Josh: “a person who is dependent on someone when they can grow their own food or work for themselves is lazy and needs to learn to stop being lazy.”

Many recipients of charity and government aid are unable to work: disability, age, lack of skills or opportunity, care of small children.

The view of unemployed people (or under-employed people) as lazy is one which puzzles me. If one could truly sit back, rest easy and live off the bounty of the government or private charities or (in the case of Africa) wealthy countries, what is the reason you or I don’t take this approach to life? Why would you not trade your hard-working American life to receive free food, medicine and maybe even shelter from Oxfam in the Sudan?

Because poverty stinks, that’s why. I challenge you to find a poor person, failing to make ends meet on whatever charity or aid, who is happy in that situation and would decline suitable, fair-paying work. Unless they had a real limitation, as above.

As for the Scriptures, “don’t work, don’t eat” line, I don’t know that one.

But here’s a site listing many many bible passages on this topic: http://www.zompist.com/meetthepoor.html

And, finally, I think food, water and medical charities should be classified differently because very life depends upon them. There is no hope of working if one is not strong enough. If you want to be “wise” about your charitable giving of computers to the third world or something, go ahead.

There is also the economic aspect that giving food and money to others does not teach them anything but to rely upon others. Dependence is not always bad, of course, but people need to learn to work hard for themselves and not burden others. Nations like Africa have such problems because they do not have economic self-sufficiency and have a dependence on foreign charity. Sometimes giving can do more harm than good.

But there certainly is a tension between charity and wisdom. We must be wise in our charity.

So much for “oppression” by accepting charity. Now of course we can ask why a bunch of loafers should be supported by honest people who work all their lives. Well, to make the thing more acceptable, can’t we just work in turn? Never was able to grasp the economic challenge of “full employment” and the frenzy of making each and every human being on this planet to work, work, work. Can’t we just admit once & forever that our prosperity allows a part of population to remain idle? Can’t we distribute & regulate this idleness, rather than create uselss jobs for generally speaking useless workers? That’s what is going on in France, and is riduculous beyond words.

But of course I am no economist, so if there is any valid argument to support thesis “everyone must work”, please do explain me, I am really keen to understand why.