(January 4, 2016 at 4:44 pm)Kingpin Wrote:(January 4, 2016 at 4:36 pm)bennyboy Wrote: People get used to being congratulated just for expressing correct ideas. You'll get 5 dudes with $2000 computers sitting their drinking their Starbucks douche-o-chinos and talking about the desperate plight of Tibetan Buddhists or whatever. However, the chance that any of them would send money, or so much as touch an actual Tibetan outside a sanctioned charity event, is a little less than 1%.
That being said, we ALL hold values we don't fully act on-- because that would automatically mean a life of poverty and complete dedication to a bunch of causes. So you have environmentalists buying Apple products made in Chinese factories, vegans buying vegatables from farms that kill thousands of rodents with pesticides, etc. Tell one of those vegans they aren't really vegan because they are failing to act, and you'll get a strong negative reaction for sure.
Let me ask you this-- do you own a car? If so, how many sandwiches could you buy if you sold the car and made other transportation arrangements?
Oh I won't debate that benny. Certainly you make good points, it's when someone "claims" to be extremely passionate about something but their lack of some sort of action on the issue merely classifies it as moralizing and not compassion.
Let me say something. When I was in my young 20s, I was very interested in the Christian religion. I didn't care much about death or about heaven, and I didn't really believe in the resurrection or any of the other stories I considered fairy tales. At that time, I was interested in dicispline. I was interested in the philosophy of gaining real freedom through complete abandonment of the desires and needs of the self. I'm not so spiritual now, and not so disciplined. But this issue has played a big role in my life at times.
In the end, there are only three kinds of people-- those who completely give themselves to a cause literally to the point of poverty or death, those who don't speak about having a cause, and hypocrites. I'd say 99% of us, including myself, are in that latter category. But at least some of the 99% will care enough to do some good for others now and then-- and in the end, I'd say that's the basis of all the good in humanity.
As for your friend. . . she'll have her moment, I'm sure, when the desire to give is strong enough. Maybe she needs to receive something important first-- and who knows what that is?
