Prayers for the dead

Qyöt27 said:

Personally I think we (general we, as a country) need more of this kind of exposition. Sort of like, as mentioned above, lots of the perception of Hell owes more to Dante (or Milton) than it does Scripture.

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I agree. A lot of Christians have been taught that there are things in the Bible that aren't really there. Or they have been taught a certain interpretation of the text that has a certain bias that they need to know about. They often come to assume that the bias is the only way to interpret the text when there may be several other ways of looking at it that are just as valid or more valid.

Absolutely Circuitwriter; something many don't see or refuse to belief. Often they'll point to one or two people who, through extraordinary talent, incredible preservation and hard work, made it out of those sort of systems of poverty. Even then, we have an expectation that most people should try reasonably hard, and poor people should be exceptional. And un-exceptional poor people who don't put every ounce of their abilities into somehow making themselves better, then they don't deserve any of our help.

In the community I serve, which is striken with poverty, I see a horrible amount of financial incompetence as well. These ARE hard-working people, but they don't know how to better themselves and they don't know how to manage their finances. Often being suckered into extremely high interest loans. For example, a young man I talked to needed a car for work. He graduated high school with good grades, but never even CONSIDERED college. Nobody in his family ever went to college, few even graduated high school. Frankly, the kid has nobody in his family who had any experience with things like applications, scholarships, etc. He has no clue HOW to go to college. Then he needed a car for work, so he went where his parents went. A buy-here pay-here slum lot with 25% interest on old junker cars with a price double what they were worth. His car payment is higher for his 100,000 mile clunker than mine is for my 2014 Focus. He had no idea that he could've qualified for a traditional car loan at a dealer, or even a personal loan at a bank for a nice used car. But his parents have bad credit so he assumed he did too.

But there are plenty who will write him off as simply lazy, and he'll continue to be in poverty!

It's largely a disconnection; people that have no first-hand experience of how much of a vicious circle poverty is can't usually be expected to fully comprehend it, or sympathize with it (sure, there's some sympathy, or rather pity, but no action to try and change the situation from a position that actually could have an impact). It's the same with various mental illnesses, with are often extremely co-morbid with poverty and carry much of the same stigma.

And there's also a lot to be said for psychological projection and self-hatred, too. Those have the effect of causing people to vote against their own best interests because of their own bruised egos. I've seen that first-hand my entire life, and the 'measures' that get recommended by 'Christian' sources (read: pundits and self-appointed 'financial gurus') to 'improve' things don't - but they do feed into problems that may already exist. Again, that's based on first-hand experience in my own family.

In that mindset, the poor and mentally ill deserve to be punished, and severely, rather than be shown any kind of mercy or have assistance to get help. Stuff it down, 'work harder', and don't complain, because the only ones with a right to complain are those of us lucky enough to never have been in your position. 'Patronizing' is putting it kindly.

There seems to be an attitude in many faith circles that if one person can do something, everyone else should be able to as well. Whether it is to overcome addictions, physical illness, beseting sins, poverty, you-name-it. And if you don't; it means you are lazy. Or weak. Or something else equally bad.

I suppose I as a guitar player should be able to play as well as Hendrix, Segovia and Keaggy.

Sorry - that will never happen.

That's it Dave! Not recognizing privilege, or how we've been blessed. Or even our own natural talents or abilities.