…the greatest challenge to religious belief today is atheism based on neo-Darwinism. Hence the conclusion: if you are a consistent neo-Darwinian atheist you will wish there to be as few people as possible who share your beliefs.
This sounds like an intellectual joke, and so it is. If atheists can make fun of believers, why should not believers return the compliment? At its heart, though, is a serious proposition. Albert Camus, in The Myth of Sisyphus, said that the single most fundamental question we can ask is: “Why should I not commit suicide?” I think he was wrong. Spinoza was right: we have a natural instinct to survive. Instead, the most fundamental question we can ask is: “Why should I have a child?”
In terms of self-interest it makes no sense. Having children carries with it a high price in terms of money, energy, attention and time. Ethically too it is fraught with unanswerable questions. What right have we to confer life (and thus eventually death) on someone without their consent? What entitles us to expose a child to the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to? Did not Solomon in his wisdom say that “the dead who have already died are happier than the living who are still alive, but better than both is he who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun?” Rationally, having a child makes no sense at all.
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Jonathan Sacks–It takes faith to have a child, faith in mankind's purpose
…the greatest challenge to religious belief today is atheism based on neo-Darwinism. Hence the conclusion: if you are a consistent neo-Darwinian atheist you will wish there to be as few people as possible who share your beliefs.
This sounds like an intellectual joke, and so it is. If atheists can make fun of believers, why should not believers return the compliment? At its heart, though, is a serious proposition. Albert Camus, in The Myth of Sisyphus, said that the single most fundamental question we can ask is: “Why should I not commit suicide?” I think he was wrong. Spinoza was right: we have a natural instinct to survive. Instead, the most fundamental question we can ask is: “Why should I have a child?”
In terms of self-interest it makes no sense. Having children carries with it a high price in terms of money, energy, attention and time. Ethically too it is fraught with unanswerable questions. What right have we to confer life (and thus eventually death) on someone without their consent? What entitles us to expose a child to the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to? Did not Solomon in his wisdom say that “the dead who have already died are happier than the living who are still alive, but better than both is he who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun?” Rationally, having a child makes no sense at all.
Read it all