What is the point those two were trying to make? That the money *shouldn't* have been donated to repair Notre Dame? One of the most important cultural landmarks of Western Civilization? Something that is literally a part of the soul of our society? Because that is just plain asinine.
Do you imply that the Notre Dame is more valuable to our society than the Earth itself? Though, it's not as if those who donated to the Notre Dame couldn't also donate to fixing the planet we live on. There's a number of people who are worth hundreds of billions of dollars, many of them shelling out mere hundreds of millions towards the reconstruction. A billion out of hundreds of billions is a small price to pay for the future of the world itself.
Is the earth less important than a latte, a new smart phone or laptop? Owning a car? The work to grow your own food? Lots of problems in the world. These people worked on the one they wanted to- others can fix the other stuff. No one can do it all, and we can’t really judge to harshly since each and every one of us is guilty. We all sacrifice the long term for the short term that interest us. We all could do more for big issues and less for us. It’s all relative.
That's not the question you should be asking. You should be asking why so many people are stupid enough to send their hard earned money to the Catholic Church, already the single richest organization in the world, and why the Catholic Church, already the single richest organization in the world, is accepting these donations to rebuild an old building instead of putting funds toward something actually worthwhile. Like doing something about the corruption, rampant child abuse, and pedophilia that seem to be at the heart of their culture.
Not a Christian and gladly not but it’s a lot more valuable than just an old building and the whole abuse is not a Christian thing, it’s a fucked up person thing. Pedophilia is not Christian culture, just like terrorism isn’t Muslim culture. Free money is free money as well so,,
This isn’t the question we should be asking either. We like to play each other off against each other. Point out where others fail to meet standards we set for them- the real question is, what are we ourselves doing to help things? One person may think animal charities and conservation is a noble cause. Another reading, another might say cleaning up the planet is more important than teaching arts or music- another might say this world isn’t as important as the next- we each out our resources in the things we care most about. For many of us- the thing we care most about is our own desires. So each of us has to answer the question of what are we doing? And before we ask someone else- we should also ask ourselves what MORE we could be doing but aren’t. More doing and less pointing fingers at who we think isn’t doing usually gets more done.
Perhaps a small point but an important one: Christians do not abuse children, Catholics do. Let's not conflate the two.
And when you have an overwhelming proportion of abuses committed by a certain group over another THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH THAT GROUP. Be it priests or imams.
The majority of the money wasn't donated by average individuals. It was by billionaires, people of immense wealth that could make any amount of money move with a snap of their fingers. No matter how much an average individual may donate, it would be nothing compared to what the extremely wealthy could do.
Not necessarily so. How do the wealthy get wealthy? They don’t just take most of their money from wealthier people. They take a little bit from a lot of poorer people. So if all those poorer people can generate that wealth to begin with- of those people all worked together they could surpass the wealthiest people. We gave our money to rich people to buy things for our own motivations. How many people here have stayed on their last gen phone an extra 5 years and donated that money to charity instead, or converted to humble dies of rice and beans and donated all the savings to charity instead? Not many. We look at the rich to solve our problems and they should pull their weight- but what are we doing? They can give more while giving up less for themselves- but that doesn’t mean we can’t sacrifice.
The problem isn't exactly about who and who isn't giving, it's that there isn't enough. A person who is worth 1 million can give literally everything, and would not be anything. They can only give 1 million. The cost of 100 new iPhones is nothing more than 74900 dollars. It doesn't matter how many average individuals give if that total isn't substantial enough. We've seen billionaires shell out hundreds of millions to rebuild the Notre Dame, and they are still far from destitute. They didn't have to change their lifestyle. They didn't have to feed on nothing but rice and beans. They're still on private jets, drinking champagne like water and caviar like candy. They have so much money that they couldn't hope to spend it within their single lifetime.
That is true. But where did all that money come from to start? It’s the small wealth of many consolidated to one person. One person would likely have to try hard to spend it all in a lifetime- but other people gave it to them. You, me, a lot of other people made Bill gates rich. If we all didn’t do business with Microsoft or related companies- those billionaires would never have become billionaires. They have something people want. People give them money, if you could get $1 from less than half the people on earth you’d be a billionaire. There have been over 1 billion iPhones sold by the way at an average price of $700~, and over 2 billion other Apple computers. That’s how you make billionaires. Millions and billions of people giving money to people for something. They want more than they want money or whatever else it would buy.
Don’t get me wrong- the system is broken. The wealth disparity we see isn’t naturalistic or “fair” by any means, and harms society. However- that is how the rules are set up. There aren’t regulations on how much money a single person can make or what they must do with all of it. There is obviously insufficient regulation to stop individuals and monolithic conglomerates from securing effective monopolies. There aren’t effective price controls or caps to profit margins or the like- and all those things carry their own distinct disadvantages and challenges as well and aren’t perfect practically or ideologically.
And when you have an overwhelming proportion of abuses committed by a certain group over another THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH THAT GROUP. Be it priests or imams.