[Gwaihir]

Originally Posted by Gravydoo II [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Well yea. Wouldnt you say that christianity has an undeserved position in our society? Wow, building million dollar churches really helps the community. Not like they could have used that money to help the people in their congregation.. Why do christians deserve a seat at every table, simply for being christians? Why is that nearly a requirement in most states to be elected? Because of christians spreading lies about atheists and how they have no morals because they dont believe in a higher power.

Taking a stance against christianity and a stance against god are two different things. One is real, actually effects people on earth. They claim to be a charity but who do they help, exactly? Their 501c is abused at every chance they get. New tires for the mercedes? Oh its for the church... tax free.

In high school a couple of my class mates did and experiment to see which churches actually help people if you go to them in need. Not one of them offered anything but "council" and some old dirty clothes. No financial help, no help with doctors appointments, no help with anything. I thought a charity was supposed to help people in need? Not here, apparently. We went to 37 churches in the area.

One offered to sell us a gallon of a cure all that could cure cancer, parvo, std's, and basically any other disease for the low low price of 800 dollars. Oh and lots of books, they offered lots of books to buy, tapes to buy, all to "help" with our situations. Isnt that disgusting to you?

Many of the kids involved lived in abject poverty, drug addicted parents, suffered from mental illness of physical impairments.. People who actually needed help. None was offered in any form.

The local mosque in my area was burned down by a christian on a motorcycle. The local synagogue and Hindi churches were also vandalized. I also dont see muslims and jews on my street corners with signs and huge crosses yelling at traffic. I dont see them going around burning churches. I dont see them running youth groups that turn out to be very bad places for kids to go. I dont see them running conversation camps. I dont see them condemning gay people, openly, for simply loving someone. I dont see them opening day cares to allah or yaweh into kids heads, like I see in my town.

I see sikhs shaving their beards for covid, not claiming they have a religious exemption from wearing a mask. I dont see jews or muslims trying to force their religious icons and commandments onto state property then crying about it when its found to be unconstitutional, again, but insisting it should stay. I just dont see it, not locally anyways. I dont see them lying to everyone about how prayer is BANNED in schools and their holy books are ILLEGAL in schools.

See my point? They draw the ire of people because they feel like they deserve to be number 1, always. Never denied. Their arrogance and self-entitlement is so over the top. They feel like they deserve total domination of the USA, all its schools, all its institutions, and should have control of what your kids learn in school.

The church did more for humanitarian aid in the founding and building of this empire with 10%, than the US Government does with 30% now.

Most of the food banks in this country are funded, staffed, and managed entirely by churches of varying denominations, still. To this very day. The godless think they can legislate "Love". It's the stupidest idea ever, and it's akin to the Pharisees legislating "salvation".

The prosperity of this country throughout it's development is due, in large part, to the church and it's people's ethics.

Look at what we have now, as the nation's christian influence wanes. I would argue the Christian church,on the whole, is largely being devalued, and you have it entirely ass backwards.

If I had to state what I'm critical of the church for, I would state that the majority of contemporary churches seem to be overly geared toward providing a message that is more about assuaging guilt, while oreintating it's message toward the hylic audience and only providing a shallow interpretation of faith, but I suppose that's largely due to a shrinking audience and shortage of dutiful tithing to work with, which takes away from a more content church which should otherwise be about building up the church bodies TRUST in God's providence. In effect, they're guilty of fearing God will not meet their needs, which is antithesis to faith.

Did you know the Jewish word for faith originally meant "trust". It didn't mean "blind belief"

What this means is that the church is more interested in "saving the lost" than it is about perfecting the saved, because a larger church body means greater security for the pastors with suboptimal tithing.

I think it should be more about the latter, and there would a lot less examples of misguided idiots making a political spectacle of the faith.

When a pastor leaves a congregation and a church is on the market for a new pastor, they interview and retrace the statistics of pastors "in the market". This pastor grew his previous congregation by 3% per month in the past two years, and oversaw a 7% growth in tithing revenue, we need a pastor like this leading our congregation.