Creationist number crunching: A pretext to breed soldiers?

I recently viewed the evangelical creationist program: Carl Baugh's "Creation in the 21st Century - Crunch the Numbers Part 1 (3 of3)". I usually watch it with a bit of a smirk (I'm not convinced by any of it), nostalgia for the smug blind faith of a Christian childhood, and Dr Baugh's hypnotically reassuring voice.
In the number crunching episodes Dr Baugh explains that both geneticists (apparently according to an article in Time Magazine) and the Bible trace our ancestral DNA back to 6 000 years.
However, Biblically we are descendants of Noah and his family, since the flood wiped out the rest of humanity. According to evolution the earth had no flood and would be hopelessly overpopulated today by mathematical number crunching. The grand finale of the program is when Baugh's guest proves that the earth is not overpopulated and that all 6 billion people could fit into one Texan county. He does this by tapping his ballpoint pen onto a globe, and voila, all our fears of over-population are dismissed! By implication, overpopulation is secualr propaganda. If we can all fit into Texas (albeit side-by-side) we suddenly seem underpopulated, and Christian couples can happily breed ahead in that knowledge.

On the many threads about gay issues and homophobia, one argument is that homosexuality is sterile and will lead to our species' extinction (as if everybody would suddenly turn gay because of equal civil rights). Conversely, rampant heterosexuality can lead to over-breeding, which could also cause our extinction - to secular humanists this is the more likely scenario. However, saying the earth is underpopulated supports the heteronormative paradigm, as well as the anti-abortion movement. Here in South Africa we now have a Christian women's movement lead by Gretha Wiid. She claims that masturbation is sin (wet dreams in teenage boys are specifically excluded as sin), pornography in marriage is sin, and any perversion that causes fantasy and lust even in marriage is a sin. It's all back to procreation (although she's strangely silent on contraceptives). Judging from Christian books there is a great fear that Muslims or other faiths will out-breed WASP Christians. So all this number crunching and return to missionary-style intercourse (even in marriage) seems to be a rallying cry for Christians to breed. Therefore, it is a call to breed more soldiers, for the future defence of Western civilization, but why not just say this openly?

For Dr Baugh (can anybody tell me how and where his doctorate originates?)
www.encyclopedia.com...
On Gretha Wiid: it appears her website is under construction, and I base my details on an article in the latest edition of "You" (English version)/ "Huisgenoot" (Afrikaans version) magazine, it should be www.grethawiid.co.za but apart from her "worthy woman" gathering last year nothing as yet explains her radical teachings that I find. I take it that she has learnt her teachings from similar US preachers - could anyone point out a similar figure?

PS: Interestingly, since the "population" number crunching of the creationists began, evolutionists are now also claiming that humans were once virtually extinct from a volcanic disaster, and that we are all descendants of about 100 surviviors.



[edit on 23-2-2010 by halfoldman]

[edit on 23-2-2010 by halfoldman]

Originally posted by halfoldman

PS: Interestingly, since the "population" number crunching of the creationists began, evolutionists are now also claiming that humans were once virtually extinct from a volcanic disaster, and that we are all descendants of about 100 surviviors.

[edit on 23-2-2010 by halfoldman]

Minimum genetic pool for survival of some higher species (mammals) is 500 individuals - and this is really the lowest estimation. Religious and scientific groups (as every other self-conscious group) have political agenda and propaganda branch. Almost everybody present his opinion as "truth" but usually it is just opinion.

EDIT to add: so this "500" is also opinion. There is possibility that culture could reduce this to 100. Or 400 were unsuccessful and 100 were successful and we see traces of only this minority - could they initially survive without not so successful 400 hundred? What if "not so successful group" did some heroic act to preserve "100 successful group"? Just speculations.

[edit on 23-2-2010 by zeddissad]

reply to post by zeddissad

Perhaps this is so, but surely this is a "scientific estimate", so it is also just opinion? If it is not religious or scientific, then what paradigm are you speaking from?
Evidence from native people that went extinct (without colonial admixture) from the 19th century seems to support this. But such groups also suffered from imported diseases and syphilis that caused sterility.
I see no real evidence that populations of 100 or even slightly less can found or maintain populations. The first groups of humans to Europe or the Americas, or the Pacific Islands were probably no more than 100 individuals for several generations.
Uncontacted tribes in the Amazon also seem to maintain a small, yet functional population.

reply to post by zeddissad

I just did some more research on the evolutionary science on near-human extinction. The date is set at about 70 000 years ago. The numbers are not not quite as low as I first guestimated, but generally under 2000 or 1000 breeding pairs that may have only survived through some accidental meeting of long-split groups. One site just mentions drought, while another posits the popular theory of the Toba supervolcanic eruption on Sumatra.
en.wikipedia.org...
It appears that Neanderthal man survived this global catastrophe independantly from Homo Sapiens in Africa/Asia.

reply to post by halfoldman


In fact I'm deriving my notion on "500" from estimation about highly territorial mammals - tigers. That is why I mentioned "cultural" influence. You can do perfect studies on drosophilas but it is hard to extrapolate such studies on other species. We do not know. Nobody have real scientific experience with interbreeding of 100 humans in long term. There exist some scientific consensus that mammal specie is considered as "extinguished" when less then 500 hundred individuals exists. My point (not well presented earlier) is, that there were probably thousands or hundreds thousands of actual survivals of some catastrophic event but only 100 (genetically) did it through the time to our ages. So you had genetic pool of thousands+ (probably in separate groups) but only 100 "genetically" survived. It is in perfect accord to "survival of the fittest" theory. Our understanding of genetics/biology etc. mechanisms is only partial. It is too early to do such far reaching conclusions.

reply to post by zeddissad

Agreed, by science we can crunch those possibilities of a functional breeding population, while also admitting that we might be wrong.
Biblical creationism seems to square everything with a number or geneology they find somewhere in their scriptures - although I'm not quite sure where Cain and Abel got their wives without incest.
I've just read a book called "Kalahari Rainsong" (Belinda Kruiper), and it's about a Bushman clan in South Africa and their struggle for land rights. Belinda actually marries into the clan from a "colored" community who are basically still "Khoisan". The amount of incest that goes on within the clan is shocking to outsiders, but their aim is partially driven by economics: they want to look "bushman" for the tourists and photographers. And apparently this has been going on successfully for quite some time.
As a matter of fact when we see websites on human origins and the San (Bushmen), it is the Kruiper clan that is usually depicted:
www.foxnews.com...

I mean, even if one goes to Utah and the Mormon people, most of them are related to Joseph Smith and his two dozen or so wives. One male and several females can literally breed a group into existance. This is the underlying worry amongst Christians: polygamous Muslims will conquer them by their sheer force of numbers.

Originally posted by halfoldman
So all this number crunching and return to missionary-style intercourse (even in marriage) seems to be a rallying cry for Christians to breed. Therefore, it is a call to breed more soldiers, for the future defence of Western civilization, but why not just say this openly?

It's not just more christian babies but but more "white" christian babies.



It must be a hard pill to swallow for the master race to know they are doomed to minority status.

Missing: The 'Right' Babies


[edit on 23-2-2010 by Lilitu]

[edit on 23-2-2010 by Lilitu]

reply to post by Lilitu

Thanks so much for that, whether one is pro or anti these sentiments or whatever, at least it demonstates the reality of the sentiments themselves, and that I was onto something with the sugar-coated evangelism that has been openly preached in other areas.
Great stuff !

reply to post by halfoldman

In the power/gender dichotomy of our West - who makes the final choice on impregnation? Men, or women?

Originally posted by halfoldman
reply to post by halfoldman

 

In the power/gender dichotomy of our West - who makes the final choice on impregnation? Men, or women?

For the last thirty years of so it has been a choice shared by both sexes to a large degree but white evangelicals do not like this. This is why they are fighting so hard against abortion and why they have broadened the fight against women's reproductive rights to include prohibitions on the use of contraceptives conflating contraceptive use with abortion itself.