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01/10/2006: "European Christianity"

Someone created a short-lived post on the forums of Braingle with a link to this Article. He had a note on it saying something like, "Read this entire article. See why we need God?" Being someone who likes to read thing like this so that I can go point by point and tell them why it's wrong, I read it. Unfortunately, by the time I was done, a moderator on the boards had already killed the topic, probably because there are a few topics of similar nature in the Debate Forum. That means I couldn't point out to this individual what was wrong and so I must do so here.

Summarization of the article is a little difficult because it is an opinion piece and as such, doesn't have a clear purpose (unlike what I write here ). Basically, the author, James P. Gannon, feels that because Europe has lost touch with its Religions, they don't get along with the U.S. and they don't have enough babies.

I'm not sure if he was trying to make a 1,000 word argument about how to increase birth rates, but that's what it seems like. It's a wonder that he didn't bring up India or China or most countries in Africa as an example of how religious people have a healthy birthrate. Maybe that's because most of those places have birthrates that a wee bit on the high side, considering the 2.1 children per couple figure he sites as necessary for sustained population.

The really funny part though is admonition that "abortion, birth control, acceptance of gay marriage and casual sex are driving the trend." So, let me get this straight (if you'll pardon the pun). Because many European coutries have negative population growth, it must be due to the fact that most Europeans are either having abortions or preventing pregnancy with condoms and gay sex? It can't be because, as in the U.S., many of the X and Y generations are putting having children on hold so that they can start a career instead of being chained to the house? Maybe the reason that Europeans aren't having more children is because they don't like them. Or maybe it's because they just don't like each other! (No French jokes, please.)

Even though it's not necessarily obvious that this article is an opinion piece since the only times the word "opinion" is used is in the links at the bottom, it is obvious that the author is a Roman Catholic. Only a cathoholic would include birth control in that mix. And if we can clearly see that this is coming from the view of a cathoholic, we can then clearly see that this is just a case of sour grapes at losing people who might actually agree with him. I'm guessing this person is active in his congregation, which in terms of a disease like cathoholism makes him an enabler. Which in turn makes him responsible for every problem that the Church has ever caused since he joined. (See Unelectable in this blog.)

So, my response to the question, "see why we need God?", can clearly be said to be, "no."