Are you a good Samaritan or a good Christian?

[hiddley]

Don't know why this occurred to me tonight. Listening to too much Stormzy for my age I think lol.
I would consider myself a good Samaritan but not a good Christian.

For e.g., I don't go to church, I don't praise the Lord, I don't pray, I don't engage in charitable works. On the other hand, if I see a homeless person on the street I will give them whatever change I have in my pocket (usually fuck all) and roll them a cigarette.

I am also the type who will stand up for the one being picked on, which usually lands me as the new central victim. But ..........

I actually think actions speak louder than words and songs of praise.

I do recognise that the Christian and other religious communities are social centres for people also, but often, they don't carry anything spiritual out of their prayer service.

I just don't usually find people to be both. They are either one or the other.

Not walking by doesn’t mean giving in the street to anyone who says “ got a spare 50p love”
By giving what I can when I can to a proper homeless charity I am helping them house 58 residents in their shelters, I am helping them employ people to advise on benefits available or trained councillors for addiction.
Someone must have helped hiddley get off the streets. Was it a church project or other homeless service? Would be interested to know.

Greenheart, yy. We had a lot of abuse where my dad was a vicar on a deprived estate when we chose not to give money but always gave food etc. We were threatened with knives, had bricks thrown through the window etc, but still chose to help people where we could. Because I don't believe in generalising, don't believe in the deserving/undeserving paradigm and go for merciful actions.

BartholinsSister, does God's omnipotence excuse humanity from acting in the best interests of each individual? I believe God created us with choice and with choice comes responsibility. God's seeming inaction does not excuse our outright inaction. We have a heck of a lot of power too...

OP if you are supposedly a Christian you might want to address your intolerance and bigotry.

You’d be anazed how much pastoral work goes on in Churches without anyone having a clue.

Exactly. It also strikes me that often the people who make the claims about Christians not being charitable are most frequently people who never go to Church. How would you know what Christians do if you don’t spend time with them?
And as for dropping some change into a homeless person’s hand, the organisations that know state very clearly that this is not advisable. Far better to support an organisation such as Father Hudson’s Homes which had just, for example opened a large, modern shelter for homeless people with addiction problems in Birmingham. They are a Catholic organisation btw. The Samaritans was also set up by an Anglican Vicar, the list of charitable organisations and work done by Christians is almost endless. And that is not even considering the Islamic, Hindu, Sikh, Jewish and other religious charities and work done.

Another take on this is that actually the proselytising and 'missionary' work which religious groups carry out is intrinsically valuable in itself. You're vulnerable, isolated and marginalised. You lost contact with your family a long time ago, your only friends, if you have any, are in the same position as you. Nobody really cares whether you live or die. Actually, to have somebody tell you that God loves you unconditionally and thinks you're worth fighting for; and further, to have somebody persist in trying to show you this, to invite you into a community of people who say they will pray for you, want you to be saved, want you to be the best person you can be; don't underestimate the power that can have on somebody to make the first step towards changing their life, going into detox, staying out of prison, in a way which a secular practitioner or service provider often does not.

Equally, it goes without saying that homeless and vulnerable people have exactly the same emotional and social aspirations as anybody else - including to explore and engage with their spirituality or faith. I was involved in a long-term project several years ago, working with over 1,000 street homeless people, almost 70% of whom said that they had a faith or belief of some kind, yet fewer than a quarter of them said that they had ever had a support worker or other practitioner engage with them over it. And the vast majority of those who said they had a faith felt that if their faith or God were more instrumental in their lives, they'd feel encouraged in coming face to face with their problems.

And this disclaimer shouldn't be necessary or have any weight on what came before it: but I'm not any kind of religious and have no personal axe of faith to grind. And nor am I a particularly good person.

Just food for thought.

The underlying question is what is the good or moral way to live ones life. Is it good because as highly evolved, self aware, reasoning beings we have worked it out. Or is it good because god wills it.

People without faith do good because they have reasoned its the right thing to do.

But what would happen if tomorrow it was proved no gods existed, would people of faith run out onto the streets murdering people? Or what if a god commanded them to kill heathens?

The worry is that religion can make good people do bad things.

So where do people of faith get their morality from? God or their humanity?

Cantspell it was my brother and sister combined who both had to fly in from different countries.

Fascinating question, Julie. I might turn that round and say where do all humanity get their intrinsic sense of right and wrong from? Can it merely be attributed to evolutionary process,.or is there something beyond that? Does that explain why we know - beyond all doubt know - that it is simply wrong to abuse a child? Or that it is the right thing to do to protect the most.vulnerable in society? The survival of the fittest narrative.doesnt go far.enoufh in explaining why we.know this. All that might give us is a societal level belief which helps us reproduce because our ancestors found altruism to bring favourable circumstances, and doesn't actually come down to an extreme morality. And yet we still know, don't we. That's why we go above and beyond, and protect the weak even when they are of no use to our survival. And why we as humans do this across tribes, unlike any altruism shown by other animal groups. Because we connect to an intrinsic morality rather than one formed by societal rules.

Sorry about typos. Typing too quickly on phone

Everyone knows about faith, hope and charity.

But when you're homeless, you have neither faith, hope nor charity (mostly).

Going to church every day while you're homeless is going to change your situation. Saying 10 decades of the Rosary isn't going to change your situation. God works through people. So a bollox saying a prayer over me when I'm starving is both a useless idiot, but a stupid idiot too. Does he think him saying a fucking prayer over me is how God works? No. God works through people. I.E. for the more devout Christians here, THAT MEANS PEOPLE DO THE WORK. Saying a fucking prayer over a homeless person ain't going to help them honey! Sorry to burst your bubble.

People who are street homeless are very very very very very fucking different to homeless who have accommodation.

Any of you who have commented on working with homeless have been working with classified homeless but not street homeless.
Try working with us guys.

Madhairday - your username does you an injustice as you sound like the sanist poster here, hair aside.

I would disagree with your views on Christians.

Please don't used the Irish Catholic Church as a benchmark standard for what is Christian. #rookie error.

I guarantee you none of you will have actually worked with street homeless. Because we are not allowed on your register. I've walked miles upon miles upon miles upon miles for 2 months going here there and yonder to places that 'will help you'. Would they fuck. Only for my brother and sister came over I'd be dead now as it was getting into Autumn and I have severe asthma.
But, you know what, I'm still here. And I will fight for homeless people and the weakest in society until my dying breath.

Christian churches can do whatever they do. It's really none of my business.

If you drew a Venn diagram of people who are actively trying to live a Christ-like life and people who turn up to church a lot, there would be a significant overlap but certainly not just one circle. There's an awful lot of presenteeism in churches on a Sunday morning, the social highlight of the week for some. Some people don't even listen to the sermon: the vicar can tell, btw.

In my experience the "good Christians" are still at it the rest of the week. Maybe they support the food bank and the refugee collections. Maybe they help with the home communion or the young parents group. Maybe they write letters to their MPs or prisoners of conscience.

A good Christian might not put 50p in a homeless person's cup, but I hope they'd at least make eye contact with a friendly smile, rather than hurrying past looking the other way.

To me, as in my opening post, the good Samaritan, who helps someone who maybe doesn't deserve to be helped is ten times better than some Christian who dresses up like she's off to a wedding and sings her praises to the Lord for all her blessings and then does fuck all after she walks out of church.

"Please don't used the Irish Catholic Church as a benchmark standard for what is Christian. #rookie error."

I agree it shouldn't be a benchmRk for Christians. But it honestly can't be ignored in any discussion of the Christian Church......

When I was doing my degree I came across Donald E Brown's interesting lists of human universals: that is to say, things every community of humans has in common, regardless of cultural remoteness or origins. Some are just kind of biologically obvious e.g. baby talk/motherese, crying, diurnality. But some are moral, e.g. admiration of generosity, concepts of fairness, resistance to abuse of power, forbidding murder, and certain taboos including mother/son incest. Worth remarking that both rape and proscription of rape are universal.

Did I deserve to be given money for cigarettes, alcohol or food for two months by strangers? 80% of you would probably decide that in 'survival of the fittest', I should have been left to die. I.e. 80% of you would not give a penny to me. Do you ever wonder how homeless women cope with periods? Where do you go to the toilet? How can you afford tampons? You have no money. Is it ok to beg for money for tampons? Is it ok to beg for money for food? Is it ok to beg for money for alcohol? Is it ok to beg for money for tobacco?

Do any of you ever think through the reality of homelessness before you say to yourself 'Oh dear no, I'm just encouraging them' when you see a homeless person?

I think the bible mentions beggars incidentally. Jesus had sympathy for them I believe.

You've no idea what 'some Christian who dresses up like she's off to a wedding and sings her praises to the Lord for all her blessings and then does fuck all after she walks out of church' actually does, she may contribute to charities, may have a terrible home life who the hell knows?

Youre angry, I get that. Probably with very good reason but stop projecting all your bitterness onto these collective 'church goers'. Life is full of kind and selfish people regardless of which church they may or may not go to.

Very interesting post MrsHathaway. How the fuck did slavery slip through the cracks then?

I'm projecting my anger onto hypocrites. Is that ok?

What a load of self indulgent claptrap.

I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT THE PRIEST WAS CATHOLIC.
I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT THE LIDL SECURITY GUARD WAS A BAPTIST BECAUSE I SAW HIM GO INTO CHURCH TWO DAYS LATER.

Some of you must have lived charmed lives. I certainly wouldn't wish my life on anyone, but I think unless you've lived a certain life, you'll just never understand.

It would be like me going onto a discussion about what class of cutlery and china to serve for Christmas dinner.

What a useful addition to the discussion nokidshere.