Hah. So many Alaskan towns have a history that goes: "_____ started as a mining town (named after ____, who discovered gold)
Oh, Alaska…
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Organized religion is responsible for a lot of terrible things in this world, but “feeding and sheltering the homeless” is one area in which churches have been pulling more than their own weight and then some for generations. Say what you will about the Catholic Church but there aren’t a lot of secular humanist organizations running soup kitchens and homeless shelters.
Credit where credit is due.
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I’m giving them credit for sheltering and feeding the homeless. It just chaps my hide that they call it charity when they do it with strings attached.
“I’ll give you a free vacation to Las Vegas, as long as you sit through six hours of timeshare pitches.” That’s not really a free vacation. It’s a paid business trip contingent on you agreeing to be a captive audience to someone’s direct and concerted marketing and social engineering.
There definitely are too few secular charities out there. But they’re there, and they’re growing. If you’re interested in volunteering for humanist non-profits Foundation Beyond Belief is a good place to start. Heck even the Unitarian Universalists can be a good humanist place to volunteer.
Edited for word order
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“-And this, of course, is Juno.”
“-Like the city in Alaska?”
“-No.”
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Some religious charities may be analogous to time share sales pitches (I’m looking at you, Scientology) but I think it would be a big mistake to characterize the vast majority of them that way. Would they like more people to join their religion? Quite possibly. Are most volunteers trying to meet some kind of recruitment quota or enforcing a no-sermon, no-food policy? Not in my experience.
Out of curiosity, have you ever been to a Catholic-run soup kitchen or homeless shelter?
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While I haven’t been to catholic shelters, growing up my family volunteered in pretty often in pentecostal and foursquare-run shelters. They’d have lengthy services before every meal, with timing such that newcomers coming in near a normal meal time would have to sit and wait through the sermon before anything was served. Lengthy blessings, praying in tongues, expecting the people they served to attend services if they needed to stay the night.
So, I tend to have a visceral reaction. I could stand to tone it down. But it still always irks me that the idea of the church run charities I participated in were so predatory. They were focusing their main efforts on making people comply with their religious ritual, and hawking prosperity gospel to the most vulnerable in society.
The Catholics are certainly a different story. I would hazard a guess that they’re more laid back, especially today since it’s common knowledge that the Catholic Church is abusive. They have to put on a better face.
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There’s plenty of stuff outside of Christianity, too. What about Sikhs? Most Gurdwaras are pretty cool about non-Sikhs having langar meals and it’s not like proselytism is a big part of their religion. You’ll have to wear a head covering on your head and show some respect for their religion, but they’re pretty decent folks and aren’t likely to give you the full lecture, like the Hare Krishnas often do.
Not saying they’re perfect or anything, but they’d be my first choice for a hot meal if I really needed one.
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Say what you will about the Catholic Church but there aren't a lot of secular humanist organizations running soup kitchens and homeless shelters.
There aren’t many (or indeed any) secular humanist organizations that own literally billions of dollars of real estate and fine art (tax free) either.
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See, that’s my problem. I have no respect for any religion. I respect people, not ideas. Ideas are to be scrutinized. Especially any idea that claims to require belief without scrutiny, such as religions. That’s a pretty absurd idea in my book.
I don’t know any Sikhs, or if I do, I don’t know they’re Sikhs. In any case, I’m a lot more tolerant of Sikhs than I am of a lot of religions. I appreciate their philosophy of non-violence in all things. I’ve heard a lot of nice things about the work the Sikhs do, and I’ve seen that they get caught in sectarian crossfire, which is kind of horrific for a completely pacifist religion.
I probably wouldn’t mind too badly working with them.
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Badly phrased on my part then.
I’d rather hold my tongue, don a head-covering and make a cursory bow for politeness sake because I’m getting a free feed out of it. Everything has a price, and that’s a pretty light one. It’s not like anyone can force me to believe shit, but I will show respect for their religion, not because it’s a religion and somehow intrinsically worthy of respect, but because it’s theirs.
It’s about having some courtesy for the person that’s giving me a free curry, rather than the belief, if you see what I mean. 
Yeah, it’s probably a cop-out. I’m happy with that.
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That’s what I was saying 
I’m fortunate enough to be in a cushy job I probably don’t deserve, making a decent amount of money. I have few expenses, and am socking away a lot. I know I’m lucky to be where I am. It’s mostly chance. And it’s been a long time since I’ve had to skip a few meals. I’d probably be fine going to various religious charities and paying them lip service, and I can definitely respect people. And really, if I’m out on the streets and missing a lot of meals, and don’t know what to do about shelter, I’d likely be happy to go to the Sikhs, or the Catholics, or whoever. I’ll let them preach at me as long as they don’t try to hand me live rattle snakes.
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I’m a tad slow on the uptake sometimes. 
Been a long day…
Anyway, I kinda think my somewhat meandering point was that Christianity doesn’t have a monopoly on charity and less familiar religions may be less likely to preach at you as well maybe having less of a hot-button effect. Or something. More coffee needed.
I’ve heard there’s good eating on one of those. Course, we don’t get rattlers down under but handing you a live Red-belly Black is just our way of saying G’day.
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Oldtaku came from there.
Wow, that’s pretty intolerant attitude you are espousing.
are you, really? Which tasteless jokes would be acceptable?
Im really interested in the dichotomy here.
Let me see if I understand you : Sikhs are cool because all they make you do is dress like them while eating their homeless stew. But the Christians, well, they are intolerable because they might talk to you?
Then @LDoBe says:
Christianity is a non violent philosophy. ( preemptive: let me educate you on Sikh weaponry )
(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)
Christianity is far from a non-violent philosophy. It’s quite literally both a cult of human sacrifice, and a cult of cannibalism.
And actually, you did catch me on the Sikhism non-violence thing. I’ll admit to mixing them up with the Jains.
Seriously, you are not the right person to argue for the merits of listening to Christians.
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Na, Its just misunderstood.
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I understand communion perfectly well. I was raised in the church you know.
Symbolic cannibalism is still participating in cannibalism. Especially with the whole transubstantiation thing. Or even consubstantiation. Either way, all the church doctrine teaches that the eucharist is literally the body of christ, ergo cannibalism.
