Tag Archives: God

My kid is superior to Baby Jesus

This holiday season, similar to the past few holiday seasons, many of us received a card with somebody’s kid on it, and by somebody’s I do not mean Mary’s. By somebody’s, I mean relatives’, friends’, coworkers’, and even distant acquaintances, clients’, or other people we do business with.

Since the printing companies made this kind of service available (and are now licking their lips at the profit they make from narcissistic people), American parents replaced Baby Jesus with their own kids. Where there used to be Mary and Joseph bending over newborn Jesus in the crèche, or Santa Claus, a snowman, or a Christmas tree, they paste pictures of their own kids instead. Most of the people who do this consider themselves Christians, yet, they replace their God with their own offspring. By doing so, they pass a message that their kid is more important than the Nativity, Santa, and all the snowmen and trees in the world. Doesn’t it seem a bit arrogant?

I have never seen these kinds of cards in any other culture. With the general secularization and commercialization of Christmas in many contemporary societies, using winter landscapes, playful penguins, reindeers, Santas, and decorated trees are more often seen than the Nativity, but none of the societies I know took it as far as replacing the above with their own kids.

Sending a card with one’s kids on it to their grandparents or to someone else who knows and likes them is not as shocking, although even in this case a normal card could be used and the pictures given or sent separately. However, it is really ridiculous to give these kinds of cards to coworkers or someone they just do business with. Even the relatives that do not know these kids, have seen them once in their lives, and do not remember their names, or do not care about them at all should not be bombarded with their pictures, and the front of a Christmas card is the least appropriate place to put them. It is like telling people “look what a miracle I am and these are little carbon copies of my precious and special self” or “look at what an eighth wonder of the world I produced”. The purpose of sending these kinds of cards is not to make the recipients happy but to please the senders’ vanity and to indulge their own overinflated ego.

The truth is that most people do not really care and do not really want to see those kids’ cards. If they say “awww, that’s so cute!” upon receiving them, that is because they are too polite, too mendacious, or too harassed by the kid-obsessed society into silence to tell the arrogant author of the card (and of the kids on it): “nobody actually wants to see your kids”. What would the authors of the kid cards say if their childfree coworkers or business partners sent them a Christmas card with an ultrasound picture of their permanent birth control on it? I purposefully do not give an example of the childfree people’s pets on a card because these would trigger patronizing and condescending comments: “Poor Lucy, she does not know the joy of parenthood so she uses the ersatz of her cat”. An ultrasound picture of a permanent or long-term birth control method is a more accurate equivalent and many American parents should in fact get some of them for a couple of holiday seasons in a row to actually understand how ridiculous and inappropriate their cards with kids’ pictures are.

Kids’ pictures do not belong on Christmas cards, unless it is Mary’s kid whose birth is celebrated on that day. The cards should remain with Santas, snowmen, winter landscapes, Christmas trees, and Nativities on them. I know that most people in this kid-obsessed country will not be assertive enough to tell the sender of an unsolicited card with kids on it that they do not really want to receive this kind of a card; that a Christmas-related picture on it would be much more appropriate and desired. If this is the case, they may post or send this article instead and hope that the arrogant parent of the kid(s) on the card understands the allusion.

The big “be fruitful and multiply” manipulation

When people announce that they do not want to have children, they are often confronted with a statement: but God said “Be fruitful and multiply”. I am pretty sure many childfree Christians were exposed to this problem whether hearing this phrase as a reproach made by someone else or even considering by themselves if their choice is right in the light of their God while remembering only this short part of it.

People who use the phrase “Be fruitful and multiply” to scold or undermine someone else’s reproductive choices always omit its further part. Actually, the exact phrase of Genesis 1:28 reads as follows: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Fill the earth. Subdue it. Have dominion. Sounds familiar?

There seems to be little consensus today regarding when exactly was Genesis written. The Book of Genesis itself does not state it either. Its authorship is arguable. Assuming, however, that Moses was the author, the date of composition for the Book of Genesis would have to be between 1446 B.C. (the date of the Exodus) and 1406 B.C. (the death of Moses), according to Bible.org.

The data on world population in 2000 B.C. varies between 27 million and 35 million, while for 1000 B.C. it is estimated to have been about 50 million. Let’s assume that the world population in 1400s when Genesis was written was approximately the same as the current population of California (just above 38 million as of 2012), or Argentina, Algeria, Poland or Sudan, eventually half of the population of today’s Egypt, Germany, or Iran.

According to the United Nations (as of June 13, 2013), current world population of 7.2 billion is projected to reach 8.1 billion in 2025 and 9.6 billion by 2050. These figures are based on the so called “medium variant” projection, which assumes a substantial decline in fertility rates. According to the “high variant” projection, however, the world population in 2050 could be 10.9 billion.

When the world population was around 40 million, the calling “be fruitful and multiply” could not have done much harm and was even justified. However, using the phrase in today’s planet that carries over 7 billion souls and intentionally leaving the rest of it  omitted, prevents the person on the receiving end from realizing that this part of God’s plan (whether you believe in God or not) has been exceeded by way too much. The world is overpopulated and humans have too much dominion over the other creatures and their environments. If anything, the complete phrase should lead people to ponder whether they have overachieved this plan and need to modify their behaviors to sustain life on the planet for many future years.

As of 2013, we face the problems of deforestation, CO2 emissions, global warming, unsustainable agriculture, water and air pollution, resource depletion, species extinction, and other serious environmental issues resulting from overpopulation and environmentally irresponsible behavior.

There is also a personal level to this problem: following the calling with its second part omitted may make some people unhappy – these people that did not want to have child, but gave in to the peer pressure of the “be fruitful and multiply” manipulative advocates. On the global level, however, it means a further serious devastation of the already devastated environment.

When Americans hear “overpopulation” in relation to “environmental problems”, they point their blaming fingers at the developing countries, especially African ones, where the birth rates are higher. Very few of them would consider that in their kid-obsessed country fewer, but extremely spoiled kids do more harm to the environment than a larger number of African children raised in modest conditions. In child-worshiping America people buy tons of plastic toys, disposable diapers, use a lot of fuel to drive the kids in monster-size SUVs, waste the food their fussy kid does not eat, buy brand new clothing, while in developing countries there is little waste, kids have to be creative in inventing their toys and ways of playing, they recycle clothes, walk, do not waste food and are still happy and respectful. This does not mean that the birth rate should continue being this high, but it is not only the developing world with multiple children per couple that is to blame for environmental problems. Child-related overconsumption in America is worse in this regard.

Today, instead of “be fruitful and multiply”, the calling for all, Christians or not, should be: Be responsible and use birth control, stop cutting down rainforests, lower CO2 emissions, stop mass scale plastic manufacturing, and biodiversity depletion, have respect for the fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens and for the trees of the Amazon, and for heaven’s sake, stop the kid-related overconsumption. The Earth is filled to the limits, subdued way too much, and human dominion has done a lot of harm.