Can religion really make poverty history?

Question

Reading through some of the answers to the Bono "How do we Make Poverty History" question I was a bit disconcerted to find how many people gave the answer simply as "pray". Does any christian/ jew/ muslem or whatever really put blind faith in an all powerful, omnipotent supernatural god to come save the world when all of our problems are caused by ourselves. War, famine, AIDS and all of the other issues that cause such terrible tradegy around the globe are either caused by or directly associated with the acts of man. Surely the only sollution is for us to sort this mess out ourselves. Your thoughts please...

Answer 1

Prayers can HELP but we gotta look into the formula that God has given us.
A the Islamic point of view, EVERY Muslim who owns more than 85 grams of Gold (or anything that is equal to that amount) to give 2.5% of their wealth to the poor EVERY Lunar year.

Of course, not all people in world are not Muslims nor all Muslims are as rich so while most of them do try to share whatever they have with others, the rest of the world has also needs to pitch in.

Answer 2

No, religion alone cannot end poverty. But it's the ideas behind religion, faith and the desire to do the right thing, that can aid in ending it. If people have enough faith, and want to do good things and change the world, then it's possible. Religion isn't directly responsible, but people act based largely on their spirituality.

Answer 3

if God gives all the countries equal opportunities in money isues, education, languauge and housing living arrangements, the answer may be YES, otherwise, it is not he who has the overall control of all these named issues. Even if everyone on the earth had the same religious beliefs, would that REALLY solve everything? religion is not the ONLY issues in all problems. People often make mistakes, blaming religion as the cause of a problem, when it is only PART of the problem.

Answer 4

Answers like that are really sad.

By simply stating that prayer can make a change, whether or not you actually believe this, these people are absolving themselves of responsibility for ACTUALLY acting to make a change. This kind of attitude is dangerous and counterproductive. These people are part of the problem, not the solution.

I am not criticising people who work with organisations like Christian Aid, mind you, who actually take concrete action in conjunction with prayer. Just those who think prayer alone is the solution.

Answer 5

A pray is surely not enough, but if people would follow the teachings of the religions, it could help a lot. For example, it is a common feature of both Christianity and Islam to help the poor... in Islam it is even defined how much you should help them.

Answer 6

Religion, like all forms of population control, requires suffering. The end of poverty would put many preachers out of business.

...Then they'd be in poverty and the whole thing would start up again.

Answer 7

Based on anecdotal data, nations that are most religious are the nations that suffer the most poverty, illiteracy, crime, etc.

South & Central America & Mexico are about 90% Catholic and they don't seem to have derived much benefit from prayer.

Answer 8

No. No NO NO. If you want change you have to take action and can not "pray" for things to get better.

I have seen 2 different men put blind faith in charge of their lives and both of those men became unemployed and homeless.

Answer 9

Jesus said "The poor you always have with you." Nothing can make those things go away. But prayer does have its place, as action has its place, and faith has its place. You can try to sort this mess out by yourselves, but Jesus came to save us from this mess and take us out of it, not fix it up. What we have here is only going to get worse until Christ returns and removes those who believe in Him.

Answer 10

No way, its an awesome thought, but unfortunately poverty will always be here.