How is it that conservatives most identify as Christians but also most ignore Christian values?

@Magicianzini


You call it an abuse of power...well how so? If you want to drive on the roads, shouldn't you be helping keep them in repair? If you want the fire department to show up when your house is on fire, why would you be upset about contributing to save other people's houses as well?
How is that an abuse of power?

Out of curiosity, which of those examples of social programs struck you as evil and why?


Not the point i was making. I was pointing out that any upstanding member of society should want to contribute to the society they enjoy in the same way an upstanding member of the church should want to contribute to its good works.
You call it theft, i call it a membership fee of a club to which you choose to belong. No different than the Church.

What do you see as a realistic alternative for providing for people and infrastructure with the way we live now, so many of us together?


lol please don't do that. While i'm sure it was not your intention it comes across as patronizing and condescending. Thanks.

@Pikachu No, we agree. I think all "should" participate. I don't think it should be mandated by a more or less "invisible" organized crime syndicate though. I think people should just have it in there to pitch in physically where there needs to be.

I just don't believe in government at all Pik. I realize I'm stuck with it on earth though. We all are. Even if we were interested and able to remove all governments of the world. Humans would only form smaller governments themselves probably just as, if not more, ruthless than we already have.

I scrolled to find the original "list" of social programs I thought you initially mentions, but I don't see it from a quick scan, so I'll just list a few.

Healthcare - I don't believe in it. All it does it keep people sick and enslaved. If "you" (anyone) wants to be sick and enslaved, go for it .. but I shouldn't have to pay for your chains.

Free lunch programs - Why are you not taking care of your own kids? Am I supposed to be their sugar daddy or? Something is WRONG in some way in society if people can't or won't take care of their kids. Let's fix that instead to form a more permanent solution.

SNAP/TANF - Regardless of what is said, I know many people who have lived on these for 30+ years. I grew up all around this. All it results in is DEPENDENCY. It's yet another chain. Sloth, it breeds sloth and hopelessness.

The whole system is broken since implementing all of these diseases into our society.

And the problem with your club membership idea is that on earth there is nowhere you CANNOT choose to be a club member, otherwise I might not have too many issues with that logic.

If there was some place where people could go who don't want to be in a pissing club, then that would make being in a club an option instead of mandatory.

We don't disagree about people (striking out the word "upstanding" as then it gives some an excuse out) contributing to society, but it's the "should" word that makes that also mandatory. I cannot support anything mandatory. It takes free will or attempts to.. take free will away.


I'm not sure where your thoughts were at when you said, "the way we live now, so many of us together."

I certainly do not l "so many of us together".

Perhaps you're referring to a supposed global population? Because there were always millions of people in the country I live in. Not much has changed here, and it's non-effectual since we're all very spread out geographically (except in cities).

So I'll just mostly ignore that in response and answer the first part of the question - "What do you see as a realistic alternative?"

A zombie apocalypse where everyone "turns" and we all end up dying from the chain reaction caused by no one tending the nuclear reactors?

Not a joke. I see no realistic alternative because what we're all living now isn't even realistic.

The truth is that everything will just continue to decay until people can't take it anymore and take matters into their own hands.

Then in that case, we're all trying to survive (or kill) our local neighborhood militia who is most likely terrorizing the community.

Not quite as good as a zombie apocalypse - but better than what we currently have now ....


maybe.

I told you a million times already I don't have the solutions. I can't have the solutions. Too many people hate God for it all to ever work out here on earth... at least for now.

What are your solutions? Gulags?

@Magicianzini

I think if we relied on everyone pitching in and doing their fair share then we'd have far more people freeloading off of the backs of you and me than we do with the minority of people who abuse social programs.
I think you're kind of poisoning the well when you call it organized crime and theft when it's really just a means of making sure everyone is helping out.
Except for the ultra wealthy, obviously but that's a whole other can of worms lol


Interesting...i suspect then that you have never had a serious health condition that you could not afford to treat yourself.
Personally when i went into DKA from undiagnosed type 1 diabetes and ended up in the ICU for 3 days getting blood tests every hour and IV bags to stop my blood turning to acid after which i walked out with a bill of zero dollars (instead of roughly my yearly income at the time)....i Didn't feel that i was being kept sick and enslaved. I felt rather that my life had been saved and i was glad everyone had been paying into a system that let me live AND didn't plunge me into forever debt.
Do you get that?
I would have been dead or at best in debt for the rest of my life which would also be shorter because i couldn't afford to pay for things like CGMs or pumps or even insulin.
I was happy to be helping out people like me before and i'm still happy now.


Except as you keep saying...you have no solutions. You can't think of a better way.
But do you know what is objectively NOT going to be a better way? Letting the kids of parents who cannot for whatever reason provide properly for them suffer.
Hungry kids have worse outcomes in school.
Worse outcomes in school lead to fewer financial opportunities.
Fewer financial opportunities lead to more poverty.
More poverty.....leads to more kids with parents who can't properly take care of them.

You said you didn't like dependency and i agree...but it sounds like you're against a system that helps reduce it even if it doesn't cure it.


I hear this argument all the time from otherwise generous people: "Well i know of several people who take advantage of the system!"
But we both know that the plural of anecdote is not evidence.
Statistics show that people who abuse social programs make up a small percentage of people who make use of those programs.
There will always be people taking advantage in any scenario but that doesn't make the program invalid.
Most people don't feel good being leeches. Most people get pride and purpose from working their jobs and contributing to society.
You might as well argue that foodbanks are evil because some people who use them are cheap rather than needy.

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Of course there is. It's called homesteading. You go off grid, you grow your own food, you treat your own water, and if you get sick, hopefully you can afford to get well.

I guess what this comes down to, Mag, is that we have a fundamentally different approach to human wellbeing.
Yours strikes me as cynical and defeatist. You see the flaws of our current system, don't acknowledge any of the benefits but have no idea how to improve upon it aside from culling the population.
Is that fair or is that a mischaracterization?

@Pikachu you didnt read the other half of my statement??

@1490wayb The people who aren't pulling their fair share are the billionaires. The workers work, the rich take a big cut of the profits for doing nothing. According to Christianity, the rich shouldn't eat.

@1490wayb

I read it, it's just utterly unrelated to the subject under discussion.

@PatientlyWaiting25 Please don't fall into the trap of the opposite version (but same thinking methods) of the American right.

@Pikachu humans are flawed. We make a lot of mistakes.

@PatientlyWaiting25

Well that's for sure true.

@Convivial

Yeah the cherry picking gets pretty egregious at times.

@BritishFailedAesthetic

Glad you don't. But unfortunately the American right both holds up Christianity as something to rally around while simultaneously ignoring the most important teachings.

@James25

I gotta agree with you there.