My concern is for the people who are not Christian. What happens to them? Do they have to convert or start attending a church in order to be considered worthy of assistance from the Christian community? How do you deal with other religions? Is it everyone takes care of their own?
Ideally (and I say that knowing it doesn't happen ideally), the church body should take care of their neighbor - regardless of if they share their faith or not. I can see if church administration wants to serve members first, then attenders, then outward from there. But a huge mainstay of Jesus' teaching was not to discriminate reaching out with love and practical supply to anyone who needed it.
Post by GailGoldie on Aug 15, 2012 18:39:26 GMT -5
My church gives assistance to many charities/organizations, etc - that are not Christian. That is far from a requirement.
As for me personally - coming in late to this game...
I'm one of the socially liberal GOPs on the board- I used to be against gay marriage and i'm not even sure why... but in the past 10 years I'm totally pro gay marriage/adoption, etc.
I am pro choice- but I totally support those who are pro-life in their belief, because if I also felt something was murder, I would want it to be illegal, too. I don't like the idea of abortions happening- but I don't QUITE feel it's murder - so the right for the woman to choose outweighs the "murder" aspect for me.
I suppose I'm more conservative on that issue than others who are pro-choice... b/c so many others don't seem to understand WHY someone would be pro-life and how they can force that on others... but I totally get it.... i just don't agree with it.
AW, I think a big difference, then, between libs and cons, is that the libs see "government" as just part of the community. The government is in charge of society. It seems like the best way to get people to comply, to distribute resources to those in need, etc. And in a republic, we can influence our own government and get them to behave in ways we, as a whole, deem beneficial. So I see the government as almost paternal in a way. It's like society is a BIG family, and the government helps it run smoothly. We're all in it together, and we're all here for each other. Think about it - failing schools affect more than just the kids not being taught. Pollution affects us all. Crime affects us all (not just victimization, but falling property values, failing schools...). So I don't necessarily see why we need to break it down further. Not to mention, your small community also has a government. We don't just need to talk about the feds, here.
I think conservatives see a BIG difference between federal gov't and local gov't. Because this is a national board, we're usually talking about the federal gov't. Conservatives favor local solutions to local problems which by definition are impossible for a gov't of 300M+ people. People seem to think if the conservative answer isn't federal gov't it must be the church, or maybe private charity. There's a huge system of state & municipal gov'ts being left out of the conversation.
Especially since it's a 1000 page book where about five actual things happen.
I was given the sage advice the first time I read it to just skip that 70 page speech at the end. So I was able to keep going with what little plot there was.
I read AS twice, and skipped it both times. The second time I totally was going to read it. But, alas, I didn't. Still, though, I'm pretty clear where John Galt stands.