have babies they don’t want and can’t feed. God created the world in 7 steps, remember - even He couldn’t have humans before he had a way to feed them.
And Masturbation would be crime against god.
Yikes. Qin Shi Huangdi, this is a biased source, which I will happily find cites to refute, but I’d rather not derail the intent of your OP.
Look… puberty can be difficult, emotionally and socially. Biologically: it’s a cinch. A body which is prepared to breed sends many signals. Sure, it’s possible to ignore and squelch those signals, and guilt is a formidable tool. However, there are other ways to address the urge to procreate that do not involve having sex. Masturbation can be a quick and easy fix to that nagging erection which is present not to haunt, but to signal nothing more than sexual maturity. The urge to take care of sexual urges isn’t sinful in origin; it’s biological, natural, and wired in (presumably by God Himself, if you believe in Him. We are all as God made us, afterall.) If one is overly distracted by lust: fix it. 3 minutes in the shower and the mind is free to focus on Noble Pursuits. As natural as eating, sneezing, or peeing. No biggie.
Regarding your cite, please consider the authors of any source you cite. I realize it is difficult to provide neutral cites in a political age, but the recent weather phenomenon which wiped out the nation’s breadbasket should clue you in: nothing is guaranteed, and people around the world are starving. Why is that?
Conception is, at best, morally neutral, and at worst morally wrong. I would define moral “good” as that which reduces suffering. Conception per se does not reduce suffering (except, arguably, to the extent that it may satisfy the craving to produce/nurture genetic offspring), and if the circumstances are not right, it has the potential to create suffering both for the offspring and the parents.
By the way, I’m really only talking about live births, by the way. Conception, as literally defined by pregnancy, has no moral meaning one way or the other.
But to most middle-class and upper-class households in the US, the child is very much assured a fairly comfortable life in society assuming it is not developmentally disabled, thus overall they will see more joy in their lifetime. In addition conception is important as a racial duty (in the sense of the human race) to propagate the species and insure its survival.
Even middle-class people are becoming homeless and visiting food pantries right now. I say this not to scare you - it does seem as if the economy is improving - but nothing for an individual family is secure right now. Truly upper-class people, perhaps, but most of us aren’t there, and I’m not sure morality is the right word to use if it only applies to a minority of people.
As for the survival of the species argument, it only really comes into play when a species is low in numbers. We want to help Galapagos Tortoises breed, for example, because there aren’t enough of them left with varied genes to keep the species going without help. Humans are not anywhere close to this danger at this point in time. IF we ever get to that point, or look like we’re getting to that point, then this argument may have some weight. Right now, it doesn’t.
Check out the Bible some time.
Christianity condemns people to eternal hell for whatever reason a representative Christian chooses to do so.
Religion is always defined by the behavior of the claimed participants of the religion, not by some wishful thinking of abstract and irrelevant idealistic interpretation of meaningless rules.
Morals aren’t logical. Indirectly, being conceived has put me in a position to experience far more suffering than being murdered would.
We had a thread here last year with the opposite premise, Is having kids ethical?.
This is still just morally neutral. It doesn’t reduce any suffering. The world is no better off.
Humans actually have the opposite problem. The world is overpopulated as it is. having said that, why does the human species need to be propagated? If humans become extinct, so what?