who is the start of poverty? who started it? did we? we know that there are millions of people out there that have it worst than us. there are people out there that are starving but what are we doing? we go around and buy the most unimportant things we don't need. we don't need 4 houses all we need is one!!! we don't need 44 cars all we need is one!!!!!!! why are spending money on the things that we don't actually use or need? And when you are donating your money don't do it because its good image for the public or it makes you look like a good person so everyone will like you after that. do it because its the right thing to do. do it because you know you want to. do it because you know that there are people out there that will do anything to get something to eat. do it because its coming from Your HEART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't think were to blame for poverty completely but I think we play a big role in it. Plus, there are a lot of people that do choose to live that sort of lifestyle while others don't choose. In some ways I do believe it is our fault for the way things are but sometimes it isn't because we can't always control everything in the world.

I agree with you, we shouldn't have that many houses or cars and when we donate we should do it from our hearts. I've always wanted to donate some money to needy children, not for the good image publicly but because I felt it was the right thing to do and because I know so many people out there need our help.

I think the things that make me angry most about this situation is all the people out there that complain about what they don't have..what about the people that have nothing at all. In my opinion we are a lot better off than most people and shouldn't be complaining.

Why should I donate anything? If I had a million dollars, I've earned it. If anything I would give ten percent to the church, but after that, it's my money.

Is it really my problem that people are dying? People die everyday. People die every minute. So, how is my contribution going to affect anything?

It's just a guilt trip to get us to donate to a charity, which most of the time take a portion out of the donation. So, if it was really important to feed the little ones over in Africa, why would these charities need to take a portion out of our donations? If they need that little fraction of our donation to survive as a charity, then they shouldn't be a charity at all. It should be the churches job to help the sick and poor and widowed.

Poverty is not a thing that happened overnight, it is based on the have and have nots and those acting upon greed. As an individual we cannot overcome poverty as poverty at this stage and magnitude is a societal problem where it only be reseolved by word wide unification and a striving towards a common goal. But theres a large problem to "make" everyone do something to better the entirety of the population (liberaltarian ideas coming forth) due to the fact many people are inherently selfish, greedy, and competitive. Therefore on a more realistic note we shold just strive to minimise the gap between societal tiers as we sociologists now from the past (China) that liberaltarianism (communism) is a great idea, but just cant work.

The theory of communism is appealing. But, like you said, it can just never work.

Secondly, we shouldn't eliminate the gap between the tiers. That will only cause socialism and communism. If we place people in tiers that are close together we have almost an equal plane of a population of people.

Our country is great because if we want it, we can get it. To eliminate the wealth would destroy our country. If we head towards socialism, like we are now, we can only get bad results.

I think that you should eliminate competition from your list. Competition is one thing that makes people at least live comfortably. If we didn't have competition we would all fail and our country would go to ruins.

That's REALLY a cold thing to say. You preach the Bible and say you love it so much, yet you have no respect for others and claim that them dying isn't your problem, that's just really sad. As Christians were suppose to be more like Jesus and he would never say - "It's not my problem".

I'm sorry, I'm human. Tell Jesus I said sorry, oh holy one. It's not my problem. It's not directly affecting me. If some one needs my help, surely I will give it to them to the best of my abilities, but what am I suppost to say when some one out of my financial and geographical range needs help? What? Am I suppost to feel pity for them? Because we all know pity works wonders.

It's not a cold thing to say. It's the world. I love in this world. Not everyone was made to be a warm beam of light, like you boast you are.

You know what? Maybe I just need to have the Holy Spirit, one third of the Trinity by the way, to come inside me and speak tongues to praise Him, because He apparently doesn't understand English.

You need to get out of your little fairy tale world and see things as they are.

Even when we believe the scriptures are without error, it is a risk to think our understanding is without error.

I'm sorry you think that way. I'll be praying for you!

Im praying for you too. just becuase you might not have started it doesnt mean its not also your responsibility

First of all, calling yourself human doesn't mean it's right to sin against God. You basically mocked Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Read Acts 2 on the Holy Spirit it might prove something to you.

I disagree in you exclusion of competitiveness as youre saying its what makes your country great, but youre ignoring the fact that your country still has a majority of it living underneath the poverty line. Competiveness breeds selfishness as its many people striving towards one prize, that surely will result in unfair play and someone being disadvantaged. Take a look at the Olympic games, that there is a competition but people still cheat do they not?

QUOTE(.fire @ Mar 19 2007, 4:46 PM)

I disagree in you exclusion of competitiveness as youre saying its what makes your country great, but youre ignoring the fact that your country still has a majority of it living underneath the poverty line. Competiveness breeds selfishness as its many people striving towards one prize, that surely will result in unfair play and someone being disadvantaged. Take a look at the Olympic games, that there is a competition but people still cheat do they not?

i disagree with you, i think JakeKKing is right. think about it. let's pretend we eradicated competition, and nobody starved to death anymore or had to die of poverty. they could start affording health care, food, and other basic amenities, so on a whole, would live longer lives and produce more children. the population would definitely increase more, and then soon enough, cities would get really crowded. as more people try to get jobs, the value of jobs would decrease because the demand for them is so high; so job wages as a whole would decrease. it's also always been said that population grows faster than the speed of production of food. it's inevitable that thousands of people could eventually starve due to the population boom. in other words, increased population = big trouble.

this is the basic concept thomas malthus developed during the industrial revolution. he stated that we need poverty, along with other things like natural disasters and war, to "check excessive population growth". click: the principle of population

Have you ever seen the movie Equilibrium? That's what our society would be like without competition. Competition doesn't create selfishness. Human nature does.

The reason our country has a high poverty rate is because of our government. Our government provides and protects which is wrong. It's only suppost to protect.

It's the communities and church's job to provide. If we didn't have such a big government I feel that we wouldn't have such a high rate of poverty.

We can all thank the socialist president FDR for that.

i half agree on you about competition doesnt create selfishness. its sorta do becuase if we are competing against each other and we see that the other person has a better life or things than us we get jealous of that person and want to be better than them. But then while we're trying to do that we forgot what our jobs as human beings are. we even sink so low as to murder becuase we are jealous.

yes its human nature but doesnt mean we cant change who we are. we see people doing that all the time. so why can't we?

well, it depends what the situation is.
if some person got poor because of.. idk, gambling or something, then it's his/her fault. we shouldn't be blamed for their actions. it's not like we made them gamble/lose their money, it's their fault for spending their money in a stupid and careless way.

Okay, I can see your point on that, I concede.


Well we can also blame the society for teaching them(or lack thereof teaching) that gambling is hazardous and highly improbable chances of ever suceeding.

But then again there are many factors that can lead to gambling, suh as you said, own choice, but then again all human action is based upon societies and influences.

Very true. Afterall, all this country cares about is getting there money :-/

Radix malorum est Cupiditas

Well, without money our government would be useless. There would be no military to protect us in time of need. RIght?

I am not saying that money isn't good but I think a lot of people are just Greedy.

We've already established that moved forward.

Greed plays no role in competition. It might seem like it, but competition requires a will to succeed where as greed does not.

I am not talking about competition but "poverty" in general and what causes it.

But you said that greed is a direct correlation of competition.

There is no one reason why poverty is in this world.

It's for many political and personal reasons. It's pointless to pin point the central cause of it, because something else will fill its place and the vicious cycle will continue.

I never said that.

"I am not saying that money isn't good but I think a lot of people are just Greedy."