So shallow, Deadwood ... so ... Now
Deadwood--
Aah, so contemporary, and so devoted to the righteousness of those enthralled by the faith ....
I guess you are thinking that giving people food in third world coutries is taking advantage of them? Now I see you lack of compassion. Asking us to give an example but just skimp out on all of the neccessities of life.
I like the way you take the typically-Christian leap. I say something about feeding those who
need not be hungry (as in,
in the first place), and you take that as a statement against feeding the hungry? The question at hand is how to reduce the number of hungry people, but the charity of feeding a hungry soul is so much more appealing and visible, isn't it? Did you miss the point on purpose? It wouldn't surprise me.
In the case of Africa and Southeast Asia, we might make a case based on Weber's
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, that the larger miseries suffered by the third world are economic necessities based upon the Capitalist model. Certainly that Capitalist spirit has driven a number of social ills, and if Weber's derivations are accurate--as they seem to be--then something so absurd as the American capitalism which depends on the suffering of other people found its origin among the ethical structure of Protestant Chrisitan faith. It's a point worth examining.
And then, yes, the feeding of the hungry is taking advantage of them because to begin to fix the problem--to create the ability among these people to feed themselves (to teach the men to fish, as the Bible quip goes)--is apparently too expensive for the bottom line. One is maintaining the symptom to reap the profit generated by the disease.
But, to be more specific, I was speaking of something much more direct. Take homeless youth for example. Some chose to leave home because of troubles perceived in their familial relationship; some feel alienated by various forms of abuse. Yet we see outreach with a focus on conversion, instead of an effort to rally the Christian consciences to encourage their children to stay in the stability of the family. Sure, it's charitable to feed them, but it does seem like a racket when society does its utmost to create more homeless youth. Perhaps a more educated application of Christian values in those Christian homes fled by desperate youth would reduce the number of hungry mouths to feed, sell, or exploit. One might choose, in their Christian conscience, to not only act against the symptom, but to demand social policies which combat the greater disease. In this case, I look to the term
liberal religion, which scholar Peter Williams defines as:
the impulse to reject dogma in favor of free inquiry; to bring to bear the forces of reason in making religious judgements, while not necessarily denying the reality of supernatural forces; to be susspicious of religious authroity that conflicts with individual reason; to replace a preoccupation wiht the metaphysical aspects of theology with an orientation toward living rightly and doing good in the world; and to exhibit an optimistic stance toward the possibilities of transforming the world into a saner and more humane place through the development of human potential by education, self-cultivation and a beneficient social environment. (Lippy and Williams, eds., Encyclopedia of American Religious Experience, 579)
When I see charity relief focused on transmitting the religious message, I often wonder if one is working toward a beneficient social environment, or else recruiting (as such, in the US) numbers to exploit democracy toward the continuance of values demonstrated to create the alienation, the pressure, the confines in which the homeless and hungry are bred. The failure of any faithful to adequately address this issue goes a long way toward my conclusion that the larger part of Christian charity is wasted, since the values of those Christians will compel them to contribute to a malevolent social environment. But that's just what is observable in my culture, and we know that what is observable takes a back seat to proclaimed dogma any day.
What do you mean? they can have birth control if they want? However, I do disagree with the pill since it is aborting the child albeit in an extremely early state. But it is that persons choice to have sex if they want to. This is why in Christianity you aren't supposed to have sex before marriage.
In the modern day, some women can have birth control. But in our country, Christians still rage against it, along with sex education and the other things that prevent unwanted children being raised in alienating homes. But this is the modern perspective; Emma Goldman was thrown in prison in the early part of the 20th century for offending Christian sensibilities--she advocated birth control. Heck, a potential cancer treatment was made illegal in this country for a number of years because one of its components can be used in a drug cocktail to cause a miscarriage. The 1980's, in the face of growing venereal epidemic and a rising teen birth rate, saw our surgeon general advocating pushing his president's line: abstinence is the only appropriate solution. Now, since you've mentioned sex before marriage, whence comes the idea that one is endangering their soul, as the pandemic parental declaration seemed to be in religious homes where a young female was discovered to be sexually active? This, I believe, is part of the greater sense of alienation that, for instance, compels youths to move to the street. I knew girls who came to school with bruises: not because their boyfriends put them there, but because their loving parents did in an effort to show them how unchristian their behavior was. But I live in a state where we continually argue over whether or not youth have the right or capability of establishing their own sanity, so I can't imagine why they would be alienated, therefore fleeing, and therefore lost and hungry.
But what about other Satanists who killed their parents. Raped chidren. Pulled six week old puppies apart at Marilyn Manson rock concerts, have anal sex on stage, rape women on stage. Which is the true satanist? If anyone who claimed to be Christian did these things, I would probably say they were the satanist.
What about Christians who rape their children and keep them silent with myths of hell and punishment: don't say anything about it because the Bible says not to say anything bad about Mommy and Daddy--it's in the Ten Commandments. Now you and I know this is exploitative crap, but to the mind of a child between, say, two and ten, who routinely vomits her own father's ejaculate ... it's a different world.
Now, you have brought to light an interesting conundrum. I, for one, will not claim that
These people to whom you refer are not Satanists. To the other, nor will I claim that they are not Democrats, Republicans, country music fans,
ad nauseam. Which of these labels shall we blame for their crimes? Here we see people who do not understand the tenets of their faith, yet how many of these Satanists to whom you refer are even familiar with the points outlined by Anton LaVey, who wrote the modern interpretation of Satanism? I can guarantee you that, in gross numbers, more crimes have been committed against children, more cruelties visited on animals, and more profitable sex acts performed by people claiming to believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior than those who are Satanists. To say that a Christian committing such crimes is a satanist is a cheap excuse: this misguided Christian is still a Christian--that they are misguided is an issue of interpretation and communication. Apparently God spoke to them so clearly that they couldn't understand. And I know it's nice to have a Devil at this point to write the communicative failure to, but that's as cheap an answer as any, since God is superlative in his knowledge and capability.
Now if everyone who does these things what I have just stated and also does what you stated this brings a definite contradiction. What I have stated hurts many. What you have stated hurts none. So which am I to believe is the true satanist? Or are they all satanist?
You'll have to be more clear if I miss your point. But I think that voting for a tax cut while knowing that one is reducing the educative power of a beneficient social environment in order to finance that personal reward is sinful through greed. I think many people are hurt by the simple effect of that many other people pursuing their own ends without regard for the effects. It reminds me of Castaic, California, where a bored kid took a Zippo to a sagebrush, and accidentally ended up burning thousands of acres. Should we blame the kid for starting the fire? Heck, he only set the one brush on fire; the rest aren't his problem ....
You can claim all you want that this or that act of impropriety is "not Christian"--it's a nice way of blanching out the ranks,
Tony1-style. But the simple fact remains that this is the best these people could do with that Book, and it still amounts to creating a malevolent social environment. People do not flourish under God's word, they merely endure. And the effect of that burden is massive. Ask yourself why workers in Latin America make such low wages, and then follow the justification trail up to the top of American corporations and government institutions, and count how many Christians you cross along the way who are doling out the cheap excuses. Take a look around at how many Christians will promote social division in quest of personal satisfaction of faith. Suddenly, you realize there aren't really any Christians left; there's only those who claim there are, those who hate their brethren, and then the clear minority that are happy enough to worship God and do what they can for all people, regardless of faith--but these last, as has been noted at Sciforums, are either not Christians or are actual Christians who believe in other doctrines.
Their faith is not genuine and they are still individuals. The individual has the choice to go against the teaching of the faith. But doing so does not imply that the faith teaches what the individual has done.
The faith, then, has done one of two things. Either:
1) Inspired a person to wrongdoing through inadequate interpretation brought about by superstition and a lack of education, or,
2) Failed to convey its central purpose, and proven itself useless on what turns out to be a fairly large scale.
Thus, it is up to the faith to provide better education of the faith, or else to revamp itself and make itself of use--these are largely part of the same effort, in my opinion.
They may be poor answers but certainly not any poorer than the people who Christianity helps.
Ooh, a cute turn of phrase ... is it good enough to be merely like everyone else? I thought Christians were aspiring toward something greater.
I often wonder what you really want when I give examples of how Christianity helps those less fortunate then ourselves helping them to survive because they've been dealt worser cards then ourselves.
I want Christianity to stop being a primary factor in the generation of the less fortunate. The more cynical side of me says that if Christianity ever does this, they will run out of desperate people to convert. On the flip-side, the faith might attract adherents, then, due to its efficacy in the world, as opposed to its opportunity to escape a misery that is larger than any one person.
You accuse Christianity of not doing anything, perhaps you should open your eyes and take a look around.
More specifically, I accuse Christianity of creating problems, and of treating the symptom instead of the disease.
There are a lot of quiet achievers who do not help others to gain media coverage but to actually help others.
Perhaps the rest of you should learn from them. What harm could it do, other than to your self-aggrandized egos?
Some governments even depend on us. If it wasn't for handing out desperately needed food supplies many would be dead, while you call me cheap.
Again, we get into international economies, and what people in charge choose to make of their own personal values; Weber was largely right, and that's what is so difficult. Many of the reliefs of the modern day are made necessary by the sins of Christians past.
You may think of my posts as cheap, but please do not speak of the least of my brethren when you mock them.
Which should I speak of, then, those who vote for social division and economic supremacy, or those who rape their children and say they believe in Jesus? Or what about those with nothing to do but try to distract humanity from any real progress? Oh, that's the most of them, in one form or the other. But I will remember your appeal for the next time you couch yourself in superstition about other cultures. I mean, to ask you, it would seem that the whole of crimes committed by religous people are the relatively few committed specifically for Satan. (And we're discounting here the Christian excuse,
The Devil made me do it.)
Take your self-righteousness and stuff it. The House That Jesus Built is infected and sick right now, and its people would rather treat the symptoms and remain contagious in their illness than to clean house, treat the disease, and carry on in the healthful glow that is the Promise of their faith.
--Tiassa
