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And your proof for this is? Have you personally took a survey of the many Christian churches out there and see what ministry programs they have? Many churches do things like run food pantries. I call that helping the poor. When disasters strike like Katrina, it was the churches that were able to immediately care for and house the displaced. The government failed miserably to provide immediate assistance.
How many atheist organizations run shelters, food pantries for the poor, etc?
It must be very difficult for Christians who take their faith seriously and abide by the laws but still want to live in a secular world that doesn't follow those laws. Unlike vegetarians or vegans who have to stand tough and follow their at-times strict and disciplined regimes, it seems Christians (and many other followers) are often dissuaded from actually following theirs to maintain a convenient lifestyle; it's easier for them to pick and choose which laws to follow and which ones can be deemed "antiquated".
I'm often relieved by not being bound by any of it.
You do realize there is a difference between a real Christian and a pseudo christian?
Thanks for sharing. It's a spot-on opinion piece. Christian fundamentalism is in its death throes, but it will be, for the next generation or so, all the more dangerous precisely because of that. To imagine they have been neutered, would be a huge mistake.
"death throes" exist for a reason: to try to find a way to allow the organism to keep living.
You do realize there is a difference between a real Christian and a pseudo christian?
Jesus did: Matt 7:21-23
I noted the tone in your post and I'm not entirely sure Christ would have responded sarcastically or frivolously to another human. Do you consider yourself a pseudo-Christian?
The question is HOW MANY ATHEISTS VOLUNTEER AT SHELTERS?
The atheists who have the opportunity to through secular or atheist institutions. Go read some empirical studies. Nothing in atheism says "don't volunteer in shelters" same as in Christianity... but one group adds believed-in selfish/fearful reasons to volunteer and the better opportunity with a captured community of consumers.
Your abreaction is aimed at the wrong target, mordant. You blame God for the unreasonable expectations you were taught by your fundamentalist religion. Instead of just blaming the ignorance of your fundamentalist teachers, you blame God for your dashed expectations. Clearly you have decided, as have many others, that if there is no "Santa Claus God" as advertised, then there is no God at all. Sad, actually, very sad.
My expectations, dashed or otherwise, have nothing to do with my beliefs or unbeliefs. The latter, as I said in the message you're replying to, is a function of what I know and have substantiated. Disappointments can serve as a wake up call that something isn't working, and a motivation to re-evaluate beliefs. They did in my case. And I did not initially expect that re-evaluation to lead me to atheism. Initially it led me on a search similar to your own within Christianity, then outside it, for the truth about god. The truth simply turned out to be that there's virtually no basis to think a personal interventionist god exists, and not much more to think an impersonal noninterventionist god exists.
Or at least the way you'd expect them to? I think that's the bigger point.
Fact is, "fundamentalists" probably do more to help the poor than you know. We're the ones that build hospitals, homeless shelters, etc.
And it's conservatives that think it's better to give a man a job than a handout that keep him fed for a lifetime instead of just till the next meal.
It is difficult to discuss this in depth without someone wielding their ban-hammer over it, because although religion and politics overlap, we must contrive to discuss either one or the other in the appropriate fora.
Let me just say for purposes of this conversation, which maybe should have been somewhere under politics to start with, given the article's slant, that fundamentalism's foray into politics in the 1980s was in my view a huge mistake and, to put it in terms you'd find relatable, a deal with the devil. Fundamentalism has been coopted by plutocrats and they now own it in large measure.
Just the concept that helping someone is a "handout" that perpetuates dependency is so counter to scripture it isn't even funny. That is contrary to "if you've done it to the least of these, you've done it to me", "if someone needs your shirt, give them two", etc. We can't debate the merits here, but I agree with the author of the article that the NT is a bit to the left of communism for the most part, and that fundamentalism ignores those parts, preferring to focus on "if a man will not work, he shall not eat"(*) which is why an alliance with fundamentalism is appealing to fascists and plutocrats everywhere.
(*) Which is really talking about pastors earning their keep with secular jobs as much as anything, and an injunction against sloth, which is not the same thing is being unemployed or underemployed.
It is difficult to discuss this in depth without someone wielding their ban-hammer over it, because although religion and politics overlap, we must contrive to discuss either one or the other in the appropriate fora.
Let me just say for purposes of this conversation, which maybe should have been somewhere under politics to start with, given the article's slant, that fundamentalism's foray into politics in the 1980s was in my view a huge mistake and, to put it in terms you'd find relatable, a deal with the devil. Fundamentalism has been coopted by plutocrats and they now own it in large measure.
Just the concept that helping someone is a "handout" that perpetuates dependency is so counter to scripture it isn't even funny. That is contrary to "if you've done it to the least of these, you've done it to me", "if someone needs your shirt, give them two", etc. We can't debate the merits here, but I agree with the author of the article that the NT is a bit to the left of communism for the most part, and that fundamentalism ignores those parts, preferring to focus on "if a man will not work, he shall not eat"(*) which is why an alliance with fundamentalism is appealing to fascists and plutocrats everywhere.
(*) Which is really talking about pastors earning their keep with secular jobs as much as anything, and an injunction against sloth, which is not the same thing is being unemployed or underemployed.
Another for the "Good'un" file.
Too soon etc.
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