congrats, you successfully pissed me off, the thing you were apparently trying to do. do you ever get tired of doing conservative’s work for them?
Measuring the charity work that religious institutions do is their first line of defense. I’m speaking from an American perspective of course—but Republicans are constantly trying to defund public welfare programs in order to drive people into the churches’ arms. Because then you can kick trans people out of your shelter (Salvation Army), refuse to cover birth control (the Catholic college my friends attended), require people to pray before they eat (soup kitchen I volunteered at), prevent gay people from adopting kids and setting up a pipeline to take children from Korea to raise them in a Christian home (Christian adoption agencies). I could go on! The good work that churches do is fundamentally evangelical even if it isn’t capital-E Evangelical. It ought to be systemically replaced by publicly administrated, tax funded programs that feed, house, clothe, and support all people regardless of their religion.
If at that point you still want to engage with religion for the religion’s own sake, by all means go ahead. That’s none of my business. However, the good work that religious institutions do is a problem, not something to be desired.
Disclaimer: I am speaking to US politics because that is my area of expertise. The harm that religions do is obviously not limited to the U.S. but I leave that for others to address.
Not gonna read your whole essay, cuz who has time for that, but I know of plenty socialists, LGBT pastors and rabbis and people of other religions trying to undo the damage of the people in their religion and change their religion to be about love and kindness and charity.
I also have religious trauma from the Christian church constantly being told being gay, masturbating, looking at porn, never a kiss before “the one” with someone else is a sin. I know that there are good actors and bad actors. As there is in everything, good and evil.
Um, ok. I can make the post shorter.
So, I’m definitely not saying there are no good religious people. I know a lot of good people who are religious!
My problem is that churches doing charitable work replace social services which should be executed by the government.
Individuals working to redeem the church is nice, but that is not related to what my problem is. I would like for the government to provide such robust social services that everyone who engages with the church does so out of their own desire, not because they need resources provided by the church.
I never once implied this was due to your religious trauma. Stop hiding things in tags and say it with your chest or not all. And charity is not even what OP was talking about it. You instilled that meaning into OPs. Post. And yes, we shouldn’t need churches to do social services. We should have classless, moneyless, stateless, society.
