(May 16, 2011 at 3:53 pm)Zenith Wrote: It's easy: there are thousands (or more, in a country I mean) of pastors and priests and bishops and archbishops, and I don't know the protestant hierarchy, which should have followed. Anyway, all they do is preach and receive money. Question: from where do they receive money? They don't have separate job, to earn their money from there. Answer: The priests have been paid by the state since antiquity, and they are still paid now (along with any religious leader of any christian denomination, islamic denomination, jewish denomination, etc. that is accepted as "official religion", i.e. religion recognized by the state). As you have teachers being paid by the state to is teach, the same way you have preachers being paid by the state to preach. And it is very probable that the maintenance of the religious buildings (i.e. churches, mosques, etc.) to be paid by the state as well.
Uh, no they aren't. At least not in the US. Non-catholic preachers, reverends, etc get paid a stipend by their church. The church is paid by it's members & probably any charities they are operating. I imagine Catholics get paid by the Vatican along with tithes from their congregants.
The only thing that I am aware of that churches "get" from the government is tax breaks. The average preacher's salary in the US isn't that much considering the college years involved.
Most of the preachers & reverends I know personally do have day jobs. One of said reverends has been my mechanic for the past 13 years.
Did you just make that earlier information up or something? I'm thinking that the ACLU would be in a state or local government's ass knee-deep if they were literally paying a religion's operating costs.
"How is it that a lame man does not annoy us while a lame mind does? Because a lame man recognizes that we are walking straight, while a lame mind says that it is we who are limping." - Pascal
