The World O' Crap Archive

Welcome to the Collected World O' Crap, a comprehensive library of posts from the original Salon Blog, and our successor site, world-o-crap.com (2006 to 2010).

Current posts can be found here.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

February 10, 2005 by s.z.


Be Fruitful and Multiply


In an attempt to stay true to our roots (poking good-natured fun at wingnuts and other assorted loons) even though we've left the farm of obscurity for the gay Paree of MSNBC, the Washington Post, and Salon, we offer to you some selections from a Baptist Press "First Person" essay:
FIRST-PERSON: Be fruitful & multiply
By Mark Coppenger
A couple of years ago, I was discussing Genesis 1:28 with a group of Christians when one ventured the opinion that the part about being fruitful and multiplying was well taken care of. With over six billion people on earth, and counting, we were plenty crowded.

At that point, I remembered an amazing statistic I'd read over a decade earlier in the pages of Harper's Magazine. The item concerned the space in which you could fit everybody if you bunched them up. I won't tell you what it was right off since I want you to guess.
No, just tell us.
OK. I'll tell you. You couldn't even fill a state with them. Using my atlas, the closest I could come up with was the Hawaiian island of Maui, but I wasn't totally happy with that since you would still have room for around another billion people on the island. I've done a little more checking, and have found that Oahu is closer, but still too big. So are the city limits of Houston. Yes, you could put the entire world into Houston.
Fine with me.  As long as they just stay bunched together, and don't try to eat or anything, the entire world can live in Houston. 

Let's do the math. How many square yards are there in a square mile? You have 1,760 on a side, so multiply 1,760 by 1,760, the same way you would get nine square feet in a square yard by multiplying three by three. Use a calculator if you must. The answer is 3,097,600 square yards in a square mile. Then multiply by four, since we are putting four people in each square yard.
Okay, those three other people in my square yard are really starting to bug me, so stop all the math and get to the point, Pastor Mark. 
The point is simple. We've got room. Don't let the fear of overcrowding discourage you. And even if things get tight with unbelieving families, we could always use more Christian parents raising Christian kids, should they be saved.

Um, Pastor, are you saying that only saved Christians should be encouraged to raise more Christian kids?  Or that when resources are tight, only Christians should have kids?  Or that only saved kids should be raised?  Or possibly that the Christian parents should take the children of the unbelievers and try to save them? I need more clarity on this point before I start doing my part to crowd some children in here.
I once asked two Christian college classes of about 40 each whether they thought that, if they married, they had a basic duty to try to have some kids. I don't think I got more than one or two hands total. They did believe that the "exercise dominion" part of Genesis 1:28 still applied, but they thought that procreation was a matter of moral indifference, like choosing romaine over iceberg lettuce at the grocery store.
Hey, we all know that iceberg is the only moral lettuce!  How DARE you try to lead our souls to hell by claiming that God doesn't care which salad greens we purchase?
Am I saying we should dismiss all contraception? No. I don't see a moral obligation to use every God-given capacity to the max.
Thanks, Pastor Mark.  I'm sure glad to know that God doesn't expect each woman to bear 20 or so children during her 30+ fertile years.
I have the capacity to sing, but I don't sing myself hoarse every day. But if I never sang to the glory of God, I should be ashamed of myself.

Certainly, there are those who are called to singleness. Of course, there are reasons for couples to delay or interrupt child-bearing. But the burden of justification before God always rests upon the willfully childless.
See, the willfully childless are sinners, and everybody who has working reproductive organs should have at least 5 or 6 children -- just ask Andrea Yates.
Besides, kids are great. A challenge, yes, but a blessing (see, for instance, Psalm 127:3-5). It's interesting to read the late-in-life reflections of those who have chosen career over family. They often draw their satisfaction from the impact they had on a few key lives.
And it's interesting to judge other people, and make determinations about who has chosen career over family.  It's fun too!
An architecture professor savors the work of one of his star pupils, a lawyer remembers an innocent prisoner he helped free, a stock broker recalls the kid who went to an expensive school because the father's investment portfolio was fruitful.

But what about cutting to the chase and impacting key lives directly from their moment of conception? Now, that's a career move.
And besides, we need more kids to stack up in Houston.
Mark Coppenger is pastor of Evanston (Ill.) Baptist Church and distinguished professor of apologetics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

He and three other professors share a one-foot square office/apartment on campus.

4:20:09 AM    




Also Playing


In a post entitled "Lasciate il Pranzo Tutti Ch'entrare...."*, Julia at Sisyphus Shrugged provides some very interesting info about Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., the guy whose aide was fired on Tuesday for spreading unfounded and ridiculous rumors about Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley.  

(*Okay, she provided a translation for those of us whose Latin is a little rusty or nonexistant: "Abandon your lunch, all who enter...")

And speaking of the alleged attempt to smear O'Malley, the Wash Post has an update on the story:
Maryland's legislative leaders said yesterday that they do not believe that a longtime aide to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) worked alone to circulate rumors about the personal life of Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley,
The phrase that comes to mind is "No duh!" 

(Well, I guess the "few folks" who Steffen said were putting in the effort to keep the story afloat could be Joseph Steffen, himself, and him, but it seems more probable that other Republicans were also involved.)
and they called for an independent investigation.
However, Ehrlich has said that his office can handle it, and he doesn't need no stinkin' independent investigation with subpeona powers and the ability to confiscate computer records and such.
The governor also rejected calls by Democratic lawmakers for an independent investigation, saying he could handle it himself.
"We'll get to the bottom of this, believe me," he said.
However, the Governor feels that Steffen was acting on his own when he sent the emails and posted the messages on FreeRepublic, so it might be a less than thorough investigation. 
Fallout from reports about the alleged smear campaign came on a day when O'Malley and his wife spoke emotionally about the toll that rumors of an extramarital affair have taken on their family, including their 7-year-old son William. Catherine O'Malley told reporters that when she signed William's report card, "he was insisting Daddy sign it, too. He said if Daddy doesn't sign it, too, people will think we're in a divorce."
It is truly unfortunate when innocents are made to suffer because of stupid rumors being "floated" for political reasons.

However, it wasn't O'Malley's day to get unmitigated sympathy from the press, because he was also in the spotlight for some unfortunate rhetoric:
O'Malley said Al Qaida terrorists attacked two of America's great cities "because they knew that was where they could do the most damage and weaken us the most." President Bush, with a budget ax, "is attacking our metropolitan core," he said. 
Oooh, not a good comparison, Mr. Mayor.

But back to the Post story about the rumors, and about Governor Ehrlich:
Democrats said the mayor's ability to address the rumors will remove a significant obstacle that had bogged down his efforts to launch a campaign for governor. "It helps solve a major problem for the O'Malley team, and it's going to generate a huge sympathy vote for him," Miller said.
They also said they believe that the episode will chip away at the reputation of a governor who has been popular with voters.
"This has a huge negative impact on the governor because people will finally realize he's bringing radical right-wing campaign tactics to Maryland," said Terry Lierman, the state Democratic Party chairman. "He no longer has deniable culpability. He has to accept that he will be known by the company he keeps."
See Julia's post for more about the "popular" Governor Ehrlich.

Oh, and this is my favorite FreeRepublic post on the story:
If you ask me... I think FR is under attack as well. First Buckhead gets raked over the coals, now we see Jeff Gannon and NCPAC getting the same treatment. I think the MSM is trying to label FR as a bunch of kooks. 3 posted on 02/09/2005 10:19:58 PM PST by [M]
FreeRepublic labled as a bunch of kooks?  Inconceivable!

Oh, and speaking of "Jeff Gannon," I also liked this post, which linked to this humble blog:
27 posted on 02/08/2005 6:56:28 PM PST by [D]
 Alert.....This needs attention"Jeff Gannon" EXPOSED

We need to:
a) Find out if this is true.
b)Drown these idiots out when we find it isn't true, but more an attempt at politics of personal destruction.
But sadly for the noble Freepers, it WAS true, and the only idiots drowned were the unfortunate White House aides designated to take the fall on this one. 

Tune in tomorrow for more about the conspiracy to "get" FreeRepublic, and for the details about how Bill and Hillary Clinton are behind it.

3:21:11 AM

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