1st World Comfort versus 3rd World Suffering

Whilst what you did in Brazil does sound very admirable there is a difference in that Brazil is a very Christian country (though, on an unrelated point of interest, there are 17 million people in Brazil of Jewish decent and it has South America's oldest synagogue) and I don't think many people are on the verge of starvation. In parts of Africa, and this probably does not happen to the extent to which it used to, people ARE starving and have nothing to eat and missionaries were and I believe are still known to provide a good meal as long as the person becomes a Christian which is exploitative and really quite messed up. Why not help people unconditionally? If I give money to charity or to a homeless person on the street I don't expect them to become a Jedi.

It is an interesting point though how do we define a third world country? What Akarrin has said makes sense in terms of economics but if you have a shitty government, you could still probably be a tertiary country and live in the third world, the countries in the former eastern bloc were not big manufacturers or material extractors they just had a poor system of government that meant they were more or less third world. To make an attempt to define a country as third world, or to say what makes a country third world, could you not say that is one that operates a type of government that is to some extent autocratic. By that I mean there are a very small number of people in charge who take absolutely everything, whilst the vast majority of people are left with nothing, some examples of that would be, like Ren said, Zimbabwe or North Korea or many of the countries that have partaken in the Arab Spring like Syria, Egypt or Libya.

On another note what should we be comparing everything to. I live in London and just like in any city, there are parts which are really grotty. However, even in those parts people have enough food to eat, water to drink, clothes to wear, televisions to watch, computers to go on and more. I see kids on the estates near my house wearing Ralph Lauren, Stone Island and D&G clothing, that kind of stuff costs hundreds of pounds!. One of my (former) best friends lived on an estate near me and he always wears clothes that are more expensive than mine, he has a massive TV, a PS3, a blackberry, a decent computer and more. This leaves me with a massive dilemna because I do know that life is a struggle for some people, even in first world countries like the UK, but at the same time, I don't understand how they can complain about how bad life is when they have such material wealth and are even afforded luxuries that people in other parts of the world couldn't dream of having.

Tripp Borz wrote:
4- Without some of those "Christian evangelist", many people would have been a lot worse off and many would die from starvation.

I can't speak for all Christian evangelists, but I know that Mormon missionaries are instructed to teach those that desire baptism in the Mormon faith that 10% of their income should be paid to a mult-billion dollar corporation before any expense is spared for food or clothing for themselves or their own family. (I have references handy from their own teachings if anyone doubts.) The Mormons do a lot of things right, but this isn't one of them. This isn't just in Brazil either, but everywhere.

So I'm with ren that Christian evangelicals can do more harm then good. Be it known though, that I don't hold this against Mormon missionaries who are only doing what they are told. I blame the Mormon leadership.

Tripp Borz wrote:
But I feel that what we ALL need to solve our problems comes down to this. Compassion, freedom(limited government intervention) and moral conduct aka love thy neighbor and such.

This I agree with.

Technically, "third world" is no longer in use, but, so you guys know, it was actually named by a frenchman based on "tiers peuple" (third people). This tiers peuple were the poor bastards of the ancien regime, the other two categories were noblemen and clergymen. The third world is the world that has nothing but wants everything.

What I'd call third world countries I would say are victims of the whims of the weather. Basically, they have no or little power over their destiny.

The problem I have with evangelists is mostly their retarded ideology. If they want to own mines, fine, I mean the chinese do too. And although the chinese are a problem, they don't lie to get their hands on your junk and whatnot. One side says condoms are against god, the other says *having sex with* a virgin will cure your aids. I mean when the state teachers dont get paid, who do you think dispenses education and with whose money? Who do you think accepts donations from miserable people? Evangelists prey on people's most basic weaknesses and flaws to better control them... Any good they do can be easily matched by one of our first world bums.

That "Multi-billion dollar corporation" has many humanitarian projects going on in Zimbabwe. True that it is encouraged to donate 10% of your income as a tithe but even that can be itemized to go where you want it to go. If you're interested in the humanitarian projects the lds(Mormon) church has going on go ahead and visit lds.org. Most of the aid is actually centered around helping them to help themselves and I know that some of it may be dependent upon joining the lds church(scholarships for example) the majority is NOT. I participated in many humanitarian projects myself and non of them were related to helping a church but rather helping an entire community. In Africa alone there are over 200 projects going on.

Tripp Borz wrote: That "Multi-billion dollar corporation" has many humanitarian projects going on in Zimbabwe. True that it is encouraged to donate 10% of your income as a tithe but even that can be itemized to go where you want it to go.

You can designate where you want your donations to go, but the church will do what it damn well pleases with it as designated on the tithing slip here:

http://disreport.net/2012/06/04/lds-church-changes-important-wording-on-new-tithing-slips/

Up to and including funding the City Creek Shopping Center that is estimated to be between 1.5 - 5 billion dollars in downtown SLC. Anytime you have a church that spends more money on retail and development over humanitarian aid looks more like a corporation than a church to me.

In the United Kingdom where the LDS church is required to open their financial books you can see that they only donated a small percentage of their humanitarian donations and the rest is earning interest in their bank (if you want the links for this, I can provide them). Since the LDS church won't open their books in the U.S. we have no idea what percentage of their actual humanitarian donations go to those that need it. And based on the link I sent you above, they can use those funds for retail development if they want because it's "their property" after receiving it.[/quote]

Tripp Borz wrote: If you're interested in the humanitarian projects the lds(Mormon) church has going on go ahead and visit lds.org. Most of the aid is actually centered around helping them to help themselves and I know that some of it may be dependent upon joining the lds church(scholarships for example) the majority is NOT. I participated in many humanitarian projects myself and non of them were related to helping a church but rather helping an entire community. In Africa alone there are over 200 projects going on.

Helping the poor help themselves has a lot of merit (teach a man to fish, as it were) and they do a good job in that fashion. But what's really messed up is how much they nickel and dime their own members to fund these projects when they have billions in reserves as evidenced by the mall they built.

An example of this is something called Friends of Scouting they do in the U.S. Every year local Mormon congregational leadership asks and begs for money from those Mormon members that are already donating 10% of their income. Usually these local congregations can scrap together a few thousand dollars to fund their young men's activities and often times at a sacrifice to themselves. My parents are prime examples of this: they donate because they trust the local leadership is inspired of God to ask for their money when they have very little to spend and survive as it is. And then you have Mormon missionaries (again, just doing what they are told) asking the poor and down-trodden to also give up 10% of their money to a rich church.

Why is the Mormon church asking for this money when they have BILLIONS already based on all the businesses they own? It doesn't make sense. But until they open the books in the US (which is while I'll never donate another dime to them) and have some accountability on how their funds are spent, we'll never know why they spend their money and ask for it the way they do.

It's obvious you have some strong feelings here LTK. I'm not going to make it a me vrs you here. I don't want to go there. I personally have no problem with the mission and goal of the lds church, which is why I have no problem giving them 10% of my earnings. And I do this willingly. The beautification of down town salt lake was a project taken by the church to give a place for people to get jobs and just make it look nice in general. Humanitarian at its heart I believe. Right at its home!

You do have a problem so don't give your money to them. Like we've said. It's encouraged to donate. I feel it's the least one can do.

Let me clarify, by personal I mean the hijacking of the thread. I just wanted to comment on this post because of my experience in what I see as a under developed country. If course these experiences are from my point of Brie and of my understanding of what an underdeveloped country is. If you want to go ahead and start up a pros and cons of the Mormon church and is gladly participate.

No edit huh? Lol

Tripp Borz wrote: No edit huh? Lol

Haha...nope. Only get an hour to make your changes!

I get what you're saying in the previous posts. I will respectfully not derail this thread any longer, haha. I don't want to find myself in a narrative of Sapadu's like ren and Desolous found themselves, haha.

MTFBWY,
LTK

out of interest, how comes you have to give it to the church? In Judaism (and I think maybe in Islam as well) you are supposed to give 10% but to any sort of charity, not the church itself. A good pal of mine gives 20% of what he earns to help people in Israel who have been effected by war / terrorist attacks, it seems pretty swell to me as well because he gets to meet the people he helps and see where his money goes.