"We should help people who are the same religion as us but we need not bother about other people." Do you agree?

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Grace Anderson 11 IS

GCSE Philosophy and Ethics Coursework

Religion, Poverty and Wealth

“We should help people who are the same religion as us but we need not bother about other people.”  Do you agree?  Give reasons to support your answer and show that you have thought about different points of view.  You must refer to the religion which you are studying in your answer.

“Love thy neighbour”.  Jesus believed that this was one of the most important commandments, yet today some people still feel as if they should only help people of their own religion.  Many feel that they shouldn’t have to help people of other religions.  A common argument is “They wouldn’t help us why should we help them?”  It is thought that Muslims should just help Muslims; Christians should just look out for Christians; Jews should just look after Jews etc.

Many feel they can’t help people of other religions because they have different Gods and different beliefs.  They don’t understand how they could help someone so different.  A lot of these people believe certain aspects of other religions are morally wrong, and therefore cannot bring themselves to help people who seem to have completely different ideas of what is right and what is wrong.  Some people even find aspects of others’ religions disrespectful to theirs.

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Others feel that different religions don’t deserve to be helped because they don’t believe in the ‘right’ God.  They feel that people who have faith in a different God to them are inferior and so refuse to help.

Some people of certain religions just dislike other religions and have been feuding for years.  For example, fairly recently there have been lots of disputes between Irish Protestants and Catholics just because of some minor disagreements in their religions.  This has not only led to a refusal to help, but sometimes even fighting and abuse between people from the two ...

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