"Over" population?

Quite some time ago I lived in a house with nine other renters. We were always trying to do something that no other renter had done. One night I was up pretty late after a date or group outing or something, and I stumbled across a late night/early morning program about starving children in one of the many Third World Countries. The program was successful at tugging at my heart strings and by the end of the program, I had called the toll free number and given the operator my credit card information so they could automatically withdraw funds from my account on a monthly basis so I could help “Feed the Children”.

They were very diligent in taking the money from my account. They were even more diligent in sending me personal gifts (i.e. Address labels, stamps, pens) as their personal thank you for my continued donations. This disturbed me. Where exactly was my money going? My monthly donation was being given straight back to me in a ruse to get more money. I don’t need address labels. I don’t need stamps or pens. I wanted to “Feed the Children”.

The more I reflected on the process of donations (as I stared at the magnet on my fridge of the adorable black girl that was supposed to be getting food) the more it perturbed me. I even went so far as to quasi-rebel. I started telling people that the reason we had so many starving children in the world is because we continue to feed them just enough to keep them alive and suffering. My simple solution was to stop giving them rice for a month or so. After that, we wouldn’t have any more starving people in the world and we would no longer be burdened with senseless late night programming and useless personalized knick-knacks.

There was a time when I was concerned about overpopulation of the Earth. It didn’t keep me awake at night, by any means... but when it was brought up in conversation, I thought about it. Then I took a sociology class at Weber State University. I read an article in a side column about the myths of overpopulation. There was a fact listed (now pay attention to this) that stated the entire world population could be split into families of four and each family could live on a 1/8 acre plot in Texas and not spill into any other state. Given, that doesn’t account for roads, forest, rivers, employment, or recreation, but it was a perspective I hadn't heard before.

Religion casts an interesting shadow on the supposed facts and information regarding population growth. Utah is predominantly Mormon and a Mormons are taught that one of the first and most important commandments is to “multiply and replenish” the earth. It is directly linked to the doctrine of spirit children in heaven that are waiting for a mortal body to inhabit. Mormons are taught to have as many children as your means will allow, assuming you are capable of providing and caring for them in righteousness.

This is a pretty big wrench that has been thrown into the inner workings of population control. Here is ones’ religion stating that they need to bring spirit children down into their families, directly opposing birth control, while scientists and researchers all over the world are crying wolf about population control and “zero growth”. What are the religious followers to do? Science is considered a blessing from God and information obtained in righteousness should be heeded. But what if that information is contrary to the teachings of ones’ church? Some would say, “Err on the side of conservation” while others would say, “Err on the side of obedience”.

And one last thing: Nobody seems to take into account nature’s ability to control the population as well as the likelihood of a World War assisting us in controlling the population. The recent tsunami and terrorist activities are prime examples of this type of elimination. It appears as though the production of nuclear weapons and bio-terrorism is also an extreme likelihood. It’s fairly safe to say that we live in an evil world and this evil is becoming more and more capable of destroying thousands upon thousands of people very quickly.

It may be a scary thought to consider, but from a religious standpoint, there is an Armageddon approaching quickly and that should help out the Earth’s population problem.

But that's just my two cents... or three.