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Others (you) may believe that, but many others would disagree. Good thing you don't get to decide the legality of such.
And once again we see you cannot describe any actual charitable work your church does for the community . You simply repeat that your mere existence as a church means it's charity .
IF it WERE truly charity, you would be able to describe what you do beyond simply " doing church ".
Your silence speaks volumes when you have been given ample opportunity to describe the charitable works you do for the community .
How would you know really since you don't even belong to a church? No, you just past judgement that the church is involved in worthless evangelizing. Well it's not worthless. We believe that people's spiritual needs are just as important as their physical. The physical is only temporary. The body is always going to die within a few short decades.
Besides, how do you know they are not supporting missionary work in organizations like Mercy Ships? The operating costs to send a massive hospital ship around the world is huge. If a church is supporting work that involves charity with evangelizing, that's still charity.
How would I know what ? That most of a churches budget goes to fund its own existence ? From being on the church council of a large S Baptist church and being head of a couple of committees of same, and from helping start from nothing a SB mission church .
And once again we see you cannot describe any actual charitable work your church does for the community . You simply repeat that your mere existence as a church means it's charity .
IF it WERE truly charity, you would be able to describe what you do beyond simply " doing church ".
Your silence speaks volumes when you have been given ample opportunity to describe the charitable works you do for the community .
I've posted threads talking about some of them, but they weren't much appreciated. Don't you remember?
In any event, I will stick by my statement that you don't get to decide who is and isn't being charitable, and if our deeds qualify.
Is your church is feeding and helping the undocumented right alongside everyone else? If so the people in your church are to be commended.
Honestly? I've never asked for the documents of anyone that we've served. To be honest, we are in a community where there just probably aren't a lot of illegals or "undocumented". We really are pretty rural.
Having said that, I have given out money, gas, groceries, hotel room, etc to people with no questions asked--except a name. From time to time we have "transient" people that drift through the area, and our ministerial association has an agreement with a local motel to provide a free room at our expense if needed. But we do like to get a name. Certain ones do come back about once a year.
How would I know what ? That most of a churches budget goes to fund its own existence ? From being on the church council of a large S Baptist church and being head of a couple of committees of same, and from helping start from nothing a SB mission church .
It's obvious that you already made up your mind before the OP and just want to ignore any evidence to the contrary.
It's obvious that you already made up your mind before the OP and just want to ignore any evidence to the contrary.
I'd say most of the anti-religious folk around here (99%) have their minds made up before coming here, and they seem to only want to antagonize and start arguments.
I've posted threads talking about some of them, but they weren't much appreciated. Don't you remember?
In any event, I will stick by my statement that you don't get to decide who is and isn't being charitable, and if our deeds qualify.
I do remember you recounting some instances , and unlike some others I take no issue with them . But THIS thread is about the claim of many religious to be more giving than non religious when what we find is that the religious are counting their giving to their own churches that provide services to the donors , which makes it more of a dues paying thing than charitable giving .
That's what my health club analogy was about, which you didn't address the difference of between that and giving to support your church that provides services to you in return .
Some Christians bragged, but their braggadocio is misplaced .
I do remember you recounting some instances , and unlike some others I take no issue with them . But THIS thread is about the claim of many religious to be more giving than non religious when what we find is that the religious are counting their giving to their own churches that provide services to the donors , which makes it more of a dues paying thing than charitable giving .
That's what my health club analogy was about, which you didn't address the difference of between that and giving to support your church that provides services to you in return .
Some Christians bragged, but their braggadocio is misplaced .
And as I've said on this very thread--a church is not a health club where you go to just get services. We do more than just teach a class once a week. We are actively involved in the community, and I'd suggest any church worth its salt also is.
Actually...now that I think about it, I think that's the majority of the issue here. Many people think of church as a place they go to once a week. The fact is, Christianity is about an entire way of life --not just attending a meeting weekly. So we affect people throughout the community in many ways other than just feeding their physical body, or conducting a weekly service for an hour.
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