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just 2 people
What does this mean?
Maybe OP believes every town in the US has exactly 1 church and 2 homeless people and is mildly infuriated that the church doesn’t allow the 2 homeless people to live there?
If every church houses two homeless people, no more homeless people.
My home town had four churches and no homeless people. What homeless people are those churches supposed to help?
Meanwhile, in the city I now live in, there’s tons of churches and half of them give free food to the homeless every single day, and there’s lines going around the block at all of them.
There is no magic bullet that can solve homelessness. Anything proposed must be a part of a larger solution. There are tons of proposals that, if actually done and not half-assed, would help immensely.
I do not understand these downvotes. Like how dare you see churches that actually help the poor like they’re supposed to?
It’s people downvoting because “Religion = bad”.
When in reality it should be “Religion = institutions and institutions can be either good or bad or mix of both.”
Edit: Spelling
It hurts because a good number of churches DO = bad, but we lack the emotional drive to identify which ones and call on their downfall. The result is we amplify blanket statements and assumptions that do nothing but give a pass of diversion to immoral soul sucking capitalists, all of whom are directly responsible for the housing crisis.
Knee jerk emotional voting. People don’t like seeing information that contradicts their deeply rooted beliefs, and downvoting is emotionally less costly than performing self-investigation.
Don’t get me wrong I would love if every problem in America could be patched by taxing some sussy non profits. But there’s no evidence for that.
At best it’s a comfy position that lets you “not my problem” your way through life, at worst it’s propganda to divert attention from the system of capital that is actually keeping the lower class unhoused and constantly struggling.
Not trying to be a smartass here, it’s genuinely just human nature to choose an emotionally efficient worldview. One-on-one conversations and counter propoganda are one solution to getting folks to see truth. It just takes energy.
You are getting downvoted but you are unabashedly correct. The rhetorical goals behind the post are noble, but the suggested solution is infeasible to a degree that verges on laughable.
Homeless people need to live in homes, of which there are plenty being hoarded vacant by the ultra wealthy.
Homes for the homeless fixes homelessness. Guess what giving a homeless person a church to live in makes them? Still homeless.
In the worst case interpretation, this meme is using churches as a polemical meat shield to protect neoliberal and corporate interests.
Those churches might have already helped. I’m no fan of religion for it’s various stupidities, but I am a fan of organized good will.
That rate of homelessness seems like a wild underestimate. However, I don’t know much about the southern united states other than that they basically export the homelessness they create to other states through bussing programs. So this number might be better calculated considering both the spatial distribution of homelessness and the spatial distribution of churches. With out knowing where the churches are and where the homeless are, the number is a bit beguiling. That being said, it does seem that its the areas with lots of churches that create the conditions for homelessness, and then those areas export the problem they create to other areas (rural red states have been bussing the homeless and other ‘undesirables’ to metro areas of blue states for decades, rather than fund and operate local solutions).
I believe that number was accurate in 2022 as noted in the screenshot but has risen to 650,000 since.
This is a silly post with silly implications, even though I appreciate its rhetorical goals
The really c/mildlyinfuriating fact is there are more empty homes in the US than homeless.
Based on currently available numbers, there are about 31 vacant housing units for every homeless person in the U.S. src
You don’t even need to involve churches. You need to hold individuals and businesses who hoard real estate for profit accountable. (There is also the matter of the logistics of getting homeless people into those homes, but I will not dive into that here.)
I appreciate the sentiment of this post, but please be sure to check your predetermined biases before you use the text of this meme to inform your opinion on policy.
You don’t even need to involve churches.
There are plenty of valid complaints about (many) American religious institutions, but the constant shoe-horning in of complaints about religion in unrelated posts that I see on Lemmy comes across as bitter and myopic.
Lemmy has a weird hate-boner for Christianity. It’s like a visceral toxic hatred. Sure it would make more sense for you to take from the top one percent in society to actually solve the problem, but that way you don’t get to punish an entire religious group for their vocal minority 1% who squander wealth and strive for political power, using Jesus as nothing more than a stepping stool
A lot of it probably comes from deeply negative personal experiences, combined with a general propensity for people to apply a categorical belief to particular experiences. People who were treated badly by a particular group of Christians, or people who see and hear about certain Christians advocating for some terrible politician or political goal, are applying a generalized belief to how all Christians act, and potentially to all religion in general. It’s much harder to accept that the world is a deeply complicated and messy place and that religion and religious belief is a much more complex element of human civilization, culture, and personal identity than what many people would care to acknowledge.
Yeah. I regularly attend multiple churches. There are a few bad eggs, sure, but 99% of people I talk to there are either lovely people or normal people. Same goes for workplaces as well. I don’t see Churches as being worse than any other environment I’ve been in. But when assholes are Christians, they weaponise the Bible to justify being an asshole. If anything I think Christians in general should be more vocal about things happening in churches that are not okay, but there may be a concern of causing division in an otherwise wholesome atmosphere.
I have a close friend who converted to Christianity, and they said that a fault they observe in Christians can be that they’re too nice and too vulnerable, to the point that people can get away with not very nice things.
I think Atheism gets a bad rap these days also. I’m sure most atheists are lovely people, but the people who make it known that they’re atheists, or make it their whole personality, are not.
A lot of us have been victims of the church(hi); its leaves a bloody trench in its wake.
or tried our hand at activism and been smacked down by religious groups for doing the shit they espouse on paper (not strongly me, in any way I care about) and are understandably bitter.
And it hits harder, because most people grew up hearing these are the paragons of moral virtue, and then then pull this shit.
Plus they won’t shut up and get a ton of special treatment, but almost never use it for good (notice nobody’s talking shit about Harriet Tubman, john brown, or the quakers. Diggers levellers anabaptists, too, not even the ULC or church of Satan).
They paint their own target.
Sure, and that’s terrible, but from a different perspective, most of these beliefs and behaviors you’ve identified would persist without religious institutions and their proponents formalizing them as policy. Religion can give people a way to justify a lot of the terrible beliefs that they had internalized anyway, because it’s part of the dominant culture. But misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, xenophobia, and moral hypocrisy aren’t caused by religion or religious beliefs, any more so than atheism or agnosticism causes people to be tolerant or accepting of others in spite of their differences. And that’s a foundational premise to many of the criticisms of religion I see on Lemmy. But it’s just objectively wrong. If you want to look at a historical example of the productive power of religion, look no further than the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), which was one of, if not the most significant, political and religious organizations of the Civil Rights movement. It helped to organize people into a fighting force for real progressive change and it did so by way of lines of communication between black congregations across the country. For even more examples of religion as a tool of social progress, I recommend the wikipedia page on Liberation Theology.
Missing the point.
I already mentioned that shoehorning criticism of religion into conversations that were unrelated came across as bitter and myopic. Your point was, essentially, that a lot of people are bitter towards Christianity, which is implied by my own observation. If you have nothing to add beyond restating what was already said by the person to whom you are replying, then I would suggest saving yourself the time in the future and just clicking the up arrow. Or doing literally nothing. Either of those are fine options.
I was commenting after thatthat had been done. Youre arguing with the wrong person, regardless of how I feel about your points. I’m going to be the bigger person and leave now
Then come back, after a cup of tea, and write this part.
You can be all manner of shitty without religion, but religion as a framework is generally (and they’re not all the same) a tool for getting people to accept and do awful shit-partially, I admit, a (violent) selection pressure, but when you believe blatantly magical bullshit, you’re more easily manipulated against your stated conscience and general interest, and the people willing to do that tend to be the biggest bastards. Its also a mostly static model of reality youre very emotionally attached to, with no or problematic adjustment mechanisms, and those are always dangerous, even when they’re as or more accurate than other options (which none of the big ones are).
Religion doesn’t determine good/bad, but it’s got its finger on the needle. That’s not to say it hasn’t produced things I respect; Spinoza, Hegel, guy whose name I can never remember how to spell who wrote ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’, but I’m not sure how much any of those are attributable to it, and a lot (most? One is too many) of those holy wars (including the worst ongoing genocide I’m aware of at time if writing) serve(d) little/no material interest, of anyone.
So I’m only saying this because you basically walked up and asked me. But also I’m queer and it makes me feel very unsafe. Its a kind of volatility, if someone is, say, any of the abrahamic faiths, that they can just… Turn, almost instantly, for reasons I can’t argue or persuade or accommodate, for no real reason, against my very existence. Ive lost a lot of people to that. And it fucking sucks. No nonreligious person did this to me until ~2016. It took fascism, which I would argue is a (particularly bad) religion.
So your assertions here are the following:
- religion functions by 1) lying to people about the fundamental nature of reality in order to 2) manipulate them into doing bad things and that central to this is the idea that doing point 1 actively enables or facilitates point 2.
- religion constitutes a “static model of reality” to which people are emotionally attached, which is fundamentally dangerous.
- religion does not “determine” good or bad.
- Religious violence is a thing that exists.
- You’re queer and religion bothers you.
So, point by point:
- many religions make complex assertions about the metaphysical nature of the universe, often including the existence of supernatural phenomena, individuals, locations, etc. I’m not going to try to argue for the existence of any mystical element of any particular faith, but I will challenge the innately reductive analysis of religion you’ve provided. Most religions, particularly the very old ones, incorporate historical, philosophical, artistic, communal, and ethical traditions. You seem to center your understanding of religious faith around the metaphysical or supernatural components and have asserted that these components warp the underlying perception of reality of its participants for the express purpose of making people behave in such a way as to “do awful shit” and act against your “conscience and general interest.” In making a causal assertion of this kind, however, you really need to be able to support that assertion with something that proves a causal link between what you describe as a belief in “blatantly magical bullshit” and a specific pattern of behavior. Why is it the belief in the supernatural and not, for example, hierarchical organizations of power, something that has existed as a component of organized religion for millennia, but also in virtually all political and dominant social institutions for just as long? Perhaps people are more inclined towards mob mentality or to fall behind powerful and charismatic leaders, regardless of the institution from which they’re working. For example, the Soviet Union under Stalin was a brutally repressive society that actively criminalized both organized religion and LGBT persons. The absence of religion did not magically produce a society devoid of people unwilling to brutally oppress their fellow countrymen.
- you seem to be working with terms that don’t really carry a lot of significance or meaning for anyone other than yourself. What, exactly, do you think constitutes a “static model of reality?” And what, exactly, is problematic about that? Because in my mind, most people operate with a fairly static understanding of reality. Not to say it’s the same understanding of reality. Ideologies are as complex and different as the people that internalize them, and they inform our personal understanding of the world we inhabit. For most people, altering these beliefs about the world is non-trivial. As a staunch leftist, someone would have a hard time selling me on the merits of laissez-faire capitalism as an effective mechanism of distributing wealth in a society. My understanding of the fundamental nature of economics, human nature, and reality itself precludes this. Am I working from an overly static and inflexible model of reality?
- religion is deeply concerned with the nature of good and evil. Admittedly, these are things you might not actually believe in. Perhaps you’re a moral relativist. Perhaps not. If you are, I don’t have much to say to you about this. You believe good and evil are culturally determined moral concepts and nothing else, from a personal perspective, beyond socially conditioned behavior.
- religious violence, or “Holy Wars” as you’ve put it, are virtually all fought for the same purpose as any other war: the primitive acquisition of wealth and the expansion of a nation or nations hegemony. If you think what’s going on in Palestine is not driven by Israel’s desire for Palestinian land, then I have a bridge to sell you.
- your experiences are both tragic and common. I’ve personally been physically and emotionally abused by members of specific religious organizations, for reasons and in ways I don’t feel comfortable sharing with strangers on the internet, and by people who were sociopaths that used religion as a cudgel to bully and control others. But I’ve also been comforted and treated kindly by other people for whom their religious faith was an important part of their lives - people who were sick and in pain their entire lives, but who found serenity and comfort through their beliefs and shared that with people around them who were also suffering. History is full of people who used religion as an excuse to do terrible things, but history also has a tendency to amplify monsters and forget the decent people whose faith may have driven them to have a more positive impact on the world.
If you want to hate religion because you’re bitter, that’s fine. You can feel about religion any way that you want. But don’t be offended when you bring it up out of nowhere and someone tells you that your comments are irrelevant to the current discussion.
The world doesn’t revolve around your personal bitterness.
I don’t follow what’s silly here. These motherfuckers are not taxed and also not obligated to give back and that should matter. Tax them, would be the obvious solution
Yeah the moral bit is we know people who hold housing for profit are douches. Churches are worse because they think they’re doing the Lord’s work and love talking about caring for people, but very few actually do any good.
Am I reading this right? Are you saying that churches are worse than house-hoarding landlords, just because they think they’re doing good but a lot of them don’t? Even the 18% of churches that rent their buildings from other churches[1] (or the ones that rent non-church properties like theaters or schools,) and thus almost certainly don’t even have a property they could give? Or what about the 48% of churches that run or support a food pantry[2], and are thus doing good?
[1] - https://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/2018/fall-state-of-church-ministry/two-churches-one-roof.html
[2] - https://theconversation.com/nearly-half-of-all-churches-and-other-faith-institutions-help-people-get-enough-to-eat-170074clearing out this comment as it wasn’t helpful to the conversation
Well thanks, but to be fair, I was asking Scrubbles. When it comes to an opinion I disagree with, it’s more fruitful to talk to the person who holds that opinion than it is to deride the opinion with someone else who already agrees with me. Partially because there’s a good chance of a misunderstanding.
Not to say the rest of your remark is invalid, just addressing the first sentence where you seem to be speaking on Scrubbles’ behalf.
Fair enough! I hope I’m wrong lol.
very few actually do any good.
Cite this and I will change my opinion.
If all churches were to be taxed, the estimated new income would be a paltry $2.4 billion yearly. source
While there is no consensus on the cost to end homelessness, estimates suggest the cost to be more than $300 billion.
So yeah. A bit silly, or at least not an “obvious solution.”
Edit: Meanwhile, taxing the rich and mega corporations is quite effective at retrieving this kind of cash, into the trillions. My personal position, if asked (though I want to be clear taxes were not the original topic at hand), is that taxing owners of multiple residential properties into unafordability is an important step toward ending homelessness.
tldr, The users downvoting this comment are letting their anti-religious sentiment cloud the noxious nature of late stage capitalism. In a world where human lives are less important than profit, for fucks sake the nonprofits are not the primary blame.
When I said “solution”, the problem I was talking about was how unfair it is that religious groups get tax exempt status despite doing nothing to earn that, and a lot to prove they should be taxed. I never said that suddenly we could feed and house all the homeless with those tax dollars
Post and my comment are about homelessness. Categorically, neither the post nor my comment were about taxes. So you changed the subject without even indicating you were doing so. 🙄
Awesome cool thank you for your contribution. But yeah glad to see we agree on an entirely tangentially related topic.
Edit: You are free to discuss taxes. But stop trying to frame it as a disagreement with my position which had nothing to do with taxes. Do it elsewhere where relevant.
The post is about the contradiction between homeless people getting the shaft while churches get handouts. There was no change of subject, you just set your focus narrowly and apparently decided anyone outside that would be wrong in multiple ways.
Misinformation. Churches do not get handouts.
Corporations do.
You are free to discuss taxes. But stop trying to frame it as a disagreement with my position which had nothing to do with taxes. Do it elsewhere where relevant.
(There is also the matter of the logistics of getting homeless people into those homes, but I will not dive into that here.)
And caring for them, because a lot of them can’t function as normal members of society for whatever reason. The real estate is only one piece of this. But yeah, if people were willing to pay for all that, it wouldn’t be a problem. As it is, it’s always the next guy’s problem.
Correct. The “whatever reasons” you cite include chronic illness, mental illness, addiction, and abusive relationships. These are not unique to homelessness but are disproportionately prevalent in the population and therefore a key obstacle to overcome.
Addressing this takes labor and money to handle, a process that is often undertaken by nonprofits with funding from government, but also from charities and churches.
Mmm I think you’re missing one of the core points of this though: churches have historically and traditionally offered and been used as sanctuaries, often by the poor and downtrodden in a society. In the US these days, you don’t see nearly as much of that. It’s more about evangelism and dogmatism and prosperity gospel. Christians in the US demonstrably doesn’t care that much about poor people these days.
More broadly: as someone who was raised Christian but is now a staunch atheist, I and many others would have far fewer issues with Christians if they would actually fucking practice what their religion preaches instead of whatever some MAGApastor tells you that Supply Side Jesus says.
I don’t disagree with you per se? I simply haven’t seen empirical evidence to support this statement:
Christians in the US demonstrably [don’t] care about the poor that much these days.
Meanwhile the evidence that the ultra wealthy are actively screwing over the lower class piles up daily. If you have a citation for that thesis above I’d love to talk.
I hate the idea of treating homeless like babies. Most of these people got to where they are by choices. If they wanted to stay at the church they probably can. Most churches I know have cots for people down and out. If these people wanted to stay at the church they would have.
If churches are going to be a tax free non-profit, we need to see ‘services done’ at roughly a similar order of magnitude as their receipts would allow. And no, a couple of cots is not the answer. Perhaps a small apartment building with 8 units that the church owns and operates, and provides permanent residency for a small local population of the unhoused.
Other wise I think they church should be disbanded and its organizers held liable for tax fraud.
There are more empty homes in the US than homeless.
While churches taking extreme advantage of tax exemption is a concern, a concern that should be addressed, this situation pales in comparison to the hoarding, lobbying and zoning that goes into keeping the illusion that housing is a scarce resource up, and prices intentionally high.
Most of these people got to where they are by choices.
Objectively false. Huge majorities of homeless individuals face chronic illness, disability, untreated mental illness, or have been abused.
The numbers vary, but most homeless people have a job and still can’t get housing due to overwhelming unaffordability, a factor which is manipulated against them by zoning laws and corporate ownership.
