I am a girl without God. If you don’t know me well, you might not know this about me. While I was raised in a strict roman catholic home and my grandfather taught me to read when very little using the bible, I didn’t believe it from the get go. Not all of it anyway. What I did agree with, seemed in such contrast with how I saw others living. I grew to explore many faiths and paths and my beliefs changed with time. When at last I was left without religion I still had my morals and I found inspiration in others with high morals who also did not have religion. How was that? There have been papers written on the high morals of those without god so I will not try to reiterate them here.
I will say though that be it my childhood religion, or my search for facts as an adult, I am left feeling it is very important to take care of people who are not as well off as myself. I find it very frustrating when those who try and claim religion wrap themselves in sins and then judge others for other sins.
Today I saw a few posts talking about welfare and public support. Over and over I see these attacks on the poor. People blame the poor or those who abuse the public services for the down fall of country. Most people are simply believing the stereo types or information that is over 20 years old. The fact is that people can’t live on welfare any more. There seems to be bigger abuses in Social Security now, but even then those numbers are drops in the bucket compared to the corporate welfare all of us are paying for in this country.
How is it that facebook is paying no 2012 taxes while they made over a billion in profits? How is it that thousands of profiting companies are paying less taxes than my husband who serves in our military? My husband is glad to pay taxes, every penny, to help those in need. Where are the morals of those companies and that of those people who run them? What about the people who support and defend them?
Some people don’t even believe there are companies not paying taxes, or they try and say the company is paying other taxes that some how make it ok. The fact is that the poor do not run this county, corporations do, and those corporations are abusing us all. How can people defend greed? Isn’t it sin? Maybe America is the land of the sinners in the end, people seem to care more about money than they do humanity.
I think blaming the poor, and trying to cut services is a distraction from the real issues.
I think in the end my issues are rather simple. I feel like we are morally obligated to help people who have less than we do. I think that it is worth risking giving to those poor who abuse the system rather than miss giving to those who need it. I don’t like or enjoy having more than other people do. Maybe that is why I was a surrogate mother. I hated the idea that I could have children so easy and yet others couldn’t. It didn’t seem right. I never ever wish to be rich, I would give almost all of it away to those who need it. I don’t ever want more than I need and even then what I think I need is in reality more than most in the world actually have. We don’t have two cars, don’t have much of a savings (I end up giving it away), and retirement at this rate will be very modest. I can live with that as long as I am fighting to help those less fortunate. I can’t say I know much about religion but I feel confident in my morals. I am a girl without god and yet it still pains me to see people supporting real sins like greed, that hurt us all, and hurt the planet.
I know what you mean about being raised Catholic. Kind of messes with your head. Especially if your parents are driving you to and from church but never going in!Good article.
Well, not much to say except that everybody is fallen. Nobody is perfect and I believe (or maybe hope to believe) that most people live the best way that they can. Everybody doesn’t have the same priorities and everybody doesn’t have the same living situation.
The one thing I have learned is not to question and not to judge. Just love people for who they are – because ultimately, that’s the only thing you can do.
I totally agree with you, the poor cannot live on welfare anymore. I’m on disablity and cannot live on that either. I grew up as a Protestant but haven’t practiced in years since I no longer believe that God is real.
I completely agree with you that we are morally obligated to help those who have less than we do. It’s a shame that people like us are becoming the minority.
I agree with so much of this. I am a member of a Christian church and even within our very small church family there are lots of people that do not live the example that they say they believe in.
we do need to figure out a good way to help people
First, I will say that I do believe in a creator, life did not just happen on its own. Second, I question your knowledge that corporations pay no taxes. With that said, I thought your post was very good. I believe we should help those with less than what we have. Money was invented by man, and has led us to where we are. Can we really own a piece of the Earth?
I respect your right to believe as you wish. I too question your understanding of what taxes certain corporations pay. Please do research this topic and learn about what taxes companies like Verizon, Google, and Facebook have paid (or rather not paid) the last few years. You might be very surprised.