Rant of logic: There is no such thing as a "Christian"

[Mister Agenda]

Giving your belongings to the poor is a mark of perfection. If you read that part in context, the first thing Our Lord is the basics, then when the young man asks "what else?" he gives the part about giving all that you own.

Many Christians already do this. It is a mark of religious life.

I totally get not being able to live up to an ideal. It's the denial that it is a Biblical ideal that I'm having trouble with, especially with the blame-the-poor rhetoric that's coming along with it.

---

In Peter Singer's book, The Life You Can Save, he argues that it is an ethical imperative for citizens of developed countries to give more to help the poor. He donates 25% of his salary to Oxfam and Unicef. He says that '...there is some poverty we can prevent without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance, therefore we ought to try to prevent some absolute poverty'. The $10 I spend to see a movie can feed a family in famine-struck portion of East Africa for a week. Even if I thought American poor people aren't that poor and that it's their own fault, there are still children dying at an alarming rate through no fault of their own. So I struggle with my conscience: I don't know of a moral argument that justfies my going to the movie instead of giving that to Camfed or Oxfam or Unicef or in savings so I can leave an estate to charity. I have to admit that I'm choosing to do something much more trivial with my $10 when I see a movie when I could be doing something really significant with it.