The other day, I over heard some people talking religion and politics at a bar( bad, I know!! LOL!!) and one of them had a crazy sort of conspirasy theory that atheisim was brought about by some sort of secret socialist society in order to advance the US towards a more socialist society. The thought behind it was that since churchs do alot for the needy and such, it lessons the demand or need for government and its help. Now I know what all he said was far fetched, but it got me to thinking about it. Of all the churches Ive known, they all do alot for the needy such as food drives, raising money, getting volunteers to help with various things and such. I cant say for certain that all churches do this, but I would assume most do. Makes me wonder, is there any figure out there on just how much goes to the needy via churches compared to what the government provides? Is there much debate over which is better regarding the needy? Has there been a distinct shift from church help to government help over the years? Finally, could there really be some sort of tie between atheisim and socialisim regarding the needy?
Whatever they were drinking made the conspiracy theorist a real nut job! Atheism has been around a lot longer than America, heck it has been around longer than Christianity! Over the past 100-150 years there has been an increase in what government agencies at all levels have done to help the poor. Faith based groups have then picked up the ones that have fallen through the cracks. In addition as government has cut back its aid, faith based groups have picked up some of the slack. One thing though. At least in the parts of the country where I have lived, many of the names on dedication plaques for county homes, hospitals, etc are the same names as those on the dedication plaques of local Churches. I think the social justice these folks learned in their congregations was translated by them into a broader community response. I can't assume that is universal, but I have sen it in the Carolina's, D.C., and NW Ohio.
A dear friend of mine who used to be a nun was trying this new conservative-small-government talking point on me the other day. I told her that the churches should help as many of the poor as they possibly can, but that tring to take all government assistance away from the poor and leaving onlt the churches to shoulder the entire burden would probably result in a lot more homeless and hungry. Why not let them both help the truly helpless and put the abusers of the system in jail? They'd get three squares and a roof over their heads there.
Well, this is a fuzzy subject, as some can use the Bible to try and prove either point of view, use tax money to help the poor, or the churches' responsibility is to help the poor and not advocate for tax monies doing so.. Personally I think (atm, could be wrong) that social services can be so massively expensive that congregations could literally never afford to pay for them all, so to my untheological view, God made a way for even the poorest to be able to recieve needed medical treatment. This is also where libertarianism falls down under even semi serious scrutiny.
