The Reality of Churches (and their selfish agendas)

[pineapplebunnybounce]

... so they can go to funerals and help comfort the bereaved, visit palliative care wards at hospitals to pray with the dying, do chaplaincy work at nursing homes, help organize soup kitchens,
meet and help with the rehabilitation of prison inmates, visit disabled/invalids in their homes to hand out Holy Communion,

Funny how all that can be done without being a pastor

Also how most of it people are willing to do for free.

Pastors are paid through this dishonest method not because they do these things, it's because they're unwilling to get a day job.

[max-greece]

I wonder if there are any atheist fakers among the pastors you seem to have a problem with?

Dont forget, parishioners have already paid tax on the money they freely give to their church - only part of which pays for the pastor to have a house and 3 meals a day and a car to get around in.

... so they can go to funerals and help comfort the bereaved, visit palliative care wards at hospitals to pray with the dying, do chaplaincy work at nursing homes, help organize soup kitchens,
meet and help with the rehabilitation of prison inmates, visit disabled/invalids in their homes to hand out Holy Communion,

Parishioners may have already paid tax on their income but all other businesses then pay tax on their's even if it comes from already taxed incomes. Churches don't.

What proportion of Church income actually goes on charitable work anyway?

[Jacob(smooth)]

Depends on the church.

It's all a bit tacky and unconvincing. I served a term (unpaid) on a parochial parish council (sort of board of directors for a c of e church). It was painful. A bunch of people with no clue about business trying to run a church as one.

Interestingly, when we lost a baby earlier this year, only one guy from the church pitched up to help. Everyone else had good feelings, but only one actually took time. Out of about 30.

At that point I concluded that the church had very little to do with Christianity.

You have it much worse over there with scum like ted haggard and Peter popoff running around.

[max-greece]

Depends on the church.

It's all a bit tacky and unconvincing. I served a term (unpaid) on a parochial parish council (sort of board of directors for a c of e church). It was painful. A bunch of people with no clue about business trying to run a church as one.

Interestingly, when we lost a baby earlier this year, only one guy from the church pitched up to help. Everyone else had good feelings, but only one actually took time. Out of about 30.

At that point I concluded that the church had very little to do with Christianity.

You have it much worse over there with scum like ted haggard and Peter popoff running around.

Sorry for your loss. We took it very badly when my wife miscarried. It was such a shock after the first pregnancy had gone so easily and well (my daughter now aged 11).

At least one turned up I suppose although out of 30 I agree that was a very poor show.

[Jacob(smooth)]

Depends on the church.

It's all a bit tacky and unconvincing. I served a term (unpaid) on a parochial parish council (sort of board of directors for a c of e church). It was painful. A bunch of people with no clue about business trying to run a church as one.

Interestingly, when we lost a baby earlier this year, only one guy from the church pitched up to help. Everyone else had good feelings, but only one actually took time. Out of about 30.

At that point I concluded that the church had very little to do with Christianity.

You have it much worse over there with scum like ted haggard and Peter popoff running around.

Sorry for your loss. We took it very badly when my wife miscarried. It was such a shock after the first pregnancy had gone so easily and well (my daughter now aged 11).

At least one turned up I suppose although out of 30 I agree that was a very poor show.

Don't be sorry, we were very lucky! The complications nearly killed herself. Few more hours I'd have been a single parent.

Most of the churches I've attended have been essentially no more than at best social clubs and at worst businesses. However I have met some genuinely stupendous people who it seems to me are genuinely trying to live out the best bits of the bible.

Very sadly, the church leadership tends not to like these people very much.

[Esquilax]

Excuse me?

This stupid "oh, there's atheist fakers in the church, conning people!" shit. You can't possibly demonstrate it; the only reason you bring it up is to excuse your religion from any discussion about the bad behavior of its members.

We don't have time to be indulging baseless conspiracy theories, when there's conversations of actual substance to be had.

[Zen Badger]

Excuse me?

This stupid "oh, there's atheist fakers in the church, conning people!" shit. You can't possibly demonstrate it; the only reason you bring it up is to excuse your religion from any discussion about the bad behavior of its members.

We don't have time to be indulging baseless conspiracy theories, when there's conversations of actual substance to be had.

Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of hucksters who don't actually believe the god bullshit that they are peddling to the sheeple.

Being an atheist doesn't make you a better person, just less delusional.

[Esquilax]

Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of hucksters who don't actually believe the god bullshit that they are peddling to the sheeple.

Being an atheist doesn't make you a better person, just less delusional.

I'm sure there's at least a few, but deploying that excuse at every instance of bad behavior is just dishonest.

Besides, we can't automatically credit anyone with not believing what they claim they believe; aside from being rude, we're not in a position to be telling people what they really think. Where would that stop?

[Zen Badger]

Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of hucksters who don't actually believe the god bullshit that they are peddling to the sheeple.

Being an atheist doesn't make you a better person, just less delusional.

I'm sure there's at least a few, but deploying that excuse at every instance of bad behavior is just dishonest.

Besides, we can't automatically credit anyone with not believing what they claim they believe; aside from being rude, we're not in a position to be telling people what they really think. Where would that stop?

I'm not saying that all or even most of these aresholes are atheists pretending to be christians, but some will be. The rest will be real christians who've convinced themselves that god wants them to be rich(humans have such a wonderful capacity for rationalizing)

Though I remember reading an article a while back about the growing number of preachers that no longer believe what they preach(nothing like a close reading of the bible to cure you of christianity) but don't know how to stop because they are quite literally unable to work at a real job.
In fact there was even a support page on FB for these people, though I haven't seen it post for a while.

[Lion IRC]

The thing that makes me laugh when Esquilax calls it a "baseless conspiracy theory" is that I first heard about it from an atheist by the name of Daniel Dennett and backed up by some dude named Dawkins.