Where was all this money the day before the Cathedral burned down?
Saving heritage buildings and other cultural artifacts is important. But so is saving people. It really bugs me that there is such an outpouring of money to rebuild a church, when there are millions of people suffering and dying every day.
Are my priorities off when I get mad at rebuilding something with cultural value, when the cost to do so is so out of proportion to it’s value (to me, anyways)?
How-Australians-donate-help-restoration-Notre-Dame-Cathedral-Paris - Lets see, it burned down yesterday and is still hot and steaming - something doesn’t compute.
I can appreciate your confusion. I can’t offer any serious objections to your basic premise. We have a way of squandering fortunes on distractions. Why are adults spending billions on landing people on Mars when we are destroying our planet, right from under our feet.
Why did Americans elect Trump - and why did the other half(?) allow it to happens.
Why did Clinton continue projecting that closed-in arrogant bitch persona - even though millions were looking for an excuse to trust her, but she couldn’t even muster a few words into a message that made any sense to real people.
Why did the great Obama sit out most of the 2016 election campaign, where was his golden rhetoric when the nation needed it most?
Oh, but i do digress.
Old stuff is in trouble because for the most part people don’t believe in maintaining it. Heck take a boat tour on the Chicago River and look at the undersides of those draw bridges that millions drive over. How could that have been so neglected, when all those bridges wanted was a little maintain and fresh paint regularly, but they have been to busy making the city look glitzier, to have the money or man power for keeping to a serious maintenance schedule.
Now I’m thinking of an old song π that seems not all that inappropriate to this thread. I’m figuring (and hoping) you can appreciate the spirit of the thing in good humor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoXll0XmObM
Citizenschallenge, I won’t argue with you on any of those points.
When it comes to spending money on things like this church, or any other expensive ‘cultural’ project, I always feel like people are more emotionally invested in stuff than people. Why are we humans hardwired to vastly overvalue a building in a city on another continent, and vastly undervalue the homeless people in our own city (or anywhere on the planet, because the location of a person should have no bearing on whether or how much you care about them)?
I suppose the more important question is, how do we fix this problem with our brains?
thatoneguy: How is wondering why a burned building can extract more concern and money than the suffering of fellow humans, comical?
If your “drop in the bucket” could save lives or rebuild one building, why would you choose the building? On a global scale the money could be considered insignificant, but how insignificant would it have been for the people who’s lives were saved or who’s suffering was alleviated, if it had been used for humanitarian purposes instead?
No one is mad about restoring or caring for historically significant things. What is sad is how all this money is pouring in within hours of the news about Notre Dame, yet that same money could have easily saved thousands of lives and prevented untold suffering the day (week/month/year/decade/etc.) before the fire.
If you’re ever in need of something to keep you alive or to stop your suffering, just remember that any assistance given to you would be “a drop in the bucket” compared to restoring some religious artifact. You should be happy to know that some church was rebuilt rather than used to save your life or alleviate your suffering (or your child’s or parent’s or spouse’s or sibling’s death or suffering).
some guy: “The real story here is atheists are always comically mad when somewhere, someone cares about religious artifacts.”
Actually the real story is atheists shaking their heads at how we worship ourselves. Your “Religious Artifacts” are all about human self-adulation and crowd control. That’s what’s so comical. But, guess you don’t get the joke.
What I find curious is that I’m not hearing anything about cause. Actually that’s a joke since my exposure to news is rather limited. Let me rephrase that: Does anyone know of speculation about what started the fire? From the pictures it appears some renovation was going on right at the heart of fire? Was it a workman’s booboo? Was it sinister?
On a totally different note. Man that seems like one of the coolest scaffolding jobs to have been on. It’s probably be a tad scary taking it down now with unknown heat damage, distortion and fatigue. Another thought I have. Those timbers that made up the roof, that sort of ancient huge tight grained wood is gone, so what will they resort to? Structural laminated wood has come a long way. I’m curious to see how go about reroof it.
Although, the Statue of Liberty would have been the wish project to keep me busy for a while. But, then I lived in Colorado and didn’t belong to the right family anyways, but it was a fun thought every time I look at pictures of it.
For perspective; I live in a rural area, so any community building is a valuable resource. Secular cultural events often use churches because they are the best spaces. Most of the time, those spaces go unused. Plus, there are many more spaces that aren’t just unvaluable, they are a drain on the community. Small groups of people have to constantly raise funds to keep their old church standing, heated, etc. because their religion is special, so the idea of sharing is just not considered. Then, as I drive through a rich suburban area, I pass a community building larger than my town’s downtown. The larger population can afford the space wasting churches and still pool their resources for the community center. It’s a pretty blatant demonstration of the short sightedness of people who say they are working toward a greater good but don’t take obvious steps to actually move in that direction. Notre Dame Cathedral is a giant symbol of that to me.
If your “drop in the bucket” could save lives or rebuild one building, why would you choose the building? On a global scale the money could be considered insignificant, but how insignificant would it have been for the people who’s lives were saved or who’s suffering was alleviated, if it had been used for humanitarian purposes instead?
No one is mad about restoring or caring for historically significant things. What is sad is how all this money is pouring in within hours of the news about Notre Dame, yet that same money could have easily saved thousands of lives and prevented untold suffering the day (week/month/year/decade/etc.) before the fire.
If you’re ever in need of something to keep you alive or to stop your suffering, just remember that any assistance given to you would be “a drop in the bucket” compared to restoring some religious artifact. You should be happy to know that some church was rebuilt rather than used to save your life or alleviate your suffering (or your child’s or parent’s or spouse’s or sibling’s death or suffering)
…….Or the money could have been spent on groceries or uber...….
Theoretical humanitarian disasters don’t matter to most people. When a real one occurs the world quickly jumps to action.
“Theoretical humanitarian disasters don’t matter to most people. When a real one occurs the world quickly jumps to action.”
Not sure what planet you’re from. Must be a cool place.
I live on earth where theoretical humanitarian disasters are a reality for lots of people, and when they occur, most of the world quickly finds excuses to not help.
The fact that the distribution of hardship and suffering is unevenly distributed around the earth is so obvious, that I won’t waste time providing examples.
You simply choose to not see problems where I see them. Sadly, that’s your privilege and you take full advantage of it.
Lausten, I live in a small rural town, and until five years ago we had eight churches in our 2000 person town, with five country churches within a 10 minute drive. The next town 15 minutes away is much larger (about 8,800 people) and they have lots of churches too.
Five years ago we lost three churches, due to either aging and declining membership or infighting about finances. But that still leaves 10 churches to service a relatively small population.
We have a crumbling community center that needs upkeep and expansion (it’s old and small), but we never have the money to do it. If we really were a ‘community’ we would be able to pool our resources to make the community center the literal center of town activities. Instead, we have craft/bake sales, silent auctions and other fund raisers to support the many declining churches.
How awesome would it be to put all of that money into a single project that benefits everyone?
I live on earth where theoretical humanitarian disasters are a reality for lots of people, and when they occur, most of the world quickly finds excuses to not help.
Name a massive humanitarian disaster that was ignored by the world.
How bout 1/2 dozen currently ignored? Many other examples could, doubtless, be given from history, except those that were so ignored that they are effectively beyond our memory. With the advancement of the harshness of climate change, there will likely be more and more in the coming decades.
Someone can always come up with excuses to continue to ignore humanitarian disasters. One could, if so inclined, come up with work-arounds to the barriers against effective donation. e.g., donations could be placed in an interest bearing trust fund, to be distributed at which time armed conflict and/or corruption do not make the donation useless.
But that is all hypothetical discussion. What is going on today 4/20/19, are the yellow shirts in France, protesting, somewhat violently, re: a $billion donated to Notre Dame, instead of toward addressing wealth disparity.
They may be lacking a modern day Marie Antonette to suggest for the poor in France to “Let them go see the Cathedral”.
