So you don't believe in God or Christ...

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If someone wants to give me a grant I can always conduct a scientific survey

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RfUj09pWfM[/youtube]

So then can you see why we are being so dismissive of your claims. You have no evidence, other than your subjective thoughts.

This is why I posted the quote attributed to Einstein regarding common sense.

Recently I have been trying to get my head around E=MC2 and i have been finding myself blocked by thoughts like "that doesn't make sense because......" or "but what if..." or "but why.....". Then I read we cannot make "sense" of it because the concepts are so completely alien to our experience of the natural world. Instead of trying to make "sense" of E=MC2 one needs to accept the empirical data and simply accept that, for example, when an object increases speed its length decreases and its mass increases. Why? again its simple, the empirical data shows that prediction is proven by experiment.

The same goes for your concept of charity. To you if people are not coerced via religious belief into giving charity then it will not happen, this to you is "common sense". But is it an accurate hypothesis? Will your prediction that - charitable donations will fall in relation to a fall in religious observance given all other influences remain constant - stand up to experiment?

Again a simple Google search brings up evidence that although religious organisations have experienced a decline in donations, secular institutions, although suffering a decline since 2008, are in fact receiving more support as the economy grows, and they are receiving more support almost in direct correlation to the decline of religious organizations over the recovery period. Yes some people who, have removed the fear of a wrathful god from their worldview have stopped paying the protection racket, but to my mind this is a good thing. If we can challenge people to look after each other based on the principle that this is the correct thing to do, surely this is far, far better than getting them to help out of fear. It would appear from the data, that whilst donations are low (due to the economic crisis) they are increasing, and they are increasing whilst a fear of wrathful vengeance is rapidly declining.

My biggest problem with this argument is that it uses the some seriously flawed logic. Here is a short, but amusing, piece on the subject:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2012/03/23/true-fact-the-lack-of-pirates-is-causing-global-warming/

I agree that the austerity is making things worse, but it wasn't just government debt that caused the crisis. It was in the case of Greece and Italy (Italy had a good gov budget and good economy, but was burdened by debt from the past). But Spain had a debt of some 25% of GDP before the crisis which is very low compared to other OECD countries.
At this point for most countries a bit more debt is not a problem. The banks are handing out money for free anyway (interest below inflation). For a while they even accepted negative interest, they were paying people to take their money.

If you want governments to spend less, look at what happened in Europe. Things have steadily been going down since 2008. The time to reduce debt is when the economy is good, not when it's all crappy. And whether people give money to charity or to the gov to feed poor people doesn't matter, it ends up in the same place.

"I am not really sure if as many rich people are Christian like they used to be but I am sure they donate to charities of various types due to tax benefits and pressure."

You're sure?? That doesn't buy many kids medicine. Holding as much money as these people do would solve world hunger forever and build everyone a home. There may be some few who DO give according to their means, but I doubt it.

"The developed world has turned away from Christianity for years. It's been a process."

The religion makes no difference. All are means for personal aggrandizement.

"It seems to make sense to acknowledge Christians can and do help with some of the entitlement burden even if you don't support Christianity. There is a practical function involved that might actually benefit you even if you are a non believer"

There are good people everywhere, from slums to penthouses but there is no underlying religious theme I can discern. And my personal experience has shown me the goodness fades more and more the further and further you travel from the slum. Rich greedy people tend to stay even richer and greedier.

I don't believe in the organization of religion, for me it is the same thing as organized crime. It is belief that is to control and enslave people to primitive mindsets. I believe in god as the product that created the universe and all natural and physical laws. Many accounts of people similar to Jesus have been proven, Osiris for Egypt, Buddha for India for example. Jesus was real, but he was just a person with divine knowledge and exercised divine will. The bible is a collection of myths, myths being stories of high truth that are the item for intellectual analysis, NOT literal translation. The Bible is the story of the astral bodies, the sun, the moon and the planets etc; Much of this is said by an Australian Astro-theologist "Santos Bonacci" he has videos on youtube. Check him out!

[quote="trollcatman"

I agree that the austerity is making things worse, but it wasn't just government debt that caused the crisis.[/quote]

Gov debt is but one symptom of the various causes leading to the 2008 crisis. Essentially it had its starting point with the collapse of the Bretton Woods agreement in 1971 with the removal of gold baking the us dollar. Like I said the state of the world economy has a number of causes

I agree that gov debt is both a cause (one of the causes) and a symptom of the crisis. But I don't think a gold standard would be helpful. You sound like a true right winger here (which I know you aren't), the Austrian School people talk about the gold standard too.
I think the ridiculous amount of leveraging and the disparity between economies that are in the same free trade zone (like the EU) are important causes as well. Spain and Greece just do not have the same productivity as Germany, yet they have the same currency and are in a free trade zone with Germany.
And the mortgages, ugh the mortgages.
A while ago I heard some business guy say that he saw a great opportunity: the people in India were "underleveraged", meaning they were not yet burdened by debt. He wanted to sell them crap and give them a loan to pay for it.

I don't need to be condescended to! Anyone with common sense knows the poor are often the receivers of charity it doesn't take a PhD to figure this out

I honestly didn't think so many people would disagree with something that obvious

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

Oh for goodness sakes! Do you or do you not want deficits?

There is the also the issue of churches not actually using donated money for charity.....why should charity only be through religious organizations anyways? But perhaps if there where a lot more of it we wouldn't need welfare programs, but I don't really see that happening any time soon. Or if a non-monetary system was created that would still effectively give people access to resources they need to live and even enjoy life that would work to, but don't really see that happening any time soon either.

And people refer to it as being Communism, wheras communism would actually provide for everyone even those who cannot work

Err where in the above post of mine do I state the obvious that the poor are often the receivers of charity. I have re-read my post and cannot find it. If you find it condescending that pointing out that what you think of as common sense needs evidence to support it, then don't make loose assumptions based upon a thought bubble. All I