Preachers Need to Wage War on Gluttony

Today is Sunday, preachers are inevitably preaching about one thing or another, usually about unimportant stuff such as the ills of what might be going on in some people's bedrooms, but have you noticed they rarely preach against the sin of gluttony?  They are cowards who do not want to piss off some members of their congregation.

I do not care if I piss people off, I want to save the world; gluttony is a sin against nature.  People who are gluttons are consuming more food than they need, more than their share, and taking from the planet more than they should. 

Gluttony usually refers to the over consumption of food and drink.  It has also been defined as eating delicacies rather than plain and simple foods. Pope Gregory I even said that the addition of sauces or spices to improve the taste of food amounted to gluttony.

Back then I bet nobody thought how far gluttony would go, I bet they had no idea the gluttonous foods we would have to day, nor the idea of an "all you can eat" restaurant where people do literally eat all they can.  I bet nobody imagined a time when we would have food eating contests!

One of the most common forms of gluttony is people eating portion sizes that are larger than their needs.  The appropriate portion size of meat is 4 oz, about the size of a deck of cards, but very few people stick to that. Meat is very bad for the environment for many reasons, one of which is the deforestation that occurs to clear land for cattle and to grow more crops specifically to feed cattle.  The manure waste is also bad for the environment too, as well as the methane released in farts and burps.

Coffee is also consumed in gluttonous amounts, so much so that some people are now addicted to caffeine.  Coffee is bad for the environment for many reasons, mostly the deforestation of the rain forest to grow coffee, but also because of the waste generated by restaurants who serve coffee, particularly take out coffee.

Things such as candy, pop, and potato chips, are non essentials to life, and are often consumed in gluttonous amounts, contributing not only to obesity, but to environmental problems in general, mostly related to the processing of these items and the garbage created.

We are not "overfishing" we are "over eating fish" and we need to stop before we eliminate so many fish that their species cannot recover.



If a waitress in a bar has the right to say to a drunk person "You have had enough" why cant a fast food worker say "Sorry, you do not need the super sized portion" or the restaurant worker say "Nope, you do not need dessert"?

Is the gluttonous person only hurting themselves?  No, their over consumption of food is hurting the planet, it hurts us all.  It hurts the future for our children, and theirs. 

Glutton is a hard sin to overcome, and I wish more preachers had the balls to preach about it and people were more concerned about this and stopped freaking out so much about what others do in the privacy of their bedrooms.

The Root of Many Activist Issues is Human Overpopulation

I am a member of a great activist type site, Care2.

On Care2 people can find activist petitions to sign, they can vote up causes they believe in and can even make their own petitions. One thing I have noticed though is that many of the petitions have a similar root problem.

• One of the petitions calls to stop clearing part of the rain forest to make way for a place to produce and process palm oil
• One petition calls for stopping the round up and potential slaughter of wild horses in the United States.
• There are petitions against killing seals, dolphins, and wolves.
• There is a “Save the Rain Forest Frogs” petition!
• You can find petitions against cruelty to pigs, dairy cows, and battery hens.
• Another petition demands a halt to an oil pipeline, another asks to prevent a gold mine in a nature sensitive area.
• There are petitions to end urban sprawl.
• There are petitions to end GMO crops and various "Cheats" farmers use to produce food.

Of course I do sign petitions that I support, and you can pretty much find petitions for anything. 

You name it there is probably a petition for it, but if you look at all of these petitions they are just addressing a small part of a greater problem. It would be better to address the driving force behind the problems that these petitions try to solve.

In some cases there is a place to make a comment, and I try to make a comment reminding others that if you want change, it is not the problem itself you have to consider but why the problem has developed in the first place.

Why do we need more palm oil? Growing human populations.

Why are wild horses being rounded up? To make room to graze cattle to feed the growing human population.

Why are rain forest frogs at risk? Because more people means more trees are needed, and more land must be cleared to grow crops.

Why are seals and dolphins being killed? Because they eat “our” fish, we need fish to feed the ever expanding human population.

Why are wolves being killed? Because they threaten livestock, the same livestock we want to kill to feed our own population.

Why is there cruelty to livestock? Because people want to eat, more people means shortcuts are taken to warehouse more livestock animals on less land, and transportation is pushed to get the animals to where they need to go while reducing costs.

Why do we need an oil pipeline? A growing, and greedy, consumer driven population demands more oil.

Why do we need another goldmine? Again because more people are demanding more gold, and nations need income from gold to grow.

Why are cities expanding? Urban sprawl is the result of continued growth.

Why are farmers using GMOs and other "cheats" to produce food? A rapidly growing population means farmers have less land on which to grow food, and are pressured into producing more food in less time.

As you see nearly every problem faced by the world today is human overpopulation and population growth. Some people ignorantly think that if they have 2 kids they have maintained a steady population; but 2+2 = 4! If you have two kids you have doubled your immediate population, doubled the needs of your family.  Chances are that your kids may have kids again before you have even died...

Two good ways to reduce the population growth are for couples to put off having children until they are in their 30’s and to restrict themselves to one child only.

Most governments do not like this, they want more people, more workers, more consumers, more soldiers, and more tax payers. Governments are not looking out for the future of the planet, only for the future of themselves.

The human population has more than doubled in the past 45 years. Huge natural areas have vanished forever. We are using renewable resources up faster than they can be renewed. We are killing other species only for our own continued survival and continued rape of the planet.

China is not everyone’s favorite country, and is often linked to animal cruelty, but at least they were smart enough to see the problems with unchecked population growth.

Other Reading:
About Care2 and How You Can Earn Credits to Spend on Things You Care About!

Thomas Malthus, the Man Who Warned the World About Overpopulation.