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Religion does do some good in the world. Link

VanPastorMan

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Sounds like Lilly School is onto your racket, Reverend.
Racket would imply that I don't really believe what I say I believe. I believe in Jesus as the Son of God, the promised Messiah foretold in the Ancient Jewish Scriptures some call the Old Testament. I believe He was 100% God and 100% man without a sin nature. By His perfectly lived out life or in other words sinless life, He was an appropriate sacrifice for sins upon the Cross. When a person understands their sinful standing before God the Father, and understands Jesus paid the penalty for their sins upon the Cross the Bible calls this justifying faith. It means God declares the guilty sinner righteous because of their faith in His Son Jesus as their Savior. I believe Jesus was buried and on a Sunday Morning was raised from the dead. Jesus promises to come back again someday and if we were betting people with His track record we better believe He will. This is what I believe. It's not a racket. It's faith.
 
Racket would imply that I don't really believe what I say I believe. I believe in Jesus as the Son of God, the promised Messiah foretold in the Ancient Jewish Scriptures some call the Old Testament. I believe He was 100% God and 100% man without a sin nature. By His perfectly lived out life or in other words sinless life, He was an appropriate sacrifice for sins upon the Cross. When a person understands their sinful standing before God the Father, and understands Jesus paid the penalty for their sins upon the Cross the Bible calls this justifying faith. It means God declares the guilty sinner righteous because of their faith in His Son Jesus as their Savior. I believe Jesus was buried and on a Sunday Morning was raised from the dead. Jesus promises to come back again someday and if we were betting people with His track record we better believe He will. This is what I believe. It's not a racket. It's faith.
Yeah I know all that. And none of that has anything to do with my point.

Edit: But I don't feel like explaining it to you - you wouldn't understand what I'm trying to say anyway. So never mind. Feel free to ignore that post.
 
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Racket would imply that I don't really believe what I say I believe. I believe in Jesus as the Son of God, the promised Messiah foretold in the Ancient Jewish Scriptures some call the Old Testament. I believe He was 100% God and 100% man without a sin nature. By His perfectly lived out life or in other words sinless life, He was an appropriate sacrifice for sins upon the Cross. When a person understands their sinful standing before God the Father, and understands Jesus paid the penalty for their sins upon the Cross the Bible calls this justifying faith. It means God declares the guilty sinner righteous because of their faith in His Son Jesus as their Savior. I believe Jesus was buried and on a Sunday Morning was raised from the dead. Jesus promises to come back again someday and if we were betting people with His track record we better believe He will. This is what I believe. It's not a racket. It's faith.
You've got the patter down but to be more effective you're going to have to a better job faking the part where you act like you believe the words.
 
Yeah I know all that. And none of that has anything to do with my point.

Edit: But I don't feel like explaining it to you - you wouldn't understand what I'm trying to say anyway. So never mind. Feel free to ignore that post.
Actually, no, I will explain my point. The Christian Church has been guilty throughout it's history of obligating it's followers to give - indeed even threatening them with eternal damnation if they didn't. That has worked out pretty well for them financially.

So it makes sense that the churched population would give more than unchurched people who don't give out of a sense of obligation.

I didn't read the report and so I don't know if it broke the numbers down between Christians and followers of the World's other faiths.
 
Actually, no, I will explain my point. The Christian Church has been guilty throughout it's history of obligating it's followers to give - indeed even threatening them with eternal damnation if they didn't. That has worked out pretty well for them financially.

So it makes sense that the churched population would give more than unchurched people who don't give out of a sense of obligation.

I didn't read the report and so I don't know if it broke the numbers down between Christians and followers of the World's other faiths.
Friend, if you are talking about the Catholic Church and their selling of indulgences I see your point. But I have to explain something. They didn't say you went to Hell if you didn't pay. The indulgences were paid to lessen the amount of time people spent in Purgatory, which is like a half way station between here and Heaven. Now we in the Protestant Church do not believe in Purgatory because as the Apostle Paul said about believers, "to be absent from the body is the be present with the Lord" 2 Cor 5:8.
 
Friend, if you are talking about the Catholic Church and their selling of indulgences I see your point. But I have to explain something. They didn't say you went to Hell if you didn't pay. The indulgences were paid to lessen the amount of time people spent in Purgatory, which is like a half way station between here and Heaven. Now we in the Protestant Church do not believe in Purgatory because as the Apostle Paul said about believers, "to be absent from the body is the be present with the Lord" 2 Cor 5:8.
No, I'm not just talking about the Catholic Church.
 
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/f...heyre-spending-less-time-at-church-2019-10-28

I picked this link up from Drudge. One interesting point was that as people became less religious, ie attending services and giving financially to the church, there is a correlation to their giving to non religious organizations as well. The research was done by the Lilly School at IU.
Bowling leagues do some good in the world too. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone
 
Racket would imply that I don't really believe what I say I believe. I believe in Jesus as the Son of God, the promised Messiah foretold in the Ancient Jewish Scriptures some call the Old Testament. I believe He was 100% God and 100% man without a sin nature. By His perfectly lived out life or in other words sinless life, He was an appropriate sacrifice for sins upon the Cross. When a person understands their sinful standing before God the Father, and understands Jesus paid the penalty for their sins upon the Cross the Bible calls this justifying faith. It means God declares the guilty sinner righteous because of their faith in His Son Jesus as their Savior. I believe Jesus was buried and on a Sunday Morning was raised from the dead. Jesus promises to come back again someday and if we were betting people with His track record we better believe He will. This is what I believe. It's not a racket. It's faith.

Interesting take. I dunno about all that. Personally, I have him pegged for a super-nice guy who was well-liked amongst his peers, and who was a halfway decent, if not solid, carpenter back in his day. You seem to be a bit more bullish on him though.
 
Racket would imply that I don't really believe what I say I believe. I believe in Jesus as the Son of God, the promised Messiah foretold in the Ancient Jewish Scriptures some call the Old Testament. I believe He was 100% God and 100% man without a sin nature. By His perfectly lived out life or in other words sinless life, He was an appropriate sacrifice for sins upon the Cross. When a person understands their sinful standing before God the Father, and understands Jesus paid the penalty for their sins upon the Cross the Bible calls this justifying faith. It means God declares the guilty sinner righteous because of their faith in His Son Jesus as their Savior. I believe Jesus was buried and on a Sunday Morning was raised from the dead. Jesus promises to come back again someday and if we were betting people with His track record we better believe He will. This is what I believe. It's not a racket. It's faith.

You lost me at Racket..
 
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...I believe in Jesus as the Son of God, the promised Messiah foretold in the Ancient Jewish Scriptures some call the Old Testament. I believe He was 100% God and 100% man without a sin nature. By His perfectly lived out life or in other words sinless life, He was an appropriate sacrifice for sins upon the Cross...It means God declares the guilty sinner righteous because of their faith in His Son Jesus as their Savior. I believe Jesus was buried and on a Sunday Morning was raised from the dead....Jesus promises to come back again someday and if we were betting people with His track record we better believe He will. This is what I believe. It's not a racket. It's faith.

Also, why do you believe it was a Sunday morning he was buried? You sure it wasn't late afternoon or something? As for you believing it took shape on a Sunday, that part I understand. But from my understanding, I thought most burials back then tended to get scheduled for the late afternoon, with the hours between 3 pm to 6 pm being the sweet-spot, no?

And as for his return that you predict will happen "someday", can you be a bit more specific than that please? For someone who presumably has inside info, if you're providing betting tips, something a little less vague would be helpful. I mean, that be akin to me claiming to be an NFL betting guru and then providing my week 14 hot tip of the week as to take the Vikings money line at home against the Lions; a game where the Vikes opened up as 14 point favorites.
 
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If you want to raise charitable giving, having them go to church isn't the solution. The solution is to raise the amount of disposable income of lower/working class people. Lower/working class people are more generous due to being closer to needing assistance themselves or having people close to them needing assistance. The giving done by say the local Rotary or Kiwanis clubs pales in comparison to what is given by the Moose or Amvets or the like.
 
Not to mention, I take issue with the OP's point in the title of the thread. What correlation is there between the amount of good done in the world as a result of giving to the church vs. that as a result of giving to secular charities? I would submit that secular charities are more effective on that spectrum dollar for dollar. Not to say that religious organizations don't do good. But there is a massive amount of money wasted by religion on trivial things, and most secular charities don't have the luxury to waste that kind of money. Not to say that secular charities don't waste money. Some obviously do.
 
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Also, why do you believe it was a Sunday morning he was buried? You sure it wasn't late afternoon or something? As for you believing it took shape on a Sunday, that part I understand. But from my understanding, I thought most burials back then tended to get scheduled for the late afternoon, with the hours between 3 pm to 6 pm being the sweet-spot, no?

And as for his return that you predict will happen "someday", can you be a bit more specific than that please? For someone who presumably has inside info, if you're providing betting tips, something a little less vague would be helpful. I mean, that be akin to me claiming to be an NFL betting guru and then providing my week 14 hot tip of the week as to take the Vikings money line at home against the Lions; a game where the Vikes opened up as 14 point favorites.


VMAT2?
 
Racket would imply that I don't really believe what I say I believe. I believe in Jesus as the Son of God, the promised Messiah foretold in the Ancient Jewish Scriptures some call the Old Testament. I believe He was 100% God and 100% man without a sin nature. By His perfectly lived out life or in other words sinless life, He was an appropriate sacrifice for sins upon the Cross. When a person understands their sinful standing before God the Father, and understands Jesus paid the penalty for their sins upon the Cross the Bible calls this justifying faith. It means God declares the guilty sinner righteous because of their faith in His Son Jesus as their Savior. I believe Jesus was buried and on a Sunday Morning was raised from the dead. Jesus promises to come back again someday and if we were betting people with His track record we better believe He will. This is what I believe. It's not a racket. It's faith.
Your original post above promotes and measures donating $$$$$$$$ to religious organizations, not faith or Blood of the Lamb or the Cross or that other stuff. You went out of your way to post that link underneath your headline proclaiming "religion does do some good in the world." So, in your mind, donating more money to religious organizations is the same as "doing good" (or you wouldn't have associated that article with that headline).

At least Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteen and Paula White admit their religion is making tons of money.

You believed enough in $$$$$$$$ to post the original link but your lecture/blah blah blah in Post No. 3 does not say anything about $$$$$. We know that $$$$$ is why you moved from Washington, Indiana to Pennsylvania (if your other posts are to be believed) because that's what you said at the time. I don't blame you. It is financially tough being a smalltime minister. But, instead of talking about that, you give us a post screaming faith faith faith like money isn't part of it. Money is a major part of why you moved. Call it "Christian stewardship" if you want but it's still just $$$$$ money money money.

We know you're selling whatever you can sell and that not everyone can make a living selling insurance. But don't put "pastor" in your username and act like the rest of us don't smell the hypocrisy reeking out of your keyboard when you post your garbage (especially your pro-Trump pro-racist anti-poor people garbage).

You wouldn't know true religion if it gave you your own locusts.
 
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At least Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteen and Paula White admit their religion is making tons of money.
We know you're selling whatever you can sell and that not everyone can make a living selling insurance. But don't put "pastor" in your username and act like the rest of us don't smell the hypocrisy reeking out of your keyboard when you post your garbage (especially your pro-Trump pro-racist anti-poor people garbage).

You wouldn't know true religion if it gave you your own locusts.


tenor.gif
 
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I sure hope so because I've staked my eternal destiny on winning the league this year.

Edit: I've never thought of faith as a gamble.
In my opinion - it’s entirely a gamble.
 
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/f...heyre-spending-less-time-at-church-2019-10-28

I picked this link up from Drudge. One interesting point was that as people became less religious, ie attending services and giving financially to the church, there is a correlation to their giving to non religious organizations as well. The research was done by the Lilly School at IU.

Yeah, people don't have as much discretionary income and people are not as religious. Good job. The author makes it a point to point this fact out. Keep voting for people who create recessions and economic insecurity.

I'm pretty sure there's a study out there that shows religious people are more susceptible to fake and/or misleading news. I'm not saying your post is false, perhaps misleading in the way you interpreted it, but you and others seem to beat a particular fictional drum when it comes to politics and ethics.
 
Your original post above promotes and measures donating $$$$$$$$ to religious organizations, not faith or Blood of the Lamb or the Cross or that other stuff. You went out of your way to post that link underneath your headline proclaiming "religion does do some good in the world." So, in your mind, donating more money to religious organizations is the same as "doing good" (or you wouldn't have associated that article with that headline).

At least Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteen and Paula White admit their religion is making tons of money.

You believed enough in $$$$$$$$ to post the original link but your lecture/blah blah blah in Post No. 3 does not say anything about $$$$$. We know that $$$$$ is why you moved from Washington, Indiana to Pennsylvania (if your other posts are to be believed) because that's what you said at the time. I don't blame you. It is financially tough being a smalltime minister. But, instead of talking about that, you give us a post screaming faith faith faith like money isn't part of it. Money is a major part of why you moved. Call it "Christian stewardship" if you want but it's still just $$$$$ money money money.

We know you're selling whatever you can sell and that not everyone can make a living selling insurance. But don't put "pastor" in your username and act like the rest of us don't smell the hypocrisy reeking out of your keyboard when you post your garbage (especially your pro-Trump pro-racist anti-poor people garbage).

You wouldn't know true religion if it gave you your own locusts.
The point I was making was about the tendency of religious folks to give more to charities outside of the church. Whereas if a person doesn't have any religious affiliation they tend to not give as much to charitable organizations. Therefore I was talking about how religion does do some good because at least it creates people who are charitable. I was hoping to hear from others about whether they have seen this and if they have then what would they think was the reason behind the correlation.
 
I don't act. I believe every word of the Gospel. In fact I have staked my eternal destiny on it.

i think you and other politically active "Christians" might carry more credibility if you seemed to embrace more of the things we think of Christ standing for, and not just embracing the club because of the get out of hell free card that comes with membership.
 
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The point I was making was about the tendency of religious folks to give more to charities outside of the church. Whereas if a person doesn't have any religious affiliation they tend to not give as much to charitable organizations. Therefore I was talking about how religion does do some good because at least it creates people who are charitable. I was hoping to hear from others about whether they have seen this and if they have then what would they think was the reason behind the correlation.
Wow, that's all you've got to argue that religion does some good: a study showing that religious people give a little bit more, dollar-for-dollar, than non-religious people? That's pretty weak, man.
 
Actually, no, I will explain my point. The Christian Church has been guilty throughout it's history of obligating it's followers to give - indeed even threatening them with eternal damnation if they didn't. That has worked out pretty well for them financially.

So it makes sense that the churched population would give more than unchurched people who don't give out of a sense of obligation.

I didn't read the report and so I don't know if it broke the numbers down between Christians and followers of the World's other faiths.
I did read the report, and I can help you out. The report doesn't say what VPM thinks it says, and it doesn't support what the MarketWatch article claims. (Note, the article drops the study at the beginning only to demonstrate that charitable giving is declining, and then uses other sources in an attempt to support the claim that a decline in religiosity is to blame.)

If you actually look into the numbers, however, you find some interesting things. For example, of all the religious groups listed, the one with the smallest decline in giving was the "Nones." Nones gave 1.21% of the income before the recession, compared to 1.19% after. All religious groups listed showed a larger decline, although the report notes that none of them are statistically significant.

Digging deeper, I noticed something else interesting. It appears above that VPM's theory (and C&C's, for that matter) is that religious folks are trained to give, so to speak, and so they give more even outside of church. However, the report separates religious and secular giving (importantly, "religious" giving is defined as giving directly to a religious congregation; more detail on that below), and thinking about those numbers raises some questions. For example, after the recession, the average household gives 0.82% to secular charities, and 2.19% to charity overall. Since the non-religious are giving 1.19% to charity, that means one of two things: they are either more generous than religious folks when it comes to secular charities, or they, despite being non-religious themselves, are giving a respectable amount of money to churches and synagogues, as well. Catholic families give 1.60%, higher than the average religious giving, but lower than the overall rate, while Protestants are giving 2.75%, higher than the overall rate.

The report does not break down charity type by socio-demographic group, so we can't draw any hard conclusions, but another citation in that article mentions that Catholics are giving less to their parish since the abuse scandal blew up again, which would explain their smaller number. Again, we can't decisively conclude anything, but we can speculate that it might very well be Protestants who are primarily driving religious gifts, the Nones who are primarily driving secular gifts, and the Catholics sort of filling a gray area.

At any rate, the study does nothing to support the contention that the correlation between religiosity and giving goes any further than the idea that religious folks give more because, in addition to regular charity, they also have churches to donate to, while the non-religious do not.

NB: Another question left unanswered is how much of the religious giving ends up going to the same purposes as secular giving. The report defines "religious" giving as all giving to religious congregations, and "secular" giving as all other giving. No doubt, some of that religious giving - which represents a large majority of all giving - is directed by various congregations to food, education, health, etc. Many Catholic parishes, for example, directly support Catholic education in order to help keep costs down for lower income families wishing to send children to Catholic schools.
 
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I did read the report, and I can help you out. The report doesn't say what VPM thinks it says, and it doesn't support what the MarketWatch article claims. (Note, the article drops the study at the beginning only to demonstrate that charitable giving is declining, and then uses other sources in an attempt to support the claim that a decline in religiosity is to blame.)

If you actually look into the numbers, however, you find some interesting things. For example, of all the religious groups listed, the one with the smallest decline in giving was the "Nones." Nones gave 1.21% of the income before the recession, compared to 1.19% after. All religious groups listed showed a larger decline, although the report notes that none of them are statistically significant.

Digging deeper, I noticed something else interesting. It appears above that VPM's theory (and C&C's, for that matter) is that religious folks are trained to give, so to speak, and so they give more even outside of church. However, the report separates religious and secular giving (importantly, "religious" giving is defined as giving directly to a religious congregation; more detail on that below), and thinking about those numbers raises some questions. For example, after the recession, the average household gives 0.82% to secular charities, and 2.19% to charity overall. Since the non-religious are giving 1.19% to charity, that means one of two things: they are either more generous than religious folks when it comes to secular charities, or they, despite being non-religious themselves, are giving a respectable amount of money to churches and synagogues, as well. Catholic families give 1.60%, higher than the average religious giving, but lower than the overall rate, while Protestants are giving 2.75%, higher than the overall rate.

The report does not break down charity type by socio-demographic group, so we can't draw any hard conclusions, but another citation in that article mentions that Catholics are giving less to their parish since the abuse scandal blew up again, which would explain their smaller number. Again, we can't decisively conclude anything, but we can speculate that it might very well be Protestants who are primarily driving religious gifts, the Nones who are primarily driving secular gifts, and the Catholics sort of filling a gray area.

At any rate, the study does nothing to support the contention that the correlation between religiosity and giving goes any further than the idea that religious folks give more because, in addition to regular charity, they also have churches to donate to, while the non-religious do not.

NB: Another question left unanswered is how much of the religious giving ends up going to the same purposes as secular giving. The report defines "religious" giving as all giving to religious congregations, and "secular" giving as all other giving. No doubt, some of that religious giving - which represents a large majority of all giving - is directed by various congregations to food, education, health, etc. Many Catholic parishes, for example, directly support Catholic education in order to help keep costs down for lower income families wishing to send children to Catholic schools.
I read the OP as just trying to make the point that religions do some good in the world. As a religious person he feels his values constantly under attack and he wants the religious to get some credit. It is tempting to get technical and snarky but there is something important here too. As Putnam observed back in the 90s Americans are losing "social capital" that is built when they do stuff together (like going to church or bowling in a league) in the real world. Where the OP focuses on church participation as something unique the fact is that involvement in any kind of social activity (e.g., bowling) is healthy. Our online interactions don't build that relatedness in the same way as person to person interactions. And to the extent that we substitute those for the real thing we probably become less related to others as a consequence.
 
Your original post above promotes and measures donating $$$$$$$$ to religious organizations, not faith or Blood of the Lamb or the Cross or that other stuff. You went out of your way to post that link underneath your headline proclaiming "religion does do some good in the world." So, in your mind, donating more money to religious organizations is the same as "doing good" (or you wouldn't have associated that article with that headline).

At least Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteen and Paula White admit their religion is making tons of money.

You believed enough in $$$$$$$$ to post the original link but your lecture/blah blah blah in Post No. 3 does not say anything about $$$$$. We know that $$$$$ is why you moved from Washington, Indiana to Pennsylvania (if your other posts are to be believed) because that's what you said at the time. I don't blame you. It is financially tough being a smalltime minister. But, instead of talking about that, you give us a post screaming faith faith faith like money isn't part of it. Money is a major part of why you moved. Call it "Christian stewardship" if you want but it's still just $$$$$ money money money.

We know you're selling whatever you can sell and that not everyone can make a living selling insurance. But don't put "pastor" in your username and act like the rest of us don't smell the hypocrisy reeking out of your keyboard when you post your garbage (especially your pro-Trump pro-racist anti-poor people garbage).

You wouldn't know true religion if it gave you your own locusts.

I've always assumed VPM, prosperity bible, and Trumpism fit like a glove. There is nothing virtuous about rooting for a demi-God in the eyes of the evangelicals with greed being the gospel.
 
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