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kozlosap
Guest
In some parts of Sub Saharan Africa and the Congo, every other child does die from starvation, thirst and illness.
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St_Francis
Guest
But the solution to alleviate their suffering is not to kill them before they suffer, is it?
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Kelt
Guest
You don’t kill anyone by using a condom any more than a person who chooses abstinence does.
The example of condom use for aids that I used was referring to where heterosexually spread aids is causing widespread suffering to men, women and children - some of whom are born with aids. Not homosexuals. I’d say that (mostly) men are not going to accept a life of abstinence. Selfish, maybe, but the reality of how it is.
Missionaries can help with healthcare - but they will have to respect other religions…do they all do that without attempting to convert people? I’m honestly not accusing…I’m asking to find out!
I just wondered how YOU think we rich nation individuals can help, materially, now. I support a few girls’ education in Mali - it’s only a tiny thing compared to all the people working out there and I’m interested to hear of other ideas/ charities. Solar aid is one.
Thanks again for your contributions - it’s good to be made to think, don’t you reckon?!
Have a good trip…
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Kelt
Guest
Yes yes,absolutely, but they never all have and they never all will. So where does that leave us? That’s the million dollar question.
And basically yes I am saying that lots of parts of Africa would be better off with less Africans. The same goes for every other country. The planet is what we are all dependant on after all and we’re already AVERAGING the use of resources of one and a half planets.
popsci.com/environment/article/2012-10/daily-infographic-if-everyone-lived-american-how-many-earths-would-we-need
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weller2
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(1) …and tar sands mining has no environmental impacts
(2) neodymium magnets are permanent magnets which are, you know, permanent. They do not age, so they are going to be good for the lifetime of the turbine and you could even reuse them in a new turbine!
(3) it is possible to build a windmill without the use of any permanent magnets, in fact at least one major supplier does that
So stop buying stuff from Apple, it is overpriced anyway.
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St_Francis
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Interesting, thank you.(1) …and tar sands mining has no environmental impacts
(2) neodymium magnets are permanent magnets which are, you know, permanent. They do not age, so they are going to be good for the lifetime of the turbine and you could even reuse them in a new turbine!
(3) it is possible to build a windmill without the use of any permanent magnets, in fact at least one major supplier does that
Oh, is Apple the only company whose products are made in China or another poor country?
I figure that Apple keeps a better eye on its suppliers so maybe it’s worth it not to buy a knock-off?
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St_Francis
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No, but we all agree that killing people before they suffer is not a solution to suffering. Killing people is out of bounds when we consider solutions.
In the same way, for orthodox Catholics, using or distributing abc is also out of bounds and a non-solution. It doesn’t mean that we do nothing to alleviate suffering, just that we eschew abc as an option. There are many other things that can be done that we accept and which the Catholic Church is doing in Africa.
Yes, there are bad, selfish people everywhere. While condoms might slow the spread of AIDS, other forms of abc do nothing to combat the spread of disease, and yet they too are distributed.
Catholic organizations in no way require conversion or interest or even attendance at an evangelical event to get help. But simply helping others can be an act which piques people’s interest in the Church, not that that is why people do it.
Rich nations are already helping by providing many things which are needed: food, health care, security, etc.
Sometimes too, we have to realize that our human resources are limited, and this encourages us to rely on God for help.
Golly, keep posting like that and I’ll forget you’re English
Thank you very much!
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St_Francis
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I don’t have time now to quote from and comment on this homily, but wanted to post it as it contains some points of Catholic thinking on what to watch out for in charitable activities. Link to homily.
Will return later when I can do this right
Will return later when I can do this right
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Kelt
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Golly, keep posting like that and I’ll forget you’re English
/QUOTE]
What does that mean!!!
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Kelt
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I just looked this up and I’m sorry, I will be up-front about this… it just put me RIGHT off! I will attempt to read THROUGH the devil rhetoric when I have a glass of wine in my hand… but I felt my hackles rising before I’d got through the first paragraph.I don’t have time now to quote from and comment on this homily, but wanted to post it as it contains some points of Catholic thinking on what to watch out for in charitable activities. Link to homily.
Will return later when I can do this right
You will correct me if I’m wrong, but I get the feeling you’re ‘passing the buck’ for charity to the church. They may use some of your money well but that doesn’t make you aware of what’s going on out in the world. If you leave it to someone else you can shut yourself off with a clear conscience but will never be aware of how much more still needs to be done.
God ain’t over-busy in the practical stakes in the refugee camps…maybe he’s watching what WE do.
However, don’t get distracted…wait until after your trip!!
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St_Francis
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St Francis;12517830:
Ahhhh, two great countries divided by a common language… Reckon is not usually used in the US–it’s kind of a country term and so I thought you were just fooling around thereGolly, keep posting like that and I’ll forget you’re English
/QUOTE]
What does that mean!!!Sorry about that…
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St_Francis
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Try this: "[A beautiful love for the poor can turn into] into an enslaving paternalism that locks them into dependency, or does not address their spiritual needs by speaking to them respectfully of their sins, or does not seek to deepen their spiritual and family lives. And thus the beautiful corporal works of mercy are either set at odds with the spiritual works of mercy or are considered adequate in themselves. [Many can go] to serve the poor, armed with half-truths and approaches that merely bandage deeper wounds without addressing them…
“Virtues, of course, are meant to work in combination with other virtues that balance them. For example, charity should be balanced by truth and truth by charity. Without charity, the truth can bludgeon; **without truth, charity can become harmful, patronizing, and wickedly affirming. ** Charity and truth are meant to balance each other and to work alongside other virtues in a delicate interplay.” (Emphasis added)
The latter paragraph reminds me of what GK Chesterton wrote: “The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered…, it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone.** Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.” **(emphasis added)
I am a part of the Church, so I can’t really pass the buck to the Church. And the Church’s charities are divided into various organizations, so I can direct funds which I send directly to whatever I would want the funds to be spent on.
So, for a person who is not in a position to travel to Africa, which I am not, I can direct my funds to a particular organization which accomplishes a particular thing: distributing food, health care, education, etc., which can be either/or or and.
I can also pray and offer up our sufferings for all involved, which you may not believe is helpful, but which we do, and which is something that even the poorest and most helpless person can do.
Not sure what you mean by this… forgive me if I am wrong:
I read this in a card many years ago: on the outside was a person who something that needed to be fixed, saying, “God, why don’t You do something about this?” On the inside was a quote from above: “I did. I sent you.”
God expects *us *to do what we can to alleviate suffering, not to rely on Him so heavily that we end up not acting at all! A Catholic saying: Pray as if it all depends on God; act as if it all depends on you.
Precisely.
However, don’t get distracted…wait until after your trip!!
Thank you very much
but I still need to procrastinate a little bit
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Kelt
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OK…if you’re still procrastinating…! And yes, I do ‘reckon’ a lot - didn’t know you didn’t!
Yes I sort of get all the theorising of good and evil here, but really …it’s what you DO that cuts the mustard! It’s no good carrying all this moralising in one’s head without action! Faith hope and charity…and the greatest of these is charity. (I happen to believe that the word charity carries more relevant meaning than the more washy washy modern replacement; love. The argument you’re posing is almost like…I can’t help you because/but I love you (ie;tough love)! You can’t give that excuse when the word ‘charity’ is used in the saying.)
I THINK the thing we disagree on is abc…otherwise we agree that aid should be linked to ways for the poor to help themselves, sustainably in the future and not just be a band aid? Sometimes in a crisis (famine/war) tho’ a band aid is needed to get people thru’ the crisis? It’s EASY to say they’d all be better off without war and corruption…goes without saying. In fact a lot of this pontificating goes without saying. I happen to believe that contraception is absolutely RIGHT…for the people and the planet (which is ultimately AGAIN - for the people). There is no way that our Eco-system can support huge millions of people without unfortunate consequences ( use your imagination). Our capitalist economic model is not working right, as it can only work with growth growth growth. Look at nature. Does a tree keep growing taller and taller? Yes - UNTIL it reaches its OPTIMUM height, after which it can’t sustainably grow any more. (But it doesn’t die.) It would outgrow its strength/food supply etc etc after which it would fall down. Does that put you in mind of banks?!
If you are ministering to Catholics they will understand why you don’t offer abc. If you minister to those of a different persuasion they might not agree. I would not understand.
Where does that leave us? It leaves us both trying to help those less fortunate than ourselves - with disagreement over a belief - a dogma. But we don’t stop helping do we?
What drives me to distraction is that bit… “without truth, charity can become harmful, patronizing, and wickedly affirming.” Who’s truth??? I think that should read ‘dogma’ rather than truth.
Can you understand that I think this sort of idea - that no help is better than the ‘wrong’ help - is evil?!
This is much better: Pray as if it all depends on God; act as if it all depends on you.
Having said that, prayer helps the helper. It doesn’t do anything physical for the person in the crisis…that’s for their fellow man to do - but then you’ve already said that.
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davidv
Guest
Doing evil (abc) in hopes of doing something good is the opposite of Charity. Jesus sais he is the Truth. He established a Church on earth to speak for Him until he returns. This same Church says that your “abc is RIGHT” is, in fact, WRONG.
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St_Francis
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Yep, city folks don’t reckon much… us country folks do, tho
Yes, we have a bit if a language problem in the Church wrt charity, since the word has come fo mean just donating some money or old stuff. But caritas, love of neighbor for the love of God, or perhaps more clearly, love of Christ in our neighbor, is definitely not a wishy-washy sort of thing for us either.
Well, I would hope that if a Catholic charity is offering food that the hungry will not be too upset that they are not offering abc.
I do believe that most people offering abc are doing so sincerely, and there are certainly enough needs to go around that not everyone needs to offer abc.
Don’t you think it’s the nature of truth to be singular, and that our task is to discover what it is?
But no one is saying this. Catholics don’t refuse to help provide all the solutions they are able to provide on the basis that they are unable to provide just one small sliver of what others see as help.
So you’ve never prayed for other people? From my point of view, one thing prayer does is to open up routes for grace to enter into other people’s hearts. What they do with that grace is up to them, of course, but sometimes people need extra grace to open up their hearts and then they, too, make “physical” changes for others.
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Kelt
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Oh no, you can’t claim ‘the Truth’ because you happen to have chosen to be Catholic. This is all what YOU believe, and I’m quite alright with that until you come out with a statement like that. You think Jesus had the huge edifice of the Catholic Church in mind when he was alive…I most certainly do not. I am understanding why Catholics think differently about abc…and I want to work with others in charity work with better understanding of their beliefs.
I know what dogma is.
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weller2
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Kelt
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You haven’t looked hard enough. This is what I have in mind when I keep banging on about individual’s responsibility to be aware of what’s going on in the world and not just handing over the money and trusting someone else will do it. YOU can influence the charities, YOU should be more active rather than passive.
Of course I’m not intending to just pick on you as an individual - I am talking ‘everyone’, including myself.
“Time will tell” is not good enough! Time might tell that a lot of people suffered unnecessarily because ordinary people didn’t make it their business to do some of their own research - to be aware of the science, the politics, the geography etc etc.!!
Be ‘optimistic’? Why? Do you have sound reasons for going for the optimistic model?
I’d be interested to hear what you think of this:
thersa.org/events/rsaanimate/animate/rsa-animate-smile-or-die
(But I can wait until after that trip!!)
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davidv
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That is not what I am claiming. Besides, I didn’t chose to be Catholic, my parents did this for me. I chose to remain Catholic.
No, it not true because I because I believe. It is true, therefore the Church teaches it.
Based on what exactly? He compared the Church to a mustard seed that grows into a large tree.
Which has plainly been rejected for personal opinion. Teaching people lies is far from charitable. Why convince someone to believe a lie? What good will this do?
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Kelt
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It is not ‘true’. It is a belief. Lots of people share it but it is, nonetheless, a belief! Other religions are as sure about THEIR truths too. Me? No, I believe things to be right and wrong and continually question myself…because I don’t KNOW, any more than you do. To put it bluntly, I see it as you having the comfort of the removal of personal responsibility.
From all I’ve read of his teachings. The idea of a hugely rich and powerful institution so full of rules and hierarchies seems so obviously not what he was all about that it puts me in mind of the emperor’s new clothes or the elephant in the room (for want of a better simile which escapes me right now).
I could ask EXACTLY the same thing of you.
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