Greed and Charity

[Titan Rising 2,156]

Well here's a topic I've been thinking about for a while.  Is greed bad and is charity good?  What do you think is greedy?  How do you define greed?  How do you define charity?  Why do you think it's bad and why do you believe charity is good?

 

Do you think people that have more than what they need yet don't help others are greedy?  Is having the means to secure the longevity of your life and owning material possessions really such a bad thing?  Is it greedy to live for yourself and not for someone else?  Is it greedy not to give away yourself and your efforts to live to someone else?  Is the epitome of good then, for us all to be slaves to each other's needs?

 

The easiest way to define charity the way the most people think of it is [i think] self sacrifice.  So why is sacrificing yourself for the sake of someone else good?  And if it is good, why should you stop at just giving a portion of what you own?  Why not give everything you own away and sacrifice yourself completely?

 

As for myself, if you care for my opinion:

 

what do I think is greedy?  Taking for yourself at the expense of others.  What do I think is charitable?  Giving to others at the expense of yourself.  As I am a completely unorthodox individual that has to disagree with everything everyone ever says ever, I think they're both bad because they both demand sacrifices.  Although, maybe I could redefine both as greed and define charity as something else.

 

So then, what do I think is good or what would I call charitable?  Living for yourself and others at the same time and sharing experiences with them at the expense of no one.  In short, to insert money and means of survival into the question of what is greedy and what is charitable is, I think, inherently greedy as it implies sacrificing ourselves to each other out of fear of death.

 

I dunno, something like that, I started to confuse myself a little but I think it's a lot more simple than I just made it sound.

 

Edited March 10, 2013 by Hollowshield

[MelancholicMemory 2,025]

Greed and charity are neither good or bad thing by themselves. Greed is only bad when accompanied by a great lack of empathy, which results in many of the abuses we see amongst countless people of power.

[Cowl 128]

My moral views tend to be mostly utilitarian. That is the correct action is the one that creates the most overall utility or reduces the overall utility the least. The law of diminishing returns is also important because it shows that for the most part the best spread of resources etc is ~ an even distribution.

 

Being greedy is when you take so much of an item (product, wealth, or service) that you're marginal benefit of taking more of that item has dropped significantly from the value that it would have for others. In such a case you could easily create net utils (units of utility) by giving up some of the item.

 

Being charitable would be giving away some of you're resources to increase the net utility by helping others who have less and by the law of diminishing returns would benefit more than you.

 

The reason you stop giving away you're resources is because there is no longer a significant gain in net utility to be had by giving you're resources to another. Additionally not all products/resources/etc follow the law of diminishing return very well, especially when you start to consider saving money for the future.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Cowl

[Scootalove 10,689]

I think that greed is something that might tie into charity if the foundation of the charity uses the money earned to exploit certain things. Charity is only good if the money earned, goes to a good cause. Greed is basically a trait that human beings have.

[Shanks 10,816]

I would define greed as the pursuit of material wealth power or both with little to no regard for ethics, morality or human decency. In other words a person who is wealthy because they worked hard to me is not someone who is inherently greedy but big mega corporations buying out politicians to regulate their competition out of business and force the taxpayers to support them through subsidies, bailouts and other corporate welfare is greed. Greed is bad because all greed does is take, it does not contribute anything or help anyone all it does is take without any regard whatsoever for the consequences.

 

I would define charity as doing your part to help those who are in need. I think we all have a moral obligation to do what we can to help each other to try to leave this world a better place than we did before and this is clearly what charity is. This dosen't mean that we have to give up all wealth or comforts but it does mean that we have to remember those who are less fortunate so my obvious answer is yes charity is good.

[I used to be a stranger 7,993]

The desire for something is all very well and good; it is good to want money or a car or whatever. However, Greed is to want what Hatred is to dislike. It is a violent and abject absolution which leads to vices; selfishness, covetousness and viler extreme opportunisms to the detriment of one's fellow man.

A person can want to do something and it doesn't automatically have to be attributed to greed. A soldier does not have a greed for life if he must fight to defend himself, it is a response of protection and therefore care of the self. Greed is wanting something far more than is reasonable or logical, and so the contrast of Greed and Charity is an amoral danger vs. an ideal virtue, not just contrasted ideas that lean in opposite directions like left or right.

Edited March 11, 2013 by Blue

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,824]

I think that some charities can be greedy in terms of what financial goals they go for. I believe that in the past few years, the competition is who can get the most money, which equals how popular the charity is. This is why some charities create almost impossible goals, just to beat the others, which in essence, they're exercising an amount of greed. 

[Shanks 10,816]

This is why some charities create almost impossible goals, just to beat the others, which in essence, they're exercising an amount of greed. 

True and there are also a lot of so called charities that are little more than front groups that are pulling at peoples heart strings by pretending to care about the people they are supposedly trying to help yet are really just using it for a hidden agenda. Case in point are a lot of these cancer charities which talk about finding a cure which is great except there are already are cures. But the only reason why people don't know about them is because big pharma has gone to great lengths to keep them under wraps.

 

One way they have done this is to start up a lot of these charities and to hijack legitimate charities that really are trying to help people.This of course is not true charity as true charity actually is helping others and not simply trying to play games like you described or have hidden agendas.

 

This documentary sheds a great deal of light on how big pharma and their cronies in the FDA have tried to stifle progress to line their own pockets it is the story of Dr Burzynski a doctor who cured people of cancer and how they tried to shut him down.

 

http://youtu.be/Jnxvn5CSuc8

[Dimitri Hammer 3,645]

It mainly depends on the aspect on which you're viewing it. Greed and Charity can both be beneficiary or destructive based on the situation and who or what you're talking about.

 

Greed is the selfish desire for...just what? Is for something. The selfish desire for food or money or life. Conveying feelings of greed mainly for the gain of materialistic items is, in my opinion wrong in most cases. Am I greedy because I want to keep my life, I desire to fight to live on this harsh world? Maybe I am.

 

Charity is voluntarily giving aid of some form. Sometimes out of pity, sometimes out of the desire to do a good deed which can in technical sense make you seem greedy. I am helping someone to make myself look good. I desire to be looked upon as a good man. Charity is sacrifice in my opinion. Doing it just to help someone, and not for your gain. If you care how people think of you when doing charity is it still charity?

 

 

 

Did I just make any sense? I hope I used the correct English words for what I want to say

Edited March 11, 2013 by Comrade-Dimitri-Hammer

[Retro*Derpy 3,183]

Greed is when you have much more than you can chew for say, and greed isn't a good thing. It leads to a path of self-destruction. That is where charity comes in though, it is for the people that have more than can chew and wish to give some of it to others that have nearly or absolutely nothing. 

[Titan Rising 2,156]

The desire for something is all very well and good; it is good to want money or a car or whatever. However, Greed is to want what Hatred is to dislike. It is a violent and abject absolution which leads to vices; selfishness, covetousness and viler extreme opportunisms to the detriment of one's fellow man.

A person can want to do something and it doesn't automatically have to be attributed to greed. A soldier does not have a greed for life if he must fight to defend himself, it is a response of protection and therefore care of the self. Greed is wanting something far more than is reasonable or logical, and so the contrast of Greed and Charity is an amoral danger vs. an ideal virtue, not just contrasted ideas that lean in opposite directions like left or right.

What qualifies as reasonable and logical?  I might want to take over the world and make myself king because logically there's tons of perks that would come with the position.  If I'm starving and have a loaf of bread should I reasonably keep it for myself to prolong my life or share it with the strange starving children from across the street?

[Zygen 6,066]

I think greed is in most cases bad, its like an extreme for me where you want something way more and of way to much then is required, possible, or rational. Wanting isn't bad per say, but I think Greed is taking want to far.

 

Charity can be good I guess in almost all cases in my eyes, I mean if your doing something of charity then it could be anything from helping someone or something with money, or with time, or with helping them with a problem. Which is good basically as long as your doing it out of simply helping them, and not because of a selfish desire or something, and as long as they're not exploiting you to get your charity which isn't actually a required thing for them. Basically if they manipulate you then giving Charity to them won't really be a good thing, like the people who try and con you out of money sometimes when they're bored even if they have money.

 

I do think of Greed as typically bad, and Charity as typically good, however like the majority of things there are exceptions I suppose.

[Dark Fox 151]

Greed is always bad within the modern social contract, charitity is usually good but can be bad if it's done merely to make yourself or the company you represent look good. As much as millions of dollars will help it isn't a lot of money to a multi-billionare, that's not to say he or she is not a good person for giving their money but I will look more favorably at more substantial sacrifices considering ones financial situation.

 

And if by charity you also refer to volunter work, I'd say it is always good, or at the least it usually has good intentions, some volunteer work has negative reprocussions such as working for a clothing drive for African communities...While this sounds good on paper, local shops depend on people not giving away the same product for free and basically, businesses cannot thrive, and the African economy cannot thrive if all their needs are met for free.

[King 5,625]

Greed and Charity are matters of opinion....opinons differ greatly and so the only way to know what is "good" and "bad" is to find out what most people agree on.

 

Murder = bad  (Most agree on that)

Helping someone when they fall = good (Most people agree on that)

 

However, giving someone $5 when you could easily have given them $100 and still been ok..... Is that good or bad...you gave someone money, but you COULD have given them alot more, thus showing you were also greedy.....

 

Very thin line between the two...

[Michael DeSanta 258]

I belive in charity. I do know greed is a natrual human emotion and want. But we live in a civilized society we are charitiable. I belive in helping the poor and the unfortunate. I think we should be carefuland wise not to let our ideasof charity allow us to essentally say we arestealing from the rich to give to the poor. I mean when one personsof rich varies from person to person someone couldeasily say america needs to give all ofits money to uganda or else where for they are poor. I mean we should encourage people to be charitable but at the same time we should not steal someones hard earned wealth that they earned through years of blood sweat and toil because they can now afford the life of excess through hard work. So it is a very unique discussion of where do we draw a line in helping the poor and not steal from others. I am sorry if i gave this to much thought.