What is sick about this is that the Church NEEDS such people to continue existing... they need hungry, homeless, destitute, sick and poor people to give purpose to their tradition. Rather than raising the standards of living for all, they go about such actions as can raise their stock in heaven. Without such people, there can be no more Saints.
I disagree. Christianity does not need such people to exist. This is a question of values. If these people existed, then your mission as a Christian is to eliminate that group. If these people did not exist, then your mission is to prevent such a group from coming back into existence.
It's relative. What is poverty today was wealth and riches yesterday. The industrial revolution increased the living standards of millions and billions of people around the world.
This however does not eliminate the problem. The problem is not the
absolute living conditions of a particular group of people but the laziness and lack of action. We no longer encourage the general population to engage in acts of charity and hospitality. We leave this to the government. That's the function that social security performs.
Social security takes away the need for the general population to look after the poor, homeless and oppressed. It becomes the government's job. Instead of looking after the underclass directly, we vote for policies that we think will help them.
What this does is eliminate the need for the direct experience of engaging in acts of charity and hospitality. Our generosity becomes less personal. We donate our money to some organisation and never meet the people who need our help. We become disconnected from those people and never know their real issues.
What I regard as "saints" are
those brave enough to seek that
direct experience, rather than going through some organisation. The
true saints are those who
experience everything first hand. They work hard so they can earn enough money to help the poor and homeless and they are also the ones to meet them personally.
It's like the
way of the sword versus the
way of the gun. In the good old days of fighting with swords, you got close and personal. You went the distance, charging forward to meet the enemy. When firearms came along, people did not have to rush the full length of the battlefield to meet their foe. They could kill them at a distance.
You call these people Saints, I say they are some of the most selfish people to ever exist. This is the foundation for the economics structures in the West, where extremes of poverty and wealth are accepted as part of our society.
The problem is capitalism. That's why you've got it wrong.
Capitalism is an ownership-driven ideology. People work hard to own more stuff. People work to increase the size of their "barns" (so to speak) -- see the corresponding story in the New Testament.
Poverty exists because people never really cared enough to do anything about it, not because the idea of an underclass is itself the reason why an underclass exists. Poverty exists because people were too busy getting rich rather than making sure everyone was getting fed and living comfortably.
Poverty exists because people aren't satisfied with what they have. Enough is never enough. People always want more.
Having a $10,000 isn't enough. You want a $100,000 home. Yesterday's new stuff is today's old stuff. The market value of a car, home, computer, etc. keeps going down. People keep having to buy and sell and so the cycle keeps repeating itself.
Technological progress is the reason why "poverty" and "underclasses" continue to exist. People keep wanting more and are satisfied with less. Today's underclass was yesterday's middle class and so on and so on. Eventually we are going to end up with few resources left and will start fighting wars to get the last remaining drops of energy. That's what nuclear weapons are for -- to get the last of the last.
If there weren't these extremes, Christianity wouldn't be sustainable because you have to buy your way into heaven in this tradition through helping those you yourself have assisted in becoming poor... it is disgraceful! If these people had shared their wealth more effectively they wouldn't have to help the less fortunate - there simply wouldn't be any!
This isn't about earning your way into heaven. This is about values. People today are more focused on getting rich than helping the underclass. They are too busy making sure the market value of their property and quality of life either keeps going up or doesn't come down. That to me is a form of economic slavery. You will never have enough, not because it's
technologically impossible. It's
psychologically impossible. These people never believe they have enough. They are never satisfied.
They are too busy building bigger barns.......
If we lived on mana from heaven, we would have solved this problem ages ago.
I believe we have all the technology, energy and resources to eliminate "poverty" in the world. The reason why we have failed so far is because those of us in the West are not willing to sacrifice our comfort for those in Africa.
The economic model of the West is not designed to combat poverty. It's designed for profit and continual maintenance and development.
Most of us think Mao Zedong failed in his economic policies. I think he may have succeeded. The reason why people think communism is a failure is more because of a difference in measuring economic performance. Economic performance was measured by developments in infrastructure and technological progress rather than "human satisfaction."
No, it wasn't a technological success. It was a success in propaganda. Mao Zedong tricked his people into thinking they had enough. They were more focused in fighting capitalists than in getting rich. That's all that was needed to solve poverty in China. Get rid of the capitalists.
Yes, there would have been plenty of health issues and people dying. But I think people were far more satisfied with their lives than they are now. When Deng Xiaoping introduced capitalism to China, things changed. "To get rich is glorious" was the slogan. That is actually the cruelest slogan ever invented -- to tell people that your life isn't good enough, that you have to have more.
Mao Zedong was like Jesus to the Chinese. They probably thought he was divine. Who doesn't worship a great leader?
The trouble with Western Christians is that they never got rid of capitalism. They didn't engage in class struggle. They allowed themselves to become slaves of capitalism. They allowed the culture of private individual ownership of property to exist and persist rather than promoting collective ownership of property.
The idea that capitalism is better than communism is a lie. Only as long as we have an abundance of energy and resources is capitalism better. If we didn't have huge oil wells, if the earth was smaller or there was less water, capitalism may not have been such a great success. Aren't we lucky to have planet earth!!!
