Please read the linked article about the “Quiverfull” mothers building an army for God by Kathryn Joyce from The Nation in the title to this posting. The stated goal of the Quiverfulls is to have at a minimum six children, with the father in charge and the woman submissive. They even have a web site at www.quiverfull.com. They are adamantly against abortion of course, but also any form of family planning and they encourage home schooling.Want to know what scares the holy hell of me, an army for God made up of inbred home schooled idiots running our country. What I do not understand is why it does not scare everyone else.Peter Nuhn
HA! That’s a good one…
Half-empty. As far as I’m concerned, one can never have too much stuffed into one’s cup. : )
How ironic it is that atheism rates in the USA have gone up in the past 30 or so years! If their goal is to create an “army of god” by having 10 kids minimum I say, go ahead. Hell, I’m not the one paying for the college education of all those kids (that’s 20 Grand a year x 4 years x 10 kids = $800,000, asuming homeschoolers who believe dinosaurs roamed the earth 5000 years ago can make it into universities. No wonder most families in the western world have 3 kids or less.) That’s the main reason why the birthrate in Europe is so low; education costs are through the roof. My guess is, “white” Europeans would have more children if they could afford to give them a high quality education. (And by the way, the nation of Turkey is a SECULAR country and has been that way since the 1920′s. If Turkey becomes part of the EU it will NOT spread Shari’ah law.)
I was looking through their site and I find it quite interesting that when they go after birth control they do not go after it in general, but rather go after Planned Parenthood and its founders. Really. Just goes to show you what poor arguments they have that they have to resort to an attack on someone’s character. Pa-thetic.
The last point I wanted to make is that (and Richard Dawkins said this on C-Span the other day) there are no such things as “Christian children”. Just because you were born into a Christian family does not mean you will continue practicing your faith as you get older and subsiquently more wise. Christians can have 10+ kids, but how many of them will lose their faith over time? The best we can do, as Atheists, is to promote goodness without a god and to continue debunking religious absurdities. That’s the best way we can put up with something like this. Trust me, we don’t need to have 17 kids, just three really smart ones.
This reminds of a famous Science Fiction story called The Marching Morons. I have a copy of this story and treasure it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons
I read the whole thing and it made me sick. They think having a lot of kids will help them? No, their kids will be stupid and not have a say while Atheist children will be much smarter than those redneck freaks.
A co-worker of mine was brought up in strict catholic household with nine siblings and one breadwinner, and she is definitely a hard atheist of the Nietzsche-influenced variety. I made a point to ask her this morning if most of her sibs were religious. “Definitely not!” was her response, “Only one of us still goes to church. The rest of us don’t want anything to do with it!”
Just a little anecdote for ya.
Check!!
Anthony: It makes me sick too. But don’t call them freaks. Those poor kids have no control over their parents brainwashing them. Show a little compassion. Plus, you never know. All of those poor kids will be exposed to the real world, therefore they’ll be exposed to other religions (and the lack of them) and might end up as the least religious peple you’ll ever meet.
At the very least I hope the daughters in those families realize how much sexist crap their parents are telling them and break free from the whole “mandatory housewife” role. But I can’t imagine that if they can’t have a job that they would be allowed to go to college…
r4d: I like that story a lot.
BUT! The thing I wanna know is what if one of the families had a gay son/daughter?!
Sometimes I wonder if coming out as an atheist to your religious parents is actually worst than coming out as gay.
This is absolutely sickening! Just as nauseating as the Discovery Health Channel documentary called “14 Children and Pregnant Again” that aired last year about the Dugger family in Arkansas, who are trying to create their own little “gods’s army.” Did any of you catch this show? I watched this program in total disgust.
All the kids are home-schooled, of course (how better to brain-wash you, my dears), and the girls must wear dresses at all times.
Apparently 15 kids is not enough for these twisted people as number 16 was due in October. Oh, and they’re not done! To quote the article (http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=80751), “And they say this might not be their last bundle of joy.”
What is equally sickening is the tone of this Discovery special, like “isn’t this a quaint curiosity?Isn’t this cute?” No, IT’S NOT!!!!
So, cute, DHC thinks, that they have made a sequel called “15 Children and Pregnant Again”.
DHC is reairing the original this Sat., Nov 18, at 4 pm EST. In case we weren’t all horrified enough the first time….
IMO, it is just irresponsible to have as many children as the Duggers have had. No way can Mama Dugger see to all those kids on her own. I’ll bet the resposibility gets laid on the other kids’ shoulders, where it does not belong.
Good for them that they can afford a 7000 sq. ft. home with 4 washer and 8 dryers. But what about the attention these kids need, that they should get from their parents, not their siblings? The girls’ having to wear dresses all the time is outrageously sexist. There’s no telling in what other ways they are oppressed.
My husband’s aunt’s uterus started falling out after her tenth kid. I hope Mrs. Dugger’s body takes the initiative and wises up and does the same for her soon.
Apparently Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have their own website: http://www.jimbob.info/index.htm
One of the links on their website is to the Quiverfull organization.
And Jim Bob was, GASP, an AK State Rep from 1999-2003.
i don’t see how any of you bleeding heart liberals can complain.you don’t
want the gov’t to say who can marry or have sex . thank goodness there are groups working for a final solution to the overpop problem. china to its credit has a model policy.
AtheistAlexandra,
Well their parents were brainwashed too, but I feel nothing but horror and a need to label them “freaks” even if it seems unjust. I know that sounds bad but I am really honest and hardly hold back.
About them changing, well kids do tend to stray away from their parents, it is possible.
reason
I’m really not sure if this is a joke or not, but I’m going to go ahead and take it seriously.
China’s population control efforts have led to its current ‘gender crisis’; a rapidly growing population of young men with no women in sight to marry. Every year, millions of fetus are selectively aborted because they are female and tens of thousands of baby girls are simply abandoned. Chinese orphanages are overflowing and impoverished, with reports of infanticide at these orphanages increasing at an alarming rate. The streets are littered with starving little girls rummaging through the garbage, most of which will die before they reach their pre-t_eens.
Social engineering simply does not work.
It seems to me that in the Duggar’s case, their reproductive proficiency is an extension of an out of control ego. They just use their faith as the reasoning for it.
rainbows4dinosaurs if china needs women they can buy them from north korea it needs the money.
on a more serious note it is hard to believe that some states allow 14&15 yr olds to marry & have kids.
what do you guys and gals think is a proper age of consent? Do these women
having large families have at least a high school diploma,are they products of home schooling? why would you want your daughter to be no more than a piece of livestock.
lets hope groups like planned parenthood don’t get shut down.
My wife has a bit of a morbid fascination with the Duggars. I just cringe whenever I see those shows on TV. I remember the oldest child, aboy, about 15 or 16, saying how he didn’t want to date, that he was looking for a “life partner”. Yikes. All I wanted at 16 was to get laid:D. At least let these kids have a childhood..
BTW, this my first post here. Greetings to everybody.
Thanks to whomever fixed my triple posting.
doubledog8,
Welcome, although I must disagree on a point of yours. I did not want to date or have a life partner (still don’t right now) when I was a kid. I view romantic love as weakness.
Of course these were and still are my own views, not some church. I am my own person, not a sheep.
Atheism is a good place for free thinking.
Welcome doubledog8, but I have to say I don’t think these kids do get much of a childhood. At least not the older ones because they are all expected to look after their siblings. I know from seeing part of a show on the Duggars that the older kids are all assigned a younger sibling as their responsibility.
No I don’t want the government to say who can marry (in general- I agree with age limits and consent being necessary) or have sex (again consent is important) and I certainly don’t want them to tell me how many kids I can have. I want people to be responsible about their own family planning which I think can be worked towards with education. Also possibly stopping the tax breaks for big families – not sure about that because I don’t want to force people further into poverty. Maybe tax breaks for smaller families instead.
I agree with rainbows4dinosaurs about china. And reason – buying women is hardly a good economic solution when they could be just having them for free.
Age of consent for marriage? 18 seems pretty good to me. If you meet someone before that then just wait. I got married at 24 but I had been dating the guy since 14.
I agree with Monika that people should have a choice as to family size. However, having 15, 16, 17 kids is, IMO, extremely selfish and totally irresponsible. There are too many people in the world already draining our resources.
My husband and I have two wonderful children, a boy and a girl, and stopped there. Basically, we have replaced ourselves.
Hi doubledog8…I’m new here, too.
These people make me want to procreate just to balance it out with one more freethinker in the world.
Quiverfull…why does that term make me lauph? Quiverfull. I’m going to just start randomly saying that in my conversations.
BTW, quiverfull has a link to a site that is even MORE scary then their own, its called the Patriarch’s path. I have to agree with AtheistAlexandra, that what these people are doing amounts to brainwashing.
Dresses. Cleaning. 17 babies. (lauph)
submission. (continue laughing…)