Hatred Made More Of An Impact On The Lives Of People Than Compassio...

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Hatred Made More Of An Impact On The Lives Of People Than Compassion

If you look at what the Nazis accomplished through the fuel of hatred, what is going on in the Mideast due to hatred, and so many other parts of the world; is it greater than the acts of compassion that occur?

innomen

11 May 2008 23:31

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In natural disasters there are efforts of compassion to help those who are suffering. Often church groups take up collections to help those that are in need of help. The amount of charity the US provides in various causes is higher than any other country by far, and in the history of the world it is the highest. There are many acts of compassion out there.

innomen

12 May 2008 01:17

31 Comments

Do you think then if other nations had adequate resources that they would be as compassionate as you claim Americans are? Also, recalling U.S. history all over the world, don't you think they do it because all that they owe for the havoc they inflict or resources they sucked dry? Isn't obvious to the world over that they owe so called compassion?

Bacchus

12 May 2008 01:51

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Please. Have you heard of democracy? The people choose their governments. Government policy is ultimately shaped by what the people want. This is like saying the Victorian age was the high point of charity because rich people gave money to help poor people in distress. Nowadays, in European countries, those things are taken care of by government welfare provisions instead of private charity. In the US, government welfare provisions are at a much lower level and charity has to struggle to fill the gap. Your figures are the stuff of fantasy. Taking account of the amount "given" in taxes by the citizens of European countries to handle the same problems which only private charity attempted to deal with in the US, the European citizen pays vastly more. But you Americans prefer to see poor people come begging to your churches for a bowl of soup so you can try and brainwash them into believing in your religion while they are there. In Europe, those desperately poor people have more dignity. They receive welfare payments from the government. And much of the charitable giving in America is really not charitable at all in the sense that it actually helps solve any real problem. It simply goes to fund religious institutions and keep them running. The truest measure of charity is foreign aid. Just giving to your own people is a kind of vicious chauvinism. You are the least generous country on Earth, patting yourselves on the backs proclaiming that you are the most generous. What a repulsive spectacle.  And a person can very well look at their government's charitable contributions, or their government's welfare policies, and take pride in it. Why shouldn't they? By your logic, compassion is not really compassion. It's about getting some selfish rush of personal satisfaction.

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Hahaha. Now we have your military expenditures being classified as charity. Thanks for demonstrating the bankruptcy of your argument. The government's policies are mandated by the people. I never hear Europeans demanding that their governments spend less on foreign aid. I hear Americans say it all the time, even though their government gives vastly less in foreign aid. Making the government take care of a problem means that it will be taken care of systematically, and not be dependent on the unfortunate person who needs help happening to bump into the right well-disposed other. Void of morality at the personal level? What a disgusting thing to say. Your country promotes war, torture and barbarism all over the world, gives less to those in need than any other developed nation, yet you congratulate yourself on abounding in morality "at the personal level". True compassion, that is compassion devoid of self-righteousness, focuses on the resolution of the problem at issue. Government action ensures that more effectively than the vagaries of the charitable impulse. Keep making excuses for your own supreme selfishness by exalting ineffective Victorian charity over effective modern government welfare programs.

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What a wretched spectacle of a human being you present. You have no interest in whether or not the problem is solved. You just want to be able to mentally masturbate while thinking about how grateful the poor and hungry person looked as you ladled some soup into his bowl then tried to brainwash him into joining your cult. Acts of compassion took place at the voting booth as the voters selected representatives who would pursue government programs which would deal with the problems they saw around them. They took place in political debates as the politicians proposing to give less to the poor in their own country or around the world met with a chorus of boos instead of the cheers they would have received in America. Personal charity is not needed to deal with those problems in Europe because those problems have already been solved. Your so-called virtue is, in the end, nothing but exalted selfishness. You don't care about whether those in need receive help, only that you should be the one giving it. You cannot tell me the name of a private charity program that supplies enough income to live on for any unemployed person throughout the United States, because no such program exists. Yet you mindlessly repeat your Rush Limbaugh mantra about how the private sector is always better. You are the one you who is predictable and banal, stroking yourself with inflated fantasies about your own personal virtue. What a grotesquely smug picture of Christian "charity".

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The facts have clubbed you to the ground and are stomping all over you. The only way you can maintain your preposterous pretence is to say that only private charity has value. Did Jesus really tell people to congratulate themselves on their own acts of charity? My memory of it all is a bit hazy now but I thought he did exactly the opposite, warning of the sin of pride. True charity is anonymous charity : charity divorced from selfishness, charity which doesn't make the recipient grovel before the feet of the giver. This is the kind of charity given in Europe. The peoples of Europe are vastly more compassionate than the selfish hordes of America and you know it. The mechanism by which those with means give to those without does not matter. It does not matter whether it is private charity, public charity, volunteer work or work done by employees whose salaries are paid by those who want to see the work done. The only thing that matters utimately is that those in need receive help. Anything else is the smug self-regard of personal pride. And by that comprehensive definition, European charity is vastly greater than American charity. Don't feel bad. You're only the 22nd most generous country in the world. Italy is actually worse, so not all European countries are better. I won't even respond to your preposterous red herring about the Catholic church. We are comparing countries here. And you chose to bring national chauvinism into the debate, not me.

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"Only charity of the individual does have value" to the individual.  Charity of the state is a mandated not voluntary occurrence.  It is not true charity.
"We are comparing countries here", no we are not.  We are comparing the individuals of the countries.  It is a testimony of the citizenry by how much they give of themselves, or how little they give of themselves.  At what point have you taken this to be a prideful boast about compassion and charity?  It is a statistic used in an argument.  I don't care what you think of me or this country, it matters not.  "the mechanism by which those with means give to those without doesn't matter", are you really that obtuse?  I can understand you dismissing the the reality of what the facts say, but to make an idiotic statement like that reveals more than ever how you are incapable of an actual understanding of individual value and the elevation of the individual.  This is what atheism brings us?  Individuals that relinquish their personal responsibility to their tax bill?  I understand your mentality.  You pat yourself on the back by voting for those who will relieve you of your guilt, and not only are relieved of it, you relish in your superiority because it reenforces your denial about who you are at your core.  I look at the individual as being capable of great things, while you put your faith in government.

So when you go into the voting booth, you concern yourself with the approval of the rest of the world?  Come on, you vote for what you think is best for your country, not out of fear that Angola may not like you anymore because of how you vote.

I brought up the works of the Catholic church because of your assertion that private charities are nothing compared to the bureaucratic malaise of government programs.

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So the purpose of charity is to benefit the giver not the recipient? Thanks for confirming your selfish motivation. Charity of the state is only mandated in a government which is not democratic. In all others, the people ultimately choose what the mandates of the state will be. You brought a discussion of your country into what purported to be an abstract debate about compassion, and your sophistry about individuals versus countries doesn't change that. Your pretentious rhetoric about individuality only means in practice that the individual in need has to grovel at the feet of a churchman to get his bowl of soup, pretending to believe in a magical belief system he doesn't really believe in just to get fed. The approval of the rest of the world has nothing to do with it. Europeans demand that their governments give foreign aid because they feel genuine compassion for those in need, not because they seek their approval. The meagre reality of American charity that lurks beneath your bombastic description of it can be seen in the foreign aid figures. You talk the talk and nothing more. As is usually the case with Christians, it's the ones who talk the loudest about virtue who are usually discovered getting serviced by an underage prostitute a few years later.

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"Charity of state is only mandated in a government which is not democratic", what rubbish.  Try not paying your tax bill and see if it is not mandated.  You get to choose where your tax dollars are spent?  The specific virtue of charity is of course to the benefit of the one doing the act of charity.  That does not mean that the benefit is the motivation for that act.  I guess that's more pretentious rhetoric and sophistry.  Yeah something really abstract for you.  My goodness, you claim that i indulge in rhetoric when you say things like "grovel at the feet of a churchman".?         
The mechanisms by which charity is provided is of great importance if you have some interest in the actual virtue involved.  Virtue does not come to a nation, it comes to the individual.
The same facts that you find inconvenient also show that secular charities do far better in the US than any other country.  So too does anonymous donations.  
You cling to the foreign aid figures like a life preserver, but the fact remains that the US has the most generous people on the planet, in the history of the planet.  You also elevate your personal attacks as you continue to desperately to loose the argument.  You have no defense as to the nature of compassion within the individual and the individual act of charity.  You run like a school girl to the government to bail you out.  Paying your tax bill and voting for a sanctimonious politician is the best you can do for your own personal elevation.

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"The US has the most generous people on the planet, in the history of the planet." Keep saying it over and over again and it will become true. It's just like Oprah says. Visualise it hard enough and it comes true. Have faith. lol.

The foreign aid figures are the only clear statistics we have on charitable giving broadly defined. Other comparisons are difficult because matters are handled differently by either private or public sectors in different countries. And those figures reveal one clear truth : America is virtually the least generous country in the developed world. No matter how you slice and dice it and wrap it with bombast, that truth is ineluctable. You chose to make the country level comparison, not me. What matters for that purpose is not the choice of an individual but the choice of the multitude of individuals within a country. The majority of individuals in European countries choose to be generous or their governments would not adopt and maintain policies which give generously to those in need.

And why should there be any difference in the level of charitable giving within a nation or outside of it? Charity is charity. The charitable impulse is concerned with helping others not with national self-aggrandisement.

"The specific virtue of charity is of course to the benefit of the one doing the act of charity". What a bizarro statement. You say people cannot take pride in the actions of their country as a whole yet your initial post in the debate blatantly contradicts this claim since you clearly do take pride in the false presumption that your country is the most generous in the world. Assailed by the facts, you flee into pseudo-theological definitions of virtue and charity as something other than remedying the distress of those in need. Like most Christians, when you're crushed in an argument, you try and change the terms of the debate, asserting the right to re-define words with your own special magically-infused meanings.

Oh and let's not forget the 20,000 people who die in America each year because they have no access to health care. How is that reconciled with your claim that America is the most generous country on the planet in the history of the planet? Those people die because Americans are not generous enough to pay enough money for them to be treated. Because dittoheads like you swallow the lie that the private sector is always best.

As for losing the argument : piffle. This argument was over before it began, and your squalid bombast, accusing the non-superstitious of being "void of morality" even though they quite obviously give more of their resources to those in need that the "people of faith" hasn't changed that one bit. And for personal attacks, anyone reviewing the thread can see that you started in with those.

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I repeat it because it goes unrefuted.  You have shown no evidence of the people of this country being less than the most charitable people in the world.  Not government but people.  How can a bureaucracy have virtue?  It may do acts that are benevolent, but the tax payer had nothing to do with that other than paying their taxes and voting for candidates.  Neither of which is an act of charity.  The citizenry remain absent in their personal responsiblity other than those two actions.  
Do you not understand that virtue is of the person?  What is so difficult to comprehend by this?   You see charity is something like humility, it is a virtue that elevates the individual.  It is not something that government can do for us, because that notion is nonsensical  as a virtue to be achieved.  A test of the people would not be their abilty to pay their taxes but how much they give of themselves.  This is not an irrelevance, because it is a benchmark of morality.  The amount of charities that prosper in this country is phenomenal.  You as always, pull in government programs as a means of measurement, but this is just wrong.  
The personal insults began with you , and then you brought it to a crescendo with  "wretched spectacle of a human being"

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It was refuted in the first post. Foreign aid can clearly be measured, private or government. Either way, your country falls far short. Charity is giving of your own resources to help those in need. That's it. When you make further sub-distinctions and value judgements beyond this, you are engaging in theology, not debate.

The personal insults in this debate began with you and your "void of morality at the personal level" and "predictable and banal".

But you just keep stroking yourself on how virtuous you and your countrymen are as people starve, beg, live in desperation and drop dead of untreated medical conditions all around you. I noticed you just skipped the 20,000 dead Americans each year issue as too difficult to handle.

If your crazy cosmology turns out to be correct, and you haven't gone blind in the interim, one day you will eventually get to see your Jesus on your personal Judgement Day. He will ask you why you let people live in misery, poverty and illness when you could have helped them. Tell him it's because you didn't want to pay more taxes; you didn't want to see charity arranged at the government level - the only level where it can be effective - like those crazy European statists; you didn't want to give up on that rush of personal satisfaction you got when you ladled the soup into the beggar's bowl; you didn't want to see good American money going to foreigners. After all, you will tell him, "the specific virtue of charity is to the one doing the act of charity".  Look carefully and you will perhaps see an understanding smile on his face as you plummet down to hell.

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How is a government making a decision for its people, to take the taxes forcebly amassed and handing them over to chosen countries (of which most have no idea about), chosen by not the people, but the government, giving of your own resources?  You can tell yourself that, but it isn't true.  It would be like you also claiming that you had a hand in the troops in Iraq.  Do you pat yourself on the back for that?  You have so little control of what happens to those resources that they can hardly be considered yours.  It is an interesting impass that you have on this.  It speaks loudly.     
Since when is theology not permitted in debate?  I speak of virtue of the human being, is that also nonexistent for the atheist?  If so then you prove my point about be void of morality.

You need to provide more than a number for our health care problems.  THings are so wonderful in the UK?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=490233

Wrong, you first started the insult by calling my argument an American Delusion.

Why don't you let me worry about my salvation.  I have never preached something like that, to you or anyone.  It is contemptable.

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It is indeed contemptible. Thank you for confirming my earlier judgement about wretchedness.

"American delusion" quite obviously is not a personal remark and doesn't even qualify as an insult in any case.

Your attempt to negate the effects of democracy is laughable. Governments cannot forcibly do anything for long except in undemocratic countries. Billions of individual virtuous choices and reactions have shaped those European policies over time, just like billions of selfish choices and reactions have shaped those American policies over time.

The key defining charcteristic of America, for me, is its ability to dress selfishness up in the garb of idealism and you have clearly become a fine American citizen now.

Europeans give vastly more of their resources to help those in need than Americans do. You haven't disputed that this is true. And that's all I'm concerned about. If you want to engage in theological hair-splitting, you can expect it to be of interest only to those who share your theological outlook.

Anyone can get access to healthcare in the UK. Like any system it is imperfect, but those with urgent conditions are treated urgently. Those with resources may choose to pay for private care if it will speed things up. It's in no way comparable to your health system which I believe is ranked 37th or so in the world, behind just about every country in Europe. You're happy to watch your fellow citizens die rather than pay for their treatment. You would rather see them pathetically beg and put up street signs and hold bake sales to try and raise money for a life-saving operation than pay enough taxes to make that unnecessary. That's what your vaunted charity comes down to in practice.

Prepare your pseudo-Hayekian, Cato Institute excuses for Jesus. I'm sure he'll be very understanding. Then I guess we'll see each other in Hell.

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What a reach.  Billions of individual virtuous choices and reactions have shaped those European policies.  Please.  Yes there are billions of virtuous acts shaping your Nirvana socieity.  Give me a break.
Glad you admit to the imperfectionbs of your healthcare system.  It doesn't rank so high.  You rank 4th to last http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0765165020080108?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0
I admit readily to the problems of our healthcare system.  By the way, why are so many of your doctors coming here?  I recently had some surgery and it was performed by a surgeon from the UK.  It is very common for doctors that are British to work here.  I have also heard that it is difficult to get a doctor in the UK that is of British heritage.  Why is that?   
You have such a flair for the dramatic: "pathetically beg and put up street signs and hold bake sales to try and raise money for a life-saving operation", yeah that happens all the time. You see these signs everywhere.  What the heck to you read over there?  We do have hospital chains like the Shriners insitutes and the children's hospitals that accept no money from those who get treatment, oh and these are completely funded privately.
You still are unable to grasp the fundamental issue of virtue within the individual.  You attribute it to theology.  Then you get irritated when i say you are without morals (not immoral by the way).  Why should you take offence at that?
I grow weary of this discussion.

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If you looked at the shout box i actually complemented you.  I bear you no ill.  I wish only the best for you; you don't have to believe that, but it is true.  I understand your contempt for such a statement.

Crypto racist dig?  Huh?  Because those of poorer countries are more likely to be your doctor, and those with affluence are more likely to flee, that is racist?  You see racism everywhere.

Yes yes, bazzilions of virtuous acts of the noble Europeans.  Please.  You really believe this stuff.

By the way, i never defended our health care system because it is flawed, because there is no good solution.  It is a far more complicated affair than putting together what you have for your Island.  In none of the countries that were listed was there another one that was similar to the US in size or population; with the complexity of a republic with individual states.  Canada is closest, but with only a population of about 33 or 34 million, whereas the US is at about 300 million or more.  Again, i do not defend our system of health care, but name another country of similar size and make up that does better.

I honestly do not understand your objection to be referred to as not having morals.  Who knew a theological concept would provide such offence.  For that i apologize.

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What acts of compassion, on the news, we hear about more heart ache than salvation or hope, and these are stories that doesn't even deal with natural disasters . So what acts of compassion can we hold in comparison
to the smallest of conflicts.

Bacchus

12 May 2008 01:14

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No.

It is just more common to see hate than compassion. Everyone is too wrapped up in their own little world to make a difference if they could. Hate is not stronger, just more common.

ItsLogical

21 Oct 2008 00:11

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Mahatma Ghandi defeated the British empire, by teaching people to sit down.
Not through hatred, but compassion for his own country.

ScottyRAWR

13 Aug 2008 18:29

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Although hatred may have led to wars and conflict in the world of high politics, if we take more of a bottom-up approach and look at the micro-level, we can see how important compassion has been and still remains within most communities. When we encourage volunteerism in our communities, we are supporting acts of compassion. By participating in charities or volunteering at one's local church, we can demonstrate our compassion, without necessarily having to open our cheque books. The US seems to have developed a strong tradition of volunteerism, where children at a fairly early age are taught the importance of taking part in their community and enhancing civil society. While it is true that acts of compassion at the local level may not lead to a massive transformation and an outpouring of compassion on the international stage, we are still most strongly impacted by what happens close to home. As such, by working for the betterment of the communities in which we live, we can ensure that our fellow residents feel the positive impact of compassion on their lives in an immediate and direct way.