jerryskids 6,962 Posted June 7, 2015 Jesus loves the poor and sick. Republicans despise them. http://www.ijreview.com/2015/03/276715-difference-liberals-conservatives-demonstrated-one-simple-powerful-story/ There are numerous anecdotal stories available on websites, many of them full of wit and wisdom, some of them just silly and spurious. A simple but powerful story has surfaced that seems to display at least a grain of truth. According to the story, conservatives and liberals have a much different view of what it means to be compassionate. This is how it goes: In all fairness, both Conservatives and Liberals are likely to walk on by. The Difference Between Conservatives and Liberals A Conservative and Liberal are walking down the street when they came to a homeless person. The Conservative gave him his business card and told him to come to his business for a job. He then took twenty dollars our of his pocket and gave it to the homeless person. The Liberal was very impressed and when they came to another homeless person he decided to help. He walked over to the homeless person and gave him directions to the welfare office. However, there may be some truth to the anecdote, since conservatives are reportedly more likely to give to “charity” than self-described liberals, according to several studies. There has been some criticism of that finding, however. An L.A. Times report claims that conservatives giving to churches ‘doesn’t count’ as charity, and that conservatives are ‘richer,’ and therefore that is the explanation for the disparity: On the other hand, even poorer conservatives across the country give more tocharity as a percentage of income, according to RT.com: The problem was that the survey [from the 2006 book “Who Really Cares” by Arthur C. Brooks] didn’t seem to accurately measure those categories and didn’t distinguish well between social conservatives or liberals and fiscal conservatives or liberals. What the MIT researchers did find, however, was that conservatives give more to religious organizations, such as their own churches, and liberals more to secular recipients. Conservatives may give more overall, MIT says, but that’s because they tend to be richer, so they have more money to give and get a larger tax benefit from giving it. The columnist George Will found several other striking metrics that underscore this point: Less well-off families from red states donate a relatively higher – and growing – proportion of their money to charity, while those at the top have been giving a smaller share as their income has increased, a new extensive study has revealed. Respected non-government sector newspaper The Philanthropy Chroniclecollated the itemized charity deductions on the tax returns of hundreds of millions of Americans between 2006 and 2012, the latest year available. While only about a third of all givers write off their charity expenses, the sums included about 80 percent of all donations in the country. Although liberal families’ incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227). People who reject the idea that “government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality” give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition. Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood. It appears that despite the common objections to the studies, there is at least some truth to the notion that conservatives give more to charity, while liberals see the government as a source of ‘charity.’ Whether or not one agrees with the poignant anecdote, it at least gives people something to think about. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jerryskids 6,962 Posted June 7, 2015 No I don't believe you can. I used to wonder this as well and was floored when I learned people took it as truth. That' sounds great as a compromise for the 2 opposing sides but the devouts will tell you that's cheating. It's all or nothing, not to me but to the people that run the farce. If I'm a diick for saying this, fine. I will say this...if Christians came out and declared that the bible stories are just fables meant to convey a message, but that Christ and all that were still true...I'd have massively more respect for it and understand how people could believe. It's the devotion to the obviously untrue that makes me belittle and act like a priick towards their beliefs. This is 100% completely word for word how I feel about any and all religion. Right on the nose. Yes, you can. I'm not really sure what to say to you at this point. You are so confident in your intelligence but you know nothing; you wouldn't be the smartest person in the room if you were the only one in it. Catholicism gets railed all of the time by bible literalists because it relies on the interpretations and teaching of the Church leaders vs. direct biblical study. You might have heard of Catholicism, it is a pretty big Christian denomination. Full QuestionIs the story of Jonah and the whale a myth? AnswerCatholics are free to understand the story of Jonah and the whale as literal history or as didactic fiction. In Catholicism and Fundamentalism, Karl Keating writes: "The Catholic Church is silent on the proper interpretation of many biblical passages, readers being allowed to accept one of several understandings. Take, as an example, Jonah’s escapade at sea, which readers often find disturbing. Ronald Knox said that ‘no defender of the sense of Scripture ever pretended, surely, that this was a natural event. If it happened, it was certainly a miracle; and not to my mind a more startling miracle than the raising of Lazarus, in which I take it Catholics are certainly bound to believe. Surely what puts one off the story of Jonah is the element of the grotesque that is present in it’ (Ronald Knox and Arnold Lunn, Difficulties, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 109). "The most common interpretation nowadays, and one that is held by indubitably orthodox exegetes, is that the story of the prophet being swallowed and then disgorged by a ‘great fish’ is merely didactic fiction, a grand tale told to establish a religious point. Catholics are perfectly free to take this or a more literal view. . . . "Strictly literal interpretations of what happened to Jonah actually come in two forms. One relies on the fact that people apparently have been swallowed by whales and lived to talk about it. In 1891 a seaman, James Bartley, from a ship named the Star of the East, was found missing after an eighty-foot sperm whale had been caught. He was presumed drowned. The next day, when the crew cut up the whale, Bartley was discovered alive inside. If Jonah’s three days in the whale were counted like Christ’s three days in the tomb, after the Semitic fashion—that is, parts of three distinct days, but perhaps only slightly more than twenty-four hours total—then it is possible that Jonah could have been coughed up by that great fish just as his story says. This would be a purely natural explanation of the episode. "The other literal interpretation is that Jonah indeed underwent what the story, read as straight history, says he did but survived only because of a positive miracle, and several different sorts of miracles have been suggested, such as suspended animation on Jonah’s part or a fish with a remarkably large air supply and decidedly mild gastric juices" (Catholicism and Fundamentalism, Ignatius Press, 129–30). http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/is-the-story-of-jonah-and-the-whale-a-myth Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sho Nuff 720 Posted June 7, 2015 Who the F are you? Don't like it move on. You're so non descript I thought you were the drunk guy, shotsup. Be more interesting or go away. Because you are somebody? Haha!!!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Magnificent Bastard 191 Posted June 7, 2015 Because you are somebody? Haha!!!
