Finally the TRUE answer to why we have so many religions!

[Ziploc Surprise]

The congregation often buys the preacher his car, his house, pays his bills and living expenses, and then....then...his salary.

Where do you live, Beverly Hills? A large percent of the churches in southern CA are run by deacons... who aren't paid; they volunteer in absence of a pastor. The congregation only gives if they know their money is going to a good cause-- just like you or anyone. This includes disaster relief, helping the AIDS epidemic in Africa, missionaries and so on. It is the church elders and president who decide the pastor's salary--if they have a true pastor--and they're not about to gift extraneous sums of money to anyone. Those numbers are skewed by a couple con-men who go around preaching in stadiums who, yes, do it for the money. But it is by nature an intellectual, high-responsibility white-collar job. Most preachers have Masters degrees and write books on the side. It all depends on how large the pastor's church is, and they don't usually choose their church. That means they could end up making 30k a year like the majority. But this whole subject is a moot point, because there are corrupt people everywhere. Christianity didn't make them corrupt. I have no problem admitting some preachers are selfish. What disturbs me about this thread is atheists all jumping on the generalization bandwagon just to attack the reputations of people they don't even know.

This is quoted from a well-known handbook telling congregations what they ought to pay their pastors:

Base Salary. A salary of $40,000 sounds reasonable for a pastor, but the take-home pay will be significantly less. In addition to tithing, 15 percent will be deducted for federal tax, 15.3 percent for Social Security and Medicare, up to 9.3 percent for state tax, and as much as 20 percent for unreimbursed business expenses.

Within 5 miles of my house (and I don't even live in the city) there are 19 evangelical churches (there are more churches in the area, I'm just talking about the evangelical churches). Evangelical churches are known for having poorly educated pastors who also preach the prosperity doctrine. Out of these 19 I happen to know for a fact that 4 of them follow this pattern. I will be kind though and estimate that only 8 out of 19 total churches that are within 5 miles of my house follow this pattern. So that's 8 or at least 4 minimally educated pastors making a lot of money within 5 miles of my house.

I will admit that it is hard to calculate what constitutes "a large amount of money" because there are a lot of factors that can skew up the statistics (for example the cost of living in the area where the pastors live). From what I understand pastor salaries in these evangelical churches are calculated from a percentage of the total donations to the church. For example, from what I understand Joel Osteen, pastor of a 30,00 member mega church in Houston, made $200,000 a year, --just a percentage from the total donations- until he made so much money from his books he turned down his salary (mind you, most of the people in his church make no where near $200,000 a year).

Extras like discounts on things, donations of things, or free services from the congregation are on top of this salary. Money earned from books or magazines are on top of the salary as well. Also, a lot of times in these churches the wife of the pastor is also a pastor with a minimal degree, so both of them are sucking from the same pot. This is why churches strive to get big. The bigger the congregation the more personal salary the pastor rakes in (mind you those who work for the pastor often get a minimal salary and are expected to tithe and donate time to the church).

Now let's compare this with the salary of a public school teacher. Let's say he makes $45,000 a year. Yes he has to tithe just like the pastor, and he has to buy his own supplies, he even gets discounts and gifts every now and then, unlike his pastor his health insurance is most likely far less expensive than that of the pastor because he is hooked in with a large group. He still makes less, has a cap on his salary (unlike pastors), the gifts and discounts he gits pales in comparison to that of the pastor's. Most importantly it's unlikely that the teacher will ever get popular enough to write an inspirational book and rake in the big bucks.

Oh, and one more thing, I don't know how they do this but sometimes the pastor's house and/or property can be tax exempt. About 7 miles from my house is a compound of multimillion dollar houses on multimillion dollar property (acreage) that is tax exempt because it is a supposed religious retreat. On 25+ chunk of land about 20 miles from my house is a business, a motor cross track, that is tax free because it claims it is a church. This is real shit. These people are raping the public. Property taxes are super high in Texas.