Whose money is it anyways?

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stinkcat_14 said:
In other words, he doesn’t say that supporting big government welfare programs eliminates our own personal responsibility to the poor.
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If my taxes go to supporting government welfare programs, I have fulfilled my moral and civic responsibility. The fact that I did this anonymously and did not help a person on a one-on-one basis, spiritually this may not accomplish the goal of faith-based charity.

Roman Catholicism regards doing good works as satisfying a faith-based obligation toward contributing to the poor. They believe that this activity is of benefit to the contributor while the recipient gains in the process.

Lutheranism, in contrast, regards contributing to the poor as a moral and civic obligation, independent of faith.
 
Robert_Sock said:
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No matter how hard you may have worked for it, it still belongs to God, and God demands that we use it to feed the hungry and cloth the poor.
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Actually, in the case of investment income, there may not be any hard work involved at all.

For instance, a few years back, Bill Gates was making $300,000 per hour merely on his investments without doing any work at all.

And according to our tax system, the tax rate for this income (earned without doing any work) is less than for the income where toil and sweat is required.
 
If I am living below the poverty level, am I free from an obligation to give money to help others?

Also, am I free to commit acts which may increase my poverty such as gambling, not practicing birth control, and indulging in narcotics and alcohol?
 
magnet said:
If I am living below the poverty level, am I free from an obligation to give money to help others?
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Take money out of your question and ask yourself again…

If I am living below the poverty level am I free of the obligation to help others?

Its not all about money.

Of course not. If you are poor and have little food you are still called to share what you have with somebody who is without.
 
magnet said:
If I am living below the poverty level, am I free from an obligation to give money to help others?

Also, am I free to commit acts which may increase my poverty such as gambling, not practicing birth control, and indulging in narcotics and alcohol?
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If you cannot give money to a charity, you can always pray for the poor and truly feel brotherly LOVE toward them. I try to donate $100 a month to Catholic Relief Services, but I feel like it’s a drop in the bucket and that my prayers do much more good.
 
Neofight said:
Take money out of your question and ask yourself again…

If I am living below the poverty level am I free of the obligation to help others?

Its not all about money.

Of course not. If you are poor and have little food you are still called to share what you have with somebody who is without.
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I am involved in coordinating a retreat for homeless recovering alcoholics. We are getting a lot of non monetary help from people who live below the poverty level. More is needed to help the poor and needy than just money. We often overlook their spiritual needs.
 
Robert_Sock said:
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No matter how hard you may have worked for it, it still belongs to God, and God demands that we use it to feed the hungry and cloth the poor.
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On the other hand, and from the mouth of the Apostle Peter himself, speaking to one Anaias about a property that he had sold: “Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power?” (Acts 5:4a)
Corki said:
Giving more money to the government does not equate to more for the poor, let alone giving to God what is God’s.
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^^^This. The obligation to feed the hungry, house the homeless, and clothe the naked is a PERSONAL obligation. Voting for politicians who favor confiscating money from those who have earned it, filtering it thru a bloated bureaucracy, and then distributing the remainder to people who may or may not actually be in need shouldn’t even be entering into the discussion.​
 
DaveBj said:
On the other hand, and from the mouth of the Apostle Peter himself, speaking to one Anaias about a property that he had sold: “Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power?” (Acts 5:4a)
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I think this being said from a legal, earthly perspective. We know who created our world, and who truly owns everything in it.
 
Is it better to invest money so that it earns repeatedly for the poor, or is it better to disperse it as soon as it arrives in one’s pay check?
 
DaveBj said:
… Voting for politicians who favor confiscating money from those who have earned it, …
and borrowing against money not yet earned by people who have no say in the matter given ~19.5 Trillion in debt and~102 Trillion in unfunded liabilities…
filtering it thru a bloated bureaucracy, committing much of it to debt interest going to banks and then distributing the remainder to people who may or may not actually be in need shouldn’t even be entering into the discussion.
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I’m sorry, but I do consider it greed to commit the wealth/effort of future generations to our current problems. When it’s taken from them, it is not charity from us. Government charity on our part would be to lower our benefits to divert them to the poor.
 
styrgwillidar said:
I’m sorry, but I do consider it greed to commit the wealth/effort of future generations to our current problems. When it’s taken from them, it is not charity from us. Government charity on our part would be to lower our benefits to divert them to the poor.
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Yes, there is also that. In any case, charity is a private mandate, not a government mandate.
 
styrgwillidar said:
I’m sorry, but I do consider it greed to commit the wealth/effort of future generations to our current problems. When it’s taken from them, it is not charity from us. Government charity on our part would be to lower our benefits to divert them to the poor.
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Like when we went to war in lraq and Afghanistan and made future generations pay for it. I have yet to have one supporter of the wars give a reason why future generations should have paid for it. Talk about taxation without representation.
 
stinkcat_14 said:
Like when we went to war in lraq and Afghanistan and made future generations pay for it. I have yet to have one supporter of the wars give a reason why future generations should have paid for it. Talk about taxation without representation.
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That would be an interesting science fiction story concept – people from a future deeply-in-debt America time-traveling to the past, getting themselves elected to Congress, and voting down any spending proposals that require deficit spending. Hmm . . .
 
stinkcat_14 said:
Like when we went to war in lraq and Afghanistan and made future generations pay for it. I have yet to have one supporter of the wars give a reason why future generations should have paid for it. Talk about taxation without representation.
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Yes. The justification for war needs to be clearly articulated with an end goal/state. The only way to justify them to a future generation must entail security of the country- preserving it to hand on to them. Just as we want to help the poor we often get into this misguided ‘white knight’ notion that we can somehow improve the lives of folks around the world by replacing their forms of government. Is that really something that future generations should pay for? Especially given our lack of certainty in how these things will turn out, we think by overthrowing a dictator that what follows must be an improvement-- and it often isn’t.
 
DaveBj said:
Yes, there is also that. In any case, charity is a private mandate, not a government mandate.
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I agree it is a private mandate, but I do believe in funding government programs to assist the needy. A lot of the problems come from fraud, using it for building a political power base vice assistance, allowing folks to become dependent on it vice it truly giving them the ‘breathing room’ to improve their situation and become independent.

What I see as the problem is living beyond our means, no matter how sincere our intentions, and transferring the costs to the future generations vice our own. There’s a big difference between that, IMHO, and us collectively voting for programs we can fund within our own generation’s resources. No matter how hungry/poor I am I wouldn’t take out credit in my kid’s name and run up a bill for them.
 
styrgwillidar said:
I agree it is a private mandate, but I do believe in funding government programs to assist the needy. A lot of the problems come from fraud, using it for building a political power base vice assistance, allowing folks to become dependent on it vice it truly giving them the ‘breathing room’ to improve their situation and become independent.

What I see as the problem is living beyond our means, no matter how sincere our intentions, and transferring the costs to the future generations vice our own. There’s a big difference between that, IMHO, and us collectively voting for programs we can fund within our own generation’s resources. No matter how hungry/poor I am I wouldn’t take out credit in my kid’s name and run up a bill for them.
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If we could set up a government welfare program that totally eliminated fraud, that was completely divorced from the political process, and that had a workable program to lead people to true independence, I could get excited about it. Until then – not so much.

Amen!
 
DaveBj said:
More like, perfection is only in GOD’S mind. And, that is the goal toward which we should be striving.
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Perfection implies 100% cause and effect. Since the universe is composed of countless random phenomena (e.g. dust motes floating in the air), is this randomness part of perfection?

Biology has established the random nature of gene exchange between mother and father during conception. Since the outcome cannot be predicted, is this non-predictability part of perfection?
 
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