Once more: Charity, and the difference religion makes

Last updated on: August 22, 2017 at 7:30 pm by Dan Peterson

Once more: Charity, and the difference religion makes 2017-08-22T19:30:38-06:00 Dan Peterson

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The Newport Beach California Temple (LDS Media Library)
We didn’t have the opportunity to go in (since it was closed), but we drove past it last night and this morning.

Just back from a really good little San Diego Mexican restaurant called — oddly — “Jimmy Carter’s.” (Referring to the owner, who isn’t the former president of that name.)

***

I’ve reported here previously on the reaction, in some circles, to my 2017 FairMormon remarks of nearly three weeks ago:

“Now, you can read the monstrous horror for yourself!”

The worst talk I’ve ever given, one reviewer pronounced it. Indeed, he declared, perhaps the worst speech ever given by a Latter-day Saint. FairMormon, he wrote, should issue a retraction. Another reviewer, chiming in, demanded that FairMormon give out refunds to those who were in the audience for it.

Whatever.

My friend and Interpreter Foundation colleague Steve Densley calls my attention now to the unexpected fact that the talk is being showcased at Dennis Prager’s podcast, American Conservative University:

“Show 1906: Atheism or Faith. What does it Matter?”

***

On a related note:

I’ve been reading Why Science Does Not Disprove God, by the late Israeli-American mathematician, statistician, and science writer Amir Aczel. (I learned only today that he died of cancer toward the end of 2015, at the relatively young age of 65. A sad loss.)

Anyway, I was struck by this observation from Dr. Aczel, on page 205:

“Daniel Dennett is a leader in the atheism movement in America. He and his wife organize and participate in cruises for atheists, as well as other events aimed at cementing a world-wide community of atheists. But these atheist groups do not get involved in charitable work, as many religious organizations do. While staying at a hospital, you may be visited by a nun, a rabbi, or an imam, bringing you food or newspapers or comforts of many kinds, as many people know from personal experience. And it is true that sometimes religious people do this in an effort to convert patients — but not always. There are innumerable examples of religious persons who engage in charitable work in hospitals, poverty-stricken communities, halfway houses, and the like out of sheer charity and the urge to do kind things for complete strangers. I have never heard of an atheist group volunteering to offer comfort to the ill or the distressed.”

***

In that light, this item is of interest:

“Nine years later, LDS Charities wheelchair still keeps man mobile in India village”

Posted from San Diego, California

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