Do you give charity?

not just me?i just admitted i didnt give to charity.maybe im missing your point.

 

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really?i only give in a "charitable" way to those who dont have what they need to survive/live comfortably. in japan i have been given more by homeless people than i have given them.

again...maybe i have missed your point.

 

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Many Asians feel offended at being offered "charity" (there are of course thousands of exceptions). Hence many people use religious occasions and festivals to disguise aid as gifts. It is possible to use other disguises like a family occasion (birthday anniversary, etc)

 

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i dont agree.we all care. but we have been taken for a ride so often its made us
cynical. thats why i would rather give food then money. at least somebody will eat. I try and do more for animals because they cant tell us their plight.There are very few laws that actually help animals. At least the poor on the street are humans and can verbalise their needs or do manual labour and earn a living.

 

ok.,well i dont really know any of them that well,they just live in the park i like to go to.

 

I have been given to understand that birthdays,anniversaries,weddings are ways of recovering some amount/most of the money spent by the family on the occasion

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. is that charity?

 

Are we still discussing the homeless?

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No we are discussing the shameless:xctd:

 

I'm reading Zola's "Germinal". There, he describes emaciated, hopeless poor people (France, late 1800s, industrial age and economic depression) and fat bourgeois who have cake with hot chocolate for breakfast and do nothing but digest. There's a scene where a starving mother comes to ask for charity with her two children, hoping to receive money. The bourgeois family gives them clothing and some cake instead, thinking that the poor drink away the money as soon as they get it. The author's solidarity is very obviously with the poor, he ridicules the bourgeois; meanwhile, I know a lot of people nowadays have the same attitude when they give charity.

This Thursday, after work, I ran to pick a birthday present for Mama. At about 8 p.m., I emerged from Lord & Taylor reeking with a dizzying mixture of carolina herreras, bvlgaris, forgot what else, but empty-handed. I was walking down 5th Ave. in much worry when suddenly, a chubby, short, neat woman with a chubby child turned up from around a corner and approached me. She started with an "Excuse me, Miss, I don't mean to bother," then her lip quivered, then her eyes filled with luminous drops. I didn't let her finish her story, said No, and walked away. "You Stinking Bitch," she yelled after me.

I used to give charity. Every morning or evening, I'd pour a considerable amount of change and bills into someone's cup. Then I wondered, why is one man on the train more lucky and gets my money while another one does not? And then, I see the same people asking year after year and whatever I give them does not seem to better their situation in any way. If I'd know that I'd be helping to solve someone's problem, I'd help without a thought about it; but whatever I can give clearly makes no difference. So, in all confusion, I stopped giving charity. And then there was last Thursday's incident. I am bothered, but not because I am a stinking bitch (I have no problem with that). See, I sacrificed thousands of dollars and pounds of my flesh to get an education, and then some to get a job, and I am still sacrificing pounds and hours of sleep to do well at this job; I'm 5'6" and size 0. The money I earn goes to making my life easier and more pleasant, to presents for significant others; the vastly greater portion is saved to be sacrificed later, along with pounds of flesh, to more education and hopefully for a better job and a better life. Why must I share with a chubby, neat little woman and let her do nothing but pop more neat, chubby babies who go about with a gaping mouth? On the other hand, I still want to help.

Can you help me clear up my confusion?

 

You are regarding your charity as an investment, and as such, are taking on the role of shareholder. You want to see how your money is being used, and then use that information to determine how future monies should be invested.

That's not charity. Charity is an unlimited loving-kindness towards all others, made evident by benevolent giving.

No one wants to be scammed, and sadly, many people are. But to stop giving because of it only lets those that prey on your virtues set the rules for you.

Are you making the world a better place by making your life and the lives of those around you more pleasant? I'm sorry, no.

Lord & Taylors? Give Mama a real gift and buy her a Gift Ark from Heifer (the site won't let me post a link, yet). She probably doesn't need anything anyway, and you can solve your crisis of conscience all at the same time.

 

Of course she is!
She is making the world a better and a more beautiful place for herself and those around. Society consists of individuals, and either way she is helping a number of individuals.
~~~

whitewolf, I completely agree, we should help where it really matters and makes a difference ..towards a better world.
Even if you fed all the beggars in the world, most would still be begging from others, because it's easy money. Many of them get more money a day than you earn in your job by honestly working.

 

Charity is not about making yourself feel good. It's about helping those in need.

Making the world a better place by taking yourself and your own people from 10 to 11, while so many are struggling just to get from 0 to 1? I'm sorry. No points for you.

Oh, and suggesting that people are making a good living begging in the street is obnoxious. It's just another weak device used to validate one's lack of compassion.

 

Charity is a concept.

Well, I'm not an American, I understand charity differently.

I feel that nature and the well being of our planet's ecosystem is more important than the lives of a few people who might as well be using me just to get extra cash.

I better buy an opera ticket for my friend (I've done that) and make her genuinely happy than give a quid for for a beggar who might as well rob me the next moment (no kidding, a silver ring).

 

I posted a link earlier in this thread. Its where we donate.

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http://www.heifer.org/

 

Thanks Orleander!

So tell me Avatar, how do you understand charity? Is not an unlimited loving-kindness towards all others, made evident by benevolent giving?

It's nice that you're environmentally conscious, but that doesn't make you charitable. Neither does buying opera tickets for your friend. It's a nice thing to do, but it isn't charity.

And to say that you won't help a beggar today because he might rob you tomorrow, just because one time you got nicked for a silver ring; well, you remind me of the story of the woman in hell who thought she didn't belong there, because she was a nice person:

An angel appeared and asked her if he had ever performed an act of charity. She said that she felt people were responsible to help themselves. So the angel said "then help yourself out of hell."

She thought for a moment and suddenly cried "Wait! I once given a beggar an onion."

The angel revealed itself to be that beggar, pulled the onion from its pocket, lowered it to her on a string and proceeded to pull her up by it.

Well, others in hell saw her and grabbed her feet, hoping to also escape. Even though the additional people didn't slow her ascent at all, still she tried to kick them off, crying "my onion!" Eventually, she struggled so hard that the string broke and she tumbled back down into hell.

It is how we treat the least of our brethren that defines our character.

 

I've never claimed that I'm in any way charitable, not my thing.
We have special institutions to help those people if they want to be helped.

Benevolent giving might not always be the best way to help a person. The source of the problem is not that the person doesn't have money, but how he got there.
Giving just makes oneself feel better, but it does not necessarily help.
West tried that with Africa, give them money instead of knowledge and learning, and they just multiply, a million beggars become ten million, and to what an end?
There's nothing gained for the society by sustaining their way of life.

Just concepts and subjective values.

 

That's the second time you've dismissed compassion as just "a concept."

What do you mean by that, exactly?

That sounds vaguely familiar:

"I know how to treat the poor. My taxes go to pay for the prisons and the poorhouses. The homeless must go there…If they'd rather die then they'd better do it and decrease the surplus population!" – Ebenezer Scrooge

 

Not compassion, but charity. Two different things.

We have the idea that charity is good. But both charity and goodness are concepts created by humans for the human subjective world-view as if they were natural, indisputable objects.

I think charity is not the best way to help someone, that is all.

 

how many of you give to homless people begging on the streets? i was told that 95% of those people will just go and buy drink with the money they recieve while genuine homeless people will go to soup kithens and shelters

 

I do!!
I always think "As a child did they ever think 'Gee, when I grow up I wanna be a homeless begger!!" I always think that something terribly wrong must have happened in their lives for them to end up there.
They are a human being before they are a begger.
Just because they do something wrong with the money doesn't make my action wrong.
LOL, I guess I'm an atheist that follows the WWJD priciple.