What is your religion's/lack of religion's view on human overpopulation?

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has written quite a bit about the negative effects of overpopulation, how it depersonalizes us and makes us strangers to one another. Never heard of Buddhism as a tradition having any position on it one way or another.

I did read a very interesting analysis this morning, however, having to do with how the population explosion is "petering out" (pardon the pun) in places like Europe where most of the population no longer has much use for "the church." There was some mathematics, which I'll undoubtedly screw up, but generally the numbers went something like this: to sustain a population at a constant level requires 2.1 or 2.2 children per couple. In most European countries, where church and state are separated and church attendance is at record lows, births per couple are now around 1.3 to 1.7 per couple, such that in 50 years time these populations will be in serious remission. So statistically speaking, one could say that where you can get rid of the church, you can get rid of the problems of overpopulation.

There are wrinkles, of course. Birth rates in the U.S. have also dipped below 2.0 per couple -- but when you factor in the immigrant population, our total population is increasing as though couples were having 2.7 children each. And the analysis did not include South American or African countries, so I don't think you can draw any nifty global conclusions like hey, maybe we're ending this self-destructive cycle of overpopulation.

My denomination does not have an offical position to my knowledge, but I would say time to head for the stars, as Carl Sagan advised.

I'm an atheist, and I think that people simply need to not have as many kids. Plain and simple. I'm not going to have any children. I will adopt, but why add to the burden?

The fruit is ready for the picking

He told us to be fruitful and multiply