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Not at all. I've witnessed, and been part of, acts of charity. I've seen people from all walks of life and from all faiths, and none, help the needy. The vast majority do it for a very simple reason: it's the right thing to do.
What sort-of shocks me is the need to publicize a good deed. I was raised by parents who taught us to do good as a matter of course....and not broadcast it when we'd done something good for someone else.
Last edited by DewDropInn; 05-01-2016 at 09:58 AM..
Not at all. I've witnessed, and been part of, acts of charity. I've seen people from all walks of life and from all faiths, and none, help the needy. The vast majority do it for a very simple reason: it's the right thing to do.
Me too. I'm not shocked. I'm happy! That's humanity, a person feeling empathy, and helping. Humans. can do amazing things.
Putting myself in Viz's shoes, as a small rural pastor just trying to be good at his job, he can't take on personal responsibility for the peccadillos of the entire extended Christian family any more than I can volunteer all my time and money to every cause that presents itself begging for them. To an extent his good works should stand or fall on their own merits. In my view then it probably makes sense for him to drop the extraordinary moral claims he keeps making based on his beliefs about the exceptional nature of Christian morality, and let his life and practice speak for itself to the persons it actually effects. If people see something extraordinary they will want it for themselves. That is the thing -- if he's extraordinarily good then people will notice and respond. He doesn't have to make any claims for himself or for Christians generally.
If he doesn't make such claims then he's not setting ridiculous expectations of his fellow believers and, by extension, for himself. And he then avoids a lot of the need to even be involved in these things. He can credibly say, "I think what Hastert did is despicable and should not be defended at the expense of the victims. If he were a member of my church here's how I'd handle it", etc. And just move on. He wouldn't be tempted to disown Hastert as any sort of Christian on the one hand or minimize his perfidy on the other.
Viz likes to point out that teachers and coaches and other professions have the same failings and this would put him on an equal footing in this matter: he'd not be claiming people can be better pastors, teachers, coaches, boy scout leaders, politicians or whatever, because of the magic Christian morality. IF Christian morality is in some way extraordinarily powerful in influencing people to be good moral actors, it will eventually become obvious that this is the case, despite occasional lapses, and there need be no one flustered or surprised about those lapses.
If Christian morality can't speak for itself, no good can come of speaking on its behalf, in my view.
A few months ago, in a (to some) shocking event, a pastor gave a free tank of gas to a single mother who needed to be able to get to doctor visits with her baby that week. This woman does not even GO to the church! I am sure that will shock some, who usually assume that it's the pastor demanding free stuff from the people.
I understand why you're posting it, and I am sympathetic, but there's a difference between individual acts of kindness and large scale levels of corruption with organized religion.
I get it. The many posts about the Vatican covering up child abuse, rural churches convincing people not to believe in basic science or even levels of human rights, political corruption, and the works do seem to imply that religious people are less the human. The thing is, I don't think that anyone posting issues about that sincerely believe that you or any other Christian is personally responsible or a bad person. The issue is the willingness to dismiss the issue as if it's smaller than it is. No, I don't think you're responsible for child sex abuse that happens in organized religion; you probably oppose it just as much as anyone else does. But, I do think you actually have more of a responsibility to be critical of religion than anyone else. You would benefit form it!
Let me explain. When people like Cupper (or if we're talking a scale that matters more than this forum, people like Richard Dawkins) are first to be critical of child sex abuse, acts of terrorism, or other terrible things done in the name of religion, they get to lead the conversation. They can turn it into a highly critical argument about the seriously negative aspects of religion. To people who are highly receptive of critical arguments, few people are going to leave a conversation like that without a slightly more negative view of organized religion. There are a lot of religious people who are universally opposed to large aspects of organized religion, there are also very religious people who selectively are critical but this usually means they believe their version is the only valid one. But let's ignore them for the time being and look at the religious people who respect different religious views and recognize flaws in organized religion. What if those people led the conversation?
If Christians started talking about child sex abuse in the Vatican or human rights abuses in highly conservative sects of protestant churches, a non-anti-Christian angle could be what leads the conversation. If YOU were the first to say gay people should be treated with respect, you could get people's support without the expectation that gay marriage be accepted by everyone. If YOU led the conversation, we would talk about human rights abuses in the church and not make it about their religion. If YOU lead the changes necessary, fewer people would have negative views of religion. Yes, I get why you're posting what you posted. It's a reminder that religious people are exactly as human as anyone else. But it's not the conversation that needs to be had.
Viz is simply trying to counter the regular threads by Cupper pointing out bad behavior among Christians . On the one hand there is nothing wrong with pointing out good deeds, but then no one has suggested Christians don't . I know many Christians to be decent caring people . Not as many as the Christians would like to pretend, but many. They will run about the same good, bad, and ugly ratio as the rest of society .
What Viz doesn't get is that the threads bashing Christians are a reaction to the Christians assuming they are morally superior to the rest of society, even though they tacitly claim that they are just " sinners saved by grace" and no better than anyone else . It makes a good sound bite but in fact almost all Christians do behave this way . Gandhis comment about Christians comes to mind .
Christians do good deeds, and do wrong deeds , just like everyone else . Everyone else just doesn't walk around with a presumed air of moral superiority and judgementalism about those not like them .
I think that Vizio is merely trying to deflect from all of cupper's threads (in turn probably in response to Jeff's threads) about the produce of Christianity creating spoiled and rotten fruits in many of their Pastors. It's so tribal and blindly loyalist to try to ignore and avoid the negative publicity instead of engaging it in order to fix it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GoCardinals
Believing in dinosaurs perhaps would have not made the Pastor help the woman, but perhaps believing in God did.
Believing in bushing his teeth might perhaps not made the Paster help the woman, but perhaps being happily hypnotized by a squad of secrete pro-civility indoctrination police would.
Is there a point to support an idea in which the power of lies and/or systems to guide people to do some goods might be favored over learning about observable reality outside of scaring or baiting people to do good?
NEWS FLASH--Black man asks strange white guy for $5.00 to buy gas is all white-suburbia--strange white guy FILLS his tank...and the black guy didn't even listen to christian radio...
Believing in dinosaurs perhaps would have not made the Pastor help the woman, but perhaps believing in God did.
Perhaps. People do good for all sorts of different reasons. Belief in God may have been the pastor's, and he did a good deed. For those of us who are not religious, we tend to do good simply because we're empathetic and can't stand to watch someone suffering or doing without. So we'll randomly reach out and help. Each person has his/her own motivation(s) but when it results in someone's life being bettered in some way, it can only be good, IMO.
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