Thursday, July 17, 2008

Pope: World's natural resources being squandered

Pope Benedict XVI says the world's natural resources are being squandered by "insatiable" consumption and urges people to care more for the environment.


Fun fact: the Pope forbids birth control.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's always amazed me that anyone cares what these old men in dresses have to say. I must admit I do like the red slippers and the staff thingy however.

And...yes, the answer to all our problems is that we just don't have enough babies. More babies...please!

Michael

Anonymous said...

"Fun fact: the Pope forbids birth control."

No!

You're kidding, right? The Pope, and therefore the entire Catholic Church doctrine, forbids any form of birth control? And is telling us that "...the world's natural resources are being squandered by 'insatiable' consumption and urges people to care more for the environment." ? I find that very hard to believe, Mac. Are you sure you've got your facts straight?

I mean, that's really kind of hard to believe, you know, as it would seem, at least to me, to be rather contradictory, or at least a sort of counter-intuitive thing to either say or believe, since most would suggest that having 6.7 billion people on the planet, and within 30 years, most likely beyond the possible carrying capacity, as it's termed, of the planet's resource exploitation and management capacity, up to 9+ billion people are supposed to be living on earth, which also seems unlikely.

How could the Pope, and church dogma about birth control methods (I mean don't they condone the "rhythm method" or some similar natural and, as we all know, highly effective technique of avoiding pregnancy), be such that the obvious issue of the advantages of selective birth control techniques, like the pill, or condoms, be rejected? You know, that just wouldn't make sense, now would it?

I can only suggest, Mac, that you must have your info wrong, as how can we ever even begin to get a handle on the one issue, the overuse of natural resources as a base for human consumption, if we don't also, in parallel, deal with the problems of "excess," or at least geometrically-increasing population numbers?

No, I just can't believe that, as one in a sense, population, especially in the near future, directly impacts on and drives the issue of resource overuse, pollution, and proper management of resources within the existant and growing population itself, right? It occurs to me that we will never be able to deal effectively with the dangers and consequences of one without contending with and dealing in turn appropriately with the other.

It just wouldn't make sense to exclude the cause if you are concerned about the hazard of our burgeoning use of energy, or all the other resources we consume, now would it?

I just don't believe that.

I mean, come on, that would actually be pretty stupid, an almost cult-like or dogmatic view and would never work. There must be some other way of looking at this, or you just simply got things wrong, Mac. I'm really quite surprised you would think that, and feel, somehow, you must have misinterpreted some data along the way, or something.

That's almost as silly as thinking that Jesus was not human, or some kind of supernatural being sent here by some God, as a means of excusing our collective human guilt for imaginary sins by his crucifixition, when if that were even true, any such sacrifice wouldn't be in any sense logical or practical, especially as only a one time thing, or if the sins we would thus all be forgiven for, were created in the first place, as an issue, by any such fabled God setting us up in the garden of Eden for such a sin of, initially, knowledge. That would seem similarly ridiculous.

I just don't know where you get these facts, Mac, or generate (perhaps a form of subtle confabulation?) such ludicrous statements. Boy, all I can say is "D'Oh"--wake up and get a cup of coffee, Mac, is my suggestion.

And read the bible. It has all the answers to the kind of questions your fabulous statement might raise. I don't know why it has to be me to say the obvious, but, there you go. No more need be said to explicate the issues, problems, or other folderol that might be somehow inter-related--idle speculation, at best. I think we're done here...

Now, about that little population problem...

Heh. 8^}

Ray said...

888

Mac said...

Intense--

You're right. I *must* have misinterpreted the facts!

Anonymous said...

Don't mess with 'da Pope! Remember, facts can just get in the way of beliefs, so we can just do without that added and most confusing benefit in this and other cases I may wish to cite when useful in dealing with those pesky facts. Let us pray, instead... That'll change things! 8^}

Anonymous said...

what Benedict should really do is die his hair carrot and become catholicism's first punk pope!! look at his ludicrous picture that Toonies posted: what a step foward this would be!! why not?? I see no difficulty in the Vatican getting in tune with modern humanitarian cultural values rather than as an extremist and fundamentalist example of a great step backwards....