I don't like giving charity

[Cognisant]

I like socialism.

I don't want to have to contribute towards a gofundme for someone that needs surgery, I want universal healthcare to come out of my taxes.

I don't want to give charity to homeless people on the street, I want there to be social security and homeless shelters and I want that to come out of my taxes.

When I pay for insurance I don't want it to be priced based upon my income level and demographic, I think if insurance is cheapest for the people who need it least and most expensive for the people who need it most then we're missing the whole fucking point, indeed why is private insurance a thing, why isn't insurance a public service?

I don't want public funding going to private hospitals and private schools, if they're not serving everybody they shouldn't be payed for by everybody.

Speaking of services I'm sick of seeing public services getting privatized, it's not more efficient, companies buy the rights for these services so they can make a profit off them, it's called profiteering, it's why the cost goes up and the quality goes down, I also think telecommunications and internet should be public services, not just as a matter of cost but also national security.

Socialism isn't a dirty word.

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

This is actually a beautiful post to me, because what it advocates opens up a new role for the church, which is overdue for a transformation.

 

[Hadoblado]

Checkmate atheists.

I disagree, socialism is a dirty word. But I don't think you're really advocating for socialism.

 

[Minuend]

I think in the type of society quite a few of us live in now, ensuring most/ everyone has a chance is important to reduce crime, suicide, ensure the population is thriving etc. I think basic needs should mostly be covered. If we continue developing in a positive direction, I think, for instance, food will be free (or mostly free) in the future. Norms, insight, understanding, gratitude, pills (fecal transplant in pill form, as desire for food and hunger feel can be manipulated by bacteria in your gut, kinda like toxoplasma manipulates their hosts, if I remember correctly) or so will prevent gluttony. Apart from me thinking people should just generally have a chance at having a good life, which isn't really possible, but ideally...

That being said, some services being public as of today can actually reduce their quality if the belonging government tries to cut down on costs, and/ or tries to make it more "efficient" it ways that hinders people in doing their job thoroughly etc. Like, in norway we can all see public doctors for a low fee, and if you see your doctor often enough to transcend a certain cost, it becomes free the rest of the year. But the quality and the job the doctors can do in that limited time is limited.

I've been kinda hit on the nose on this one. I always took for granted easily available health care meant you'd be safe or helped if you became ill.

Tangent, but:

Spoiler

The paperwork and the system doctors work in is somewhat poor. The way consultation work is poor. You get a set amount of time (15-20 mins) regardless of what your issue is. You can book a double session, but that relies on patients being knowledgeable about their problems or potential problems to where they realize they need to do that, but it's still not that much time if you have serious and complex issues. I know there are some issues regarding paper work etc, but I don't have a thorough insight on that

Like, my mother had undiagnosed arthritis for 4 years. She saw her public doctor several times, were sent to physiotherapy (which is kinda horrific as pushing and pulling on limbs that suffer due to arthritis causes quite a lot of pain). After about 4 years she traveled 4 hours by car to see a private doctor. Which lead to a process where she was finally diagnosed with arthritis. Her previous doctor had even written in her journal (which normally the next doctor will be able to read when/ if she switched doctors) that she was a hypochondriac and was imagining the pain.

My brother had a similar experience. He saw his public doctor several times over the course of 6 months. He was dizzy, ill etc. His doctor said he had a virus and it would pass. Not being taken seriously by his doctor, he traveled to the same private practice my mother did, they did a ct scan and he was immediately committed to the hospital as he had a brain tumor that was lethal if left untreated. He took some pills to prepare for surgery and had it removed within a week. So basically, he could've died if he trusted his public doctor

I could mention myself as well. I've been ill for 7 years, and the last doctor I went to basically implied I had a eating disorder, not understanding that when eating makes you sick, you tend to compensate by limiting what foods you eat. (I was eating "normally" when i became sick). I'm also getting on welfare due to asperger and depression, though my real problem is my digestion problems which impacts my concentration, energy etc (I might have another illness that causes the digestion problems, but no effort has been made to uncover it). I accept being put on walfare due to asperger and depression because I'm too sick to live normally and it doesn't matter to me what they welfare me on. I used to work a fulltime job + exercise for at least 1 hour every day (3 hours on the weekends since i had the entire day off and was bored. Well, I took a part time job on saturdays because I was restless, and was considering getting a part time job on sundays as well. My energy and drive was insane back then.)

I got notes in my doctor's journal where they say I'm eccentric or have a an odd relationship with food. So basically if I were a retard who ate whatever even though it makes me sick, I'd be taken more seriously because I weren't trying to fix my issues by being careful about what I eat. People who have never experienced digestion issues have no fucking clue how shit it is. Sadly, this goes for doctors as well. Obviously you limit what you eat when it makes you feel like shit.

I do think if you're rich you have more options to seek out good doctors or treatments that might alleivete your problems. The bias toward you will also be better, because even doctors think more highly of people who do well in life financially. There are studies showing doctors treat low income people and highly educated people differently. Which might be partly because highly educated people are better at expressing themselves, but still, it reveals a weakness where they depend on the patient and their perception of it to accurately evaluate the patient. So even though the ideal is people will be healthy and well due to puclic health care, it's obviously not as simple as that. I am saving up for a treatment abroad that hopefully will alleviate my problems, but I wont know for sure until I've tried it

 

[Cognisant]

This is actually a beautiful post to me, because what it advocates opens up a new role for the church, which is overdue for a transformation.

Was it the kiddy fiddling or the human trafficking that tipped you off?

The church is the reason why I dislike charity, they're not in the business of helping people they're in the business of converting and exploiting people. The church takes charity from well meaning people and uses it strategically to defend their image (there is A LOT to answer for), establish thenselves as a moral/political authority and to make people feel beholden to them.

I can go into detail and cite sources but I'm on my phone right now.

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

Was it the kiddy fiddling or the human trafficking that tipped you off?

The church is the reason why I dislike charity, they're not in the business of helping people they're in the business of converting and exploiting people. The church takes charity from well meaning people and uses it strategically to defend their image (there is A LOT to answer for), establish thenselves as a moral/political authority and to make people feel beholden to them.

I can go into detail and cite sources but I'm on my phone right now.

It was active participation in charity work that exposed me to their utter ineptitude that tipped me off.

So much of what they do is just... give shit away; baid-aid solutions that don't address the root cause. No teaching, no involvement, no culture, no activism. Take away the emperor's "charity clothes" and they're forced to do something genuinely meaningful if they want to survive, at least in developed countries.

 

[Hadoblado]

Re: Cog on privatisation
I really liked this video that went through the nuts and bolts of how privatisation can suck:

Re: Lago
Yeah, when doing some one-off charity work with a Christian group a few years back, there was this weird disconnect. We were handing out food to the homeless up in Sydney, and one of the volunteers was taking pictures of the homeless for promotional purposes. A woman rather strongly objected (understandable), and he kind of just kept on going as if what she wanted didn't matter. He looked around to us as if she was crazy, "we gave her food the least she can do is give us a picture", but she never signed up for that and I felt there was zero respect for her human dignity.

I know it's just one person, but to me this was a clear prioritisation of being seen to help while having no real regard for the person helped.

 

[Cognisant]

Still on my phone, on the bus going home.

The worst place to go to jail is a poor Christian country, a poor country will always have a shit prison system because they cannot afford to provide better but a Christian country will be worse because they have no empathy. In a Christian's mind people are either good or bad and if you're bad you deserve everything bad that happens to you, no matter how minor the crime or how severe the punishment.

Christians like to congratulate themselves on how good they are but as far as I can tell they're one of the most hateful, bigoted and callous demographics in the world.

 

[Hadoblado]

That feels a bit extreme to me. I know I was the one whipping out the anecdotes just now, but... wowee who hurt you? XD

I think Christians are a diverse bunch. When you say "in a Christian's mind" and "Christians like to congratulate themselves" and "a Christian county will have no empathy" that rings truly false to me.

You're making blanket statements about a population, and there's almost always more variance within a population than there is between populations. I'm all for criticising beliefs, no belief should be above criticism, but you're judging people based on often superficial attributes.

 

[Cognisant]

You raise a fair point and I will acknowledge its validity, just because some Christians are pedophiles and the Catholic Church has been caught out on multiple occasions protecting pedophiles doesn't mean I can say all Christians condone pedophilia all the time.

But y'know when it comes to that sort of thing I think sometimes is still to much, I will concede that not everyone that continues to pay a tithe to the Catholic Church in spite of the numerous scandals can be blamed for directly aiding and abetting pedophiles, but I don't think they're entirely free of complaisance either.

And that's just one example (granted a really good one) of Christian hypocrisy, lets talk about faith healing and the kids who die from neglect because their parents believe god is testing their faith.

Not all Christians, not all the time.
But it's still too much.

Lets talk about the hundred billion or so dollars in nontaxable donations that go the church in America alone every year while people go without food, without shelter, without adequate medical care and education and all of this while the church declares itself a moral authority.

I don't care if the average Christian is someone who isn't really serious about it, do not tell me to judge an institution by the relative innocence of its complaisant masses, their hands are not clean, they know exactly what I am talking about and They. Do. Nothing.

It's the moderates enable the fundamentalists, if you're a Christian and you don't agree with the fundamentalists here's the thing, they're called the fundamentalists because they represent the fundamentals of your religion, you are the outlier, you are the fence sitter.

Edit: No one ever did anything to me, no Christian anyway, I just have that sort of mind that likes to dwell on things, to explore the implications, I want to know why and when I find out why I get an opinion.

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

I usually feel that a lot of criticisms of religion are invalid and mischaracterizing to the point of prejudice. For example, the Catholic Church is a surprisingly diverse institution from a systems perspective; so many orders within, with so many goals and directions. As someone ideologically close to a Franciscan, when I hear someone lumping that into a generalization they concluded from an experience with, say, southern baptist evangelism, or something they heard on the news, it feels like I'm being, idk, called the N-word when I'm clearly a white guy or something. Wtf?

But all these orders and groups are united under the same church and leadership, so the actual good still winds up getting fed through that machine.

The people involved in church charity are all too often doing it out of a sense of status or obligation. There are dozens of personal experiences that come to mind, but one person on a local organization's board of directors said that it was good that a tornado hit a certain part of town, because now they could rebuild and get rid of the low income housing that was there, and that the homeless should pick up their food at a difficult-to-access entrance because it was out of sight. Officially, this was a "church-affiliated" charity, but they literally voluntarily had the local bishop approve their hirings, so...

 

[Cognisant]

But all these orders and groups are united under the same church and leadership, so the actual good still winds up getting fed through that machine.

What I should just accept the good at face value and ignore the bad?
Because as I see it people doing that is the entire fucking problem.

For example, the Catholic Church is a surprisingly diverse institution from a systems perspective; so many orders within, with so many goals and directions.

Do you know the No True Scotsman fallacy?
No noo it's not your order it's just those other bad ones, y'know they can't be all good, we can't hold everybody accountable for the actions of a few.

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

I'm not trying to justify the church. Like I said, it's all fed through the same machine. If anything I'm advocating reform, within the Catholic Church at least... maybe a split... definitely a new leadership structure.

 

[Cognisant]

 

[redbaron]

I'm not trying to justify the church. Like I said, it's all fed through the same machine. If anything I'm advocating reform, within the Catholic Church at least... maybe a split... definitely a new leadership structure.

in christianity we already have protestants, orthodox and the catholic church

a split and a new leadership structure is not going to turn out the same as every other split and just end up as a new cult of shitlordery because ______________________ (fill in the blank)

this is just the same old crap that every single new sect pulls. they like something about religion, but they want to Fix The Bad Stuff™ - and yet it just ends up as shitty as the last one anyway because the very basis of christianity is vile

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

I did a poor job in choosing "split," because, well, that does imply a dogmatic split.

What I really mean is a change in structure that couples with a new, non-charity-oriented function. I'd imagine this function would primarily be social, conversational (multi-directional communication), and based on shared experience, rather than focused on the one way communication that is dogma, and self-preservation; more existentialist? What would that actually look like? No idea.

I'm referring to religion in general here. I picked the Catholic Church because I think they're a good structural representation of what's going to decline, and they're the ones I'm most familiar with.

I suppose my point is that ultimately, charities aren't going to disappear. Business still wants their tax deductions, people still want their tax havens, portions of the population will always believe that the government isn't doing enough to address X, and excess will still be produced that needs a better fate than the landfill, but the functions of religious charities seem likely to change because what they do is restricted by dogma. Adapt or die.

 

[Cognisant]

What I really mean is a change in structure that couples with a new, non-charity-oriented function. I'd imagine this function would primarily be social, conversational (multi-directional communication), and based on shared experience, rather than focused on the one way communication that is dogma, and self-preservation; more existentialist? What would that actually look like?

Not religion.

You know what a non-charity social service is? A public service!
What institution has a part literally called the public service? The government!
There's no need to save the church, it is a clearly outdated institution.

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

Not religion.

You know what a non-charity social service is? A public service!
What institution has a part literally called the public service? The government!
There's no need to save the church, it is a clearly outdated institution.

Not anything like what we widely consider to be religion. I'm thinking something more like the unprogrammed worship of quakerism:

I suppose my point is that ultimately, charities aren't going to disappear. Business still wants their tax deductions, people still want their tax havens, portions of the population will always believe that the government isn't doing enough to address X, and excess will still be produced that needs a better fate than the landfill, but the functions of religious charities seem likely to change because what they do is restricted by dogma. Adapt or die.

 

[redbaron]

I did a poor job in choosing "split," because, well, that does imply a dogmatic split.

What I really mean is a change in structure that couples with a new, non-charity-oriented function. I'd imagine this function would primarily be social, conversational (multi-directional communication), and based on shared experience, rather than focused on the one way communication that is dogma, and self-preservation; more existentialist? What would that actually look like? No idea.

I'm referring to religion in general here. I picked the Catholic Church because I think they're a good structural representation of what's going to decline, and they're the ones I'm most familiar with.

I suppose my point is that ultimately, charities aren't going to disappear. Business still wants their tax deductions, people still want their tax havens, portions of the population will always believe that the government isn't doing enough to address X, and excess will still be produced that needs a better fate than the landfill, but the functions of religious charities seem likely to change because what they do is restricted by dogma. Adapt or die.

so just a non-religious affiliated charity?

there's a lot of public service programs out there already, which i think religious institutions just get in the way of. i'd much rather see religious institutions paying taxes (hello 40billion dollar surplus in the Australian Catholic Church that gets used to buy expensive criminal lawyers to defend paedophiles) on their sizeable surplus, with those funds redirected to public services. mental health programs and funding for general health services

i'd like to see less spirituality in health services tbh because it's ineffective at best, misleading and damaging at worst.

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

I agree that they get in the way of social services, I'm talking more like... what is religion in the absence of charity? What is it at the core, without the marketability, P.R., and recruitment that charity provides? All that's left is really an existential service, which is a genuinely uniting force.

Dude, a priest at my high school was included in this: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/us/catholic-church-abuse-vatican-statement.html

 

[Cognisant]

I agree that they get in the way of social services, I'm talking more like... what is religion in the absence of charity? What is it at the core, without the marketability, P.R., and recruitment that charity provides?

That already exists, go join your local hackerspace or a sports team or one of the many secular community benefit groups, people don't need religion to come together and they don't need the existential opiate religion provides.

I think people are better off without religion's "existential service" because that service is a fiction, it's a band-aid on a puncture wound.

American Catholics have been deeply shaken by the recent abuse revelations, which come after years in which the church insisted that the problem of clergy sex abuse had largely been dealt with after reforms passed in 2002.

It's just words, the problem is the unwarranted power given to these people and the complaisance of their followers, indeed worse than complaisance followers of Catholicism are known to actively suppress reports of pedophilia and try to ostracize and shame the victims into silence.

There's no reform that will fix this, the problem is with the nature of religion itself.

 

[redbaron]

you're asking what religion is without charity?

systemic abuse

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

Religion would still serve the purpose of "pragmatic experientialism of the spiritual realm" *jazz hands* for theists.

Systemic abuse stems from a power structure. Language, popularity, and geography aside, it seems like a structural issue. The hierarchy of leader > mid-level bureaucrats > leaders of individual congregations seems to cause problems. At some point, as you move down the gradient into structures held together by only the loosest of commonalities that seemingly anyone with a pulse can join... liberal quakers, universalists... it seems like there's a trend where the actions of individuals are seen for what they are instead of institutional, because there's no structure fighting to maintain the integrity of its image by protecting people, influencing officials, hiring expensive lawyers, etc.

At this point in the discussion, "the actions of individuals for what they are," I think we've effectively tied things back into the OP, because that's what we're dealing with, whether those actions are labeled a charity, social service, religion, etc. Right now my best understanding is that the reform is one of perception and understanding as opposed to traditionally structural or categorical.

 

[Kuu]

people don't need religion to come together and they don't need the existential opiate religion provides.

I think people are better off without religion's "existential service" because that service is a fiction, it's a band-aid on a puncture wound.

To bridge back to the OP topic, I shall provide the classic quote which is sadly rarely produced in full:

Spoiler

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.

It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.

— Karl Marx, 1843

@Cognisant you should investigate Cybernetic Socialism.

If you fail to find info I'm sure the dirty commies in infinite chan /leftpol/ can fill you up with reading material about Fully Automated Luxury Communism until your brain explodes, if it doesn't explode from the memery and ideological degeneracy.

Here's a piece.

 

[Cognisant]

The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

This is why I keep saying god isn't dead, he is death.
As long as people are bound to the mortal human condition they will seek a source of consolation and solace, consolation for those they have lost and solace for the looming and seemingly inescapable loss of everything else.

Religion "solves" this by lying to people, or rather religion is people coming together to lie to each other to make it easier to lie to themselves. That's the foundational problem of religion, it's a lie, now matter how you try to build upon that foundation the structure will always become something perverse because the foundation is perverse.

“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.”

Show me one atom of life, and yet things live.

Justice, mercy, duty, they are not things and unlike the personification of death they are not fiction, they are words we created to describe the world we experience.

Here's a question for DEATH, how do you teach justice by lying to someone?
How do you teach truth by lying, how do you teach forgiveness by lying, how do you teach compassion by lying, how do you teach anything by lying?

@Cognisant you should investigate Cybernetic Socialism.

As much as what I'm talking about aligns with what they're talking about, it seems like a lot of pseudointellectual wanking to me.

 

[Pizzabeak]

Whoever wrote that is an idiot.
Source?

 

[washti]

Wrote what? Terry Pratchett wasn't an idiot. Neither Karl Marx.

 

[QuickTwist]

Trade Christianity for the government. Brilliant.

That only changes who has the power. It doesn't change the fact that some people will always be in power. Why? Because people change their ideologies for the sake of power. They don't change what they do based on their ideals.

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

The function is a bit more than opiate, solace, comfort, dealing with things that revolve around fear and death.

There's also an empowering aspect to it; a certain kind of freedom derived from fearlessness.

Religion "solves" this by lying to people, or rather religion is people coming together to lie to each other to make it easier to lie to themselves. That's the foundational problem of religion, it's a lie, now matter how you try to build upon that foundation the structure will always become something perverse because the foundation is perverse.

It seems like you want to shift from a discussion of the structure and function of religion as a social institution to a discussion of the veracity of religious belief, which isn't allowed in the philosophy subforum.

 

[Hadoblado]

Even if we assume the largest religion (Christianity) to be true, that still leaves all the others being false. That means out of 6.9 billion religious people, 4.7 billion are being deceived.

I don't think we need to discuss the veracity of any individual belief in order to conclude that religion is at the very least largely a lie. I don't think it's a derail to talk about a limitation of religion as a social institution being that it is at least largely based on a lie, and that lies have limitations when informing social policy and tradition.

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

Okay. Prove religion is based on a lie.

This ends at a very predictable destination.

Even if we assume the largest religion (Christianity) to be true, that still leaves all the others being false.

How?

I don't think we need to discuss the veracity of any individual belief in order to conclude that religion is at the very least largely a lie.

I suspect things would be very different if someone came in here claiming the opposite.

 

[Hadoblado]

Mutual exclusion?

 

[QuickTwist]

Mutual exclusion?

They are not. They are all aiming at the same thing which is transcendence.

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

Mutual exclusion?

Based on what? Again, using examples from Catholicism because of familiarity, we've got a few paths here: 1) We know that dogma has been revised, a la Council of Nicaea 2) Dogma itself disagrees, a la Ephesians 2:11-21, Acts 10:28, and Romans 10:11-13 3) there are competing options out there that essentially claim whatever one believes is true.

 

[Hadoblado]

Err...

Am I just imagining this "one true religion" thing?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou_shalt_have_no_other_gods_before_me
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_true_church

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

Err...

Am I just imagining this "one true religion" thing?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou_shalt_have_no_other_gods_before_me
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_true_church

1. Define God, which in the context of the scripture I cited above, is pretty much ∑. Yahweh, "I am."
2. That Constantine guy was a dick, wasn't he?

 

[redbaron]

everything you're saying that's actually coherent is being contested, so now you're resorting to ever more vague and incoherent things because nothing you're saying actually holds up to scrutiny

god of the gaps, go away

"whatever one believes is true"

at the point anyone makes that comment in a discussion like this, they've forfeited any credibility they might have previously had. what a joke

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

What don't you understand? I'll clarify.

 

[redbaron]

oh god just fuck off with your subjectivist garbage already

 

[redbaron]

you actually started in this thread with a clear point to make, and all of your "clarification" is actually just resorting to more and more vague concepts as the gaps for your ideas are slowly closed off

i'm not interested in having you "clarify" anything, because at every single talking point in this thread where you've "clarified" things you've actually just become less coherent and babbled more and more

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

oh god just fuck off with your subjectivist garbage already

If you'd like to have a genuine discussion, I'm all for that. Otherwise it just appears you're here to fan the flames by posting stuff like that, and post #37 pre-edit. No one's forcing anyone to participate.

you actually started in this thread with a clear point to make, and all of your "clarification" is actually just resorting to more and more vague concepts as the gaps for your ideas are slowly closed off

i'm not interested in having you "clarify" anything, because at every single talking point in this thread where you've "clarified" things you've actually just become less coherent and babbled more and more

I apologize that it took me a while to reach my conclusion, but for the record, here it is:

At some point, as you move down the gradient into structures held together by only the loosest of commonalities that seemingly anyone with a pulse can join... liberal quakers, universalists... it seems like there's a trend where the actions of individuals are seen for what they are instead of institutional, because there's no structure fighting to maintain the integrity of its image by protecting people, influencing officials, hiring expensive lawyers, etc.

The latest has been in response to Kuu, Cog, and Hado. I didn't quote them because it's a lot of text. At least I've done more than essentially call it dumb and run away.

 

[redbaron]

that 'point' is exactly the kind of vague meaningless tripe i'm talking about

the actions of individuals are the actions of individuals. wow.

"people do stuff" - Lagomorph, acting as if this astute observation makes his incoherent subjectivist rambling actually mean something

you sure showed me

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

that 'point' is exactly the kind of vague meaningless tripe i'm talking about

'the actions of individuals are the actions of individuals'

wow

people do things, amazing!

I think it's disingenuous to misquote me out of context like that. I contrasted that against other institutional structures that obscure the actions of individuals to preserve their own image, and I did so in response to your statement that religion without charity is systemic abuse, demonstrating what religion might look like in the absence of charity, without systemic abuse, because we don't exactly hear a lot about the systemic moral indiscretions of liberal quakers and universalists.

I'm glad you have an opinion, but what are you actually contributing to the thread right now? It honestly seems like you're just trying to create a fuss. You seemed fine until your last four posts. What happened? I think I'm just going to let you cool off for a bit and take a metaphorical cat nap. Peace.

 

[redbaron]

when people say systemic, they're just referring to a collection of behaviours and thought-patterns individuals hold

you don't get to handwave things that happen at a systemic level and be like

"it seems like there's a trend where the actions of individuals are seen for what they are instead of institutional"

as if there's some mystical humans who are somehow not human and influenced by the institutions they're raised in, believe in, spend time in, deliberately become part of

when people refer to systemic, all they fucking mean is "hey i've noticed that lots of individuals are doing lots of this." no one is taking their behaviours out of 'context' or 'not seeing them for what they are' - it's just that what they are happens to be a whole lot of the same thing.

 

[QuickTwist]

Err...

Am I just imagining this "one true religion" thing?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou_shalt_have_no_other_gods_before_me
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_true_church

I think you are getting too caught up in the specifics of the teaching. That's a kind way of saying you are being too literal.

 

[Pizzabeak]

Wrote what? Terry Pratchett wasn't an idiot. Neither Karl Marx.

Define "religion". There could still be a thing, and religion is based off the actual thing, meaning, it could be wrong or an inaccurate interpretation (and practice) of the phenomenon.

I've actually been studying the Illuminati for almost 15 years now. No one actually knows, and the Judeo-Christian model of reality and science is based off science. Muslim/Israeli and Christian men respond differently to different stimuli.

Simply put, you aren't as aware if you didn't spend hard time studying a subject. You can't understand what life was like for people back then. There's no real connection between philosophy and science, they turned into different things. There are all these different things going on in the world right now, it's no surprise people want what grants them the most immediate, physical satisfaction in this life. Anything else is too scary for your ego to handle, so you fight it.

 

[Hadoblado]

*deep breath*

Okay. This is frustrating. I'm posting as a member.

The way you people are acting it's as if nobody should be held accountable for their system of beliefs.

If Catholicism, which Lagomorph decided was a good example, is the first entry on the article when I jam in a precursory search in wikipedia for "one true church", I think I'm being reasonable when I say they are the self-appointed one true church.

I think you're being squirmy worms Squormy wirms.

You might subjectively overturn their self-identity, and say that by proclaiming themselves the sole arbiters of truth that they are just "seeking transcendence" like everyone else. But that's not what they believe. That's your takeaway, and you're free to believe it but you've provided no evidence for it. If the Catholic Church says they are A, and I say they are A, I'm not too interested in unjustified but convenient opinion B.

Even if they were seeking transcendance like everyone else, this doesn't even refute my statement. They can both be true!

"Getting caught up in the specifics of the teachings?". You've got to be kidding. This is a central tenet. "Being too literal"? I'm saying this is both the stated and de facto reality. There will be exceptions, but those aren't the central teachings of Catholicism.

And no, in order to make the above statement I'm not going to get drawn into "defining God" or "defining religion" or anything else. Unless you have a point to make, you're just shifting the burden onto me to answer questions with relevance I am yet to understand.

So either take a position and justify it, or stop filibustering.

*puts mod cap back on*

@Cognisant
There's a bit of a derail, but you've been part of it so I'm assuming you don't mind? If you want anything moved, just ask.

 

[washti]

Pizza I will define you ... just wait.
but nobody knows. Except for Illuminati. They've been studying you for 15 years.

It'd be nice if someone gave me a pretty table comparing the effectiveness and efficiency in performance of public and private sectors in the entire economy (neatly according to all industries) in the last 50 years in all countries depending on political orientation and based on ... well @Serac whereareyouwhenineedyou?

Then we could start to discern patterns of good practices and can actually talk about reality. (Not that I prefer it or something...)

@Lagomorph
Do you still claim that the problems with the provision of social services by public and private institutions open new opportunities for transformation for the church/religion?

In what new and better ways small groups of theists (Quakers, Universalists) could fill gaps in a system where conditions are dictated by government and a free market?

BTW We don't hear about abuses in smaller religious organizations so often because it is easier to hide them. Their existence is out of the most people's attention. See sects.

 

[Cognisant]

@Cognisant
There's a bit of a derail, but you've been part of it so I'm assuming you don't mind? If you want anything moved, just ask.

Honestly at this point I've lost interest.

 

[Black Rose]

The pope is representative of peters line of succession but in east orthodoxies (not really call by that) 11 other disciple of Jesus existed not just Peter. And the line of succession was broken over a thousand years ago making the current pope unrelated to Jesus or peter but only a figurehead not gods one true representative on earth. So I am skeptical they are the "one true church" because 12 should exist as 12 disciples existed. By definition what does "one true church" even mean? There should be just The Church. no titles or anything. I digress.

The Church was a socialist group. Charity is a free service of help. Since a church often organizes to help people that is both charity and socialism. The Question is, can the government replace this and what does the church do then. Until we all have robots and until everyone becomes atheist I doubt people will stop organizing under religion. We can criticize the people and the poor prioritization but from country to county it is at least a theme or part of Christianity. Religion is the oldest version of socialism as it goes.

@Pizzabeak tell us more on the illuminati (be sure to include socialism to be on topic)