http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/48724-why-world-vision-changed-its-m...
World vision helps needy children worldwide and finds sponsors in various churches. In 2014 they decided to allow homosexuals to work and serve along side them, but it didn't last long. Within 48 hours world vision took back their decision to allow homosexuals to join the organization. Tv evangelical preachers urged christians to stop their subscriptions and 10,000 plus children's worth was discarded. Sadly, christians felt they had done gods will. We had a child we sent money to through the church when I was little and she would send us pictures she had drawn and thank you notes. Its likely these people who dropped these children so radically quick had these same interactions with the child they sponsored. Is this Christian love?
Also the article is from christian perspective and tells why we need to fight against satan. GEEZE
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It's a mess. Romans 1, Leviticus 18 and 20, Corinthians, etc., make it pretty clear homosexuality is a "detestable" (Leviticus) act punishable by death. Pretty extreme, no?
Still, the homosexual theology scholars insist King James was gay and, though they have nothing to qualify that (when did religious people ever qualify anything?), they've gone ahead and re-written the King James Bible re-dubbing it the Queen James Bible replete with all anti-homosexuality references reversed.
So, just as no religion can substantiate itself in logic, homosexuality has similarly defended itself against religion. Now, would we consider that tit-for-tat or dick-for-dat?
Regarding the kids, they always suffer the calamities of agencies and their charities so I would not get too worked up about it. Most charities barely get a fraction of a percent trickled down to those who actually need it after they compensate themselves. You're better off taking a flight to some banana republic and throwing dollar bills into a fan in any small village.
Always entertaining.
These are the same christians that hate gays who are NOT taking their unruly and disobedient children to the edge of town and stoning them to death.
I think it's better to sponsor a kid within your own extended family than throwing money away by giving it to a "charity". So if you have a niece, nephew, grandchild, cousin, etc. why not give the money directly to them on special days? Why would a rational person help strangers before helping his own immediate and extended family members?
Our favorite children's charity is Save the Children, which is non-religious. After fund-raising and administrative costs, they deliver close to 90% of donations to the recipients.
Their patron is Princess Anne. I once heard her talking about the work they did. She said that while she disliked children intensely, she had decided to give her support to Save the Children because she hated to see anyone treated unfairly. (She also said in an interview that the hardest part of being a Royal Princess was trying to look stupider than her brother.)
I prefer to give my money to family members. They get 100% of the donation without the drama.
Save the Children thats good to know:) Christianity and hypocrisy are so intertwined.
@JamieB: I'm going to tell you a story. In many countries of Europe people make their money available to the Church through their tax declaration. In Spain, for example, you can check a box where you specify if you want part of the payment of your taxes go to the Church, or to NGOs.
Apart from what the Spanish give through their taxes, Spain signed agreements with the Holy See during the Franco dictatorship, which is still respected, and assures to the Church € 11 billion ($ 12 billion) annually.
The Church in Spain doesn't even take care of the maintenance of the historical buildings that it has in its power, historical heritage makes it, the State. The only organization that depends on the Church in the face of the poor, Diocesan Caritas, has an annual budget of 300 million €, religious schools are private.
Two years ago a member of the episcopal conference retired and the Church gave him an attic in Madrid worth € 180 million, more than half of the budget that the Church dedicates to Diocesan Caritas. Where will the € 11 billion that the Spanish State give to the Church end?
Personally, I think, first, that the exemption of tax payments by religions is a mistake, in Europe religious organizations own most of the European historical heritage, the Church charges to visit them, we know that many works of art have disappeared of those buildings moved to Rome, or sold. Does it have any logic that States have to take care of the maintenance of these buildings without having control of them and the artworks that contain?
Second, it is incredible that the state gives € 11 billion to a religious organization without receiving anything in return. Moreover, in my view, any citizen who claims to have religion should pay a tax to the state, as is done in Germany.
And thirdly, why should a Spaniard who haven't a religion, or who doesn't belong to the Christian confession, pay with their taxes part of the 11,000 million € that the State gives to the Church? It's unintelligible.
In my view, States should control the budgets, expenditures, and investments of different religious denominations, just as it does with corporations, because they are nothing else than companies, with an obvious difference, don't pay taxes.
P.S.
Satan is a Chinese tale, but if existed he would be a member of some episcopal conference, or pastor evangelist, for sure ¬¬)-♫
Every time I hear about religion in Spain; it is always fucked. Yikes!
Sbmontero
Yikes that's so much money for nothing in return. It makes no sense to give churches/religions these funds unless they are using it for good purpose. I really think we should play the system and create a science religion that gets money too and use it for much greater purposes.
@JamieB: hahhahahahhaa I don't know if founding another religion is the solution, but I know that € 11 billion gives to help a lot of people and I haven't to give many laps, make every year a simple lottery and gives a million € to 11,000 people, for example.
This is one of the major differences between atheists and the christians I'm around. You and the woman in this article are not about to take money from govt if you have to be deemed a religion. Thats a logical and very moral response. Somehow christianity allows immorality to fester and come up with some very hypocritical justifications for their immoral stands. L Ron Hubbard chose to take money from govt when he decided to make Scientology a religion.
Well, two different things really. One is taking money from the government, the other is withholding money (in the form of tax dollars.) The US federal government actually still manages to be the single largest fund/source of money for science and study in the world. Many of our top medical and other technological breakthroughs in the last century began as a federal science/research grant.
I think JamieB is proposing creating a religion/church of sorts that is a tax shelter. I should probably look it up, but the rules to create this "tax shelter" is actually quite vague and simple. If I recall correctly, you need to have some sort of agreed upon (among the group) purpose, some sort of rulebook/mission and then to have 30 or more people meet up regularly once a month. A bit of paperwork that never gets vetted by the IRS, and wham you got your tax shelter.
If anyone is actually interested, I will look it up for more accuracy/clarity, but creating a tax shelter for any dollars coming through this particular group is frighteningly easy.
LogicForTW
Yes thank you for explaining that :) John Oliver made his own religion and the spaghetti monster did as I'm sure many other silly religions exsist so it wouldn't make sense to just create it unless there was some sort of funds coming in. So I'm not sure how that would be worth it.
And spain has been teetering on the edge of economic collapse for some time now. That is 11 billion euros a year the country can ill afford.
@LogicForTW: Exactly
@LogicForTW "And spain has been teetering on the edge of economic collapse for some time now."
Is it a coincidence that the most religious countries also tend to be economic basket cases? Look at Italy, Spain, and Greece in Europe, and Brazil in Latin America. The symptoms of church dominance are dictatorial governments, massive economic mismanagement, stalled progress, and cathedrals full of extorted treasure and well-fed priests.
If it is a coincidence, it is a freakish one. Even among the US, the more intensely religious states almost perfectly correlate with poor economic/social performance. Take the bible belt, when we hear about states with lots of poverty, violence, drug abuse, poor health outcomes, the bible belt states are frequently mentioned.
The more science/atheist oriented states actually subsidize the more religious ones, if the bible belt became it's own country, cut off from the other states financial support via the fed, it is fairly likely they would pretty rapidly become 3rd world like in many ways.
I'm afraid that this sort of behaviour from the religious is neither new nor unusual .......
I present a case from 2007 ,involving ....... (Your friends and mine.......) The Catholic Church.....
"Last month Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said Vatican funding for Amnesty would cease because of the stance on abortion: "If, in fact, Amnesty International persists in this course of action, individuals and Catholic organisations must withdraw their support because, in deciding to promote abortion rights, AI has betrayed its mission."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/aug/10/religion.humanrights
Oh and there is a good quote in there.......
"Bishop William Skylstad said support for abortion, even in limited circumstances, "undermines Amnesty's longstanding moral credibility".
and of course we all know about the moral credibility of the Catholic Church.......
If you will permit... a small addition to illuminate Bishop Skylstad's open hearted approach to those in need....
" Under Bishop Skylstad the Diocese of Spokane, in December 2004, declared bankruptcy to protect it from claims of people allegedly abused by clergy. "
Truly a Prince amongst men...... either that or something that crawled out from under a stone....
@Watchman "we all know about the moral credibility of the Catholic Church......."
In fact accepting money from the Vatican undermines Amnesty's moral credibility in my opinion. It's like taking donations from North Korea.
As a point of interest, Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) offers their own charity organization called Nonbelief Relief, Inc. This charity received a the highest rating (4 stars) from Charity Navigator for sound fiscal management and commitment to accountability and transparency.
https://ffrf.org/donate/nonbelief-relief-inc