I started crunching some rough numbers on my own just for the exercise of it. Roughly 200 million square miles of land, maybe half of that is usable/habitable (accounting for mountains, deserts, ice caps, etc.), need about an acre to support each person (~0.002 sq mi). That's about 500 people supported by every square mile - so it can handle about (100,000,000 x 500) 50 billion people. Again, very rough.
Then I had to check my work:
Google search
Wikipedia - Overpopulation
Yahoo Answers
Turns out (estimates vary) that number is more like ~10 billion (only 1 billion if everyone lived like Americans do!). There are currently close to 7 billion. We will probably hit 10 billion or more in the 40-90 years. I don't think anyone is slowing down on the whole baby-making thing. (Tracy and I have two kids, so we're population neutral :)
Genesis 1:28 - "God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it...'"
I think we have the fruitful part down. I wonder what God's plan is for once we have filled the earth? Maybe that we would be technologically advanced enough to move to other planets? That wars, natural disasters, and famines would keep the population in check? That he would be wiping us all out eventually anyway (another flood-like reset event, or Armegeddon, the end of the old earth and start of the new one, judgement day)?
