It's really great when people donate their time and skills to help others. I highly encourage that type of behavior in our global community. But I do wish people would just do it, without any strings attached or as motivated by belief an invisible Jewish man or other such inspiration.
Case in point, the many Christian missionaries and doctors who feel the need to spread the Gospel while aiding in building infrastructure and health in other countries or regions. It's wonderful that they help so many people and that people can turn to them. It would be even better, however, if they didn't fill people's heads with extraordinary supernatural claims and fairytales as some sort of "spiritual" alternative to what they are already following. At this point in history, Christianity is superior to Islam, so if people must be converted to an organized religion, of the two the former is better.
However, even better would be to "convert" the physically and spiritually impoverished to the concepts found in my book The Gospel According to Acharya S, which in reality constitute liberation from the erroneous concepts promulgated by mainstream organized religions.
As one reader of the Gospel remarked: ""THE MOST liberating book I've read...ever! My eyes are open wide now!"
Another one says of my essay "What is God": "The most truthful piece of spiritual writing I've ever read!"
And yet another reader comments: "I found it very interesting and full of good information and real facts. But I also found it profoundly spiritual."
Instead of inculcating people into the belief that there is an invisible Jewish guy who is watching at all times, ready to strike at all times--"but he loves you!"--it would be very refreshing if people doing charity work would be motivated simply because it's the right thing to do, and offer spiritual support that isn't tied into a fictional tale about a particular culture.
Sources & Further Reading
Doctor practices what his faith preaches
The Gospel According to Acharya S
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|2009-09-21 19:08:23 fractal(continue) m. Offering free food or charity work to people who are in need and then inculcating the dogmatic ideas are merely the acts of using the wrongness of the system for the benefit of dogmas.
I do not know whether charity work is right or wrong, or whether one can tell the other that it is right or wrong. One should evaluate the value of the charity work oneself. Many people engage in charity work for spreading the dogmatic principles that they adopted through religious teachings of the charity work that they received before. It becomes a cycle which creates new 'agents' of religion and it is created in all religions: Christianity, Islam and Judaism and many others.
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Good writing. Seems like 'food charity' without a solution to the expanding population is counterproductive. Included must be a means to reduce population in a heartfelt way. In my town, we have a 'no kill' animal shelter but, all animals are neutered. Ways of doing that with humans needs to be implimented voluntarily.
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|2009-09-22 12:40:21 fractal[size=medium]Arhata
I did not mean that expanding population is a bad thing, I wanted to point out that charity work such as offering free food is done for the sake of spreading religious ideas. The wrongness of the world system (like monetary system) is not that it cannot stop the expansion of the population, it is that it "creates" the problem in which there are people who do not have an access to even basic necessities. I do not think that something should be done to reduce expansion of the population, I think there needs to be a new system which will keep up with the growing population and new necessities of the people. We should not find laws and rules to fit in the present-old system, we should find new systems to fit us.
As to the charity work, they are just using people's basic necessities to spread dogmas and support the present old system since it benefits them. They know that they can inculcate principles into the needy through their weak points (that they would desparately have the food offered). By doing so they enslave people by using their weak points. Still, I am not saying that providing basic necessities to the people in need is not a bad thing, but it is a short term solution.
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|2009-09-22 12:41:21 fractal[continue] uld desparately have the food offered). By doing so they enslave people by using their weak points. Still, I am not saying that providing basic necessities to the people in need is not a bad thing, but it is a short term solution.
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Christianity is superior to Islam? Let's nip this one in the bud right away. First of all, an extremist minority within any cultural and religious community can never presume to dictate the ethical terms of philosophical engagement, so let's be more careful when we make any sweeping generalisations; and secondly: there is a colossal inherent assumption inferred in this phrase "at this point in history etc..." - just a moment, what precisely is supposed to be inferred from this? Are we to surmise that the virtues of contemporary civilization are solely and ostensibly "Christian"?! If so, was the European Enlightenment then, just a "Christian" achievement? Historically, Islam was a radical reformist movement, a timely correction to the corrupt and corrupting currents of Roman "christianity" that presumed to appropriate the esoteric Gnostic principles of the ancient and occult Telestai. Islam inspired magnificent achievements in science and humanistic culture. What may constitute our present perception of Islam is at once both a travesty and a parody of what was clearly a deeply learned and cultured civilization. Let us not be so hasty to condemn what we may not yet fully either understand, nor appreciate. Education is the only means we possess to disabuse ourselves of all dogmatic and fanatical notions soever. Surely we would serve ourselves and our planetary community far better, were we to encourage broader and more intelligent understanding and detailed comprehension of these deeply significant contexts? Islam is not "our" enemy, but ignorance of the roots of "christianity" definitely is, in both the accepted sense of received disinformation, and as a result of conditioned cultural prejudice. Many Muslims have a natural recognition of the great classical tradition that they have not only inherited, but preserved and developed - but not all Muslims have the privilege of access to classical education. It is high time we broadened our horizons and expanded the depth of our understanding of the texture and symbolic richness of Islamic culture, in my opinion. This is not to suggest that we should be blind to the ghastly atrocities that are perpetrated in the name of any symbolic belief system , but that we paint a fair and humanistically sensitive and truly representative picture of the genuine nature of all human societies, wherever they exist...
I don't know whether the idea of charity work is right or wrong, or if one can tell the other that it is a right thing to do. One should evaluate the value of a charity work oneself. Many people do charity work simply becaue there is a stated end which they adopted through indoctrination.