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> U.S. churches are still where communities meet So is conference halls. So is Zoom for that matter. Churches are also places where parents force their childr

> U.S. churches are still where communities meet So is conference halls. So is Zoom for that matter. Churches are also places where parents force their children to go against their wishes, where creepy priests make unwanted advances etc. > also the ones doing most of the "heavy lifting" on any kind of charity activity Any kind? Really? What about NGOs? Volunteering nurses? FLOSS communities? People 3D printing masks in maker spaces? Here in the U.K., the National Health Service put out a call for volunteers to help and tens of thousands of people signed up, regardless of any church. You don't need these for significant charitable activity to occur. I am not saying that churches don't do good, just that they're not needed for charitable activity to occur and we need to determine whether the good that occurs because of churches outweighs the bad, (which btw often doesn't even come to light due to victims fearing retaliation).

dingoegret 6y ago
It's evident by your opening that you have a bone to pick with religion, so I'll keep this short. 3D printing masks for an emergency and other one offs don't come close to the amount of non stop, year long, permanent activity in charity and community of churches and mosques.
- AsyncAwait 6y ago
  > 3D printing masks for an emergency and other one offs don't come close to the amount of non stop, year long, permanent activity in charity and community of churches and mosques. The problem is that in the U.S., the state has given up on helping the poor, especially when compared to EU countries, and it is then up to private institutions to fill in some semblance of what should have already been there as nonnegotiable basis of a developed society. I am not from the U.S., (but with a lot of fiends from there), and I can tell you that a lot of what churches do in the U.S. is so basic that it should not be their role to provide. It is often used as a metric of "success" for churches and private charity in general, but in reality all it shows is a failure of the wider society where things like medicare for all are still not a thing, even during a pandemic. When there's a possibility of thousands of dollars that need to be paid for an ambulance ride, that is a systemic failure of the system no church can fix. I am not religious myself, but I want to make it clear that I am not arguing churches do no good. They absolutely do. I just feel that the awful shit they do is often overlooked as soon as something positive can be said about them. There are multiple sides to every story, even characters you wouldn't think much about based on the overall picture did good, (one particularly repulsive character of history did a lot for animal rights for example). I also feel like other forms of charity are often diminished in their impact because they're less visible than church charity. Let's take FLOSS for example; I come from a relatively poor upbringing, without access to good education or the internet for the longest time. I have cerebral palsy and that means any kind of physical work is pretty much a no go for me. What I did have was a couple of friends who gave me Mandrake Linux on 3 CDs back in the day with GCC preinstalled and a book on C. Now I am able to support myself as a programmer and donate to FLOSS on a regular basis. Because FLOSS gave me hope, I also found the motivation to exercise really hard and to preserve some amount of mobility for myself, even into adulthood. Without it, I'd most likely end up dependent on people I wanted nothing to do with and without any kind of dignity, demotivated and miserable. I cannot overstate the impact the free software community has on me and I feel like it did more for me than any church ever could.
  - skinnymuch 6y ago
    Yes, some of the stuff you said churches do that is a failure of the state has been called perseverance porn. Feel-good stories of people coming together to help pay for an out of control ambulance ride and so on.
- justinclift 6y ago
  > non stop, year long, permanent activity in charity Just to point out, being an active developer/maintainer/etc of widely used FLOSS programs often seems to involve that. ;)

dingoegret 6y ago

It's evident by your opening that you have a bone to pick with religion, so I'll keep this short. 3D printing masks for an emergency and other one offs don't come close to the amount of non stop, year long, permanent activity in charity and community of churches and mosques.

AsyncAwait 6y ago
> 3D printing masks for an emergency and other one offs don't come close to the amount of non stop, year long, permanent activity in charity and community of churches and mosques. The problem is that in the U.S., the state has given up on helping the poor, especially when compared to EU countries, and it is then up to private institutions to fill in some semblance of what should have already been there as nonnegotiable basis of a developed society. I am not from the U.S., (but with a lot of fiends from there), and I can tell you that a lot of what churches do in the U.S. is so basic that it should not be their role to provide. It is often used as a metric of "success" for churches and private charity in general, but in reality all it shows is a failure of the wider society where things like medicare for all are still not a thing, even during a pandemic. When there's a possibility of thousands of dollars that need to be paid for an ambulance ride, that is a systemic failure of the system no church can fix. I am not religious myself, but I want to make it clear that I am not arguing churches do no good. They absolutely do. I just feel that the awful shit they do is often overlooked as soon as something positive can be said about them. There are multiple sides to every story, even characters you wouldn't think much about based on the overall picture did good, (one particularly repulsive character of history did a lot for animal rights for example). I also feel like other forms of charity are often diminished in their impact because they're less visible than church charity. Let's take FLOSS for example; I come from a relatively poor upbringing, without access to good education or the internet for the longest time. I have cerebral palsy and that means any kind of physical work is pretty much a no go for me. What I did have was a couple of friends who gave me Mandrake Linux on 3 CDs back in the day with GCC preinstalled and a book on C. Now I am able to support myself as a programmer and donate to FLOSS on a regular basis. Because FLOSS gave me hope, I also found the motivation to exercise really hard and to preserve some amount of mobility for myself, even into adulthood. Without it, I'd most likely end up dependent on people I wanted nothing to do with and without any kind of dignity, demotivated and miserable. I cannot overstate the impact the free software community has on me and I feel like it did more for me than any church ever could.
- skinnymuch 6y ago
  Yes, some of the stuff you said churches do that is a failure of the state has been called perseverance porn. Feel-good stories of people coming together to help pay for an out of control ambulance ride and so on.
justinclift 6y ago
> non stop, year long, permanent activity in charity Just to point out, being an active developer/maintainer/etc of widely used FLOSS programs often seems to involve that. ;)