I get the point. There's been loads of memes comparing the money donated to Notre Dame compared to say Mozambique, environmental protection or refugess in the Mediterranen. It will also be interesting to compare with the amounts donated to rebuild churches in Sri Lanka. But it's an argument you can make ad absurdam, and you have to draw a line somewhere. I personally have no emotions towards Notre Dame, but I can understand why people do. Also, if he was a priest, maybe the story with the woman and the perfume bottle is appropriate. Quite apart from the economic effects others have mentioned.
Funny you should mention the story of the perfume ('the poor will always be with you') we talked about that on the way home. It's a similar argument to trying to eradicate evil. I have mixed feelings but I err on the side of rebuilding being a good thing.
Sacre Coeur in Paris is just as famous. In France in general Reims Cathedral, Rouen Cathedral, Chartres Cathedral, Mont St. Michel all brings loads of tourists. If you're talking about famous churches in the world there are lots.
There are famous churches... And then there is Notre Dame. Of the ones listed above, only the Basilica is probably in the same league. It's known worldwide. The others may be famous to educated people, but even the unwashed uneducated masses know Notre Dame.
Out of curiosity... I googled "Most Famous Churches"... Obviously not an authoritive list... But this website was first link on return: https://10mosttoday.com/10-most-famous-churches-in-the-world/ Notre Dame the only French church on the list.
Regarding money going to other causes could say the same about anything. How much was spent on the hadron collider to discover there is an atom that maybe started the Big Bang or something? I’m sure those in poverty around the world are thrilled they discovered that. What about nasa sending people to the moon etc. Money gets spent on a load of stuff that you’d say is way low down on the list of importance compared to general health and well-being of citizens.
Huge difference. If a billionaire puts €1m into Notre Dame he immediately gets 60% back from the state in tax cuts. If the state puts €1m into science it immediately gets 40% back in income tax, VAT etc. If you believe these offerings are "donations" you were probably convinced by the #brexit bus budgets https://www.theguardian.com/comment...naires-donations-notre-dame-france-inequality Poverty could be eradicated tomorrow if the rich just let the money they're hoarding actually be used. Making scientists who only contribute knowledge, education, and innovation (which have helped more people than billionaires ever have) out to be the problem is insanity. Isn't one of the billionaires donating the owner of Nestle, the company single handedly responsible for encouraging the starvation problem in Africa? Universities have improved people's lives far more than churches. What next, we need nurses to take a pay cut to help bankers buy yachts?
articles a bit misleading. The public will pay 60m. No it won't. What will happen is that the billionaire in reality pays slightly less tax to the tax authority. In that example, the person donating 100m who will then get a tax rebate is still donating 40m of his money as charity, so better than nothing (said person could carry on hoarding).
The billionaire is effectively diverting 60m of public money to a cause they will get individual credit for.
nope. They are not diverting 60m of public money, they are just not paying the 60m to the tax man. As for the individual credit, you can blame the media for that. At the end of the day, it is still not money in their pocket because they would have to draw out the 100m to pay 100m (and not pay tax on any of the 100m they draw out) so the charity in this case would get the full 100m and the billionaire would have earnt zero on that 100m. Where people cheat the system with charitable donations is when they auction off holidays to a charitable cause and other luxury items/goods (dunno if this still happens).
Did you ask him why? Did you also ask him why it burnt down in the first place? Was it as 'Act of God'?
And you know who built the universities in the first place. There wouldn't be any if it wasn't for the Church. But that's a different argument.
No I didn't get a chance to ask him, he's quite infirm and gets whisked off home while we're still singing at the end. I would like to have explored it further though. He said he gave away his inheritance money to charity. It's his firm belief that helping each other is a far more worthy cause.
As a dyed-in-the-wool socialist, I fully understand his point, and have sympathy for it. However... if we wait until all the ills of the world are sorted before we spend money on anything else then we'll never get anything done. The wealth of the world is controlled by an extremely small number of people whose agenda is the polar opposite of improving the lot of everyone else. I read a statistic recently that stated that 1% of the global population has enough wealth to give everyone in the UK £50,000 per month for the rest of our lives. We won't see a significant improvement to poverty and other economic-related ills until there's a fundamental change in our attitude to wealth distribution. Don't hold your breath.