Ricky Gervais has weighed into the argument about the Pope’s hypocritical pronouncements about some people preferring companion animals over children. Many people have always preferred companion animals over children but this topic has become heated recently because of discussions about global warming and a recognition of the unsustainable and rapid rise in the world’s human population.
The Pope, who has never had children, believes that the citizens of the world need to procreate. They’ve got to breed to have plenty of kids to do God’s work. And if they don’t, because they prefer to have a companion animal or animals, they are selfish.
I wrote about this on January 7. I completely agree with Ricky Gervais. A lot of people have a lot of good reasons not to have children. A lot of people think that companion animals are better than having a partner. A lot of people don’t like kids. At a certain age children behave like psychopaths with a complete disregard for the consequences of their actions. This is to be expected because they are children but if you were measuring their behaviour objectively that is how it looks.
At the other end of the spectrum, companion animals such as dogs and cats are highly reliable and consistent. They provide what humans consider to be unconditional love. They are loved back. Of course, not every cat or dog caregiver is good at the job. But there are millions of contented humans living with a companion animal or animals without a thought for having a child.
There are numerous reasons to prefer cats and dogs over kids, which I discuss in a previous article (click here for the article). Ricky Gervais said that the Pope is “stupid” in his thoughts. In fact, in the Radio Times Podcast he said “I think what he believes in is ridiculous. It’s a stupid thing to say, isn’t it? How can not having children be selfish? How can it be selfish not to bring something into the world that doesn’t exist on any level?”.
He went on to say: “It’s not like there’s a big line or cage of unborn foetuses going: “We want to be born”. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Gervais doesn’t have children. He is a strong animal advocate. He strongly supports a ban on cat declawing. He wants this obnoxious practice banned as do many millions of people. He hates trophy hunting. He loves animals and he doesn’t have kids for many reasons. One of those reasons is that “there’s enough”. He believes, as I do, that there are enough people on the planet already and to create more is, at this stage in the history of humankind, foolhardy.
It’s time to create stability in the world’s human population and from there to try and achieve some sort of sustainability and to drop the idea of global economic growth at any cost. Those last points are mine.
One commenter, online, said that the Pope took a vow of chastity which I guess means you can’t have kids and that choice was his own. Therefore, he has no right to proclaim childless people as selfish. Another said “I would take an animal over a kid any day. Especially in that world”.
Another said “The global population is over 7.7 billion. In 1971 it was 3.8 billion and in 1951 2.6 billion. We are not short of people. People are part of the reason climate change is what it is.”
A person in support said: “Hats off to this intelligent and compassionate man. He has my full support”. It was not clear whether the person was agreeing with the Pope or Ricky Gervais! ?
In a subsequent comment he clarified his position on this by saying that he supports Ricky Gervais. I don’t think there’s one comment on the MSN article which supports the Pope. The man is out of touch with reality.
On a different but associated topic, Christianity has an appalling history with respect to their treatment of the domestic and stray cat. For hundreds of years Christianity persecuted the domestic and stray cat during the Middle Ages on the premise that they were evil witches’ familiars. They embodied evil. It was an era of madness and mass animal cruelty. ‘Shameful’ is a word that comes to mind. ‘Ignorance’ is a word that also comes to mind. Of course, it was a different era but it does tell us a bit about the mentality of the Roman Catholic Church at that time. Perhaps the Pope at that time was a cat hater.
RELATED: The earliest record of the belief that cats are witches in disguise
