Is Materialism still immoral?

[Logjam]

Quote by: Technosoul I seems that in our modern world that it is wrong to mix money and morality, we have a unseen seperation between business and religious idealism. But I ask you, is poverty still a moral issue, form your perspective or not? Is the love of money still the root of all evil? I am talking mainly to those who come here to talk religion. (Althrough anyone can pipe in). Did the mission that Jesus originated confuse social issues with what it means to be a moral person, rightiousness? Did I missunderstand the message? It seems religion has become big business and a lot of them preachers are living high on the hog, is that moral? Republican right wingers have a new moral standard, the work ethic - "people who work hard and get rich should not concern their self with lazy bums who do not find jobs". And yet the same right wingers will preach all day about the immorality of stem cell research or about the bad words found in rap music. Topics Jesus never even mentioned. Now some chruches might fund a "soup for a sermon" mission down on skid row. But clearly the problem of poverty is much bigger then what those missions can handle, just one look at Africa and the mass starvation there would make that apparent, but even here in our own back alley the homeless problem is getting out of hand, and running out of hand outs. Is religious socialism taboo nowadays in our capitalistic system - how did that happen? It was not always that way was it? Nowadays most aggressive religions are just into havesting souls so that people will not end up in hell, while turning their backs on the real problems that people are suffering with in the here and now. Where are the believers? Those who believe in unconditional compassion? Technosoul.

It's not money that makes one happy/content; rather it's satisfaction. Knowing that you've accomplished a "job well done". If one does a good job the money naturally follows. Few rich people work for money per se; rather they work to achieve success. The fact is that one of the ways that we measure success is with money. So people feel good about having money. It's an outward vestige of success.

A great many successful people started as poor people. So the question about the poor is: Why do they stay that way?" Since so many poor people become rich people, do those who remain poor do so on purpose?

Liberals figure that if the rich give money, benefits, etc. to the poor that the poor will become rich, or at the very least successful. That's just not proving out to be true. We had about 14% poor folks when LBJ created the Great Society and we have about an equal number of poor today.

It's also true, that poor people who become rich DO IT ON THEIR OWN. Welfare programs just make poverty viable. People learn to live poor. Welfare therefore, tends to lock people into poverty. The irony is that the liberals who appear to adore helping the poor aren't helping them at all. A great many folks who live in poverty and are on welfare have never worked in their lives. There are generations of families who have never worked, or achieved success and satisfaction. The is no satisfaction in receiving charity.

If a poor kid works hard in grammar, middle and high school; he is guarenteed a scholarship to college. Even if the school stinks one can still achieve success there. If one shows success in an inner city school on ones application to for a scholarship the folks who hand them out will jump at the chance to help a kid along who is digging himself out of the ghetto.

It's ironic, that one of the most successful public schools in the nation is in Harlem. Where poor folks send their kids to a school that requires discipline, proper dress and scholarship. Something like half of the graduates go on to collage and success. Welfare has nothing to do with it.

So Liberals griping about Republicans not wanting to give charity to the poor is really sour grapes. Republicans know that the road to success is through hard work, dedication to success and learning to solve problems. None of these elements for success are enhanced by one being on welfare.

Occassionally a poor person wins a bundle of money. They thing that "Wow, now I'll be happy and successful". Oftentimes it doesn't work out that way. They find that they have more problems that they've ever had before and their history of failure carries on. You see, money in of itself does not bring with it satisfaction. People who thing that being rich will make them happy are just wrong.

It's also true that not all poor people are unhappy. There is a huge difference between being poor and living in poverty. Being poor is just not having a lot of money, but one can be poor and still experience satisfaction. If one is working, has a family and spouse, etc. one can live the American dream. Even if one has to rent a house, or an apartment and drive an old car one can still feel good about oneself.

For years I lived in a small Western Kansas town where almost everybody was about equally poor. We all worked on the farm. Sometimes it was our farm, sometimes we worked for someone else. It was one of the happiest times in my life. We were poor, but we did not experience poverty. Poverty is a state of mind experienced by folks who live on welfare and have never experienced success.

[northtexan]

Is immaterialism still moral?

[MerlinsByte]

mb......Jesus taught that its not the money that is evil or sinful. It is when we put the love of money before God that it becomes evil. You may be as rich as Trump or King Solomon, and live a life free of sin (and "the gateway to heaven") is equally open to you as the poorest disciple.

However you temptation will be greater, so you might as well give your riches to me, I will help you (at least gallo and pooey) achieve a higher enlightenment.

[lucy]

What does it mean to be poor though? You can be 'poor' if you have all the money in the world and no worth or concept of what it is to celebrate life. I have met many unfulfilled empty people who are suppposed to be wealthy and someof the happiest people i have met are definately the poor - in Africa especially. That is not to say i am condoning absolute poverty i think its just more useful to look at things together. Simplistic i know!

[Athena]

It's ironic, that one of the most successful public schools in the nation is in Harlem. Where poor folks send their kids to a school that requires discipline, proper dress and scholarship. Something like half of the graduates go on to collage and success. Welfare has nothing to do with it

Welfare has nothing to do with it? Considering many of these children would have starved to death, or would die of disease, or at least suffer mental retardation due to malnutrition, and would not have anything like stable environments conducive to giving energy to learning, without welfare- I would say welfare has a lot of to do with their opportunity to succeed. So does public education system that is accessible to the poor.

Democracy is an ideology that enables the most people to make their best contribution to the whole of society. A government that does not provide for its poor, is worse than primitives tribes which cared for all members. Indifference to the poor, is the result of being able to avoid personally knowing them, and therefore, avoid enacting all the human qualities that kept humanity going this long. This is one of the problems of over population that leads to immorality.

[SteveA]

Welfare has nothing to do with it? Considering many of these children would have starved to death, or would die of disease, or at least suffer mental retardation due to malnutrition, and would not have anything like stable environments conducive to giving energy to learning, without welfare- I would say welfare has a lot of to do with their opportunity to succeed. So does public education system that is accessible to the poor.

No, public education robs everyone of better alternatives. Kids get out of school and can't find jobs. Why? Because companies and people forced to pay for this ever increasing service are moving overseas. Children aren't taught a real desire to achieve ... why? Because it doesn't matter what parents do, their children get a "free" education right? And our current system doesn't promote creativity, new insights and technological growth, it's a cookie cutter system that leaves everyone as swappable pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. I learned more useful information from used $0.25 books and my parents than I did in the public education system.

And welfare is almost designed, IMO, to create dependence. There are literally people who have come to rely on it for generations. It doesn't teach people to reproduce responsibly and it basically punishes those people who work hard and help our economy. If some government in the world had found a way that everyone could be rich by printing up free money, they'd already have done it. Oh, and every dollar that ends up helping someone has already had another dollar of it taken out for some other purpose - not always noble, and oftentimes inefficiently spent. Imagine if you had billions of dollars in a budget to spend. Do you believe you would spend it as wisely as individuals trying to pinch their pennies? It's unrealistic to expect such of an institution that doesn't even need to be competitive because it's an enforced monopoly ... and the largest one around.

Private schools already give better results for almost half the cost, so every dollar that gets pumping into the public system is about 45 cents wasted for a worse product. Too much power is in too few hands when a select group of people have the ability to decide what to teach our children.

Democracy is an ideology that enables the most people to make their best contribution to the whole of society. A government that does not provide for its poor, is worse than primitives tribes which cared for all members. Indifference to the poor, is the result of being able to avoid personally knowing them, and therefore, avoid enacting all the human qualities that kept humanity going this long. This is one of the problems of over population that leads to immorality.

We can support all these things without democracy. Democracy is when a lot of people feel slavery is just fine. Or when enough people feel it's entirely ok to rob someone else or head off to some foreign country because they outnumber them.

Compassion is not something created in commitees ruling over faceless masses. In Iraq, likely none of Congress even knew a single person that died there. The welfare system isn't motivated by compassion as much as it is by votes - and to get votes to support welfare, you need a lot of people asking for help.

Churches and charities as well as communities in general used to provide these services and more efficiently too. Look at some other poor nations. Can they afford to spend resources on creating a beaurocracy to feed the hungry? Not to any major extent. It's too costly and to view it another way, it requires food that they don't have just to give to people to build the institution, then hopefully there's some left over to actually feed the hungry with.

It might be sad that people were born with a need to feed themselves, and obviously, some people truly do need help but we are subsidizing too many people that should not be paid to sit home and we can see it everytime we look at a foreign country and see their economies growing while we stagnate.

The way you feed people is to encourage them to grow food. Green paper and police don't feed people. That's a salespitch.

I'd agree we do have some disparities of wealth but they are due to other reasons - but they still stem from the same problem, using government to forcibly redistribute wealth. Maybe we need the welfare system to compensate somewhat but 2 wrongs don't make a right or even an entitlement . Personally, I'd love to see government stick to one job intended - defending people against real crimes like violence, fraud and theft. They we'd find it a lot easier to be able to afford to feed ourselves.

Consider something else, how many people find it difficult to afford to have children? We already have a slow population growth (ok, not entirely bad maybe). I believe much of that is due to people finding it more and more difficult to afford to raise children ... and public education is a perfect example of this. If someone is going to have child, they don't see these costs and so they have children that "society" can't afford to teach.

As a perfect example, look at China: China provides people with bare necessities as a communist government does. It "takes care" of everyone and removes this responsibility from individual hands. Sounds great, eh? Well freedom and responsibility are attached to each other, so what freedom does this remove - plenty, for example of the Chinese government is responsible for supporting everyone then it is the arbitrar in deciding whether or not it can afford to do so - hence, you can't choose to have any children you want because someone else has forcibly taken the responsibility of caring for that child and can tell you whether or not they can afford to do so. Education is the same, if we continually pump more money into public education and remove this responsibility from people, the freedom to determine what education is appropriate is also taken and the freedom to find more effective and efficient forms (private schools or even home school) are removed.

We had an incredibly high rate of literacy before public schools came around. My friend found a 5th grade textbook from the 50s and was amazed at how difficult the material was. I know there are many outside factors that also contribute to this but consider that America has close to the worst educational results out of most industrialized nations and you'll know it's due to more than just television.

Anyway, for people with some real compassion, please think of what we're doing to our children and stop falling for yet another attempt to buy votes. We truly need a large reform in education if we ever intend to recover a wide technological advantage. A larger percent of foreign students who come here to study return home afterwards than before and we have increasingly become reliant on importing foreign engineering. I love free markets and know there's value to this but it's time to wake up and fix why we're in such a position.

[MerlinsByte]

mb writes...the following is an example of a "poor" person giving.

[21:1] As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. [2] He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. [3] "I tell you the truth," he said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others. [4] All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."

There is an example in scripture for most circumstances that we find ourselves in. I consider myself poor in some material ways but rich in others. But I dont pray for a $50,000 custom harley davidson, I do pray for gods will to be done.

mb

[Athena]

Quote by: SteveA No, public education robs everyone of better alternatives. Kids get out of school and can't find jobs. Why? Because companies and people forced to pay for this ever increasing service are moving overseas. Children aren't taught a real desire to achieve ... why? Because it doesn't matter what parents do, their children get a "free" education right? And our current system doesn't promote creativity, new insights and technological growth, it's a cookie cutter system that leaves everyone as swappable pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. I learned more useful information from used $0.25 books and my parents than I did in the public education system. And welfare is almost designed, IMO, to create dependence. There are literally people who have come to rely on it for generations. It doesn't teach people to reproduce responsibly and it basically punishes those people who work hard and help our economy. If some government in the world had found a way that everyone could be rich by printing up free money, they'd already have done it. Oh, and every dollar that ends up helping someone has already had another dollar of it taken out for some other purpose - not always noble, and oftentimes inefficiently spent. Imagine if you had billions of dollars in a budget to spend. Do you believe you would spend it as wisely as individuals trying to pinch their pennies? It's unrealistic to expect such of an institution that doesn't even need to be competitive because it's an enforced monopoly ... and the largest one around. Private schools already give better results for almost half the cost, so every dollar that gets pumping into the public system is about 45 cents wasted for a worse product. Too much power is in too few hands when a select group of people have the ability to decide what to teach our children. We can support all these things without democracy. Democracy is when a lot of people feel slavery is just fine. Or when enough people feel it's entirely ok to rob someone else or head off to some foreign country because they outnumber them. Compassion is not something created in commitees ruling over faceless masses. In Iraq, likely none of Congress even knew a single person that died there. The welfare system isn't motivated by compassion as much as it is by votes - and to get votes to support welfare, you need a lot of people asking for help. Churches and charities as well as communities in general used to provide these services and more efficiently too. Look at some other poor nations. Can they afford to spend resources on creating a beaurocracy to feed the hungry? Not to any major extent. It's too costly and to view it another way, it requires food that they don't have just to give to people to build the institution, then hopefully there's some left over to actually feed the hungry with. It might be sad that people were born with a need to feed themselves, and obviously, some people truly do need help but we are subsidizing too many people that should not be paid to sit home and we can see it everytime we look at a foreign country and see their economies growing while we stagnate. The way you feed people is to encourage them to grow food. Green paper and police don't feed people. That's a salespitch. I'd agree we do have some disparities of wealth but they are due to other reasons - but they still stem from the same problem, using government to forcibly redistribute wealth. Maybe we need the welfare system to compensate somewhat but 2 wrongs don't make a right or even an entitlement . Personally, I'd love to see government stick to one job intended - defending people against real crimes like violence, fraud and theft. They we'd find it a lot easier to be able to afford to feed ourselves. Consider something else, how many people find it difficult to afford to have children? We already have a slow population growth (ok, not entirely bad maybe). I believe much of that is due to people finding it more and more difficult to afford to raise children ... and public education is a perfect example of this. If someone is going to have child, they don't see these costs and so they have children that "society" can't afford to teach. As a perfect example, look at China: China provides people with bare necessities as a communist government does. It "takes care" of everyone and removes this responsibility from individual hands. Sounds great, eh? Well freedom and responsibility are attached to each other, so what freedom does this remove - plenty, for example of the Chinese government is responsible for supporting everyone then it is the arbitrar in deciding whether or not it can afford to do so - hence, you can't choose to have any children you want because someone else has forcibly taken the responsibility of caring for that child and can tell you whether or not they can afford to do so. Education is the same, if we continually pump more money into public education and remove this responsibility from people, the freedom to determine what education is appropriate is also taken and the freedom to find more effective and efficient forms (private schools or even home school) are removed. We had an incredibly high rate of literacy before public schools came around. My friend found a 5th grade textbook from the 50s and was amazed at how difficult the material was. I know there are many outside factors that also contribute to this but consider that America has close to the worst educational results out of most industrialized nations and you'll know it's due to more than just television. Anyway, for people with some real compassion, please think of what we're doing to our children and stop falling for yet another attempt to buy votes. We truly need a large reform in education if we ever intend to recover a wide technological advantage. A larger percent of foreign students who come here to study return home afterwards than before and we have increasingly become reliant on importing foreign engineering. I love free markets and know there's value to this but it's time to wake up and fix why we're in such a position.

What a waste, a complete denial that we are so much better off than the people in countries in such as India, because we have free public education and public assistance for those who need it. As long as people are using denial as a corner stone of their reasoning, all that is possible is a stupid conflict of opinions.

[Morgan_Freeman]

Quote by: Athena What a waste, a complete denial that we are so much better off than the people in countries in such as India, because we have free public education and public assistance for those who need it.

Utter nonsense. We are so much better off than India because we have a political system that protects life, liberty, and property -- not because we have handouts. Public education in particular probably does more damage than anything else -- melting children's minds.