Lemminary
@Lemminary@lemmy.world
- Comment on Check mate, atheists. 12 hours ago:
What anecdotes? The woman who called dozens of churches and only got 3 willing to provide emergency food for a hungry child who had been starving? You can listen to these calls yourself in the video I shared. Notice that I’m not arguing about food pantries, but rather churches not being willing to help adequately.
And still, your emphasis on food pantries is exaggerated. Food pantries were invented in the 1960s and are a distinctly American religious invention, so naturally, they would be primarily religious. What’s more is that your article even mentions the negative effects that these food banks have and their questionable efficacy:
Despite the rise in charitable food, there is a lack of evidence supporting their effectiveness in addressing the main issue of food insecurity. At the individual-level, the charitable food system has been shown to contribute to stigma and shame among patrons [13–15], offer poor nutritional value [11, 16], provide insufficient and inconsistent food supply [11–17], consist of limited food choice and variety [16], and exacerbate pre-existing chronic health conditions [11, 18, 19]. Furthermore, “pantries spring up wherever someone is moved to create them” [20] (p221). In this way, the geographical distribution of food pantries may not follow any systematic pattern or necessarily reflect need. Many food pantries operate out of churches and volunteers are often motivated to volunteer because of their religious commitments. Given these circumstances and undercurrents, faith is an important and dynamic element of the charitable food system. However, faith-based affiliations within the current charitable food system is unknown and likely context-specific.
I also found this:
a study involving case studies in Indonesia, Fiji and Samoa (Thornton, Sakai, and Hassall, 2012) showed that the contribution of religious groups in providing disaster relief and welfare services to their members and advocacy for the poor is often present but not always comprehensive or positive. The influence of religious groups in the public sphere and as institutions can also exacerbate unresolved tensions between different ethnic and secular groups.
www.nature.com/articles/s41599-019-0272-3
Regardless, food pantries and poverty in general are symptoms of great social inequality and of a society that doesn’t prioritize welfare, despite its religious devotion. So why confine ourselves to questionably effective religious-based initiatives? I’d rather compare the overall state of caregiving between religious and secular nations.
I concede that religion is useful for bringing communities together and alleviating the hardships of poverty by providing people a coping mechanism, but it’s by no means a towering force over secular initiatives because the desire to help and contribute to charity is innately human. Religion arguably only serves as a reminder of that with regular church attendance.
- Comment on Check mate, atheists. 15 hours ago:
Science did not lead to eugenics. People used a young science as an excuse to advance their ideals by willingly misinterpreting genetics. Also, atom bombs are arguably more technology than science, and technology is rather neutral with its purpose.
Religion also builds food pantries, wells, and hospitals.
Do they, though? A woman called churches for baby formula and the majority of churches weren’t very cooperative. Also, even if the religious build churches, who’s to say they won’t follow some insane creed like Mother Teresa did, who willingly let people suffer because she believed that suffering led people to God? Not to mention that a lot of religious ideas tend to make people worse off, like denying blood transfusions with Jehovah’s Witnesses, or so many other topics that leave people out of proper care like objecting to abortions, prioritizing faith healing, historical opposition to preventative medicine like vaccines, IVF, etc. More often than not, religion seems to get in the way of major health interests.
What religion does do is build community, and communities come together to provide for necessities like community wells, but even an absolutely secular community would build a well. I think it’s a little undeserving to give so much credit to religion.
- Comment on Check mate, atheists. 15 hours ago:
How is it stupid if religious people really do argue that their god as an entity is real? I don’t think the comic tries to dispute that the concept of gods aren’t.
- Comment on Elijah Radcliffe 16 hours ago:
Right: a gentleman in the streets
Left: a freak in the sheets
- Comment on What is with these videos where it's just someone reaction to shit someone else is doing? 20 hours ago:
The streamers I watch are usually incredibly talented and can pull off things I wouldn’t even imagine. They also explain the game at a very high level and can show me the boundaries that I didn’t even know existed. They also experiment with different setups and beat the game in hard mode without breaking a sweat.
Not everyone can pull it off while being entertaining and pleasant, but I think those are the ones worth watching the most.
- Comment on How is Donald Trump able to get away with being part of a child trafficking ring but I get 20 years in jail for littering? 1 day ago:
Troll account. Dude’s history is atrocious and it’s been only one day.
- Comment on I need to vent about plastic milk jugs 3 days ago:
Glad to hear!
- Comment on I need to vent about plastic milk jugs 3 days ago:
I cut only a small hole from one of the corners, and when I pour, I prop up the other corner as I pour to keep the bag steady. There are probably better ways of doing it but this has worked for me so far.
- Comment on I need to vent about plastic milk jugs 4 days ago:
I’ve been using plastic bags for a while now. The difference is minimal, but I think the plastic difference is big.
- Comment on BentoPDF is a self hostable, privacy first PDF Toolkit 4 days ago:
I’ve used it before for a job application! I needed to send them sensitive data.
Great intuitive UI, does what it says, and it’s fast. 5/5
- Comment on Subtitles 4 days ago:
Or closed captioning. I’m not entirely sure.
- Comment on The penalty for disagreeing with government policy on Palestine is 14 Years in prison 5 days ago:
Not just the Chinese. The rest of the world said, “Sure, Jan.”
- Comment on Grindr CEO Says App Will Be “AI-First” and “Not in the Business of Politics” 5 days ago:
Not that I know.
- Comment on Being afraid of vaccines is literally childish behavior. 5 days ago:
I hope so. Irrational fears are really hard to control.
- Comment on Grindr CEO Says App Will Be “AI-First” and “Not in the Business of Politics” 5 days ago:
It’s still very popular where I live.
- Comment on Seven Diabetes Patients Die Due to Undisclosed Bug in Abbott's Continuous Glucose Monitors 6 days ago:
(Foreigner here) Could this be related to DOGE’s defunding of the three-letter acronym agencies and all that? It seems like proper testing and reporting weren’t being carried out. They say this has been happening since the 80s, but seven deaths is a little too much.
- Comment on The dominoes are falling: motherboard sales down 50% as PC enthusiasts are put off by stinking memory prices 1 week ago:
I was thinking of upgrading my RAM this year, but I know I don’t have to. It’s their loss, not mine.
- Comment on So how was your year in review? 1 week ago:
I wouldn’t mind such a feature if it were on-demand, with the option to delete, and limit its visibility. I think it’d be a nice addition to Lemmy so long as it’s user-focused.
- Comment on Why isn’t "Democrats would never get away with this" seen as a problem for the left?” 1 week ago:
the left as an implicit admission that the left is politically weaker
That’s not my conclusion from all this. Presidents like Biden and Obama cared about the law somewhat and tried to play by the book, which only seems like their hands were tied when they weren’t. The same goes for other politicians who do get away with a lot of shit. The difference is that Trump likes to make a spectacle out of it.
- Comment on Hey Grok 1 week ago:
No offense to bitches*
- Comment on Hey Grok 1 week ago:
Bureaucratic requirement? Also gives a moment to wind up.
- Comment on Do you ever watch old classic TV shows and realize that they are all dead 1 week ago:
I’ve watched porn and later found out one of the porn stars was dead. 🤷♂️
- Comment on Tencent ‘Horizon clone’ pulled from stores as Sony settles lawsuit 2 weeks ago:
I think you meant Nomékop 🥸
- Comment on Attitudes 2 weeks ago:
This is every single thread in Lemmy Shitpost. People explaining the joke, raging against the machine, offering their solutions, karate-chopping the air… lol
- Comment on It just keeps getting worse - Firefox to "evolve into a modern AI browser" 2 weeks ago:
It should read:
AI should always be opt-in
There was no easy way to turn it off without meddling with
about:config. If they were serious and true to their word this would’ve been be the default from the start. - Comment on The AI Backlash Is Here: Why Backlash Against Gemini, Sora, ChatGPT Is Spreading in 2025 - Newsweek 2 weeks ago:
Also, “AI could be used to to replace my job. Not that it’d do a good job at it, but it’d be a great excuse to lay me off.”
- Comment on Typical monopoly people 2 weeks ago:
I got chu, fam
- Comment on Mozilla’s new CEO is doubling down on an AI future for Firefox 2 weeks ago:
Oh, will you look at that. I want to get scolded again for “making a big deal” out of AI in Firefox again. Where’s that jerkface who listed all the AI features at me and told me to “stop bullshitting”? Fuckwit.
- Comment on My culture also loves music, dancing and telling stories 2 weeks ago:
- Comment on 👁️ 👁️ 2 weeks ago:
c/surrealmemes is leaking
