It seems that the birth-rate in most Western countries is not quite keeping up with the death-rate, even though people are living much longer than fifty or a hundred years ago - in fact, the populations in those countries may be holding up mainly BECAUSE people are living longer. Of course, in some countries, the overall population is slowly declining, Japan and Russia, if for different reasons.

Australia's population growth is almost balanced by the immigration: without migrants, who are usually young and just starting their families, Australia's population would be much more stationary.

Reliable pensions systems probably induce lower birth-rates while and better health services improve the chances of survival of children. On balance, they tend to influence a lower birth-rate.

Pre-contact, Australia's Indigenous population was very much a high-input/high-'output' system: large numbers of babies born, but most not reaching adulthood. So, in the long term, population remained steady, if sub-optimal. But droughts may have slashed populations by half or more, with no births occurring and children under three or four dying (no breast-milk), as well as the older people, especially women. Numbers must have slowly risen after a drought, only to be cut back again with the next one. Around 1900, droughts in South Australia occurred in about ten years out of twelve. That must have devastated Aboriginal population out of contact with ration stations, which provided assured food regardless.

Joe

Phanto

Of course the subject is a Pandora's box.
Mr pragmatic Hasbeen above hit on it. Most blokes don't set out intentionally to do more than simply copulate, and the more often the better: Whereas with our little chickey babes, there is a deeper meaning to life. That's why there generally smarter than the average bear.

But I think there is a rising complaint in society as to the intrusions that State makes into personal lives. Conclusions seem to me to be settling into two camps, the Conservatives, and the Liberals.
The conservative party V's the Green Labor alliance. I think the division is divided on the lines of ideology; which are who takes responsibility for the outcome of the mating process, namely the children. There is an ideological war raging for control of their vulnerable malleable minds. There are votes in them there hills!

diver dan:

I think that is a very sexist attitude. Women enjoy sex as much as men whether it leads to offspring or not. The decision to have sex does not mean it is always a decision to procreate or not.

The fact that women might want to have a baby does not mean that it is indicative of a 'deeper meaning to life'. Women have babies for all kinds of superficial reasons.

The rest of your post seems irrelevant to the topic.

Phanto

Irrelevant ...not at all...

Mating is about procreation...the final fruit are children. The war for control of the mind is between secularism and conservative Christianity .
The charge of this battle of minds and with it, the deconstruction of societal norms in its view of the family, is of course led in the most part by homosexuals, (wich you conveniently do not specifically mention), through the political wing of LGBT.
Currently this group is working its evil inside the Liberal Party. And have successfully implanted Malcim Turnbull as its minion.

So Phanto, your views which include on the most part, justice (as you call it), towards disparet minor groups such as homosexuals taking, what you would consider, a rightful role as parents, and inheriting as your right (apparently), equal status to conventenional heterosexual parents, stand in contrast to sense, (and sensibility )..

So you may wish, in this process of dominating public debate, to discredit traditional family roles, as you are doing less than subtly here in your words. But you don't fool me!

Dear Alan,

I am saddened to hear about your involuntary loneliness. Solitude is a great thing, but only when consciously selected as a way of life and a willing sacrifice. I pray that you find your truly compatible mate and spend your last days contented in their arms.

Why should we ask God to remove the mating instinct?

The mating instinct is human and natural. It may as well remain as it is - yet we ought to rise above our identification with the human organism and its instincts: we deserve to be free from them!

I have nothing whatsoever against the concept of family - only against dysfunctional families which, instead of uplifting their children and directing them towards God, betray them and push them downward towards materialism in the mad service of their parents' genes.

"Survival of the fittest"? "Master race"? No, I never mentioned nor meant anything of the sort.

"reduce our total numbers?" This would be wonderful, but alas, we can't do that, not in this terrible age where an ideal society is not an option. The sheer number of humans on this planet necessitates life to be regulated by secular governments, which limit our freedom to seek God. Your suggestion as if I would try to achieve this mission-impossible by "elimination of the weak" is so totally off the mark. The most we can do in this dark age of ours, is for individuals and families to rise above these times. Fortunately we are compensated in this age of darkness, in that even small and feeble efforts to go against the stream and rise above the times are rewarded with great spiritual advancement that would otherwise, in better ages, require much greater and longer efforts.

Retirement homes for celibate nuns and their psychosis that seem to abound there, leads me to believe enforced abstinence is against the maker's intentions, particular when sterilization (vasectomy) is all we need to prevent unwanted consequences, [including the transfer of biological fluids,] of our God given biological urges.

Only the seriously misinformed with completely unrealistic expectations, would require us to buck the creator's design features and rise above them.

The only thing that rises from enforced abstinence is the tilt in the kilt and its frequency. And I expect that the undertaker is going to experience significant difficulty holding the coffin lid down long enough to nail/screw it shut. (We're going to need a bigger burial vessel Sam.)

Sorry, but it's you Yuyustu and your errant teaching/expectations/demands that need altering/rising above, not our God given biology!
Alan B.