Alexandria Va, felt/sounded like loud washing machine @ first, place got a little wobbly. Didnt seem to get too bad (at least nothing in the area was damaged).
Apparently there was some serious damage out in the Tysons Corner area though.
Notice I'm not coming out in favor or against either science or religion here. I'm pointing out, I think these people are nothing more than deep-cover atheists.
If they dont believe in a fall (implied in summary), then theyre certainly not christians; its kind of a core belief.
Never underestimate the weakness of the mind of the religious.
Never underestimate the closemindedness of one who opposes religion. Basically everything OP said is grossly inaccurate (the Torah is more than a thousand years older than 400bc) and out of line with what any scholar would say. He then has the temerity to accuse BELIEVERS of speaking without knowing the historical belief, and you then had the gall to congratulate him for his brazen foolishness.
The mind boggles at how throughout all this you two get modded up by yet more people who have no inkling of what was happening in Israel at 700BC, or why it is impossible for the OT to have been "written" in 400bc"
The Bible was written about 400bc in the babylonian exile, which basically fortified the one god believe in israel
Im not sure what you mean by "written", but the import of your words is incorrect. David was king of Israel arojnd 1000 bc, and is credited with authorship of a large number of the psalms; his son Solomon with Song of Solomon and other books, etc. Job is commonly believed to have been written well prior to David's reign. The "book of the law", aka the Torah, predates David by about a thousand years.
Heck, a number of the "prophetic writings" refer to future invasions by the babylonians and assyrians, which happened well before 400bc; they could hardly ever have been credited with being prophetic if they were not written before the invasions, and would never have been relevant if written several hundred years later.
It really bothers me to see such blatant inaccuracies posted, and then subsequently modded up as if real truthful information had been communicated; if you dont know what you are talking about please refrain from posting inaccuracies.
According to Karen Armstrong's book "The Case For God", taking religious stories literally is a pretty new development. She reckons that right back into prehistory, people understood that creation myths were just that -- myths
According to CS Lewis, who had among his qualifications a triple first in Greats, English, and Latin literature, as well as being a professor in Medieval Literature, such kinds of "historical fiction" as we have today were nonexistent in those times. He is not denying the existence of legends, but I do not have his exact words in front of me and I do not want to risk misquoting him.
I suppose one could read each of these two positions, and judge for themselves who is better qualified to make them.
Why is a president who claims to be christian, but then publicly renounces the church he attended for years, and then continues to attend a new church somehow more intellectually honest?
And lol how do you know which things are allegory in your favorite novel?
Possibly by using the reading skills you picked up in school? Are the writers of letters in the new testament for some reason forbidden from using common literary techniques?
For instance-- and this is meant to be instructive, because I have met people who actually think this-- the Bible does NOT teach that serpents eat dust. Nor does it teach that the individual elements of our bodies could be best expressed as dust motes. Nor does it teach that the sky is literally a sphere (whether or not the universe technically is, is irrelevant-- the language is very clearly metaphorical).
Good gracious, its like people try to be of little understanding. How do you ever read books?
I personally dont think the "7 days" is super relevant, and think that whatever your belief is on THAT is of peripheral importance (even if you think the earth is 3300 years old, or 99googol years old, it has very little import on every day life-- though there are implications for the sincerity of your confession); but if you disregard the whole "2 representatives of the human race falling" thing, it pretty much makes the whole NT crumble.
Its rather hard to read Romans and then say "yea, humanity's fall was symbolic and representative of the potential for evil in all of us", and is then impossible to reconcile that with the need for a messiah.
Honestly though, go on worrying about whether people believe the earth is 6000 years old, nevermind that most people have no understanding of politics. The age of the earth is so much more relevant.
Yes, lets all giggle at the silly christians. Because athiests never do this.
Not trying to boil this down to a mudslinging contest, but honestly.... when people start trying to imply that "all the crazies are christians, and all the smart people are athiests", it really gets me worked up, especially given the last thousand years of scientific insight and social reform. (Oh, and please bring up the spanish inquisition, that totally makes the rest of my argument moot).
If "Flood geology" is really a better theory, then it should make better predictions about where raw materials are than standard geology does. The profits from such a venture could pay for a lot of evangelism. Why isn't anyone doing this?
Not being an expert in such things or knowing what "flood geology" fully says, I might hazard a guess at their response: "Because they were one time events, and were outside the scope of 'naturally occurring'."
Surely you could have figured that out, with a moments thought, it is the obvious response.
Evangelical Christians believe they have been reborn and saved by Jesus and it's there duty to spread the word.
Technically speaking, evangelical christians are those who hold to the Evangel, or the good news. If they believe this: and say it's time to face facts: There was no historical Adam and Eve, no serpent, no apple, no fall that toppled man from a state of innocence." (emphasis mine) Then they are manifestly not evangelical.
Fundamentalists Christians believe in the literal interpretation of the bible as being absolute (despite over a thousand years of modifications, but I digress)
The NIV, ESV, NASB, etc were independently translated from their hebrew and greek sources, and about 95% of the texts agree across the Dead Sea scrolls, the septuigint, the Vulgate (not actually a primary source, of course), the masoretic text, etc. In what way do you call that "thousands of years of modifications"? I had always understood the texts we have now to be some of the most analyzed and reliable historical documents we have.
Calling "placing cookies" abhorrent seems a bit over the top, no? Call me crazy, but I believe in perspective, and I would reserve "abhorrent" for such things as "mugging an old woman" or "racism".
I misspoke-- checking my email, it was not an eyewitness account, but one coworker referenced local verizon cuts, Verizon themselves apparently released photos of the damage, and there have been several stories on the news about union workers blocking service vans.
Again, my mistake for using the word "eyewitness"; however if you think Verizon is going out and severing their fiber lines so that they get tons of calls to their understaffed call centers so that customers can call and get disconnected, youre out of your mind.
Tell me that this was caused by VZW corporate. Please do, it makes it easier to detect your bias.
The Republican core belief is that government should not spend any money on the physical welfare of their citizens so they can have more to spend on dictating the most private and personal aspects of people's lives
I would be interested to know where you got this idea from; certainly thats not how Ive ever heard a republican describe his core beliefs.
And whats really amazing here, is that you would justify taxing me more money so that the government can do it as it pleases, and then defend this as NOT dictating aspects of my life! Was it not a Dem president who came into office, and dictated that everyone would be paying for government subsidized abortions, despite around 50% of americans thinking it to be base murder? And was it not a Dem prez and congress that pushed to require every citizen to purchase a private product in the form of health insurance?
We can debate all day long whether or not such policies are good or bad; but to somehow imply that a social welfare state doesnt dictate personal aspects of its citizens' lives is the most ridiculous assertion I think I have honestly ever heard.
I happen to think sFurbo misunderstood 2-3 of Aquinas arguments completely, gave a fairly good reply to the 4th, and then made an arbitrary and undefended statement about the 5th. That hardly counts as falsification in my book.
"Just ignore logic for a second and you'll see what I'm saying".
And now I am convinced you have looked at none of the arguments at all, since they all require you to put on your logic cap and think.
This hardly does your credibility any good, when you will attack statements without understanding what they are, or when you will sling mud over what have been understood for thousands of years to be arguments in the field of logic.
The problem with this sort of argument is atheists in general consider these arguments as falsified. Regarding for example the qualitative assessments of "good" and "evil", they come up with two answers, namely there is no "good" or "evil" and these terms can be defined in the context of evolution - what is good for the survival of the group and what is "evil" or detrimental to its survival.
And yet they utterly ignore why those arguments have weight-- because one of the main premises is that we all have some kind of natural law on our hearts.
I suppose you could try to deny the truth of it, but when scores of scholars throughout the ages give reference to it across scores of different cultures, one begins to wonder whether TRUE absurdity is trying to deny its existence.
In general, Aquinas finds something which he thinks he can prove exists, and calls that god
Im not sure that does justice to his argument, or really gets where he is going. The question as I read it was that "Why must there be an initial cause that you call God", and Aquinas sets out to show that you must have had an "unmoved mover". If you wish not to call that God, that does not change the thrust of his argument, that you still need an eternal, uncaused cause that is separate and apart from all things, and superior to all things in nature.
If god caused the universe, what caused god? If god needs no cause, then why does the universe need a cause? And, again, it assumes a universe that has a finite past.
Once again I think you are completely missing what Aquinas is saying. He very clearly is referring to an uncaused God in his first argument. As to why the universe needs a cause, that is, again, in his first point; I can sum it up as "systems in a state of change must have had a beginning", and "systems cannot remain in a state of change forever". That is, that nothing that experiences change can be eternal, so must in turn have had a beginning, and therefore a cause.
Virtual particles blow that out of the water.
I am not 100% familiar with those, but some brief research seems to show they are theoretical, and not directly observable. Wikipedia seems to sum it up as this... The concept of virtual particles arises in the perturbation theory of quantum field theory, an approximation scheme in which interactions (essentially forces) between real particles are calculated in terms of exchanges of virtual particles If I am reading that correctly, it is in the same position as the Higgs-- necessary to explain and perform calculations in quantum mechanics, but nevertheless theoretical. That doesnt put it in a position to blow contingency out of the water.
I am not a quantum physicist, so am wary in trying to make statements about such ideas, but it also appears that they are trying to account for how some otherwise unexplainable interactions between particles occur, and have "visualized" them with virtual particles. To assume that they must have the complete picture, and what appears to us must be what really is, seems some phenomenal hubris. I rather suspect that an actual researcher would not be so cocksure as you are about our knowledge of quantum interactions.
If there is one thing math has taught is, it is that that is not always the case. For example, what is the greatest whole number (and if the answer to that is \Aleph_0, what is the greatest cardinal number?).
That is a good question, but I think that there ARE answers when it comes to qualities we observe in the world such as "good", "right", "beauty", etc. As to whether largeness and smallness can be extended to the infinity, I do not know-- it is not my argument, I have very little time reading and thinking on Aquinas, and I was merely pointing him in the direction of some classical arguments. That is not to say that there are not answers, merely that I do not have this one.
The Teleological Argument: "We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end" No, we don't. We see them act according to universal laws, and project intent into them.
That is interesting; Aquinas sets forth a well reasoned argument and your response is "I disagree with your premise, will give no defense of my position, but will nevertheless declare you to be wrong".
Pascal's wager? Really? You have got to be kidding me.
Pascal is known for much more than pascal's wager, and if you express such contempt for it I assume you are only familiar with its paraphrased version. The actual "wager" is a good deal longer and more weighty than what you are probably familiar with. And the wager constitutes o
I should have edited this in: I AM making a claim, that God exists, and is responsible for all things. I do not intend to get more specific than THAT in this discussion because how we arrived at today is not what the discussion was about; the starter comment was that there is no "rational" argument for God, and I have provided several well known, old, and a few of my own arguments, and a good many people remark that they think they carry some weight.
I do not intend to claim that I am the best apologist, philosopher, or scientist, or that my grasp of quantum mechanics is any better than my grasp of some of Kant and Nietzsche's ideas; but I certainly think I have satisfied the demand of the OP.
Time is a state of change. Anything that experiences change cannot be eternal, unless it is in a perpetual cycle (which is commonly rejected as "perpetual motion machine).
Therefore, assuming reality is not an illusion, and spontaneous generation is not feasible, and self-creation is agreed to be nonsense, something "outside of time" is necessary.
I know folks who are well below the poverty line-- some of them well. They still have tv, and cell phones, and a house.
I also know a number of folks who so not work because of government handouts. I do not mean to comment on their specific situation-- it is possible they have a good reason; but the point is they will NEVER work so long as they do not have to, because every individual THINKS they have a good reason.
Don't say it could never happen here because I didn't think we'd be seeing tent cities and families living in cars like something out of the third world either. The bag of tricks at the Fed is completely empty now and congress can't keep up spending forever without our rating plunging further
Hate to burst your bubble, but the poverty rate is quite low in our country, and the bar for poverty is quite a bit higher in this country the average income for the majority of the world. For example, Cuba's average income is about 8k a year, and our poverty line is about $16k per year.
Thats not to say things are perfect, but there are an incredible number of people who pay no rent or pay no taxes and whose lifestyles are partly or wholly paid for by the government.
I might remark that THAT is a problem when we have trouble reining in our spending.
and the teabaggers frankly can't stand anything given to the poor so they'll cockblock any aid packages anyway
Such displays of eloquence do wonders for your credibility and the power of your argument.
But I will note that giving poor people loads of guarenteed no-strings money has never worked, not here, not in somalia, not pretty much anywhere. If you incentivize not working, people will not work, or will find a way to exploit the situation.
Slashdot Mirror
Use google voice or skype to make calls, that seems a lot more reliable-- and a lot "friendlier" to the cell towers.
Alexandria Va, felt/sounded like loud washing machine @ first, place got a little wobbly. Didnt seem to get too bad (at least nothing in the area was damaged).
Apparently there was some serious damage out in the Tysons Corner area though.
Notice I'm not coming out in favor or against either science or religion here. I'm pointing out, I think these people are nothing more than deep-cover atheists.
If they dont believe in a fall (implied in summary), then theyre certainly not christians; its kind of a core belief.
I tend to agree with your statements, btw.
I certainly hope that Rabbi thinks the remainder of the OT is allegory, then, because without Genesis the rest starts to unravel.
Never underestimate the weakness of the mind of the religious.
Never underestimate the closemindedness of one who opposes religion. Basically everything OP said is grossly inaccurate (the Torah is more than a thousand years older than 400bc) and out of line with what any scholar would say. He then has the temerity to accuse BELIEVERS of speaking without knowing the historical belief, and you then had the gall to congratulate him for his brazen foolishness.
The mind boggles at how throughout all this you two get modded up by yet more people who have no inkling of what was happening in Israel at 700BC, or why it is impossible for the OT to have been "written" in 400bc"
The Bible was written about 400bc in the babylonian exile, which basically fortified the one god believe in israel
Im not sure what you mean by "written", but the import of your words is incorrect. David was king of Israel arojnd 1000 bc, and is credited with authorship of a large number of the psalms; his son Solomon with Song of Solomon and other books, etc. Job is commonly believed to have been written well prior to David's reign. The "book of the law", aka the Torah, predates David by about a thousand years.
Heck, a number of the "prophetic writings" refer to future invasions by the babylonians and assyrians, which happened well before 400bc; they could hardly ever have been credited with being prophetic if they were not written before the invasions, and would never have been relevant if written several hundred years later.
It really bothers me to see such blatant inaccuracies posted, and then subsequently modded up as if real truthful information had been communicated; if you dont know what you are talking about please refrain from posting inaccuracies.
According to Karen Armstrong's book "The Case For God", taking religious stories literally is a pretty new development. She reckons that right back into prehistory, people understood that creation myths were just that -- myths
According to CS Lewis, who had among his qualifications a triple first in Greats, English, and Latin literature, as well as being a professor in Medieval Literature, such kinds of "historical fiction" as we have today were nonexistent in those times. He is not denying the existence of legends, but I do not have his exact words in front of me and I do not want to risk misquoting him.
I suppose one could read each of these two positions, and judge for themselves who is better qualified to make them.
Why is a president who claims to be christian, but then publicly renounces the church he attended for years, and then continues to attend a new church somehow more intellectually honest?
Care to explain that for me?
And lol how do you know which things are allegory in your favorite novel?
Possibly by using the reading skills you picked up in school? Are the writers of letters in the new testament for some reason forbidden from using common literary techniques?
For instance-- and this is meant to be instructive, because I have met people who actually think this-- the Bible does NOT teach that serpents eat dust. Nor does it teach that the individual elements of our bodies could be best expressed as dust motes. Nor does it teach that the sky is literally a sphere (whether or not the universe technically is, is irrelevant-- the language is very clearly metaphorical).
Good gracious, its like people try to be of little understanding. How do you ever read books?
I personally dont think the "7 days" is super relevant, and think that whatever your belief is on THAT is of peripheral importance (even if you think the earth is 3300 years old, or 99googol years old, it has very little import on every day life-- though there are implications for the sincerity of your confession); but if you disregard the whole "2 representatives of the human race falling" thing, it pretty much makes the whole NT crumble.
Its rather hard to read Romans and then say "yea, humanity's fall was symbolic and representative of the potential for evil in all of us", and is then impossible to reconcile that with the need for a messiah.
Honestly though, go on worrying about whether people believe the earth is 6000 years old, nevermind that most people have no understanding of politics. The age of the earth is so much more relevant.
Yes, lets all giggle at the silly christians. Because athiests never do this.
Not trying to boil this down to a mudslinging contest, but honestly.... when people start trying to imply that "all the crazies are christians, and all the smart people are athiests", it really gets me worked up, especially given the last thousand years of scientific insight and social reform. (Oh, and please bring up the spanish inquisition, that totally makes the rest of my argument moot).
If "Flood geology" is really a better theory, then it should make better predictions about where raw materials are than standard geology does. The profits from such a venture could pay for a lot of evangelism. Why isn't anyone doing this?
Not being an expert in such things or knowing what "flood geology" fully says, I might hazard a guess at their response:
"Because they were one time events, and were outside the scope of 'naturally occurring'."
Surely you could have figured that out, with a moments thought, it is the obvious response.
Calvin College, which is much of the focus of the NPR story, teaches evolution with little regard to the Genesis account
Creationism / evolution aside, if they give no regard to Genesis or the fall (as is implied by the summary), they are not evangelical by definition.
Evangelical Christians believe they have been reborn and saved by Jesus and it's there duty to spread the word.
Technically speaking, evangelical christians are those who hold to the Evangel, or the good news. If they believe this:
and say it's time to face facts: There was no historical Adam and Eve, no serpent, no apple, no fall that toppled man from a state of innocence." (emphasis mine)
Then they are manifestly not evangelical.
Fundamentalists Christians believe in the literal interpretation of the bible as being absolute (despite over a thousand years of modifications, but I digress)
The NIV, ESV, NASB, etc were independently translated from their hebrew and greek sources, and about 95% of the texts agree across the Dead Sea scrolls, the septuigint, the Vulgate (not actually a primary source, of course), the masoretic text, etc. In what way do you call that "thousands of years of modifications"? I had always understood the texts we have now to be some of the most analyzed and reliable historical documents we have.
Next up, the MBR cookie-- survives repartitioning and OS reinstall. Now with more cookie!
Calling "placing cookies" abhorrent seems a bit over the top, no? Call me crazy, but I believe in perspective, and I would reserve "abhorrent" for such things as "mugging an old woman" or "racism".
I misspoke-- checking my email, it was not an eyewitness account, but one coworker referenced local verizon cuts, Verizon themselves apparently released photos of the damage, and there have been several stories on the news about union workers blocking service vans.
Again, my mistake for using the word "eyewitness"; however if you think Verizon is going out and severing their fiber lines so that they get tons of calls to their understaffed call centers so that customers can call and get disconnected, youre out of your mind.
Tell me that this was caused by VZW corporate. Please do, it makes it easier to detect your bias.
The Republican core belief is that government should not spend any money on the physical welfare of their citizens so they can have more to spend on dictating the most private and personal aspects of people's lives
I would be interested to know where you got this idea from; certainly thats not how Ive ever heard a republican describe his core beliefs.
And whats really amazing here, is that you would justify taxing me more money so that the government can do it as it pleases, and then defend this as NOT dictating aspects of my life! Was it not a Dem president who came into office, and dictated that everyone would be paying for government subsidized abortions, despite around 50% of americans thinking it to be base murder? And was it not a Dem prez and congress that pushed to require every citizen to purchase a private product in the form of health insurance?
We can debate all day long whether or not such policies are good or bad; but to somehow imply that a social welfare state doesnt dictate personal aspects of its citizens' lives is the most ridiculous assertion I think I have honestly ever heard.
I happen to think sFurbo misunderstood 2-3 of Aquinas arguments completely, gave a fairly good reply to the 4th, and then made an arbitrary and undefended statement about the 5th. That hardly counts as falsification in my book.
"Just ignore logic for a second and you'll see what I'm saying".
And now I am convinced you have looked at none of the arguments at all, since they all require you to put on your logic cap and think.
This hardly does your credibility any good, when you will attack statements without understanding what they are, or when you will sling mud over what have been understood for thousands of years to be arguments in the field of logic.
The problem with this sort of argument is atheists in general consider these arguments as falsified. Regarding for example the qualitative assessments of "good" and "evil", they come up with two answers, namely there is no "good" or "evil" and these terms can be defined in the context of evolution - what is good for the survival of the group and what is "evil" or detrimental to its survival.
And yet they utterly ignore why those arguments have weight-- because one of the main premises is that we all have some kind of natural law on our hearts.
I suppose you could try to deny the truth of it, but when scores of scholars throughout the ages give reference to it across scores of different cultures, one begins to wonder whether TRUE absurdity is trying to deny its existence.
In general, Aquinas finds something which he thinks he can prove exists, and calls that god
Im not sure that does justice to his argument, or really gets where he is going. The question as I read it was that "Why must there be an initial cause that you call God", and Aquinas sets out to show that you must have had an "unmoved mover". If you wish not to call that God, that does not change the thrust of his argument, that you still need an eternal, uncaused cause that is separate and apart from all things, and superior to all things in nature.
If god caused the universe, what caused god? If god needs no cause, then why does the universe need a cause? And, again, it assumes a universe that has a finite past.
Once again I think you are completely missing what Aquinas is saying. He very clearly is referring to an uncaused God in his first argument. As to why the universe needs a cause, that is, again, in his first point; I can sum it up as "systems in a state of change must have had a beginning", and "systems cannot remain in a state of change forever". That is, that nothing that experiences change can be eternal, so must in turn have had a beginning, and therefore a cause.
Virtual particles blow that out of the water.
I am not 100% familiar with those, but some brief research seems to show they are theoretical, and not directly observable. Wikipedia seems to sum it up as this...
The concept of virtual particles arises in the perturbation theory of quantum field theory, an approximation scheme in which interactions (essentially forces) between real particles are calculated in terms of exchanges of virtual particles
If I am reading that correctly, it is in the same position as the Higgs-- necessary to explain and perform calculations in quantum mechanics, but nevertheless theoretical. That doesnt put it in a position to blow contingency out of the water.
I am not a quantum physicist, so am wary in trying to make statements about such ideas, but it also appears that they are trying to account for how some otherwise unexplainable interactions between particles occur, and have "visualized" them with virtual particles. To assume that they must have the complete picture, and what appears to us must be what really is, seems some phenomenal hubris. I rather suspect that an actual researcher would not be so cocksure as you are about our knowledge of quantum interactions.
If there is one thing math has taught is, it is that that is not always the case. For example, what is the greatest whole number (and if the answer to that is \Aleph_0, what is the greatest cardinal number?).
That is a good question, but I think that there ARE answers when it comes to qualities we observe in the world such as "good", "right", "beauty", etc. As to whether largeness and smallness can be extended to the infinity, I do not know-- it is not my argument, I have very little time reading and thinking on Aquinas, and I was merely pointing him in the direction of some classical arguments. That is not to say that there are not answers, merely that I do not have this one.
The Teleological Argument: "We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end" No, we don't. We see them act according to universal laws, and project intent into them.
That is interesting; Aquinas sets forth a well reasoned argument and your response is "I disagree with your premise, will give no defense of my position, but will nevertheless declare you to be wrong".
Pascal's wager? Really? You have got to be kidding me.
Pascal is known for much more than pascal's wager, and if you express such contempt for it I assume you are only familiar with its paraphrased version. The actual "wager" is a good deal longer and more weighty than what you are probably familiar with. And the wager constitutes o
I should have edited this in:
I AM making a claim, that God exists, and is responsible for all things. I do not intend to get more specific than THAT in this discussion because how we arrived at today is not what the discussion was about; the starter comment was that there is no "rational" argument for God, and I have provided several well known, old, and a few of my own arguments, and a good many people remark that they think they carry some weight.
I do not intend to claim that I am the best apologist, philosopher, or scientist, or that my grasp of quantum mechanics is any better than my grasp of some of Kant and Nietzsche's ideas; but I certainly think I have satisfied the demand of the OP.
Time is a state of change. Anything that experiences change cannot be eternal, unless it is in a perpetual cycle (which is commonly rejected as "perpetual motion machine).
Therefore, assuming reality is not an illusion, and spontaneous generation is not feasible, and self-creation is agreed to be nonsense, something "outside of time" is necessary.
I know folks who are well below the poverty line-- some of them well. They still have tv, and cell phones, and a house.
I also know a number of folks who so not work because of government handouts. I do not mean to comment on their specific situation-- it is possible they have a good reason; but the point is they will NEVER work so long as they do not have to, because every individual THINKS they have a good reason.
Don't say it could never happen here because I didn't think we'd be seeing tent cities and families living in cars like something out of the third world either. The bag of tricks at the Fed is completely empty now and congress can't keep up spending forever without our rating plunging further
Hate to burst your bubble, but the poverty rate is quite low in our country, and the bar for poverty is quite a bit higher in this country the average income for the majority of the world. For example, Cuba's average income is about 8k a year, and our poverty line is about $16k per year.
Thats not to say things are perfect, but there are an incredible number of people who pay no rent or pay no taxes and whose lifestyles are partly or wholly paid for by the government.
I might remark that THAT is a problem when we have trouble reining in our spending.
and the teabaggers frankly can't stand anything given to the poor so they'll cockblock any aid packages anyway
Such displays of eloquence do wonders for your credibility and the power of your argument.
But I will note that giving poor people loads of guarenteed no-strings money has never worked, not here, not in somalia, not pretty much anywhere. If you incentivize not working, people will not work, or will find a way to exploit the situation.