Religion

topcelt

I was just wondering if anybody else sees all organised religion as a business interested in lining their own pockets

Rev Hellfire

topcelt wrote: »

I was just wondering if anybody else sees all organised religion as a business interested in lining their own pockets

I'm never heard of such a thought provoking idea before ! Now that you mention it, it seems so obvious. Have you a news letter I can subscribe to ?

Dades

Whereas organised religion is usually not averse to lining it's pockets, it's not only what most of them are about. Most if not all will claim the money they receive goes back to those who need it.

That said, the Pope does have some funky jewel-encrusted gear, and a gilded independent state to wear them in.

philologos

Dades: You can actually check for yourself in most of the cases where the money goes to. I know in Anglicanism you can request a copy of the finances at the General Synod, shows all of it there, where exactly every penny goes and how much of a balance they maintain at the end of the year.

Accountability is a must in the church.

There's simply no evidence that there is profiting going on in the Irish church, and theres quite a lot against it certainly in the case of the Church of Ireland. I don't know how the Roman Catholics deal with financial matters though.

In my church it seems to be as follows:
1) Stipend to the pastor
2) Running costs
3) Donations to charitable organisations (Bishops Appeal, Christian Aid, etc.)
4) For mission abroad (CMS Ireland)

robindch

Dades wrote: »

Most if not all will claim the money they receive goes back to those who need it.

Unfortunately, it does seem that the people who control the money feel that it's often best spent upon themselves.

As far as I can make out, and in very broad terms indeed:

• the various arms of the catholic church seem to spend around 80 to 90% of its income upon itself, with the remaining 10% to 20% going on good works, some of which involve church propagation.
• Evangelical protestant variations seem to devote around 90% to 100% to themselves, with very little devoted to good works. Though in absolute value terms, even a low percentage can be offset by the much higher numbers involved, since many evangelicals tithe.
• The CofE, of all the variations, seems to have the best reporting practices and (from here) spends around 95% of its income on itself, and a bit less than 5% on good works.

It'd certainly be interesting to see proper, reliable reporting of financial stats for religious operations, but since nobody is really compelled to publish anything, and a lot of the business is both tax-free and cash-based, it seems unlikely that this is going to happen soon.

I don't know the value of the religious economy here in Ireland, but I believe that the US religious economy was valued at over 100 billion dollars in 2006, which is around two-thirds of Ireland's GDP.

Flamed Diving

This is just based on my personal experience. But generally the more religious a person is, the more money-grubbing, tight-fisted and self serving they tend to be.

Naz_st

Flamed Diving wrote: »

This is just based on my personal experience. But generally the more religious a person is, the more money-grubbing, tight-fisted and self serving they tend to be.

While I've little respect for religious beliefs in general, that does not extend to religious people themselves.

Your post is an outrageous and baseless generalisation, framed in emotive language and intended to elicit an emotive response. It's just the sort of casual hearsay and unsupported subjective opinion that atheists often accuse religious believers of, and personally I don't think it serves any positive purpose in a thread on this forum.

Rev Hellfire

Another fly for Flamed Divings web...

Flamed Diving

Naz_st wrote: »

While I've little respect for religious beliefs in general, that does not extend to religious people themselves.

Your post is an outrageous and baseless generalisation, framed in emotive language and intended to elicit an emotive response. It's just the sort of casual hearsay and unsupported subjective opinion that atheists often accuse religious believers of, and personally I don't think it serves any positive purpose in a thread on this forum.

Just my personal experience. I will report back in a few years to see if that has changed. Unfortunately I cannot meet every single religious person out there, so I have little else to go on.

Dades

I only know a few overtly religious people (regularly involved in their churches) and they are nothing if not completely 'normal'.

Your experiences don't sound typical to me.

Overblood

Flamed Diving wrote: »

This is just based on my personal experience. But generally the more religious a person is, the more money-grubbing, tight-fisted and self serving they tend to be.

My gran is the most religious person I know, and she can't stop offering me money, sweets, crisps, dinner etc. everytime I visit. Never asks me for anything back except "an aul hug". By the way, she gives any kid, I mean ANY kid she encounters for more than ten seconds, money. Like this:

"Oh, Granny overblood, this is my daughter"

"Here's a tenner"

If you are basing your opinion on what you see on the God Channel and all that evangelical shyte then I would agree with you.

Flamed Diving

Overblood wrote: »

My gran is the most religious person I know, and she can't stop offering me money, sweets, crisps, dinner etc. everytime I visit. Never asks me for anything back except "an aul hug". By the way, she gives any kid, I mean ANY kid she encounters for more than ten seconds, money. Like this:

"Oh, Granny overblood, this is my daughter"

"Here's a tenner"

If you are basing your opinion on what you see on the God Channel and all that evangelical shyte then I would agree with you.

No, as I stated, it's from personal experience. Especially those of non-catholic denomination. I have worked with them, lived with them, etc. It's just my collective experience from over the years. Would you rather I lied?

Overblood

Flamed Diving wrote: »

No, as I stated, it's from personal experience. Especially those of non-catholic denomination. I have worked with them, lived with them, etc. It's just my collective experience from over the years. Would you rather I lied?

Yes I'd love if you lied.

Go on, make a big fat lie.

bigeasyeah

Yawn

Flamed Diving

Overblood wrote: »

Yes I'd love if you lied.

Go on, make a big fat lie.

I love religion. I don't consider it to be a jackboot crushing the human spirit. I admire the way that it continually seeks to sabotage and hold back the advancement of human knowledge. I have no problem with the way that people continue to commit murder in its name. I find it in no way hilarious when people make statements about the Bibles inerrancy, nor do am I bemused that Christians can reconcile Jesus and the God (a being outside of time) of the OT by stating that the galaxy-size gap between the morals of both characters is a result of 'a different time'.

Religion is ace.

Dades

Lads unless anyone has something to get this back on topic, put a sock in it.

Goduznt Xzst

Dades wrote: »

and they are nothing if not completely 'normal'.

"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well." - Joe Ancis

I would not call the religious people I know "normal", rather that they have a sublime propensity for affable duplicity

Max Cohen

to answer question

Big fat NO........seriously man, just seriously

Handsome Bob

Flamed Diving wrote: »

This is just based on my personal experience. But generally the more religious a person is, the more money-grubbing, tight-fisted and self serving they tend to be.

Flamed Diving wrote: »

Just my personal experience. I will report back in a few years to see if that has changed. Unfortunately I cannot meet every single religious person out there, so I have little else to go on.

It's times like these that I wish we had a facepalm smiley.

Generalisations based on your personal experiences will get you no where.

topcelt

Flamed Diving wrote: »

This is just based on my personal experience. But generally the more religious a person is, the more money-grubbing, tight-fisted and self serving they tend to be.

i have found the opposite with the general congregations of churches after all this is where they get most of their money from,just because they don't give you any doesn't mean they don't help others i was thinking more about the people in charge helping themselves. i know a few priests on the "front line" who are very good to the people in their community but find it hard to get help from above to really make a difference.
this is my opp not the priests ,while churches only help people who sign up to there faith they will never practice what they preach ie help everybody any way you can. i don't know the monetary value of the rc church, just to take 1 church, but i would imagine that if they sold even 20% of their assets they would make a huge dent in world hunger for example.
but hey i am not the pope...yet maybe
it is said the only way to change any organisation is to infiltrate it and become the leader so who knows!

Flamed Diving

LZ5by5 wrote: »

It's times like these that I wish we had a facepalm smiley.

Generalisations based on your personal experiences will get you no where.

I'm not making generalisations. I'm just commenting on my personal experience.

Would you rather that I lied?

Naz_st

Flamed Diving wrote: »

This is just based on my personal experience. But generally the more religious a person is, the more money-grubbing, tight-fisted and self serving they tend to be.

Flamed Diving wrote: »

I'm not making generalisations. I'm just commenting on my personal experience.

Would you rather that I lied?

Hmmmm... ok.

Look, using the phrase "just my personal experience" prior to making an outlandish and unsupported claim about the character of a group of people doesn't make it any less insulting, nor does it reinforce the veracity of the statement.

"Just my personal experience, but Irish people are mean and stupid"
"Just my personal experience, but Dubliners are arrogent and annoying"
"Just my personal experience, but football fans are morons"

etc

Your statement may even be factually accurate based on a small sampling of people you have personally met, but to infer (and state) the general from the small personal sampling is flawed reasoning at best, outright bigotry at worst.

All this sort of statement achieves is to both annoy people and deflect meaningful discussion away from any original topic.

Flamed Diving

Naz_st wrote: »

Hmmmm... ok. blah blah blah

You seem to have trouble grasping this.

If I was to meet ten people in my life, and nine of them wore red jumpers, I would be right in saying:

This is just based on my personal experience. But generally more people tend to have red jumpers, than not.

For all I know, the rest of the planet could be wearing blue jumpers. But how am I to know? When prompted about whether I think 'the religious' tend to behave a certain way or not, I can only answer honestly, based on personal experience. And of course, based on personal experience:

the more religious a person is, the more money-grubbing, tight-fisted and self serving they tend to be.

Easy-peasy.

getz

topcelt wrote: »

I was just wondering if anybody else sees all organised religion as a business interested in lining their own pockets

top marks for the sally army

Naz_st

Flamed Diving wrote: »

You seem to have trouble grasping this.

Not at all, I can understand the absolutist logic you're using - I'm just saying it's flawed. You know that there are billions of religious people in the world. You have met x of them, a very tiny amount. Making the generalisation* that you are making by your statement is flawed. Just as flawed as if you have only ever met one French person, who was a jerk, and stating "Just my personal experience, but French people are Jerks". In this case the fact that all the French people that you have met are jerks, does not make the general inference about French people en masse any more accurate. It's specious reasoning at best.

Anyway, I do find it strange that every religious person that you have met has been characterised by being "money-grubbing, tight-fisted and self serving" as it has not at all been my own experience, but if that is the case then I can understand how you would start to get an impression along those lines. But you have to accept that "religious" is a pretty broad descriptor, and as such any general character inferences along the lines of "Religious people tend to be..." would need more than mere personal experience IMHO.

*Generalisation:
2. the process of formulating general concepts by abstracting common properties of instances

philologos

Naz_st: I would say don't criticise him, but I'm too busy hoarding gold in my basement to comment more fully