And hwen you will be rich you'll jsut buy your way to slavation.

The end result is that poor people are getting the aid they need. That's what matters.

My uncle sends $500/month to Kenya and makes a trip once or twice a year to a small village there. Because of him, about 30 Kenyan children are housed, educated, fed, receive medical care, and are safe from the various dangers that run rampant through that region. He's also Captain Christian and goes there to teach the children his faith in Christ. Do I agree with his religion? No, not at all.

On the other hand, it's his faith. His life is completely intertwined with the teachings of Christ. I doubt he could imagine a situation where it doesn't pervade his life so he brings that religion to those children. And exactly what is it that Christ teaches? Love, compassion, forgiveness, etc. How is that a bad thing? I don't agree with it personally but I'm not going to sit high-and-mighty in front of a computer and talk down his efforts to help children because he's out there doing it. I'm not. At the end of the day, those 30 kids are safe and educated because of his deeds. End of story.

The end  result is that 30 poor, helpless kenyan children are indoctrinated ina religion.

Why do you need Christianity to care about "love, compassion and forgiveness"? And what makes you think that's all Christianity is about? What about the controlling of every aspect of people's lives? What about discouraging Africans to use condoms, which has led to the AIDS crisis over there? What about the fact that it's illegal to be gay in some of those countries because of Christians?

Thats the way I look at it.

As much as I want someone to know that Jesus loves them, and for them to know him in a personal way, it never has, nor ever will, get in the way of helping someone. I've helped out at church-based food pantries, homeless shelters, clothing centers, gathered items to give away to the needy, and helped cook food for the homeless/needy.

At times, do we tell them God loves them? Yes. The only way your going to have a problem with that is your someone like Sapphi that seems to think that any mention of religion needs to be abolished. It seems that America's 1st amendment shouldn't apply to him. Nevertheless, just like my freedom to say "Hey! Jesus loves you!", that same person can say "Hey! Fu*k Jesus!". He has the same rights I do. Situations like that have happened, and it doesn't stop a Christian from helping that person, or continuing to help others.

The 1st Ammendement certainly doesn't apply in those 3rd world countries. And what I was saying is that you don't do those acts of charity to help people, but to convert them. You can do that, but it shows that you don't really care about helping people as much as you care about proselytizing.

I must have missed the part where I said I agreed with every principle of Christianity.

Have you read the Bible? I assure you that's exactly what it's about... whether it's taught that way is another issue entirely.

But go ahead and continue to minimize the life-saving roles several religions play in poor and violent areas while you sit on your ass and do NOTHING about it.

On the other hand, I'm not one to point fingers at other people who are at least trying to help, even if I don't agree with their methodology.

As with every other argument I've seen you make, you are completely incapable of seeing grey area in favor of loudly proclaiming the black and whites of a situation.

I really enjoy that you pretend to know the motivations behind others' charity.

Really man, you're coming off as a know-it-all condescending ass here.

If they wanted to help people for real, they'd separate that from their proselythizing, instead of taking advatage of the people they "help".

Regarding the Bible, I stopped reading at Leviticus.

Sapphi,

Given the fact you have nothing to do with Christianity, I don't understand how you can claim to know why we do it, then condemn us for it despite likely never being in a church (much less a protestant, ministry-focused church). Helping others is a deeply personal part of the Christian faith. You can condemn all you want, but the fact is, people like Joe are helping others while you are at home doing nothing. By your age, I was spending a day a week or more helping deliver tonnes of food to my local food pantry to help the poor. You can say that I did it because it was a ploy, but the fact is, people were getting fed. Comparatively, by your own admission, you've fed no one. You've clothed no one. You haven't helped the homeless. Even if my faith was false, I still made the world a better place than you did by helping distribute food to those that needed it.

I would suggest that before you condemn Christians for thier ploys, you get out there, do exactly what they are doing in terms of helping the poor, then come and tell us that we're being awful for mentioning Jesus to them. I think that you'll find out that when your helping the poor, you will share your worldview with them, because you want to help them get out of the situation they are in, and to help them out of poverty by whatever means neccessary.

But until you do that, I don't think you need to come in these threads, throw out your hate speech, and then expect everyone to be OK with you deriding their work.