What are your thoughts on this quote: "Pure religion is to take care of orphans and widows when they suffer and to remain uncorrupted by this world."?

I feel like it’s just as simple and beneficial to say – Being a good person means to take care of those who are helpless around you whether or not they are in pain, and when you fail to help do not let it stop you from trying.

It means religion is believing everything is going to be alright even when you think it’s not.

Never thought I’d turn into one of those people until my world started feeling like a cage.

Life is about giving and giving to those who need without the expectation of gain.
This is why there is the emphasis on the orphan and widows.

This is the only pure and uncorrupted religion, and those who belong to it will act according to their purity of their hearts, without any other external compulsion.

Life is This religion

Pure charity is to take care of orphans and widows. Pure religion is to have a shared belief system with rituals and a way of life .

The quote is not really my kind of quote, I don’t mind some word play and re-definitions for words in quotes, but for this quiote, it’s really just a distortion without purpose, the quote is no longer realy that relevant in movern times. In biblical times, with men doing all the providing, a widow would be in serious trouble, it could mean death, the same goes for orphans. Imagine being an orphan 2000 years ago, you would need charity. Now days, a widow will some times re-marry, and orphans get adopted, if not at least given shelter and food by the state.

So as for the orphans you know, if they need help, think of a way to help them and do so, and if the widows need help, then help them too. Just keep in mind, in modern time that probably means giving the orphan a gift, and helping some old lady mow the lawn, there could be better ways to help others who need it more.

Oh, I simply love it when women get equated with children who can’t take care of themselves. Please, let this not be relevant today. And I agree with @iamthemob – you don’t need ‘pure’ religion to understand that we can’t afford to NOT help others as much as possible and stop giving a shit about materialism.

Wow! I didn’t realize that this question would ruffle feathers. I guess I am looking at this quote from a personal point of view. Two women who are very dear to me with young daughters were abandoned by their SOs and it has been tough on them. I thought it was cool that someone long ago cared about people in this situation, and wrote it down.

The tough part of that quote is the part about remaining uncorrupted by the world, that is if you accept the Christian Bible as the literal word of God. If you do, then remaining uncorrupted brings in this quote from Matthew, Chapter 5:
   17—Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
   18—For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
   19—Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
   —20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Now the Law required that we stone to death all who commit adultery. It condoned slavery. It condemned all who eat shellfish or any seafood without fin and scale to death by stoning. Any child who is disrespectful of their parents is to be stoned to death. Likewise those who fail to keep the Shabbat. There’s really no exception made for that in the Christian Bible, changing the Shabbat from Friday before sunset to sunset on Saturday and making in Sunday instead. And by the way, when the Lord said no work, He mean NO WORK. We are all abominations and guilty of stoning for that one. Then there is wearing clothing of mixed fibers. Got any permapress? That is an abomination and merits stoning to death. Ever planted a flower garden? If you sowed mixed seeds to get a bouquet of color in your flowers, that’s an abomination too. Off to the stone pile for death.

As you may gather, while I grew up in the Christian tradition and studied it in some depth, I am not a Christian, But I do find one of Jesus’ attributed statements to be massively profound. He said in Matthew 7:12 “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” That is the basis of our commonly quoted Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” If you were an orphaned child, would you want someone to help you make your way into adulthood, or would you want them to just abandon you to starvation or a life as a street urchin stealing bits of food?

Now this thought was hardly original to Christianity or even Judaism. It came into the thinking of the Jewish people in their wanderings in ancient Egypt, Babylonia and was also held as a truth by the ancient Greeks. It is also found in religious texts from Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, Mohism, Sikhism and Taoism, to name a few. Wicca as well, though it is unclear how far that part of Wiccan tradition stretched back.

Modern secular-humanist atheists see the obvious logic of this one, simple rule as the basis of all reasoned moral law. To me it is quite unreasonable to stone someone to death for eating lobster, or enjoying pork rinds. Likewise, for mowing his grass on a Sabbath or a Sunday. I wouldn’t want him to do that to me. So I wouldn’t do it to him. So you are going to have to define “Corrupted by the world” for me before I will buy into that part of it.

That particular bible quote reflects the the way people lived then and the way certain religious and other groups live now. In any society where women are not prepared to work in the world but are kept at home [e.g. Taliban], uneducated and unskilled, to raise children and be dependent upon one man, they are vulnerable to total impoverishment upon his death. Should they lose that man they might be cast into the street. In some cases the husband’s estate would devolve onto a brother, son, or nephew. In some societies, a son might even have the option of casting his mother out if he so chose. So this makes a lot of sense for then.

For now, less so, as women usually can support themselves and their children, although they are likely to earn less and have to work twice as hard to fulfill the obligations of both parents by themselves.

@Sweetpea Cool. Now, whose feathers did you ruffle?

@ETpro has a point – how would one define corruption on an individual basis today? Rotten? Damaged? Remaining uncorrupted by the world requires definition and willpower, but anyone can assist an orphan or widow in distress, if they are stronger or have more resources. I agree with @iamthemob and @Simone_De_Beauvoir and in particular, think that religion itself need play no part. Without wishing to get mawkishly ‘tree huggy’, we are all made of the same stuff and for all useful purposes, have only one lifetime each… to make the best of that.

Comment – I’ve returned to Fluther (used to be choppersangel) because I have found that among the many rather competitive and often intellectually eccentric members there is an enormous will to improve the world somehow. I like this lots. A whole lot better than some very worthy sites that claim to be working towards same.

Re @ETpro ‘s biblical expertise, ‘do unto others…’ I love Charles Kingsley’s shortform version of this: Mrs DoAsYouWouldBeDoneBy; and beware of Mrs BeDoneByAsYouDid… for each of us has responsibility for our own actions, consequence will out, whether religion is evoked or not…

I would not interpret that quote as saying “pure religion consists ONLY of taking care of orphans and widows.”

I do think that it is a moral imperative to take care of orphans and widows*. Though I would prefer a non-religious government program do this than something like the Salvation Army.

*Widows today, not so much; that’s sexist. Though old people and people who generally cannot take care of themselves for whatever reason—then society should take care of them. Not because the Bible says so, though, because it’s the right thing to do.

Yes, the Bible says that and yes we should help the less fortunate. I don’t know what feedback you want about that. It is pretty obvious and needs no explaining. It isn’t the only Biblical requirement. John 17:3 says that people should take in accurate knowledge about God and his son Jesus and that would mean everlasting life. Taking care of widows and orphans will not give you salvation in and of itself.

Of course in our society we have foster homes for orphans and widows often have jobs and/or social security. But we might do something like mow the lawn for a “widow” or maybe mentor a child from a broken home.