How Christian is this? Church keeps 1/2 of donated millions, saying "Donors didn't say it was to go to viticms" (priests, religious leader)

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by cupper3

Once you turn to personalities, you have lost the discussion. My kids knew that by the time they were 10.

The entire premise of your many diatribes is false, so you are wasting your time presenting more examples. As you have been told already, there are bad and hypocritical human beings everywhere, so pretending that it is religion that makes them bad or hypocritical and trying to disparage and denigrate religions for the badness and hypocrisy in humanity is "dead-on-arrival."

[LuminousTruth]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

The entire premise of your many diatribes is false, so you are wasting your time presenting more examples. As you have been told already, there are bad and hypocritical human beings everywhere, so pretending that it is religion that makes them bad or hypocritical and trying to disparage and denigrate religions for the badness and hypocrisy in humanity is "dead-on-arrival."

So we have to ignore wrongs and hypocrisies caused by religion that would otherwise not be present with societal oversight/education? I think you might just have a bit of that "bored" mentality too. The premise of cupper's solid and logical arguments is correct: society is failing us in these instances by letting religion handle it in the shadows. There needs to be more awareness and focus brought to these situations, including in atheist group leaders, as cupper has provided. Sure there are also hypocrite secular CEOs and other players, but by finding ways to deal with these wrongs we can deal with these wrongs all together.

cupper is aware that there are relatively good religions and religious groups somewhere in some corners. Too many people protect religion with tooth and nail needlessly as if though it were their favorite child. It's a common societal bias, usually fomented by religious indoctrination, to fear and respect large vociferous religious group out of some skewed sense of "no longer wackos if tons of them do it".

All that these hypocrites need is to be held accountable for their actions, especially if they rake in so much money that they could employ an accountant.

Big churches are big religious businesses, and small churches are small religious businesses, if they want to be treated like non-prophets than act like them by applying the same way and holding the same rules and government oversight.

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

The entire premise of your many diatribes is false, so you are wasting your time presenting more examples. As you have been told already, there are bad and hypocritical human beings everywhere, so pretending that it is religion that makes them bad or hypocritical and trying to disparage and denigrate religions for the badness and hypocrisy in humanity is "dead-on-arrival."

Originally Posted by LuminousTruth

So we have to ignore wrongs and hypocrisies caused by religion that would otherwise not be present with societal oversight/education? I think you might just have a bit of that "bored" mentality too. The premise of cupper's solid and logical arguments is correct: society is failing us in these instances by letting religion handle it in the shadows. There needs to be more awareness and focus brought to these situations, including in atheist group leaders, as cupper has provided. Sure there are also hypocrite secular CEOs and other players, but by finding ways to deal with these wrongs we can deal with these wrongs all together.

Nonsense! There is no causal relationship between religion and hypocrisy or evil. They exist within humanity in equal proportions everywhere. You and cupper have an "itch" against religion but that does not make the premise true. No one is advocating ignoring hypocrisy, but pretending that religion is somehow more in need of pointing it out is just plain false.

[cupper3]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

The entire premise of your many diatribes is false, so you are wasting your time presenting more examples. As you have been told already, there are bad and hypocritical human beings everywhere, so pretending that it is religion that makes them bad or hypocritical and trying to disparage and denigrate religions for the badness and hypocrisy in humanity is "dead-on-arrival."

Really? So we are just to pretend these transgressions, many of them criminal, don't exist? Sweep it under the rug? Ignore them, and they will go away?

Ain't gonna happen.

As long as those who use their religion in immoral and hypocritical ways, those NEED to be exposed. You don't seem to understand, that religious leaders are playing the holy than thou persona, so yes, we, society, expect to hold them to a higher standard.

Just like we hold other authority figures to those higher standards, like police, teachers and the like. You say the premise of "my diatribes are false". Every one that was not opinion have been documented with real cases, not imaginary ones. Which one would you prefer not to talk about? The sexual misdeeds? The defalcations? The abuse? Which ones are not worthy of discussing?

All of them because there are too many? It is not I who invent these, it is the perpetrators who do those transgressions for real. You maybe able to accept that, but I can't and won't.

Ever.

[bUU]

Originally Posted by cupper3

The court cases will surely require disclosure

Only if the plaintiffs can prove standing. The court case is effectively only about determining whether they have standing. If they do, then of course the episcopal church will be forced to administer the money in a non-episcopal manner (i.e., have their freedom of religion set aside).

Originally Posted by cupper3

In short, if hypocrisy is out there, whose job is it to change that? I would strongly suggest it is those whose entities perpetuate that hypocrisy, especially the transgressions that are at the very least immoral by anyone's standards, and often just plain criminal.

Except if your principles were different, what you are referring to as hypocrisy isn't. That's why there are no laws against hypocrisy - because it doesn't exist in reality. Instead, we set forth principles in the law, and then doing something different from that is called crimes and civil offenses. If we, as a society, don't have the integrity to write down and have our legislatures vote on clear descriptions of what is sanctionable, then we have no right as a society to impose those standards through civil procedure.

Originally Posted by TroutDude

Your perspective is really askew.

Askew? That implies that it isn't on the right track, when the reality is that it is, but it just goes too far.

Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801

Do you ever actually read other people's posts and have a sense of who they are as people--or do you just see "Believer" and assign all sorts of imagined characteristics to them based on the limits of what you know from your "environments"? Have you truly not ever met any Christians other than those of the fundamentalist stripe?

It doesn't serve the dogmatic atheist perspective to acknowledge such nuance.

Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801

As you are aware unless you've been hiding under a rock, I am a 9/11 WTC survivor. That day happened because of the type of thinking you demonstrate. That's why I argue against perpetuating this "THEY ARE EVIL" mindset.

Some have said that the ascendancy of fundamentalist extremists on the left, such as dogmatic atheists, are in response to the ascendancy of fundamentalist extremists on the right, such as evangelicals. Religious extremists spent most of the 20th century staying out of politics, on the basis that it was beneath them. That changed starting in the 1960s and by 1980 the conversion of evangelical Christianity into a politico-religious movement was complete, prompting atheists to respond in kind.

Originally Posted by cupper3

See, there you go again. Attacking the person, not the idea.

Nonsense. TroutDude attacked the idea, not the person.

Originally Posted by cupper3

Once you turn to personalities, you have lost the discussion. My kids knew that by the time they were 10.

Indeed. That is surely good advice.

[bUU]

Originally Posted by LuminousTruth

I agree, it was their own fault for trusting that church to give all of it's money to the poor. Churches are run like pagan temples, they NEVER give everything to the poor. This one particular church is specially greedy and self-serving. 50% of millions in charity goes to itself so that it can give some scholarship to the children of it's own choosing? Seriously? How much? Where is the rest going?

If any of this was "wrong" then it should be illegal. If our society's sense was such that the internal financial decisions of religious institutions should be scrutinized by its membership or society-at-large, then our Constitution should allow it.

People have to stop blaming people who are doing what our society clearly indicates they should be doing, and start supporting progressive changes to society in the image of what they want to be different - and maturely accept when that image isn't shared by society overall.

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

Nonsense! There is no causal relationship between religion and hypocrisy or evil. They exist within humanity in equal proportions everywhere.

I don't believe so. It seems pretty clear to me that the variability increases as you move toward the fringes, just like a piece of paper curls more toward the edges.

Originally Posted by cupper3

Really? So we are just to pretend these transgressions, many of them criminal, don't exist?

Now you're arguing against things that no one has said, seemingly in an attempt to make your point sound more important than it is. That's a pretty standard logical fallacy: Presenting something everyone opposes (criminal transgressions) along with that which you oppose (that acts you simply don't like and want to demonize regardless).

So your question, with the fallacy removed, reduces down to "So we are just to pretend these things about religion that I don't like don't exist?" If they don't affect anyone outside the religion, the answer is yes. The religion needs to change from within (or wither and die if necessary). It isn't your place or mine to act against a religion that is acting within its rights and doesn't have an internal impetus to change.

That's why if this church solicited funds for victim relief, we would have standing to say something about this. If they solicited donations for victims and then didn't direct the donation sufficiently to the victims, that's fraud. We have laws against that. We would have standing to act against the church.

And let's be clear: Dogmatism itself affects society in a manner that is so damaging to society that it demands people of conscience raise up their voices against it. However, we're just talking about raising the general awareness in society of the harm that fundamentalist religion causes, not trying to punish specific churches for being dogmatic.

Originally Posted by cupper3

You don't seem to understand, that religious leaders are playing the holy than thou persona, so yes, we, society, expect to hold them to a higher standard.

Who are you to judge? Religions elevate their religious leaders. Absent criminal activity, the religion judges their own. That's the American way.

[cupper3]

Originally Posted by bUU

.......
Some have said that the ascendancy of fundamentalist extremists on the left, such as dogmatic atheists, are in response to the ascendancy of fundamentalist extremists on the right, such as evangelicals. Religious extremists spent most of the 20th century staying out of politics, on the basis that it was beneath them. That changed starting in the 1960s and by 1980 the conversion of evangelical Christianity into a politico-religious movement was complete, prompting atheists to respond in kind......

What makes you think atheists, or as I prefer to see myself, anti-theists, are on the left of the political spectrum? What does views on theology have to do with political leanings?

I have never voted for anything but a conservative party in my life. I have campaigned for them, I have been on their local boards and I have and know a number of their sitting members personally. Many of them are quite evangelical, but in Canada we have learned to separate religion and politics. That is a good thing.

[cupper3]

Originally Posted by bUU

..............
Now you're arguing against things that no one has said, seemingly in an attempt to make your point sound more important than it is. That's a pretty standard logical fallacy: Presenting something everyone opposes (criminal transgressions) along with that which you oppose (that acts you simply don't like and want to demonize regardless).

So your question, with the fallacy removed, reduces down to "So we are just to pretend these things about religion that I don't like don't exist?"
. The religion needs to change from within (or wither and die if necessary). It isn't your place or mine to act against a religion that is acting within its rights and doesn't have an internal impetus to change......

Take the case of the Catholic sex scandal. The only ones effected were Catholics. Do you really think that is where it should have stayed? If there was not the continuous expose and uproar, both from Catholics and non-Catholics alike, do you truly believe the Catholic church would be acting in any other manner than the way they did. Even now, with all the court cases and law suits, the Catholic church is doing things like fighting the change of Statute of Limitation laws. Have they not learned?

The same situation exists with the plethora of transgressions we see in other faiths, most of those being evangelical. Are we to expect them to be solved by the very people who are perpetrating them? Ain't gonna happen.

That's why if this church solicited funds for victim relief, we would have standing to say something about this. If they solicited donations for victims and then didn't direct the donation sufficiently to the victims, that's fraud. We have laws against that. We would have standing to act against the church.

And that is what the law cases are about in the Atlanta church where those heinous murders took place. I would suspect before all this came to light, just about everyone on this board would have perceived that funds raised went to the victims families if the finer details were not read with a skeptical eye. So, what this church has done, is lay the ground work for any future appeals, from faith based, secular or relief organizations to negatively impact those future fund raising ventures. This is the case right now with the massive fires in Alberta. I have seen people question whether they should actually donate to the Red Cross, and they discuss and document how monies donated in past appeals did not all get spent on the victims, in addition to the high overhead the Red Cross has, which is a separate issue.

The point is, perception is reality in the social sphere, as in politics. Any organization that holds it self as being more moral than the norm, and churches do that, is subject to more scrutiny. No one should EVER dismiss or excuse that just because it is someone's religion.

And let's be clear: Dogmatism itself affects society in a manner that is so damaging to society that it demands people of conscience raise up their voices against it. However, we're just talking about raising the general awareness in society of the harm that fundamentalist religion causes, not trying to punish specific churches for being dogmatic.

You had me in full agreement until the last, bolded part. It seems at odds with the rest of what you wrote.

Who are you to judge? Religions elevate their religious leaders. Absent criminal activity, the religion judges their own. That's the American way.

I think I answered that above.

[Eusebius]

Originally Posted by cupper3

Charleston church where 9 people were massacred will pocket $1.8m in donations | Daily Mail Online

Are Christians not starting to get livid with these daily, and I mean daily, mishandling of funds? In this case, this friggin' church is not even pretending that they are doing anything else but keeping over $1.8 MILLION dollars of a total of $3.3 million raised. I have no words I can put on this forum; I might get banned.

YOU Christians need to stop this problem. YOU Christians are as much as fault on this incessant malfeasance in your communities as the Muslims are for not stopping their radicals. YOU Christians need to find a backbone, and get some real morals, not morals you think exists in that fairy tale book you keep preaching from, and then only partially, because you forget the part about owning slaves and how a rape victim gets stoned to death if the she didn't scream loud enough.

Why the bleep do the relatives of the white racist who shot the victims have to sue their own bleeping church? Man this makes me angry. And I bet their are some hypocrites on this very board who will see nothing wrong with this.

I'm sure tomorrow will bring a new outrage. It is just the way so many Christian churches and their leaders seem to work in today's USA.

At least you're not bitter.

Does this happen with every church in the United States or world?

[Eusebius]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

The entire premise of your many diatribes is false, so you are wasting your time presenting more examples. As you have been told already, there are bad and hypocritical human beings everywhere, so pretending that it is religion that makes them bad or hypocritical and trying to disparage and denigrate religions for the badness and hypocrisy in humanity is "dead-on-arrival."

A big Amen! to that bro!