UtahBill

I think lack of education makes them gullible, the religious organizations just take advantage of it....

__________________
The Age of Reason doesn't have to be a thing of the past.
Being judgemental is the prime directive of some evangelicals.
No success can compensate for failure in the home.

jfuh

Indeed, they had to be gullible to begin with to accept religion, in particular religion that "mandates" you must donate a certain percentage of your income every month via the mentality that the money is what is making their lives horrible. So the religious organization will take this daunting burden of money off of their hands so that the leader of the church will invest it into an Aston Martin DB9 sports. Or buy himself a new jet so as to go around the country and preach how great their religion is and that not believing in their religion the individual is damning him/herself to hell.

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The facts and science of the theory of anthropogenic Global warming

Cataclysmic 7.9 earthquake in China, how to donate to the relief fund.

A_Wise_Fool

What is making you sick? Your ignorance?

You appear as though you know nothing about this church yet somehow are forming a strong opnion on fair use of the money donated to this church.

Even further....from the article about this one pastor:

Enough said right there.


Who am I kidding? Then the one and only thing you could possibly complain over from the article;

Hmmm. Church gave him a car. We could logically believe everbody is telling the truth here and the car really is mostly used for church-related activities but most people on this forum tend to make up this belief that religious people must be lying if they don't do what they expect of them, so I'll appraoch this a different way.

Ok, 50K car, but services to a church easily worth 100k a year. Which side really got the unfair deal in this scenario, him or his church"? Hmmm.. so even when you people have to believe he's lying the premise really doesn't warrant him being a hypocrit from the church donating a car to him in and of itself. Too bad. I guess you all will have to wait for the next article to come along and make illogical conclusions to justify your pre-beliefs.

foundit66

This type of abuse is rampant.

Ted Haggard, the recently ousted "I'm not gay" megachurch minister, moved down South to start going to college for a masters.
He utilized an organization to take donations to fund his college expenses.

Not only is the organization a shady one regarding how much of the "donations" they take for their own "fund-raising" uses, but Haggard is NOT hurting for money.
He STILL owns a home in Colorado, given to him by his church with the home in HIS name, valued at over $700,000.
PLUS, when he left the church the church leaders agreed to pay his salary through 2007. $138,000 annual salary.
http://www.coloradoconfidential.com/...o?diaryId=2630

Anybody with half a brain that sees a "megachurch" should realize that there is "megacorruption" in any ideal that spends that much money on its own vanity and ministers...

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"(Gay marriage) is a debate about whether you think gay people are part of the human condition or just a random fetish."
-- Jon Stewart

A_Wise_Fool

Nice point. I guess you believe all muslims are terrorists too? I mean, if one does it, they ALL must do it. I don't see why that philosophy you possess should stop at megachurches. It must make life pretty simple for you.

I'll admit 700K is way too much for a miinster's house. But people donating for eductation is something I see nothing wrong with. If he applied for financial aid then you might just have "donated" your tax dollers to his education as well. People certainly have done so for mine and I don't think God is mad at them.

jfuh

for someone as well off as he is, why would he then get financial aid from my tax dollars? he's not eligible.

foundit66

Ahh yes.
The inevitable strawman argument.
I didn't say "all christians" were like that...


You've got to be kidding me.
When a guy can AFFORD TO PAY FOR HIS OWN VACATION, and takes money from others that COULD be going to starving kids in Africa, that's "nothing wrong" to you?



I would love to see documentation of people with $700,000 homes getting free student aid.
There's a story for 20/20 about student aid corruption waiting to happen.

But I guess since you've bypassed the whole idea of "need", what does it matter?

A_Wise_Fool

Cute... Don't take me to be that simple. I was clearly refering to your clearly made blanket statement about megachurches from a singe example, and said nothing about christians. Can you not follow that much or do you just always jump to random conclusions so you can make accusations of strawmans?


Vacation? No idea what you are talking about.

The money that is being donated to a cause people support, that happens to be education (what I was talking about), having "something wrong" with that donation is quite judgemental on your part. Do you really need a yearly vaction when there are starving people in the world? Instead of DONATING (giving, allocating for the intent of using) money to your enjoyment it COULD be used to feed them...

Sigh, and don't tell me that "it would have gone somewhere better" because it was just a donation in the first place.



I don't know how assets work into the equation but if you are unemployed it might be another story. So after he recieved benefits from the church who knows.

foundit66

What I said was that the abuse was "rampant".
Do you understand what "rampant" means?

It does not mean that all Christians are a certain way.
It does not mean that all churches are a certain way.
It means that the problem is "widespread".

If I said that there was a "rampant outbreak" of flu in my town, that wouldn't mean that I was saying everybody in town had the flu.

Try to pick up a dictionary and stop with the strawman arguments...


Typo, probably with a Freudian slip.
The word should have been EDUCATION.


Oh silly me.
Is being "judgmental" reserved just for the people who lead these megachurches?
Are they the only ones allowed to have opinions about the actions of others?


Your complaint is thoroughly mundane.
And moving past that, it's boring how you fail to even question the practice yourself.
Feel free to break free from the sheeple flock and grow some ability to evaluate things instead of just chastising others who see something rotten.


Your response is simply just to tell me "don't tell you" something?
If you don't want to hear it, don't listen.
Cause I'll continue to say things you don't want to be "told".

It is just plain wrong for a man to go begging for donations for an education he can afford himself, when he's got a $700,000 home back in the state he just moved OUT of.

For supposedly "Christian" people who proclaim to follow "Christ", they sure have skipped over all the bible passages which explicitly condemn the "rich".

Oh crap! Was that Jesus being judgmental?
Maybe somebody should talk to him about that...


I am just astounded that you lack the capability to recognize a situation that is entirely messed up.
Maybe if I said he was a democrat or a liberal instead? Would that suddenly free up some capability to analyze the situation? Express an opinion?
Maybe if he were a republican? Conservative?

Assets do work into the equation. Scholarships and "free" funding often include questions of income and financial assets in order to preclude assigning scholarships to people who don't need them.

I realize some people are more than comfortable giving money to those who have no real need of it, overlooking the actual needy, but other people, like myself and a variety of scholarship organizations, actually do consider "need" as relevant.

UtahBill

Name calling? Are you a paid member of this church? Fair use of donated funds? What could YOU possibly know about this church? Or are you a pastor of a similar enterprise?

No, my ignorance does not make me sick. Yours maybe, and all the fools, wise or otherwise, who fall for this kind of scam.
He says his income is separate, yet does not elaborate. You can bet he started out with next to nothing and used the church to establish his businesses. A man with a bit of charisma, knowledge of the good book and the wit to manipulate its words, can fool the ignorant masses easily and amass a fortune while fleecing the sheep.
Rev. Dollar makes some wild claims about the wealth of Jesus, with no proof. He claims a large membership, but does not fess up about how many have left his church after becoming aware or the falseness of his teachings.
The problem IS rampant among megachurches, because money is just as corrupting as is power.
The church will find its story being told on PrimeTIme or 20/20 before long.
And Rev. Dollar better have a good lawyer.
As for all the fools, if you won't learn the words of Jesus for yourself instead of insisting on being spoon fed by a false shepherd, then you deserve to be scammed out of your money....