oh thats strange? if I give the church money God will forgive my sins. I HATE how much BS organized religion throws at people and they just swallow it taking it as the truth. I hate the fact that half of the people at my school take the bible in literal context. i hate the fact that organized religion has led to un-countable amounts of hate violence and wars. i hate the fact that people are willing to execute other humans in the name of there god. I hate the fact that people live their whole lives in fear because of what churches and religions tell them. I hate how people feel that if they commit a sin they are no good. I hate that people hate other people based on their religion.

now just because i hate organized religion doesnt mean im not a spiritual person. I love how much love can be pulled from people with beliefs. i love how religion can bring people together. i love how religion can give people the strength to pull through hard times. i love god

Giving donations is supposed to go to charity and such. I hate how some churches will only give those donations to fellow church goers. That money is for all needy and not just a select few.

charities? so much for my plan of starting my own church....

actually it doesn't work like that... and anyone that believes that they can buy forgiveness is an idiot... IMO...
the money is actually supposed to go to helping support the church's financial obligations, such as light bills, mortgage, etc...
whatever is left is usually divided amongst those in positions... because as a non-profit, they can't save it in the bank... it has to be gone or they lose non-profit status...



why do you care if people believe the Bible or not?

you must also hate the fact that organized religion led to the creation of America and organizations like the Red Cross that help people all around the world...
so what do you have against helping people?

and you might want to use specifics when talking about wars... because most of that can be blamed on certain Popes, certain muslims, etc... from various religions... and you have to throw every atheist in that has ever started a war...

to blame entire groups for the decisions of a few is absurd...



what about revenge, capital punishment, etc?
is there anything wrong with killing for those reasons?

people are going to kill no matter what we do or believe... mankind is violent in General...
if you read the story of Cain and Abel... Cain killed Abel out of jealousy... it had nothing to do with religion or God...



what church tells people to live in fear? every church i've been to is quite the opposite and teaches not to live in fear... which if anyone bothers to pick up a Bible... they can simply read all the verse about not having anything to fear...

only a brainwashed few who CHOOSE not to read and just accept what they are told, are living in fear...



no Christians think that... in fact sinning makes you human... we just feel the need to ask for forgiveness...
i don't know any Christian that thinks they are no good if they sin...



i'm shocked that you would say that as you single out all the things you hate about certain groups of people...



that's great to hear...

but it seems that your list of hates are merely misconceptions of religion as a whole, when it is only a small minority that fit those statements...

The pastor at my old friend's church was filtering away money and ran off with quite a substantial amount of the stuff. Don't they have to keep accounts or anything? I could never figure out how he managed to pull the wool over everyone's eyes for so long.

Yes Shadow....it's called embezzlement...exactly what I had in mind.

He seemed like such a nice man... but he didn't even take his wife with him when he ran off.

Im liking this guy's plan more and more....

Not all organized religion is like that my friend. Money should NEVER been given to forgive sin, and if any church out there tells you that do not believe that one bit. I give money to church so it can go to giving bibles out to kids, and supporting missionary type work, not because I think im going to get kudo's from God. It is a sad fact that there are MANY corrupt church's out there, but believe me they are not all like that. You really have to be picky and weed the bad ones out.

Is there any sort of body that checks where the money's going? To make sure it's going where it should.

It's called wolves in sheeps clothing. That is absolutely unacceptable what he did.

In the US, even though churches are tax exempt, I THINK they still have to file statements with the Internal Revenue Service.

A church that is affiliated with an order would still have to square their books with higher up in their organization, but in the case of something like my proposed "Church of Muledom"...that would be me...so I could do more or less as I pleased.

as one who still goes to high school, i love it when people suddenly "believe" in a god when a test comes along...

Gotta love the sacreligious

I've actually noticed this before with my Uni Strudies.

Its amazing how people who spend most of the semester Partying etc all of a sudden spend their time on their knees just before an exam when if they had spent a little more time in a book during the year they would have been much better off imo.

It's worse when people are faced with a serious situation, such as death or dread, an atheist will call out the name of God for help, I have heard it...

sadly... that happened at a church i used to go to... he stole millions...
they are supposed to keep records, but it's easy to fix the records...

when i worked at the community college the president was embezzling money...
i think people just get greedy when they get in a position and realize there's easy money to be made...

Oh yeah....that old adage "there's no atheists in fox holes" Whatever, my uncle had to go in enemy fox holes in Vietnam and he's an atheist, he wasn't calling out for your imaginary friend when he had to kill or be killed.

The idea of death can do that to ya....my Dad came out of Korea as an athiest, but somewhere after 60 he started believing in God...

I practice meditation & spirituality but never religion...it's too close to organized crime. -Robin Williams

perhaps some of us like to just believe there is something/someone that can save our asses when we ourselves couldn't... then regret it and hope to repent... or something like that

(I'm not religious by the way)

the pahntum you have some great points but I am (for the most part) not talking about organized religion in the western culture because we have heavily enforced laws. For the most part I am talking about organized religion in the middle east where people are executed daily in the name of god. millions are at war because of beliefs and so forth. I think we can both understand the points both of us have to make.

I belong to a church where no donations are taken. There is no collection plate. We do have tax exempt status, and yes, we still have to file with the IRS. We do form non-profits and endowments that members can donate to if they choose to on their own time, not at church.

That was a little rude, but hey when you're a believer you get used to it after a while. Well God bless your uncle for making it out of the hell in vietnam. Even if he is an atheist, God was with him during those times.

I apologize for that. I don't usually say things like that and there's really no excuse, I'm just in an odd/bad kind of mood. I truly am sorry.

No problem at all, no offense taken. It took a good part of you to apologize and I accept that. Thank you

I dont know, but dont ya'll just love this woman right here::::

Where did you get a picture of my wife?

LOL, I have some devilish friends who in our youth used to call the donation line for that show pretending to be Christians who needed to be saved. They'd go around and around with the collectors. Personally? I think my impish little friends were probably doing a good public service in their attempt to tie up the phone lines.

Hmm, Wonder what could've possessed you to do such a thing like that?

The devil?

AHHH! Not Jan Kraus! I swear she wears three pinkish wigs at once while sitting on her golden throne crying. *shivers*

I swear, when I first saw her years ago, I thought I was on a channel that was doing a PARODY... I kept expecting her to jump up, tear off her wig and yell "LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT!!!!!!!!"

Ohhh that's perfect!! LMAO! I'm laughing way to loud for this time of the night. I keep picturing it!

I tell no lies. The first time I saw this woman on the TV, I sincerely thought it was a SNL skit of something religious. I honestly didn't realize she was forreal. But, well, it is forreal.
As a Christian how do you ignore this? Or am I being to judgmental or even hateful? Representation? Large Diamond rings, private jets, etc,... she looks like a human cartoon to be honest.....anyhoo.

I think they found Jimmy Hoffa in her hair

Did ya'll notice the hair? DANG WHAT A DEW!

You all are killing me here! LMAO!

As a Christian, I actually find televangelism reprehensible and morally irresponsible, maybe even a sin.

I can't do much about it, but I find it horrific.

OMG!! I just posted something like this earlier, ROFL .... hehah!! I could have sworn it was SNL. I couldn't believe it was REAL! The NERVE????? UHG!

Organized religion is a plague as far as I'm concerned. People who believe every word in those books are the god given truth although it has been written thousands of years ago, not by any god but by men which often are extremely prejudiced against this and that. The leaders of these organized religions preaching all these rules their followers must abide to while they themselves joyfully ****s around and is doing all sorts of nasty stuff, and their followers are swallowing all their bull and obeys all these silly things blindly, not thinking for themselves even for a minute. Like stubborn mules they are always repeating themselves quoting all kinds of verses to prove them right. All those holy scriptures should be, if not burned, at least heavily revised and updated, which would probably only make many of these followers refusing to accept it and create even more hostile cults than now. Geez, I'm trying to think of at least one good thong organized religion has brought humanity through the ages, but alas, I can't think of any.

Not maybe a sin, but definitely a sin, and evil, they deceive many weak christians my sister

I'm suprised these folks are in business still. Their rings on their hands, their suites they wear?? Top of the line, honey-----I was flipping thru the channels last night as I normally do before falling asleep, there they all were (TBN) Benny Hin and group... pleading for everyone to get on the phones... You know who got on their phones? The elderly. Our weakest/poorest members. I think it IS a sin. They call Benny Hin a "faith healer?" --faith healer my foot. I find it repulsive. As a Christian, and as a person concerned for those taken advantage-Again, once isn't enough, I find it REPULSIVE.

I can name a few....

If you're in the USA at least one organized religion provided or helped to provide you with:

1. The abolution of slavery
2. The right for women to vote
3. Fair pricing for quality goods
4. Equal rights for woman
5. The freedom to worship or not to worship whatever God you like
6. And... The separation of Church and State

Not too mention there are a lot of organized church groups that give their time and money to really great charities in a very organized way.

A pastor of a church here used some of that money take my house away from me and my family :3 great people they are, truly.

But sadly you view that as all Christians right?

Nope, I know most people are like that regardless of religion. I can't say I approve of most religions though ;D

I don't know who the woman with the big wig is... over here, as far as I know, we don't get televangelists on the standard 5 TV channels. Actually, I don't watch TV at all and haven't done for two years, so things could have changed.

If it is a woman, it could just be a drag queen, all that makeup..

That's-UGH- just terrible-- I'm not bit suprised! !!!! How did they do that exactly???

makes me think of old man scooter:
I know an old man right now he's in terrible medical condition, his kids are grown, & they have nothing to do with him any longer (pathetic reasons why too, imo), he's retired, not able to work. He is depended on the church here (one of them). One Sunday he shows up my house (walking) in tears telling me how the preacher got into his face preaching to him infront of congregation that morning, revealing his personal problems in front of the entire church... had this old man into tears, this preacher did . Embarracing him . The old man told me he felt almost "obligated" to take it because the church was helping him out.
I was angered by this !! THat preacher does not come out of HIS pocket alone to help this guy, the help he recieves is from the CHURCH's FUNDS--heart of the congregation... NOT THE PREACHERS PERSONAL PAY CHECK.. ugh. He had NO right doing this old man this way ..

Many members were offended by the preacher's actions. The problem is the preacher has the mic, and at the pulpit. Seems ( MORE THAN NOT) the few bad people are in positions to represent the good majority as a whole...

It just makes the good Christians look even more bad. There are {TRUE} Christians out there!! --