QUOTE (box100 @ May 25 2008, 06:07 PM)The whole seven sins thing is really ancient history.
Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth (laziness), wrath, envy and pride. True some of the terms maybe old fashioned but I think the ideas are still relevant to modern life. Certainly not something to be discarded as ancient history. Let's take wrath, uncontrolled anger that can result in self-denial, impatience, revenge and vigilante. I think these things are entirely relevant to real life. Like
khael said religion may die but it's morals will still exist.
Oh and stuff like greed, being self-centred and always caring about your needs first is not a great quality when taken to the extreme. Why do people have thanksgiving and Christmas?
QUOTE (khael @ May 28 2008, 10:18 AM)My bad on forgetting to take into account individual circumstances, but I digress on the notion that it has more bearing on overpopulation than attitudes. I still do think that attitude towards sex has a huge effect. E.g. in some cultures having 12 children is considered "great" or good, not necessarily financially of course. Also, weren't the industrialized countries/first world countries the ones who thought of birth control and family planning?
In my native Sudan attitudes towards sex are a lot less liberal. It is unthinkable to have sex with a girlfriend. Sex can ONLY come after marriage. Yet the birth rate in Sudan is far higher than Britain which takes a more liberal approach to sex. I'm pretty sure similar things can be said about other third world countries. Even in the past when sex outside marriage was more taboo in Britain it had a higher birth rate (think Victorian times). So I don't think attitudes toward sex is a major factor towards birth rates.
It's also interesting to consider the birth rate of different classes. I believe the birth rate in the working-class is higher than the middle class as unemployment is more prevalent. I say this as the number of teenage mothers (who are mostly from the working class backgrounds). These people often drop out of school early and do not go to higher education unlike their middle-class counterparts. Such factors make women hold off pregnancy until a later age.
QUOTE It's quite true that the native population of western countries are being overrun by the population of eastern countries.
Overrun I think is a bit strong of a word. In some ways immigration is necessary. If the population is decreasing you need something to offset it. Otherwise you will find the younger generation having to support more people. Which is difficult for an economy (more money on health care, pensions and less spending). Immigration is also a quick way of gaining employment i.e it takes 10 years to train a doctor but 2 months (or less) to get a trained doctor from abroad.
Of course immigrants can never win!
They are either stealing our money (not getting a job) or stealing our jobs (ironically jobs that we didn't want in the first place i.e cleaners). Also is benefit fraud limited to immigrants?
I don't think so but it always makes good headlines...
NOTE: Looks like we're straying off-topic!
It's seems to be more about family planning and birth control rather than lust itself. Yes I'm as guilty as you!
But let's try and go back to the topic in hand?
Or do you want to discuss this more in a separate thread?
PM me if so!