Author Topic: Mother Theresa is a fraud  (Read 12446 times)

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Offline General Battuta

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud
Yeah. And that's especially for women, who are just as horny as men but don't often receive the same degree of cultural information either on masturbation or on how to achieve sexual satisfaction once in a committed relationship.

 

Offline iamzack

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud
Yeah, but companies are trying to sell something real. A product which exists without a doubt.

Religion is trying to sell something they can't prove to exist. And they don't just want money (though they generally want plenty of money), they want to curtail your freedom with silly rules they pulled from some incredibly ancient culture.

Ignoring the first bit for a moment:  Explain to me why an insurance company is any different from what you just described.

Insurance, first of all, is a real product. You pay them money for a while, and then if you need a **** ton of money for an unexpected reason, they pay it. It's kind of retarded, but whatever.

Insurance companies don't care if you have gay sex, masturbate, use condoms, etc. They don't attempt to convince me I'm better off subservient to some guy for the rest of my life. Et cetera.
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Offline karajorma

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud
I think your mistake here is arguing in favour of insurance companies not being tools of Satan. :p
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Offline Turambar

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud
theory and practice are pretty far apart in this case.  maybe religion and insurance are more similar than i thought...
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Offline iamzack

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud
Doesn't make religion look more reasonable, it makes insurance look more retarded. :P
WE ARE HARD LIGHT PRODUCTIONS. YOU WILL LOWER YOUR FIREWALLS AND SURRENDER YOUR KEYBOARDS. WE WILL ADD YOUR INTELLECTUAL AND VERNACULAR DISTINCTIVENESS TO OUR OWN. YOUR FORUMS WILL ADAPT TO SERVICE US. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.

 

Offline Nuclear1

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud
* Nuclear1 starts health insurance debate

All threads lead to it :p
Spoon - I stand in awe by your flawless fredding. Truely, never before have I witnessed such magnificant display of beamz.
Axem -  I don't know what I'll do with my life now. Maybe I'll become a Nun, or take up Macrame. But where ever I go... I will remember you!
Axem - Sorry to post again when I said I was leaving for good, but something was nagging me. I don't want to say it in a way that shames the campaign but I think we can all agree it is actually.. incomplete. It is missing... Voice Acting.
Quanto - I for one would love to lend my beautiful singing voice into this wholesome project.
Nuclear1 - I want a duet.
AndrewofDoom - Make it a trio!

 

Offline iamzack

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud
*sigh*

I'll do it.

Against: NAZIS were socialists!!!!!!11

For: FRUTOPIA!
WE ARE HARD LIGHT PRODUCTIONS. YOU WILL LOWER YOUR FIREWALLS AND SURRENDER YOUR KEYBOARDS. WE WILL ADD YOUR INTELLECTUAL AND VERNACULAR DISTINCTIVENESS TO OUR OWN. YOUR FORUMS WILL ADAPT TO SERVICE US. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.

 

Offline StarSlayer

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud
Before we totally leave orbit on the topic of false heroes I'd just like to say...


JAYNE, the man they call Jayne

He robbed from the rich
And he gave to the poor
Stood up to the man
And gave him what for
Our love for him now
Ain't hard to explain
The hero of Canton
The man they call Jayne

Our Jayne saw the mudders' backs breakin'
He saw the mudders' lament
And he saw the magistrate takin'
Every dollar and leavin' five cents
So he said "you can't do that to my people"
He said "you can't crush them under your heel"
So Jayne strapped on his hat
And in 5 seconds flat
Stole everythin' Boss Higgins had to steal

He robbed from the rich
And he gave to the poor
Stood up to the man
And gave him what for
Our love for him now
Ain't hard to explain
The hero of Canton
The man they call Jayne

Now here is what separates heroes
From common folk like you and I
The man they call Jayne
He turned 'round his plane
And let that money hit sky
He dropped it onto our houses
He dropped it into our yards
The man they called Jayne
He stole away our pain
And headed out for the stars

He robbed from the rich
And he gave to the poor
Stood up to the man
And gave him what for
Our love for him now
Ain't hard to explain
The hero of Canton
The man they call Jayne.
“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world”

 

Offline Kosh

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud
Quote
That's not what I said and you know it. Cease the strawmanning.

You said I alleged she committed a crime against humanity, meaning you dont consider what she did to be bad. At least that's what I took from what you said.

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for that matter that such convents might just a little have any sort positive effect (religious orders typically do in poor areas because the rank and file of a religion typically buys into the basic propganda about tolerance and helping the needy)

It's fraud because people donating to her organization are not doing so in order to build convents to convert people, they are doing so to fund her hospitals.

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Because of course you have any conception of how far tens of millions of dollars will go in this situation. And the answer is not very far. Let us be honest: after transportation, maintaince, upkeep, etc. how much is left?

Stuff is cheap in the third world, and it is possible to find qualified doctors (which she didn't do) and decent medicines (which she also didn't do) for only a fraction of what it would have cost in the US. It's not like we expected her to build a world class hospital, of course not but she certainly could have done a lot better with what she had. Instead that money sat in the organizations bank accounts.

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Let us compare the operating budgets of modern hospitals; 100 million plus. King in LA had trouble keeping its doors open because it can't meet its operating costs; it was in the red by several hundred million and had to close its burn unit and other services totalling over 100 million in costs a year because it couldn't find the money to run them through charitable donations, payment for services rendered, and government grants.

LA is not a third world city, making your comparison completely irrelevant.

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Then why did you make such an inflammatory comparison when you knew it was fundementally invalid? Are you delibrately trying to drag the level of the argument down or what?

I'm point out that their basic view of humanity and human suffering is really not that different.

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Why not? Is not what the lie has accomplished preferable to destroying the legacy of a woman long-dead that stands for something completely different from what you're complaining about, by your own admission?

Or are you so desperate to see Mother Teresa wrongly vilified that you would damage the good works done by those who followed in her wake to get at her?

Let me get this straight, you are seriously suggesting we let people's cults of personality and media hype determine what is true and what isn't? That's incredibly dangerous. I'm not desperate to see anyone wrongfully villified, and I don't appreciate the accusation.

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As for poor people accepting being poor, in the environment Mother Teresa worked in, what other choices were there? We all want to lift them up but the truth is charitable works cannot do that

So poor people should never bother trying to work to make their lives better and instead just "accept" that they are perpetually on the bottom of society? How unamerican of you. No one is saying that charities should uplift everyone, but to say there is never any hope or potential is....I can't even ind words for it its so disgusting. Totally the opposite of the American Dream.

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Turn it not to altering your reality but that of your children, or your children's children.

But that wasn't what she said. I've never read a single quote from her saying work to make your future generations lives better or anything like that.

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Most people Mother Teresa worked with won't live that long.

Because she didn't give them the treatments they needed. :p
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Offline TrashMan

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud

Stuff is cheap in the third world, and it is possible to find qualified doctors (which she didn't do) and decent medicines (which she also didn't do) for only a fraction of what it would have cost in the US. It's not like we expected her to build a world class hospital, of course not but she certainly could have done a lot better with what she had. Instead that money sat in the organizations bank accounts.

Stuff is cheap in the third world? Some stuff, maybe.

But medical equipment and medicine? Definately not.


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Offline Kosh

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud
India has more than a few companies that specialize in making generic copies of medicine, greatly reduing the price (so does the US). As for medical equipment, basic stuff really would not be that expensive (hypodermic needles, gloves, cleaning stuff, etc). I don't know about higher end devices though (yet), although you could likely convince some western hospitals to donate some of their previous generation stuff when they go through upgrades.
"The reason for this is that the original Fortran got so convoluted and extensive (10's of millions of lines of code) that no-one can actually figure out how it works, there's a massive project going on to decode the original Fortran and write a more modern system, but until then, the UK communication network is actually relying heavily on 35 year old Fortran that nobody understands." - Flipside

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Offline TESLA

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud
This whole thread is a load of balls.


She was a woman who tried her best to help people in a poverty stricken situation.
None of us can claim to have tried anything on that scale before.
She deserves all the credit for her hard work.

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Offline iamzack

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud
The argument is about whether she did actually try to help people, so...
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Offline Klaustrophobia

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud
threads like this make me want to stop reading offtopic.
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Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud
You said I alleged she committed a crime against humanity, meaning you dont consider what she did to be bad. At least that's what I took from what you said.

So you're incapable of evaluating context of the remark. I don't believe that's true, but either way rather than choose the most rational meaning you went for the most inflammatory one. This is either a sign that you are, in fact, emotionally involved, or you're arguing in bad faith.

In fact, let's back off from the individual arguments for a moment and examine your argumentive style as a whole. I do you the courtesy of engaging with your complete arguments as much as possible, addressing all points you raise. You, on the other hand, cherrypick the points you're going to respond to. It's like a form of selective blindness, one you engage in quite often. Aldo once expressed his frustration with this method of argument to you. Allow me to do the same. The only conclusion I can draw is that you're ignoring the points you can't fight rather than surrender that you can't fight them.

It's fraud because people donating to her organization are not doing so in order to build convents to convert people, they are doing so to fund her hospitals.

I notice you're not actually engaging with my argument on this point at all. It's almost like you can't.

You're now also arguing that people who donated to her organization had no concept they might just be donating to a Christian charity! Instead of accusing Mother Teresa, you have devolved to accusing those who supported her work.

Stuff is cheap in the third world, and it is possible to find qualified doctors (which she didn't do) and decent medicines (which she also didn't do) for only a fraction of what it would have cost in the US. It's not like we expected her to build a world class hospital, of course not but she certainly could have done a lot better with what she had. Instead that money sat in the organizations bank accounts.

You again demonstrate your ignorance of attempting to construct hospitals in rural India where things like modern transportation and sanitation do not exist.

You also now introduce an entirely new charge, that the organization did not use the money it was given. This is a switch from your previous charge that the organization misused the money it was given. Which is it, Kosh? You can't have it both ways.

LA is not a third world city, making your comparison completely irrelevant.

No, it's not in a third-world city.

And that's exactly the point. Los Angeles is not a third-world city. A for-profit hospital, in Los Angeles, could not keep itself afloat on a budget many times what you're alotting to Mother Teresa's works. Yet you demand she do better than she did when King proved that's an impossiblity.

Thus you missed the crux of the argument once more. I doubt you and I think that differently; the suspicion really does grow it's delibrate.

I'm point out that their basic view of humanity and human suffering is really not that different.

And you're failing badly. You're comparing sociopathic and dissassociative tendancies to Mother Teresa. Are you now really insisting that she views some people as subhuman?  Where is your evidence?

Let me get this straight, you are seriously suggesting we let people's cults of personality and media hype determine what is true and what isn't? That's incredibly dangerous. I'm not desperate to see anyone wrongfully villified, and I don't appreciate the accusation.

Much as the rest of us don't appreciate yours. If you didn't want to play rough, you shouldn't have been comparing Mother Teresa to Stalin/Hitler/Kim-Jong Il.

However, that aside: You are posisting the existence of universal truth in a matter that, as this argument demonstrates, is inherently subjective. The mere fact we're arguing this demonstrates the folly of your assertions.

Furthermore, since we're arguing over the existence of the cult of personality and media hype you posist, attempting to make that point is invalid unless you can first sustain the existence of the other points on which they're based. As you have failed to do that, this point, too, is invalid.

So poor people should never bother trying to work to make their lives better and instead just "accept" that they are perpetually on the bottom of society?

Again, you appear to have selectively responded to my argument. I'll make you a deal: every time you fail to read through to the end (you know, the part about accepting the now to change the future, children's children, stuff like that?), I'll call you a liar.

Liar.

How unamerican of you.

"If you don't like monkeys, you are Un-American and have allowed the terrorists to win."

If that mockery sounds familar, it's because it used to be in your signature, Kosh.

No one is saying that charities should uplift everyone, but to say there is never any hope or potential is....I can't even ind words for it its so disgusting. Totally the opposite of the American Dream.

See above.

Aside from that point, the American Dream stresses the importance of hard work to accomplish what you do. Charitable assistence is welcome, but hardly integral and possibly even dangerous to the ultimate goal of self-reliance that the dream espouses. It appears my assertion that charity can never truly uplift the downtrodden is very American after all.

But that wasn't what she said. I've never read a single quote from her saying work to make your future generations lives better or anything like that.

But then, she doesn't need to say such things to make it true, does she? We've completely digressed from the topic of what Mother Teresa said to why she said it and since you're failing to offer any evidence I stepped up with conjecture backed by historical evidence.

If you have evidence I'm wrong, produce it. If you don't, produce better conjecture. If you can't do either, you've lost the argument.

Because she didn't give them the treatments they needed. :p

While true, this ignores the points that she could not.
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Offline karajorma

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud
NGTM-1R have you actually got any evidence she could not or are you just assuming this?

Oh and while I'm at it. This is pretty good. Biased as hell but definitely worth watching.

You're now also arguing that people who donated to her organization had no concept they might just be donating to a Christian charity! Instead of accusing Mother Teresa, you have devolved to accusing those who supported her work.

He's arguing that MT and her charity knowingly misled people into thinking that money was being spent on the poor when it was actually being spent on MT's religious order. It's the same as if a church was taking money out of the poor box to fix the roof. While the money might have been collected in a church that doesn't mean that those who donated it shouldn't have a reasonable expectation that the money would be spent on the poor.

Bear in mind that MT's charities do not publish financial records so there is no way for a donor to know what their money will be spent on. If you are claiming that the act of donating money to a Christian charity means you should expect that the money might not end up being spent on charity and will instead be spent on religion you are doing a lot of Christian charities a great disservice.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2010, 08:06:55 pm by karajorma »
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Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud
NGTM-1R have you actually got any evidence she could not or are you just assuming this?

It's there in the posts if you read them. (You did read them?) Admittedly circumstantial, but it's more than Kosh is offering.

He's arguing that MT and her charity knowingly misled people into thinking that money was being spent on the poor when it was actually being spent on MT's religious order. It's the same as if a church was taking money out of the poor box to fix the roof. While the money might have been collected in a church that doesn't mean that those who donated it shouldn't have a reasonable expectation that the money would be spent on the poor.

Which is patently ridiculous. First, Kosh has only asserted willful fraud after he was called to the carpet for asserting that the money should be better spent.

Second, he has provided no evidence whatsoever to back his new claim. He has simply made a bald assertion. If I respond in kind, is this surprising?

Third, the nature of Mother Teresa's work in both spheres was and is easily known. I knew it when the woman was still alive and I was a minor who didn't have much interest in world news, much less news about charity in India. If you need more proof, I present this very thread. Kosh's argument is self-refuting.

Bear in mind that MT's charities do not publish financial records so there is no way for a donor to know what their money will be spent on. If you are claiming that the act of donating money to a Christian charity means you should expect that the money might not end up being spent on charity and will instead be spent on religion you are doing a lot of Christian charities a great disservice.

Not at all. A Christian charity would hardly be Christian if it didn't at least try to preach. Furthermore, by adopting a Christian identity, the money will go to religion in the form of simple upkeep of the organization. This is where Kosh and I differ; the convents he views as abominations are, bluntly, simple upkeep, infrastructure for the continuation of the organization.
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Offline Bob-san

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud
Doesn't make religion look more reasonable, it makes insurance look more retarded. :P
Insurance is a necessary evil. I invite you to visit an American hospital without decent health insurance.
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Offline karajorma

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud
Try visiting a Swedish one without it. :p



It's there in the posts if you read them. (You did read them?) Admittedly circumstantial, but it's more than Kosh is offering.

Well if circumstantial evidence is enough I can point to several charities in Calcutta that did manage to provide medical staff at the same time as MT was running her charity (at least towards the end of the time she was alive). If she couldn't do it, it must be because she wanted to open lots of convents instead of improving facilities at the ones that already existed.

So the question becomes "Did she actually do more good that way?" Is it better to open lots of convents that can't help very much or fewer ones that can help a lot?

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Third, the nature of Mother Teresa's work in both spheres was and is easily known. I knew it when the woman was still alive and I was a minor who didn't have much interest in world news, much less news about charity in India. If you need more proof, I present this very thread. Kosh's argument is self-refuting.

How is a thread that only appeared several years after the woman's death proof of anything that was going on during her life?

Secondly, just because you know something doesn't automatically make it common knowledge. She was known as Mother Teresa of Calcutta. I suspect a great many people thought that the majority of their money was going to Calcutta. Especially as it was pictures of Calcutta that featured very heavily in any donation drives her organisation made.

Similarly I suspect that a lot of her donations came from non-Christians who believed the bulk of their money was going to the poor.

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A Christian charity would hardly be Christian if it didn't at least try to preach. Furthermore, by adopting a Christian identity, the money will go to religion in the form of simple upkeep of the organization. This is where Kosh and I differ; the convents he views as abominations are, bluntly, simple upkeep, infrastructure for the continuation of the organization.

Which again brings us back to the issue that the charity doesn't publish financial records so there is no way to check how much is actually being spent on the infrastructure directly related to helping the poor and how much is being spent on maintaining the organisation as a religious entity.
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Offline castor

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Re: Mother Theresa is a fraud
So the question becomes "Did she actually do more good that way?" Is it better to open lots of convents that can't help very much or fewer ones that can help a lot?
Isn't the original question more like: would it have been better if she never existed?
The title of this thread suggests it would, which is the disagreement here?