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Christian Ethics and its role in the process of making ethical decisions
Christian Ethics and its role in the process of making ethical decisions
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God has given us the greatest commandment of all, “Love your neighbor as yourself”. However, the reality is we fall short of following through. We have a tendency to close our eyes and walk away, from people less fortunate then ourselves. God gave us this law to follow, then we should be able to do so, but the sad thing is we are not living up to his commandment. Our lack of knowledge or ignorance may be the cause of our self-centeredness.
Majorities of people in society today look down and walk away from the poor. According to some people, they are useless people we have to take care of. “They don’t contribute anything to society as they are unemployed and poor. They are just a nuisance to our society”. 1999 - 2009 ShelleyTheRepublican.com. We have the media and the government is influencing us on how to treat the poor. Don’t associate with the poor because they do bad things, for example, they commit crimes and do drugs. They most likely dropped out of school, so they do not have an education to get a job. “Sometimes there's a suspicion that their condition is their own fault, that they're simply lazy or inferior”. Based on, a 1989 compilation by myself, Andrés Tapia, and Arnie Fishman. Blaming the poor for making their situation is good excuse for not helping them. Especially in America where there is no reason to be poor, because this is the land of opportunity. Some people assume the poor have more opportunities then the middle class does. For example, there is food stamps ,low income housing, and they have the government paying health care all this is available to them. The Attitude for a lot people I work hard and my tax dollars goes to them so why should do any more. Anyway, they are poor because they choose n...
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...atest commandment of all is to Love your neighbor as yourself. We are human and our love is not always in our hearts. This commandment is telling us to let go of our selfish ways. At times, we see this commandment as not a reality for our world today. At times, we cannot show love to our enemies. Life can get to busy to take time and feed the poor, and the poor people need to take care of themselves. We are only human and can only do so much. Whether they appreciate you, or respond to your love, Jesus’ command is still valid: You must show love to your neighbor in a practical way. God said to his people to use of our earthly resources (our riches) should manifest our experience of divine mercy by graciously relieving the poverty of others. This grace demonstrates the sincerity of our love: Charles P. Krauth, Conservative Reformation and its Theology, 1871.
More often than not, the homeless are viewed as weak and helpless. They are seen in movies as street beggars, and are vehicles of pity and remorse to touch the hearts of the viewers. Moreover, the media trains its audiences to believe that homelessness comes from the fault of the person. They are “bums, alcoholics, and drug addicts, caught in a hopeless downward spiral because of their individual pathological behavior” (427). In reality, it is the perpetuating cycle of wealth that keeps them in at a standstill in their struggles. The media only condones this very same cycle because it trains the masses to believe that people are poor due to their bad decisions. This overall census that the poor are addicts and alcoholics only makes it easier to drag their image further through the mud, going as far as calling them “crazy.” This is highlighted in shows such as Cops, or Law & Order. With the idea that these people are bad news it is easy to “buy into the dominant ideology construction that views poverty as a problem of individuals” (428). Although some of the issues of the poor are highlighted through episodic framing, for the most part the lower class is a faceless group who bring no real value to the
The article “As American As Apple Pie” is about, poverty and welfare and how they are looked down upon and treated with suspicion or outright antagonism, and how many associate those in poverty with negative stereotypes often seen as deviant such as homeless, lazy, and criminals. Mark R. Rank points out how poverty across the world is a lot more normal than we think it might be. Some people are at greater risk than others, depending on age, race, gender, family structure, community of residence, education, work skills, and physical disabilities. This article provides the readers with data and analysis of American poverty and welfare over the course of the past 25 years. Rank also talks about how we have framed the poverty issue, and how we should frame it.
Hooks pointed out that many of his professors insinuated that there were negative stereotypes of being poor. Moreover, that self-esteem is linked to financial wealth; women he met with were on government assistance, but chose to get further in debt to appear to have money, never wanting to be labeled poor. Hooks was raised to believe that morals and values made one rich; that one could have all the money in the world but still be poor because of their attitude. Who’s accountable for why people in our society are poor? It’s seems a vicious circle that is hard for poor kids to escape. Many people with low incomes are “intelligent, critical thinkers struggling to transform their circumstances” (Hooks, p. 488) There are many resources, such as theaters that are empty all day, to pay it forward and help the less fortunate gain skills from college students and professors sharing their knowledge. Barbara Ehrenreich’s “How I Discovered the Truth About Poverty” questions why negative stereotypes of untrustworthiness in poor people. Because of this mistrust, the introduction of drug testing for government aid was passed. Why are those negative connotations associated with poverty? “Poverty is not, after all, a cultural aberration or a character flaw. Poverty is a shortage of money.”
Dr. Richards develops the claim about the importance of loving your neighbor by first writing about his personal anecdote. He talks about how he began to understand the patterns in the Bible, which was “God’s abiding concern for the poor,” and how God awaits us to be concerned about the poor. By stating those patterns, the author emphasizes the importance of caring for the poor. Then, he inserts evidences to support his claim about God’s concern using some Bible verses such as Matthew 22:34-40 and Luke 10:30-35; the author uses these two verses to explain how “love your neighbor as yourself” is
...th what little they have, however; why is it left to the poor to have to suffer the consequences of these political choices. The persistence of extreme poverty and social ills speak to a situation that bears for a different approach. It is clear that capitalism and free market solutions cannot spread wealth as advocated. American governments have shown their reluctance to admit this discrepancy through the strategic creations of welfare policies and welfare reform coupled with placing blame upon the citizens who possess little power to change market decisions that govern and effect their lives.
In addition, the poor are overburdened they always have been, especially in 2014. This is owing to the fact that the middle class is close to disappearing, which is forming a large gap between the poor and the rich. Furthermore, banking can be more expensive for nearly all poor people, whom are usually put in extreme circumstances where they are required to pay more taxes. And the poor are usually shut out from society and are left on the street as if they were a piece of garbage, which is why it is particularly difficult to attain a job as a poor person. Not many people in the world care for the poor. It is surprising to think that the poor had not been oppressed in 1791. Someone would think the poor have always had a heavy burden. The majority of America’s population is poor and they are ignored and portrayed as aliens whom we should have no contact with.
A Model of Christian Charity points us in the direction of enlightenment through the love of God based on mutual respect and adoration, never lustful or sinful, and following in the spirit of connected separate bodies. John Winthrop ask his people to love one another as neighbors, as brotherly bonds whom strengthen pure love and separate this love from carnal love on a model of affection. Winthro...
Today's news is full of speculation and debate about the national debt, taxes and potential cuts to vital programs that serve those in need. However, the conversation often seems overly caught up in the finer points of politics and media coverage rather than the real people that these decisions affect. I think it's fair to say that American attitudes toward the poor are more often than not, disdain and fear. There's a common myth that people are forced into poverty because they are simply lazy or inferior, the truth is it is harder to feed and clothe your family than ever before. Poverty in this country is not accidental, it is a direct result of funneling wealth upstream; the rich get richer and the poor suffer. " The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want " Mark 14:7.
The idea that people of poor communities conform to a living standard and behavior is a concept described by Oscar Lewis as the culture of poverty. It is the belief that poor people consists of their own beliefs and values and behaviors. And more than 45 years later after the term, the culture of poverty paradigm remains the same: there is a consistent and observable culture that is shared by people in poverty. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as the culture of poverty. differences in behaviors and values among those that are poor are just as significant as those between wealthy and poor. The culture of poverty is a construct of smaller stereotypes which seem to have implanted themselves into the collective conscience of mainstream thought as undeniable fact. However, as we will see, nothing could be further from the truth. Based on 6 most common myths of what defines poor from wealthy, I will provide evidence to the contrary.
People living in poverty can be thought of as a “them” who can be easily ignored and forgotten; when, in reality, poverty can affect anyone. When people are living in poverty, sometimes it is not their fault. Often, unfortunate events that are out of someone’s control can set them up for failure. For example, the poverty rate for disabled adults from the age of 18-64 is 28.5%, while disabled 18-64 year olds only make up 7.7% of America’s population (Proctor, Semega, and Kollar 16). Therefore, poverty disproportionately affects disabled adults. The stories of those living in poverty are incredibly diverse, as Sasha Abramsky points out in The American Way of Poverty:
In Christianity, the emphasis is placed on love of God rather than on obeying his will. People must believe that God is merciful and loves them as well. As a reflection of God’s love, people must also love other people (and the whole humanity in general) and forgive their enemies. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus endorses agape, or selfless love (in contrast to eros, or possessive love), which consists of dedication to another person’s good, even at the expense of our own good and happiness. People should practice peace and nonviolence, return good for evil and love for suffering (“turn the other cheek”).
According to Schwartz-Nobel, America will lose as much as 130 billion in future productive capacity for every year that 14.5 American children continue to live in poverty (Koppelman and Goodhart, 2007). Sadly the seriousness of poverty is still often clouded by myths and misunderstandings by society at large. This essay studies the issue of poverty and classism in today's society.
Many people assume that those who live in poverty are just lazy and do not want to get a job. The people in poverty have this stereotype because they need help and do not manage very well to get by. The stereotype of being lazy these people have is very much not the case for all of them. As for many of us we are on the outside looking in and do not realize how hard it really is to live in poverty and deal with it. We need to realize that in our country we have a huge problem. People who live in poverty are hard workers and should be given an opportunity to contribute to society, one way to help them do so it with welfare which is something we need to reform.
Economic inequality is ingrained in our society. Because of this fact, many would argue that “that’s just how it is,” but in reality this is not how a community is suppose to function. As Michael Sandel writes in his book Justice, “As inequality deepens, rich and poor live increasingly separate lives.” Sandel makes an excellent point. As economic divisions, such as the ones present in the United States, worsen, the classes diverge on every level. Wealthy people attend different schools, purchase luxury cars, and live in gated communities. Meanwhile, the poor live in squalor, use public transportation, and attend failing schools. Aside from the lack of a quality education making it harder to escape poverty, the poor are from birth at a disadvantage to those on the other side of the economic scale. The United States is not a land of guaranteed equality of result, that is...
Do the poor in this country have a choice not to be poor? Do the less fortunate have the same access to opportunities as the middle and upper classes? Do government programs designed to help the impoverished actually keep them in the lower ranks? These are all difficult and controversial questions. Conservatives and Liberals constantly battle over these issues in our state and federal governments. Local and national news media provide limited insight to the root causes and effects of the nation’s poor. There is obviously no simple solution to resolve the plight of these often forgotten citizens. Most of us associate poor as being in a class below the poverty line. In fact there are many levels of poverty ranging from those with nothing, to those with enough to survive but too little to move up. I believe many of our nation’s poor are so by their own doing. I will share observations and personal experiences to support the argument that being poor often is a result of individual choice. One needs merely inspiration and perspiration to move up the socio-economic ladder in the United States. We live in the land of opportunity where anyone with the drive and determination to succeed often can.