In Genesis 1:28, God commands his faithful adherents to be fruitful and multiply, which is to say have lots of kids: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or even 10 children. Being fruitful and multiplying by having a big family is all well and good, but at what point ought the world start reproducing less frequently? The UN estimates that the world population will reach 11 billion people by 2100, and the growth of humanity won’t cease unless something catastrophic happens such as mass starvation or a disease epidemic. You can view the source here:
Projections of population growth - Wikipedia
Hello, I know I am rather late to party on this, and I apologize if thread necromancy goes against forum rules but I really think this needed to be said in depth on this subject when I first came across while looking for resources for college papers 4 weeks back and now college is done so now.
First, the Bible Verse is referring to physical, not spiritual multiplication (how would you spiritually multiple? It leads to a lot awkward questions I doubt anyone could answer in a way that makes sense, and no recruitment does not count in this case), and it is very likely by extension the same goes for fruitfulness (you can disagree on that, either way multiplication is physical). Also this was not referring to Christians or Jews in particular, this was Gods mandate to Humanity as whole before the fall, and that rule is practically hotwired into us and is what we normally strive to do as human beings. The fact that God knew we needed it written out to demonstrate that it is a good thing is actually rather sad and shows how far we have fallen(also it does not give a number on how many children to have, so it doesn’t have to be ten, if this is a relationship question just write it out in another forum clearly your among friends here).
Also let’s take into account that Hebrew word for earth actually means dirt (like in most languages) as in the stuff most planets are at least partially made of, and the gathering/ sorting of the earth and waters prior in chapter is vague enough that it could be referencing more than just this Earth. Given that one can make an argument, admittedly not the strongest, we are far from filling the earth since we are stuck on one little island of it in a vast archipelago. However given that it is a weak argument, mostly due to the creation of sky, let me throw in more current reasons why I am fairly sure God wants us looking to space for new worlds to colonize, if God didn’t want us to colonize space we would not have gone to the moon and people like Elon Musk would not be finding increasingly cheap ways to make spaceships, we wouldn’t have people interested in going to space actually getting there cause God wouldn't let them just like he didn't let Adam and Eve back into the garden or the Tower of Babel get built.
Second all the overpopulation worries are based on
Thomas Robert Malthus’s outdated math based prediction from back in the late 1700’s to early 1800’s, most of which has never come to pass and are flawed. Malthus himself thought that the human population would reflexively lower itself naturally in time of trouble; the neo Malthusians think those times of trouble can be avoided by keeping human numbers down, the more extreme ones advocate eugenics such sterilization and abortion both of which are evil or even kill quotas.
However what neither Malthus nor his successors have figured out is that Malthus himself failed his math rolls epically by not counting on humans being their own God given greatest resource, a resource finds and creates new resources.
Since Malthus we have had several predicted “resource shortage disaster”, often claiming things like 30 years to dooms day, that are then averted, most notable and dramatic of which was the near famine back in the 1970’s which you should know about since India was supposed to be the epicenter of that resource crises. Add to this that the prices for food and basic materials such as steel and plastic keep going down. Even more exotic things like electricity are going down in price due human cultivation new energy source like nuclear. That should not be happening if the doomsayers are right.
I could go on about how neo Malthusian thought has crippled several nations and other ways its nonsense but that is another thread, basically over population is a myth I well leave this:
Defusing the Population Bomb
Third while India may be poor on the ground level its actually in the top ten most economically powerful countries, is often cited as the growing third power in the US vs. China economic power struggle/balance with the potential to blow both out of the water, and all of that is due to your large population. The reason you aren’t seeing that on the ground now is disunity. If your nation was more united, poverty would be a thing of the past for India, but unforgiveness is in the way of that (among other things).
Here are some current articles on India
Strengths of Indian Economy | Economics Help
Indian Economy: Population, Facts, GDP, Corruption, Business, Trade, FDI
India’s economy: Why the time for growth is now | McKinsey
Well anyways I am done that’s all I wanted to say.
