This is a silly post with silly implications, even though I appreciate its rhetorical goals
The really c/mildlyinfuriating fact is there are more empty homes in the US than homeless.
Based on currently available numbers, there are about 31 vacant housing units for every homeless person in the U.S. src
You don’t even need to involve churches. You need to hold individuals and businesses who hoard real estate for profit accountable. (There is also the matter of the logistics of getting homeless people into those homes, but I will not dive into that here.)
I appreciate the sentiment of this post, but please be sure to check your predetermined biases before you use the text of this meme to inform your opinion on policy.
You don’t even need to involve churches.
There are plenty of valid complaints about (many) American religious institutions, but the constant shoe-horning in of complaints about religion in unrelated posts that I see on Lemmy comes across as bitter and myopic.
A lot of us have been victims of the church(hi); its leaves a bloody trench in its wake.
or tried our hand at activism and been smacked down by religious groups for doing the shit they espouse on paper (not strongly me, in any way I care about) and are understandably bitter.
And it hits harder, because most people grew up hearing these are the paragons of moral virtue, and then then pull this shit.
Plus they won’t shut up and get a ton of special treatment, but almost never use it for good (notice nobody’s talking shit about Harriet Tubman, john brown, or the quakers. Diggers levellers anabaptists, too, not even the ULC or church of Satan).
They paint their own target.
Sure, and that’s terrible, but from a different perspective, most of these beliefs and behaviors you’ve identified would persist without religious institutions and their proponents formalizing them as policy. Religion can give people a way to justify a lot of the terrible beliefs that they had internalized anyway, because it’s part of the dominant culture. But misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, xenophobia, and moral hypocrisy aren’t caused by religion or religious beliefs, any more so than atheism or agnosticism causes people to be tolerant or accepting of others in spite of their differences. And that’s a foundational premise to many of the criticisms of religion I see on Lemmy. But it’s just objectively wrong. If you want to look at a historical example of the productive power of religion, look no further than the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), which was one of, if not the most significant, political and religious organizations of the Civil Rights movement. It helped to organize people into a fighting force for real progressive change and it did so by way of lines of communication between black congregations across the country. For even more examples of religion as a tool of social progress, I recommend the wikipedia page on Liberation Theology.
Missing the point.
I already mentioned that shoehorning criticism of religion into conversations that were unrelated came across as bitter and myopic. Your point was, essentially, that a lot of people are bitter towards Christianity, which is implied by my own observation. If you have nothing to add beyond restating what was already said by the person to whom you are replying, then I would suggest saving yourself the time in the future and just clicking the up arrow. Or doing literally nothing. Either of those are fine options.
I was commenting after thatthat had been done. Youre arguing with the wrong person, regardless of how I feel about your points. I’m going to be the bigger person and leave now
Then come back, after a cup of tea, and write this part.
You can be all manner of shitty without religion, but religion as a framework is generally (and they’re not all the same) a tool for getting people to accept and do awful shit-partially, I admit, a (violent) selection pressure, but when you believe blatantly magical bullshit, you’re more easily manipulated against your stated conscience and general interest, and the people willing to do that tend to be the biggest bastards. Its also a mostly static model of reality youre very emotionally attached to, with no or problematic adjustment mechanisms, and those are always dangerous, even when they’re as or more accurate than other options (which none of the big ones are).
Religion doesn’t determine good/bad, but it’s got its finger on the needle. That’s not to say it hasn’t produced things I respect; Spinoza, Hegel, guy whose name I can never remember how to spell who wrote ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’, but I’m not sure how much any of those are attributable to it, and a lot (most? One is too many) of those holy wars (including the worst ongoing genocide I’m aware of at time if writing) serve(d) little/no material interest, of anyone.
So I’m only saying this because you basically walked up and asked me. But also I’m queer and it makes me feel very unsafe. Its a kind of volatility, if someone is, say, any of the abrahamic faiths, that they can just… Turn, almost instantly, for reasons I can’t argue or persuade or accommodate, for no real reason, against my very existence. Ive lost a lot of people to that. And it fucking sucks. No nonreligious person did this to me until ~2016. It took fascism, which I would argue is a (particularly bad) religion.
So your assertions here are the following:
- religion functions by 1) lying to people about the fundamental nature of reality in order to 2) manipulate them into doing bad things and that central to this is the idea that doing point 1 actively enables or facilitates point 2.
- religion constitutes a “static model of reality” to which people are emotionally attached, which is fundamentally dangerous.
- religion does not “determine” good or bad.
- Religious violence is a thing that exists.
- You’re queer and religion bothers you.
So, point by point:
- many religions make complex assertions about the metaphysical nature of the universe, often including the existence of supernatural phenomena, individuals, locations, etc. I’m not going to try to argue for the existence of any mystical element of any particular faith, but I will challenge the innately reductive analysis of religion you’ve provided. Most religions, particularly the very old ones, incorporate historical, philosophical, artistic, communal, and ethical traditions. You seem to center your understanding of religious faith around the metaphysical or supernatural components and have asserted that these components warp the underlying perception of reality of its participants for the express purpose of making people behave in such a way as to “do awful shit” and act against your “conscience and general interest.” In making a causal assertion of this kind, however, you really need to be able to support that assertion with something that proves a causal link between what you describe as a belief in “blatantly magical bullshit” and a specific pattern of behavior. Why is it the belief in the supernatural and not, for example, hierarchical organizations of power, something that has existed as a component of organized religion for millennia, but also in virtually all political and dominant social institutions for just as long? Perhaps people are more inclined towards mob mentality or to fall behind powerful and charismatic leaders, regardless of the institution from which they’re working. For example, the Soviet Union under Stalin was a brutally repressive society that actively criminalized both organized religion and LGBT persons. The absence of religion did not magically produce a society devoid of people unwilling to brutally oppress their fellow countrymen.
- you seem to be working with terms that don’t really carry a lot of significance or meaning for anyone other than yourself. What, exactly, do you think constitutes a “static model of reality?” And what, exactly, is problematic about that? Because in my mind, most people operate with a fairly static understanding of reality. Not to say it’s the same understanding of reality. Ideologies are as complex and different as the people that internalize them, and they inform our personal understanding of the world we inhabit. For most people, altering these beliefs about the world is non-trivial. As a staunch leftist, someone would have a hard time selling me on the merits of laissez-faire capitalism as an effective mechanism of distributing wealth in a society. My understanding of the fundamental nature of economics, human nature, and reality itself precludes this. Am I working from an overly static and inflexible model of reality?
- religion is deeply concerned with the nature of good and evil. Admittedly, these are things you might not actually believe in. Perhaps you’re a moral relativist. Perhaps not. If you are, I don’t have much to say to you about this. You believe good and evil are culturally determined moral concepts and nothing else, from a personal perspective, beyond socially conditioned behavior.
- religious violence, or “Holy Wars” as you’ve put it, are virtually all fought for the same purpose as any other war: the primitive acquisition of wealth and the expansion of a nation or nations hegemony. If you think what’s going on in Palestine is not driven by Israel’s desire for Palestinian land, then I have a bridge to sell you.
- your experiences are both tragic and common. I’ve personally been physically and emotionally abused by members of specific religious organizations, for reasons and in ways I don’t feel comfortable sharing with strangers on the internet, and by people who were sociopaths that used religion as a cudgel to bully and control others. But I’ve also been comforted and treated kindly by other people for whom their religious faith was an important part of their lives - people who were sick and in pain their entire lives, but who found serenity and comfort through their beliefs and shared that with people around them who were also suffering. History is full of people who used religion as an excuse to do terrible things, but history also has a tendency to amplify monsters and forget the decent people whose faith may have driven them to have a more positive impact on the world.
If you want to hate religion because you’re bitter, that’s fine. You can feel about religion any way that you want. But don’t be offended when you bring it up out of nowhere and someone tells you that your comments are irrelevant to the current discussion.
The world doesn’t revolve around your personal bitterness.
You’re saying I’m saying ‘religion is x’
I’m generally saying ‘religion tends towards x’ so two twins, one raised religious, one not, you could end up with anything.
A hundred sets of twins, one in each set religious, the other not influenced by it at all; the religious ones, on average, are gonna suck more, but only on average.
I do think the concept that ‘the world doesn’t matter because its temporary and only heaven matters, therefore anything is permissible’ is terrifying, and should get you kept away from sharp objects heavy machinery and any position of authority over anything. There are a few specific points doctrine about beliefs like that, that only show up without religion in cases of extreme mental illness, and I think can skew the average of how shit people are, but they tend to differ even between people sitting on the sane pew.
You seem very intent on picking fights about this though, and the things youre arguing against are not the ones I have said. (Some I believe, some I don’t, some you could maybe stretch to being a straw man of something I believe). You don’t seem to really be arguing with me here, and me engaging with what you say seems to be mostly ignored. Are you okay?
Lemmy has a weird hate-boner for Christianity. It’s like a visceral toxic hatred. Sure it would make more sense for you to take from the top one percent in society to actually solve the problem, but that way you don’t get to punish an entire religious group for their vocal minority 1% who squander wealth and strive for political power, using Jesus as nothing more than a stepping stool
A lot of it probably comes from deeply negative personal experiences, combined with a general propensity for people to apply a categorical belief to particular experiences. People who were treated badly by a particular group of Christians, or people who see and hear about certain Christians advocating for some terrible politician or political goal, are applying a generalized belief to how all Christians act, and potentially to all religion in general. It’s much harder to accept that the world is a deeply complicated and messy place and that religion and religious belief is a much more complex element of human civilization, culture, and personal identity than what many people would care to acknowledge.
Yeah. I regularly attend multiple churches. There are a few bad eggs, sure, but 99% of people I talk to there are either lovely people or normal people. Same goes for workplaces as well. I don’t see Churches as being worse than any other environment I’ve been in. But when assholes are Christians, they weaponise the Bible to justify being an asshole. If anything I think Christians in general should be more vocal about things happening in churches that are not okay, but there may be a concern of causing division in an otherwise wholesome atmosphere.
I have a close friend who converted to Christianity, and they said that a fault they observe in Christians can be that they’re too nice and too vulnerable, to the point that people can get away with not very nice things.
I think Atheism gets a bad rap these days also. I’m sure most atheists are lovely people, but the people who make it known that they’re atheists, or make it their whole personality, are not.
(There is also the matter of the logistics of getting homeless people into those homes, but I will not dive into that here.)
And caring for them, because a lot of them can’t function as normal members of society for whatever reason. The real estate is only one piece of this. But yeah, if people were willing to pay for all that, it wouldn’t be a problem. As it is, it’s always the next guy’s problem.
Correct. The “whatever reasons” you cite include chronic illness, mental illness, addiction, and abusive relationships. These are not unique to homelessness but are disproportionately prevalent in the population and therefore a key obstacle to overcome.
Addressing this takes labor and money to handle, a process that is often undertaken by nonprofits with funding from government, but also from charities and churches.
Not sufficient funding though, obviously. Sure there’s programs, but there’s usually a gigantic waiting list, or the service is so overcrowded some of the potential clients would rather try their luck on their own. And, if the government is involved, there tends to be a kind of red tape that can only be described as mean-spirited.
Maid on Netflix is a great depiction of what it’s like in the first-world underclass, if anyone is interested.
Yeah, this was my first thought as well as soon as I read the image. We have tons and tons of literally empty housing units. Even if you take away the ones that are only temporarily vacant while searching for a new tenant, you’re still left with a bunch of housing units that sit empty, waiting to be flipped for a profit by real estate investors.
Mmm I think you’re missing one of the core points of this though: churches have historically and traditionally offered and been used as sanctuaries, often by the poor and downtrodden in a society. In the US these days, you don’t see nearly as much of that. It’s more about evangelism and dogmatism and prosperity gospel. Christians in the US demonstrably doesn’t care that much about poor people these days.
More broadly: as someone who was raised Christian but is now a staunch atheist, I and many others would have far fewer issues with Christians if they would actually fucking practice what their religion preaches instead of whatever some MAGApastor tells you that Supply Side Jesus says.
I don’t disagree with you per se? I simply haven’t seen empirical evidence to support this statement:
Christians in the US demonstrably [don’t] care about the poor that much these days.
Meanwhile the evidence that the ultra wealthy are actively screwing over the lower class piles up daily. If you have a citation for that thesis above I’d love to talk.
I don’t follow what’s silly here. These motherfuckers are not taxed and also not obligated to give back and that should matter. Tax them, would be the obvious solution
If all churches were to be taxed, the estimated new income would be a paltry $2.4 billion yearly. source
While there is no consensus on the cost to end homelessness, estimates suggest the cost to be more than $300 billion.
So yeah. A bit silly, or at least not an “obvious solution.”
Edit: Meanwhile, taxing the rich and mega corporations is quite effective at retrieving this kind of cash, into the trillions. My personal position, if asked (though I want to be clear taxes were not the original topic at hand), is that taxing owners of multiple residential properties into unafordability is an important step toward ending homelessness.
tldr, The users downvoting this comment are letting their anti-religious sentiment cloud the noxious nature of late stage capitalism. In a world where human lives are less important than profit, for fucks sake the nonprofits are not the primary blame.
When I said “solution”, the problem I was talking about was how unfair it is that religious groups get tax exempt status despite doing nothing to earn that, and a lot to prove they should be taxed. I never said that suddenly we could feed and house all the homeless with those tax dollars
Post and my comment are about homelessness. Categorically, neither the post nor my comment were about taxes. So you changed the subject without even indicating you were doing so. 🙄
Awesome cool thank you for your contribution. But yeah glad to see we agree on an entirely tangentially related topic.
Edit: You are free to discuss taxes. But stop trying to frame it as a disagreement with my position which had nothing to do with taxes. Do it elsewhere where relevant.
The post is about the contradiction between homeless people getting the shaft while churches get handouts. There was no change of subject, you just set your focus narrowly and apparently decided anyone outside that would be wrong in multiple ways.
Misinformation. Churches do not get handouts.
Corporations do.
You are free to discuss taxes. But stop trying to frame it as a disagreement with my position which had nothing to do with taxes. Do it elsewhere where relevant.
Not getting taxed while taking in revenue is a handout. Not sure why you’re so insistent on arguing.
You’re adamant that your random subjective reading if the post is the only valid one and it’s not. It’s weird you want to insist it is
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very few actually do any good.
Cite this and I will change my opinion.
Am I reading this right? Are you saying that churches are worse than house-hoarding landlords, just because they think they’re doing good but a lot of them don’t? Even the 18% of churches that rent their buildings from other churches[1] (or the ones that rent non-church properties like theaters or schools,) and thus almost certainly don’t even have a property they could give? Or what about the 48% of churches that run or support a food pantry[2], and are thus doing good?
[1] - https://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/2018/fall-state-of-church-ministry/two-churches-one-roof.html
[2] - https://theconversation.com/nearly-half-of-all-churches-and-other-faith-institutions-help-people-get-enough-to-eat-170074clearing out this comment as it wasn’t helpful to the conversation
Well thanks, but to be fair, I was asking Scrubbles. When it comes to an opinion I disagree with, it’s more fruitful to talk to the person who holds that opinion than it is to deride the opinion with someone else who already agrees with me. Partially because there’s a good chance of a misunderstanding.
Not to say the rest of your remark is invalid, just addressing the first sentence where you seem to be speaking on Scrubbles’ behalf.
Fair enough! I hope I’m wrong lol.
