Atheist Evangelism

[Angrboda]

I think I can sum up my entire position on whether or not handing out food has some effect on my tolerance for a shitty religion to a single question.  When's the last time you heard someone say "Sure, he's a rapist, a murderer, and a thief - but he does hand out cans of peas."  Lay aside all of the well documented issues with every direct food aid program we've ever tried at any scale.  Even if none of that were true.......

You're putting the cart before the horse, much as FF was. You need to show how you quantify harm and good before you rush to the goal line of concluding that the pluses and minuses result in a deficit.

Tell you what. Let's simplify this. Starving to death is a legitimate harm, correct? Is avoiding starving to death not a good?

[The Grand Nudger]

I've actually dealt with exactly this.  Say you operate a small farm and you have a bumper crop of greens.  More than you can move.  You call a food pantry and say hey, come pick up these greens or....if not that, when can I deliver them to you?  You can't.  They're not equipped.  The food bank will refuse the product.  So maybe you pay to put out an ad (or just tell people, word of mouth) that everything on your farm is free to whomever can come get it.  Except, no, you can't, because all of that excess foot traffic tends to leave a mess ..damage the fields.....and, for some operations, might even decertify you.  If, however, you mean that you personally don't have cash to spend but you do have a can of peas - that's yet another issue I have personally encountered.  That's why cans of peas are like tribbles at food pantries.  

Nevertheless, somebody bought those cans of peas and the money it took to purchase them would go further to feeding hungry people than they do.  Sell them.  Have a big drive where you sell the damned peas..and disburse that money.  This issue repeats itself across the entire operation.  Say someone donated a building for you to operate a food pantry?  What you should do is rent out that building and disburse that money.

(I did manage to con them into taking a whole short truck packed top to bottom once, but it all rotted)

None of that actually answers the question.  Care to try again?

.....?  You asked what to do if you have no money to give but you do have food.  I explained what happens when that's the case, and why?  Food banks have to turn down most offers. Honestly, if you don't have the dollar it costs to buy a can of peas but you do have a can of peas (and just that can of peas) you're probably a candidate for help - not the person who would be expected to help.

We do not have to choose between ideas that do not work, and people starving. By continuing to plow our resources and time into ideas that do not work, we are contributing to the problem. We would not be starving people if there were no food banks in the us, for example, that's what we're already doing with them. The food bank we started only exists, as yet another example, because it allowed our corporate partners to avoid giving their employees wage increases. If they don't have enough money to buy groceries...np...go to the on-site food bank. Tidy little circle.

[Angrboda]

None of that actually answers the question.  Care to try again?

.....?  You asked what to do if you have no money to give but you do have food.  I explained what happens when that's the case, and why?  Food banks have to turn down most offers.

The question was whether relieving someone's hunger was a good thing. Not what some other ancillary situation is. Let's suppose that Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington to meet with president Biden concerning the war in the Middle East. He happens to drive by a sidewalk charity where he sees sister Samantha giving out sandwiches and moved by the gesture, flies home, makes peace with the Palestinians and sets up a two-state solution to the problem, whereupon the creation of this two-state solution results in peace, prosperity, and joy for both Palestinians and Israelis forever in perpetuity until the end of time.

Now. I'll offer you an option. We can consider the harm or good caused by giving someone a sandwich, independent of any effects beyond simply satisfying the man's hunger -- is the man's hunger being satisfied, by itself, good or harm. Or we can keep arguing as you have been, in which case I get to include world peace being achieved as one of the goods that might result from giving the guy a sandwich. Relative to world peace, all your concerns pale into insignificance.

[Silver]

Unfortunately, it is never as simple as giving a man a sandwich. Take, for example, the nursing home setting where a resident asks for a sandwich. Before the request can be met, a bureaucracy of diet regulations must be considered.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah, sure. It's a great thing to feed people. It seems like it would be a weird thing to even question me about, doesn't it? What with how I've been working at and running non profit farms and food programs for the passed decade and a half. Been pretty vocal about that in this thread and, ofc, throughout my entire team here.

Lunatic framing is not going to change my opinion of food banks, an opinion I like to think is pretty well informed but you're certainly free to go and check any claim I've made.

[Angrboda]

Yeah, sure.  It's a great thing to feed people.  It seems like it would be a weird thing to even question me about, doesn't it?  What with how I've been working at and running non profit farms and food programs for the passed decade and a half.  Been pretty vocal about that in this thread and, ofc, throughout my entire team here.

Lunatic framing is not going to change my opinion of food banks, an opinion I like to think is pretty well informed but you're certainly free to go and check any claim I've made.

Not looking to change your opinion on that. Only looking for an answer to my question. Is preventing an actual harm a good?

[The Grand Nudger]

Tell you what.  Let's simplify this.  Starving to death is a legitimate harm, correct?  

Correct, which is why direct food programs in all of their forms are a bad idea.  They do not alleviate hunger, our reliance on these sorts of projects and programs exacerbates hunger by maintaining the status quo which drove affected people to the food banks in the first place.

This is the conclusion I've reached...by reading...by participating, by discussing it with other people doing similar work. IDK. I guess it's counterintuitive and discomforting, but, as you've noted, I try to be objective.

[Angrboda]

Tell you what.  Let's simplify this.  Starving to death is a legitimate harm, correct?  

Correct, which is why direct food programs in all of their forms are a bad idea.  They do not alleviate hunger, our reliance on these sorts of projects and programs exacerbates hunger by maintaining the status quo which drove affected people to the food banks in the first place.

There was a second part to that question. Why don't you answer it.

[The Grand Nudger]

Christ on a cracker. Not liking my answers is not the same as me not giving them. What second part?

Is avoiding starving to death a legitimate good? Not necesarrily. You might avoid it by eating someone, since we're deep into framingland.

But if it would be a legitimate good to help someone else avoid starving, then this again would by why food banks are a bad idea. Our reliance on these projects does not alleviate hunger, it exacerbates hunger by maintaining the status quo that drove those people to the food banks to begin with.

Objectively.

[Ahriman]

I mean.....food banks are a bit of a flawed idea in the first place, since there is more than enough money in the world to make hungry people a non-issue.