The catholic churches main funding for what they call charitable work is your tax money, not little old catholic ladies. Successful pantries and kitchens are operated to be beneficial - usually for tax purposes- to the same businesses that refuse to pay people enough money not to need pantries and soup kitchens. Food aid is distributed by the same entities actively starving the people they're (failing to) feed....and none of it, absolutely none of it, alleviates poverty in any way...which is sad, but true.

Sometimes I think that we've allowed the construction of a world so ridiculous that when every solution to it's problems sounds equally ridiculous we imagine that poverty and hunger are the fabric of the universe and those solutions seeming ridiculous are an indication that they are wrong. It doesn't often occur to us that in an impossible situation all possible solutions might seem equally ludicrous. So I might say, for example, lets eat the rich. Sounds ridiculous - but the sudden death of the worlds richest people would, by default, disburse their accrued assets. Impossible situation, ludicrous solution - but not because it wouldn't work. Because we've allowed this fucked up state of affairs to begin with.

Christian charities are not a force for good. They may be the best we have in a fucked up world (untrue, but hey, why not allow the possibility) - but we're not talking about good here. We're not even in the wheelhouse of good. Christian charities are a force for christendom.

(November 1, 2023 at 5:53 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: The catholic churches main funding for what they call charitable work is your tax money, not little old catholic ladies.

They were blankets that were homemade.  Don't tell me what I received.  The crib was used.  

Today sure is a day for people knowing other people's reality.

(November 1, 2023 at 5:46 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: I am not a fan of trading the needs of some people for preaching. But if someone is hungry or in need and there's nowhere else to turn, I'd rather a person get a meal now and again.

Back in the day I had to go to the food pantry at the Catholic church because my child needed to be fed and there was no place else to go. Also, after being written off by my parents when I got pregnant with my first, Catholic Charities gave me a crib and some other supplies that I needed desperately. Would I rather not have had to resort to baby blankets made by old Catholic ladies? Yeah, but the bottom line is sometimes you do what you have to do to survive.

I am not so high and mighty that I can't accept help when it's offered. Now I try to give back.

Ok, but were you not written off by your parents when you got pregnant because of the Catholic Church? Because of the prejudices they taught your parents to have for women in these situations?

(November 1, 2023 at 5:56 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote:

(November 1, 2023 at 5:46 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: I am not a fan of trading the needs of some people for preaching.  But if someone is hungry or in need and there's nowhere else to turn, I'd rather a person get a meal now and again.

Back in the day I had to go to the food pantry at the Catholic church because my child needed to be fed and there was no place else to go.  Also, after being written off by my parents when I got pregnant with my first, Catholic Charities gave me a crib and some other supplies that I needed desperately.  Would I rather not have had to resort to baby blankets made by old Catholic ladies?  Yeah, but the bottom line is sometimes you do what you have to do to survive.

I am not so high and mighty that I can't accept help when it's offered.  Now I try to give back.

Ok, but were you not written off by your parents when you got pregnant because of the Catholic Church? Because of the prejudices they taught your parents to have for women in these situations?

My mother was not then, nor is she now, a Catholic. 

The issue was not living up to socio/economic expectations in my parents' peer group.

(November 1, 2023 at 5:58 pm)arewethereyet Wrote:

(November 1, 2023 at 5:56 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote: Ok, but were you not written off by your parents when you got pregnant because of the Catholic Church? Because of the prejudices they taught your parents to have for women in these situations?

My mother was not then, nor is she now, a Catholic. 

The issue was not living up to socio/economic expectations in my parents' peer group.

Nevertheless, there were also many pregnant women in Ireland where they got abandoned by their Catholic parents and the Church would locked them up in a washery and sold their kids.

Regardless, even if the soup kitchens on balance are a harm, you're explicitly acknowledging that, independent from tangential effects, they are a good. Nudger, you're the most prominent advocate for the view that harm is objective. Show us how you quantify the good done by soup kitchens, and the harm done, such that the sum is negative.

I gave an example, the "consider this a part of your overall compensation" approach to establishing a food kitchen. I have done this. I, fool that I am, have participated in this nonsense only to be disillusioned. I freely admit that I'm not the most objective commentator on the subject.

If, however, we want to try, then we would first have to take an actual accounting of where the funding comes from (and whether the program in question is even charitable, tax designations being irrelevant to the actual operation). The rcc, for example, does not run charities/

It runs leveraging scams funded by the us taxpayer - and they even welch on that, saying they can't provide the services they took money for because of all the lawsuits.

(November 1, 2023 at 6:04 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I gave an example, the "consider this a part of your overall compensation" approach to establishing a food kitchen.  I have done this.  I, fool that I am, have participated in this nonsense only to be disillusioned.  I freely admit that I'm not the most objective commentator on the subject.

If, however, we want to try, then we would first have to take an actual accounting of where the funding comes from (and whether the program in question is even charitable, tax designations being irrelevant to the actual operation).  The rcc, your example does not run charities/  

It runs leveraging scams funded by the us taxpayer - and they even wlech on that, saying they can';t provide the services they took money for because of all the lawsuits.

Money = happiness?

At the risk of opening a tangent, when it comes to assistance, it really does. People are better off just getting the money a can of soup is "worth", rather than the can of soup. This holds true at a local food pantry all the way up to the scale of global food aid. This holds even when good actors with no ulterior motive are doing it, and christian charities are neither.

(November 1, 2023 at 6:08 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: At the risk of opening a tangent, when it comes to assistance, it really does.  People are better off just getting the money a can of soup is "worth", rather than the can of soup.  This holds true at a local food pantry all the way up to the scale of global food aid.

You're talking net harm again. You need to separate out the good and the bad and make each objectively quantifiable. Surely giving a hungry man soup is better than not?