It makes me challenge my selfishness. It gives me the strength to care when I’d prefer not to. It lifts compassion as my highest ideal. I strive to forgive those who trespass against me, instead of seeking revenge. I might be an ok person without, or possibly bad. But I’m definitely better with.
Iirc, people in Soviet breadlines had money, but supply was limited and prices not allowed to follow demand. Money to spend, but nothing to buy.
Yes, not disputing the veracity of these, I have better things to do with my time, but putting them in context would be honest. Divide these cases on the number of congregations and present to me whether faith based groups have a higher or lower number of such abuses as compared to society at large. That would indicate whether there is a correlation or not.
I’m sure we can dig up similar stories from sports and conclude that sports is just as evil. On the other hand millions of children enjoy sports and never experience abuse (thank gods), and likewise, millions of faithful people are encouraged by their faith to do good and don’t abuse anyone.
Now there is an element in many faiths of trusting people who wield social power and such human groups are often attractive to abusive personalities, who seek that power, for the sake of their own personal goals and desires.
A final note, your own mental development shapes how you think of God. A child thinks he’s a man with a beard in the sky. A philosopher may think of the divine as a personal or unpersonal force of good. I find it very hard to understand how someone who believes in a life after death, where wickedness gets punished for eternity, can commit child abuse. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, I just can’t fathom why someone who truly believes in judgment can set themselves up like that. They must either not believe and merely use the trappings of religion as said above, or do believe, but be persons suffering from the most cognitive dissonance generating defective programming imagineable.
I dunno, it’s Friday and I’m in a mood, but religion (not organized) makes me try to do good to all my fellow humans.
Where is this from?
Discovered something fun this week, in Norwegian the word for employer is “work-giver”, but a bit of digging revealed that the alternative “work-buyer” existed but went out of use. I think people would sell their time and labor for more if the wording more clearly revealed the actual relationship.
The share value of UHC fell hard after the murder. That is the thing that really makes waves. As you say, losing CEO is costly, to investors and owners, which in the end is what matters most to the owner classes.
(edit typo)
“They wouldn’t hurt us, we’re their workforce.”
Still have a few shares from the old gamestop squeeze, said I’d keep them as a memory. Might not now.