be stupid and multiply

In Quiverfull Movement, Birth Control Is Shunned | NPR (audio news)

"The womb is such a powerful weapon; it's a weapon against the enemy," Campbell [a leader of the Quiverfull movement and author of Be Fruitful and Multiply] says.

Campbell has 35 grandchildren. She and her husband stopped at six kids, and it is her great regret.

"I think, help! Imagine if we had had more of these children!" Campbell says, adding, "My greatest impact is through my children. The more children I have, the more ability I have to impact the world for God."

A Christian God, that is. Campbell says if believers don't starting reproducing in large numbers, biblical Christianity will lose its voice.

"We look across the Islamic world and we see that they are outnumbering us in their family size, and they are in many places and many countries taking over those nations, without a jihad, just by multiplication," Campbell says.

Still, Quiverfull is a small group, probably 10,000 fast-growing families, mainly in the Midwest and South. But they have large ambitions, says Kathryn Joyce, who has written about the movement in her book Quiverfull: Inside The Christian Patriarchy Movement.

"They speak about, 'If everyone starts having eight children or 12 children, imagine in three generations what we'll be able to do,' " Joyce says. " 'We'll be able to take over both halls of Congress, we'll be able to reclaim sinful cities like San Francisco for the faithful, and we'll be able to wage very effective massive boycotts against companies that are going against God's will.' "

I am the youngest of 9 kids in my family. We were raised Catholic. All of us kids are non-devout, and only my oldest sister and I are atheist. My parents made a modest living and were only able to own one house for all of us - a 1920s brick bungalow on the west side of Chicago - after which was sold in the mid 80s, they never owned any property again and spent the remaining years of their lives either living with one of us or renting an apartment. They never relied on welfare programs, food stamps, or any sort of handout from state or federal sources.

My parents taught us kids the value of staying close and helping each other out, so we developed a sense of independence as well as interdependence. Despite our occasional petty fights, grudges, and disagreements we've stayed very close knit all these years, passing such good influences on to our own kids (I remain the only single, childless one). We have helped each other out in times of stress, gave each other room and board when unable to find it, assisted each other in getting jobs, took turns in taking care of our aging parents.

And I can absolutely, definitely, proudly say that my parents did not have a lot of children because they thought of the womb as a weapon or that they wanted to outbreed extremist Muslims or because they wanted to brainwash others into Christianity. My mother is a devout Catholic now more than ever (she prays for all of us each night before going to sleep) and I adore her for being so loving, but she never uses God as an excuse for any kind of selfishness.

You know why my parents didn't have all us kids for those reasons those Quiverfull folks did (and I use the word 'folks' with disdainful connotation here)? It's because my parents were too busy being profoundly beautiful, selfless, unconditionally loving human beings and parents.

My dad died 4 years ago, and now my mom has begun the slow, gradual descent towards death herself. I moved in with her originally to take care of Dad, but now that he's gone I'm looking after her (with the help of my siblings). And it wasn't because of religion or faith. It's because I love her very deeply and it's payback time for all those years she loved me.

This...."community".....of parents having truckloads of kids to merely promulgate and propagate their religion for its own sake, and even worse, as a perceived method of combating a rival religion, is the most disgusting, revolting, moronic, and shamefully SELFISH act anyone can choose to do in terms of family. If there really is a powerful, all loving God, is this what He would condone? His followers breeding for the purpose of competing with another religion and pimping Him?