Whose responsibility is it to protect unhoused when it’s freezing outside? An Ohio pastor opened his church to the homeless and was charged by city.

    • OpenStars@startrek.website
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      26
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      8 months ago

      Don’t lose heart - it’s not all this way.

      But yeah, we can’t hold out faith in it any longer either :-(.

      Fwiw, did you notice the silver lining? Pastor willing to go to jail (or whatever, I haven’t read the details that closely yet, but let’s presume - anyway it’s likely true) rather than give up on his beliefs. He will die on this hill, so that they do not have to:-D. Yeah, fuck the system that made him do it, but still it’s quite inspiring that people like him exist that will fight against it:-).

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        8 months ago

        It is. It throws me a bit sometimes. So used to seeing religion being nothing more than a tool of the powerful against the weak aligned with the government against us. The government makes our life hell, the shamans teach us that it can’t be otherwise.

        And then once in a rate while a religious leader puts themselves in harm’s way for someone else and I don’t know what to make of it. How can you spend 99,999 being awful and 1 day being good? Makes no sense.

        • OpenStars@startrek.website
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          8 months ago

          Shaman is a good word there - like the ancient Incan and Mayan civilizations, that kept the power of the oligarchy in check by having a… second oligarchy, side-by-side with it. If the king ever didn’t like a priest they could kill them, while if a priest didn’t like the king they could demand a human sacrifice “at random” of their son/daughter - so checks & balances. It is one of those “neat tricks” that evolution uses, to keep the masses in check underneath the authority of a few. And quite frankly it even makes sense - why train every single peasant farmer how to use a sword & read & such, if you can have 1,000 peasants just doing their illiterate thing in the fields, for every one child that you put a TON of effort into being able to do so much more? (or I guess rather, do differently / higher - like learning sword fighting is an enormous investment of training & skill)

          That said, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that this preacher guy is probably a genuinely good dude? I mean like 24/7 or at least more than half the day, or at least more than 1/100,000 as you mentioned? Okay I still haven’t even read the article tbh, but religion has no monopoly at all on evil - like the Catholic church isn’t the only entity in the news lately for diddling children, Epstein and others do that just as often if not more so; though crucially, less hypocritically so.

          I’m even going to say something a bit unpopular here: 100 years or so from now, there will be dumb atheists. Right now most atheists are “first-generation” in the sense that someone chooses their own views, even if their parents also held identical views. e.g. the vast majority of atheists today know what the word “agnosticism” means, and has made a decision which one they are. But eventually, it will become fashionable, and stupid people will not do the questioning part, and instead just go ahead and say it simply to fit in, b/c it’s what they’ve heard others do (that’s another fantastic “good trick” used extremely often by evolution - it takes a lot less effort to accomplish mimicry than to do the whole entire Real Deal, e.g. a butterfly’s wings that look like another set of eyes).

          Anyway, whether the guy believes in God or not, it’s awesome that he helped out the homeless.:-) Even if other Christians might not have done the same - although popular stories lately aside, Jesus Himself was quite adamant that this kind of thing MUST be done, by anyone who would call themselves one of his followers. e.g. Matthew 25:34-40, tldr: “whatever you do to the least person, it’s like you did it directly to me”.

        • theneverfox@pawb.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          8 months ago

          Because they’re not the same people. Pastors don’t buy themselves a mansion and also open up their home to people in need… You get one or the other. Some of them do it for the authority, but some just want to serve and keep a community healthy.

          Look at this pope compared to the last one. The last one was basically a career priest. This one went around, physically, helping poor people.

          The last one was pretty conservative and anti-gay, this one is just pro-human

    • maness300@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      Eh, it’s really a cultural problem among the people in it.

      Anyone who thinks the disparity in wealth should grow instead of shrink is part of the problem.

      Greed is something democrats and republicans can routinely unite on because they’re both in on it.

      • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        8 months ago

        It might be part of the culture, but there is a class of people with substantially more wealth who are able to direct legislation to cause people to be charged like this pastor. The vast majority of people I think anywhere on earth would believe you should help the needy, but the average people don’t have a say like the wealthy class does, and this class has it’s own distinct culture which praises greed and growth.

      • EdibleFriend@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 months ago

        No it took 41 years of living here and seeing what we are like.

        And I’m curious what you’re talking about because clearly you’re not talking about this headline. This is a headline showing cold hard facts about what happened so you must be discussing others?

        • gaifux@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          6
          ·
          8 months ago

          The site literally has this article classified as an opinion piece. It’s in the URL.

          • EdibleFriend@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            8 months ago

            Because the person went into their opinions on the matter. But, glossing over you trying to downplay this because of a tag, please tell me how this is OK based on that tag?

            • gaifux@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              6
              ·
              8 months ago

              I’m good bro. Sounds like you already made your mind up, based on cold hard facts

              • EdibleFriend@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                4
                ·
                edit-2
                8 months ago

                In other words you have fuck all to defend this other then a tag on an article.

                But hey! Ill even play the part you couldn’t have. ‘The law says no sleeping there! no eating there!’

                Those zoning laws are in place to make sure people don’t try to use places like this as a restaurant or as an apartment. They can, of course, be overlooked on a case by case basis, which they always are when its not about daring to help the homeless. According to laws like this pancake dinners in church’s are illegal. Eating the eucharistic is illegal, as, yes, that is serving food. No city is shutting down churches for these things, would never even consider it.

                The law is overlooked all the damn time based on whats actually happening. This is not the city having their hand tied by a law and regrettably having to enforce it. This is, obviously, the city not wanting the homeless to be helped which is literally POLICY IN SO MANY PLACES

                • gaifux@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  6
                  ·
                  8 months ago

                  I appreciate your honesty in introducing a strawman. I won’t be defending your arguments bud lol

                  • EdibleFriend@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    ·
                    8 months ago

                    In other words you have absolutely nothing other then a tag on an article to say its acceptable to throw the homeless back out on the street in record low temps.