The Primate Diaries

The Difference is Jesus

Posted by EMJ on December 14, 2009
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ScienceBlogs has the funniest ads sometimes. This image adorned the right hand side of my screen this morning (maybe now it’s there twice). Intrigued I wanted to know more:

Compassion believes it takes more than education, healthcare and social programs to make a difference in the life of a child and help nations escape from poverty.

Finally, someone’s advocating the abolition of all third world debt. Or they’re suggesting that there needs to be a nonviolent civil uprising to remove authoritarian regimes throughout the Global South and expose the multinationals who support them. Exposing the World Bank and IMF structural adjustment programs as a sham?

Well, not quite:

It’s only by the gospel of Jesus Christ that poverty can end, and lives be forever changed.

Cue The Onion‘s biting satire.

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Comments

  1. #1 John McKay
    December 14, 2009

    Oh cynical man. Clearly your historical education has been deficient, otherwise you would know that child poverty has never existed in a Christian country. Never.

  2. #2 EMJ
    December 14, 2009

    :)

  3. #3 Aquinas Dad
    December 15, 2009

    Of course, maybe we should consider the studies that show that more religious cultures have citizens that are happier and healthier and have lower unemployment than less religious cultures….

    link to links;
    http://deepthought.blogtownhall.com/default.aspx

  4. #4 Ollitapio Pursiainen
    December 16, 2009

    I believe that Jesus wants that western world helps other world to escape from poverty. But in England there was poverty in 1800-1900 centuries.

  5. #5 BdN
    December 17, 2009

    I really like their slogan “Releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name”. Couldn’t you do it on your own ?

    But in England there was poverty in 1800-1900 centuries.

    Oh, glad to learn there is no poverty left in England…

    Of course, maybe we should consider the studies that show that more religious cultures have citizens that are happier and healthier and have lower unemployment than less religious cultures….

    Well, maybe, but unfortunately, your link’s links don’t provide such information. After a really long rant about Japan’s alleged disaster, is… not much.

    -It repeats that “Religious societies tend to be happier” without a definition of what is a “happy” society nor giving any relevant data.

    -There’s no mention of health

    -There is some data about employment but all the relations are weak except for one which shows that more religious societies tend to not hire lesser educated women. Oh, BTW, all the relations between religion and employment are inverse… (learn to read a graph).

    -And the interpretation about the (non-existent) relation between suicide rates and projected population growth is soooooooooooo far fetched…

    -But if you wanna keep using correlations for everything and throwing mud on the wall and interpret all the weak relations you find, why don’t you use ALL of them ?

    Like the ones that show that more religious countries have more child poverty, have more children under five suffering from stunting and underweight ?

    Like the ones that show that more religious countries have more adults at low literacy levels, spend less in research and development and have more children who dislike school ?