I'm just a pole wayfare and stranger traveling through. Bill and next up is the crux I think of what the writer is trying to say

he says my point here lies strictly with the assertion by Jesus by the Bible that

poverty will always be with us and he's thinking therefore that that has a

demoralizing effect I guess on society of not making progress

against poverty but to just accept and that

the poverty will always be around and to go and therefore to facilitate it.

You know, now the great thing about a hypothesis like that, Kevin,

is that it's falsifiable. We can look at the sociological evidence and see whether or not Christian societies have been empathetic toward poverty and have not taken efforts

to alleviate it and even eradicate it. how that effort compares would say Hindu

cultures or Buddhist cultures or African pagan cultures and there I think there's absolutely no question

that historically it has been the Christian church that has led the efforts to

found hospitals and universities and promote women's education and to promote the help of the poor and the alleviation of poverty.

There has been no movement within history comparable to the Christian Church in addressing and alleviating

these sorts of societal problems.

So what the author here fears is is easily refuted it is groundless and even today Kevin in the

United States surveys have shown that those who are conservative

in their religious beliefs

give far more to charity than do those who are liberal or secular in their religious beliefs.

And that kind of is consistent in a way with Clark's point of view. Why? Well, because he doesn't want to emphasize

individual morality, but just societal morality.

And so it's perfectly all right to be stingy and pernurious yourself in your individual life

while demanding that the government take action to alleviate policy.

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