Christian Charity Hypocrites are a JOKE!

Atheist students in Denver get banned books after delivering food items and cash donations. Most are committed to such donations but also to government as being a lever for social justice- unlike the fundies who squawk about government - but are first at the door for their own handouts, benefits!  

Hypocrisy is always a peculiar infection because the person most afflicted doesn't see himself as anything like a hypocrite. Because of that, his writings, blogs or whatever, come across as jokes because he himself doesn't fit within the parameters he names.  Consider the fundie blogger who recently lambasted "Obummer" as a "Socialist" and any who follow the social justice theme as being demonic tools.

Immediately, one must roar in laughter at his ignorance because Obama is in no manner, shape or form a "socialist" even by the most daft, stretched definition. Only an ignoramous would label him so. He is a centrist, and that's being generous. No one who's a true Socialist would remotely consider putting Social security on the federal cutting room floor, or Medicare. Nor would a true Socialist have set up any "Deficit Commission" to afford the looney tune deficit hawks an inroad into possible social cuts. So Obama is only a Socialist in the minds of the intellect -gutted who also believe Hitler was a Socialist. (He was a National "Socialist" but the name was a ruse to deflect attention from his fascism.)

Anyway, these same flakes that can't get right Obama's political-economic orientation, then have the chutzpah to rail against Social Justice imperatives, as being "unbiblical". They claim - and cite chapter and verse - to show that people are to donate via charity to assist the poor, and not depend on the government. Yet they themselves are first in line waiting for their disability or other benefits - from the GOVERNMENT! What's at the basis of such cognitive dissonance?

Well, the same dynamic that rails and howls for Veterans' benefits to be protected, while glossing over everyone else's benefits. As if the rest of the nation doesn't count, and those who served in Peace Corps, or in Doctors without Borders, or taught in poor schools are simply 'citizens non grata'.  Zeros.  Hence, it is their very near -sightedness and prejudice which blinds them to the truth.

The other irony is that they are foursquare ready to defend and protect the riches of the wealthiest, forgetting the ancient biblical warning that "it is easier for the camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter heaven".  

Meanwhile, under principles of Social Justice one has the concept of "excess wealth": i.e. owning or possessing material or wealth abundance far in excess of one's normal human needs. I gave examples of this earlier, e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/02/wealthiest-one-percent-get-even-more.html

Thus, when the average American CEO earns 346x more than the average American worker, he is plausibly accumulating excess wealth. The likely way they are gaining such enormous advantage is via the expropriation of worker labor.

By way of example, Marx in his work Kapital  postulated a theory of labor expropriation by which all those who labored in whatever form were made poorer and expendable at the hands of owners and their capital. If the labor value sold as a product was L, and V is the labor value embodied in the production of the item, then the surplus value S is:

S = L - V

Let us say, as an illustration, that a craftsman working for a company is paid $10 an hour to make beautiful mahogany chairs by hand. He takes 10 hours to make one chair, thereby imparting a discrete labor value of 10hr x $10/ hr = $100 into the chair, invested in his blood, sweat and maybe tears. The chair is then sold at retail for $1,000 by the company. Then the surplus value S is:


S = $1,000 - $100 = $900

Hence, in this light, V is the paid labor and S is the unpaid labor. The amount of labor expropriated is therefore equal to $900.

Meanwhile, the rate of surplus value, or the rate of exploitation is:

S/ V

In this case: S/V = $900/ $100 = 9

The appeal to charity or charitable giving as a substitute for government, is meanwhile appealing to certain Xtianoids, but alas impractical. About as much so as Newt Gingrich's idea (in the 2012 campaign) to set up bases on the Moon, given our budget deficits....thanks to unpaid for wars, tax cuts. The facts, however, show it is impossible to sustain all those in need (and these are mainly working poor, not "welfare queens" as the Right seeks to portray) merely by charity.

First, the amount of charitable giving would have to increase nearly 350 times to even meet half the needs of those who regularly need food stamps or medical interventions, because their $8.15 /hr Walmart checks can't cover all expenses. Second, charitable giving by its very nature is external condition dependent. Thus, we beheld after the 2008 market crash it fell more than 40% and food kitchens, pantries ran bare because so many were unable to give - having lost up to half of their 401ks. Thus, unless charitable giving is regimented and rendered predictable - like a gov't VA disability check- it can't be depended upon. "Salvation" will only get you so far in this world, and no where in the next.

The nasty facts of a nation like the U.S. boil down to one: because we have such a miserly social welfare net, people are led to seek a mythical entity for their relief of earthly sorrows. The primary finding of recent research (e.g.  FREE INQUIRY, Vol. 29, No. 1, ‘The Future of Religion’) is that religious belief and activity is a superficial coping mechanism easily cast aside when the majority in a given society enjoy true (not faux) democratic government, and a secure, comfortable and middle class lifestyle.

The core of research (largely statistical) also hows the primary reason the U.S. is a statistical outlier in its hyper- religious belief is income inequality (as measured by the Gini coefficient).  This index has seen inequality increase ever since Bush Jr. was handed his presidency, compliments of the five Supremes, in 2000. (Gini coefficient’ registers the degree of economic and income inequality in any given nation, referenced as a decimal, or more often (in non-technical venues) as a plain number between 0 and 100.)

While Euro nations with greater government protections, services prosper, the U.S., with its historically lower taxes, fewer public safety nets, and more poor than rich (by more than a 25:1 ratio) displays a greater disparity than any other nation. Moreover, it displays a much greater social pathology. Understanding the basis of this pathology doesn’t take a genius. As anyone with more than air between the ears can see, on examining state by state budget deficits now exploding, in every case “re-balancing” is being done on the backs of the poor, the disabled, the elderly and the homeless. The results are predictable: loss of health care, loss of jobs and loss of overall security, as well as increase in drug use, violent criminality and prostitution.

Other factors and pathology –distress indices have already been well documented by Michael Parenti in his book, The Dirty Truth, and these include the U.S. having the highest rates in: teen pregnancies, STDs, infant mortality, suicides, homicides, rapes, incest, child abuse, marriage failure, alcoholism and drug use, as well as industrial accidents and disabling outcomes,  establishing a large population of the chronically disabled and poor. The conclusion is inescapable: given the mass insecurity and economic discomfort:  the victimized citizens will turn to the aid and protection of specious supernatural powers since they can’t expect any relief from government. Fundagelical religion is one of the worst to feed this meme, since it claims to have the sole lock on truth and boils it down to a simple formula: Believe in the Lord JC.  British philosopher Nicholas Humphrey, in his superb book Soul Searching, has an excellent explanation for this clinging to God and religion in the U.S. :

"Religions and quasi-religions offer remarkably effective medicine for orphaned minds. As Jung said: 'They give a human being that sense of wholeness, which he had as a child, but which he loses when he leaves his parents"

In other words, these fundy and other religions keep people in a state of infantilization. In this state it's easier to blame the weak or the poor for their own predicaments, than it is to stand behind government doing the right thing. As the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. put it:

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

Because most of these blinkered religous zealots consume most of their free time wallowing in their good book, they have no time to read widely or beyond it to learn the facts....hence their dumbed down notions, i.e. that Obama and Hitler were "Socialists", and Social justice is a "creation of Satan", etc.
The hard core fundy nut, rejecting government for his sustenance or support, thereby seeks God and religion for solace and a sweet teat to provide the comfort and nurturance otherwise missing in his arid life. The irony is that these same sufferers pillory Europeans as having a “Nanny state”,  but at least the Europeans have a genuine entity from which to elicit assistance, as opposed to a phantasm of the mind.


It is no coincidence that religiosity is low in every first world nation with universal health coverage and high in the only without it. What else can the hapless, beaten-down American do when denied coverage for serious illness? What else besides seek the assistance of his imaginary god, who now also becomes his cost-free healer? (Btw, I don't regard "Obamacare" as true universal health care, since people must pay for their own private insurance as opposed to being covered by one single payer-gov't agency.)

But never mind, in his febrile delusions he will be sure to insist on the rights of the richest to amass more wealth. Never mind they're doing it at HIS expense!