Accumulating Property at the Expense of Christ

I come from a Dutch Protestant background, and I am fairly well acquainted with a wide range of organized religions.  One thing that has always bothered me about organized religions, is, what is spewed from the pulpit and into the ears of the faithful sheeple; the call to sacrifice and to give to the church, whether it be through tithing or special collections for the “church.” I think that the idea of accumulating assets, for the church, is a smack in the face to the ideas preached by Jesus Christ, and an abuse of faithful church attenders.  Churches which speak of monetary sacrifice to the faithful, only to accumulate assets, are stealing with as much impunity as the government when they tax.

"The Archdiocese of Portland owns nearly $2 million in Jackson County property, assessment records show, but the archbishop promised local Catholic church leaders on Tuesday he wouldn’t touch it to pay bankruptcy debts."

“Filing won’t affect church’s local holdings."

I think the church would sell your soul to the devil and then offer to “redeem” it for you, for a nominal fee.

Via Google News.

Posted by on 07/07 at 07:07 AM

  1. The problem is, John, the teachings of Jesus are not good enough or strict enough for church leaders, never have been. If you’ll recall they killed him the first time around and I strongly suspect that today’s church leaders would kill him again, if they could.

    He’d cramp their action.

    Posted by  on  07/07  at  07:37 AM

  2. No doubt, Steve.

    Posted by  on  07/07  at  07:45 AM

  3. I didn’t know the bankruptcy laws were so accomodating.

    Posted by  on  07/07  at  08:13 AM

  4. Religions are all about irrationality: They are by, of and for it.

    Now, if you ARE going to indulge in that sort of literal unthink, would you rather participate in one that sends around a voluntary collection plate for your donation to the widows and orphans and brass pipe-organs and cool, gothic stained-glass window festooned flying butress cathedrals that’ll stand as works of artistic sculpture for thousands of years—or would you rather join an old-school covert-or-DIE religion like Islam?

    Posted by  on  07/09  at  04:38 PM

  5. Oh, and I’ll also take icky-poo property over quasi-Marxist self-sacrifice any day.

    And: I think that fifty-year-farts who step forward to hired government thugs to *steal* a couple million for ‘em because their altar-boy monkeying around was illegal—are *thieves*.

    Posted by  on  07/10  at  12:03 AM

  6. I see you’re as incoherent as ever, Mike.  Thought you’d be in the Phillipines by now.

    Posted by  on  07/10  at  08:14 AM

  7. Be specific as to what’s “incoherent”, Cruse. I say you can’t, because I reason that you’re wrong.

    Posted by  on  07/10  at  09:28 AM

  8. “fifty-year-farts”

    What’s that?  Are you archiving windage in jugs now?  LOL Yeah, incoherent.

    Posted by  on  07/10  at  09:47 AM

  9. *sigh*.

    “Fifty-year-OLD farts”, that should have read.

    (Is it just me, or do all the guys who bring these suits look like they’re behind in their mortgage payments?)

    Posted by  on  07/10  at  10:27 AM

  10. “In his letter to local church leaders, Vlazny said the archdiocese’s decision to file for bankruptcy, the first in the nation, was not aimed at depriving sexual abuse victims of restitution, Carey noted.

    “Rather, the archbishop indicated the move was aimed at ensuring just settlements to more future claimants. “

    That’s what I like.  He’s trying to get out of paying molestation damages because he knows there are so many more where those came from, the money must be rationed.

    Posted by  on  07/10  at  10:36 AM

  11. Cruse, if *one* settlement can swipe twenty-years’ worth of your property, *you’;d* hustle your ass down the Chapter 11 protection too—if the government graciously provided that outlet from total predation—which is *exactly* what this is.

    “Molestation”? What an *arbitrary*. ...and as if there wasn’t a 16-year-old male kid alive who wouldn’t fuck everything in sight, nailed down or not, if it let him.

    The altar-boys, who damn well enjoyed every second of it at the time, and just vultures trying to pile onto a kill after the government’s giving them a green light to back up the loot-truck.

    This is all beside that point of “responsibility” and “who owns what” issues: For instance, if the government can loot twenty million out of an entity because an *employee* did something illegal there twenty years ago, then under the very same principle it could seize your house after hearing that your kid smoked pot in the basement once upon a time.

    Posted by  on  07/10  at  12:42 PM

  12. If any other organization had spent the last twenty years hiding and transferring a problem of this enormity, RICO would have been all over them by now.  Bankruptcy is the golden trapdoor out.

    Posted by  on  07/10  at  12:58 PM

  13. Hey Gary, how come there aren’t megagazillion dollar lawsuits against *theatre* departments throughout the fruity land, where we know the homos congregate like flies on a manure-pile?

    I’ll tell you why:: Theater departments, as opposed to churches, are barstions of socialism and threadbare-financing, meaning that not only are they penniless, but it’d be politically-incorrect to target them.

    Yet you hear about teachers buggering kids all the time (invariably some busty broad picking up a 15ye-old kid who’s always the one who blows the secret with the neverending goofy grin on his face)—would there be a point in the government entertaining lawsuits on itself? No, which is why you don’t see megagazillion-dollar suits against schools.

    “Crime”?  There’s aren’t ethical crimes of initiated-force assault, Gary; they’re made-up, phony-baloney “crimes” for goverment to boss everyone around.

    Posted by  on  07/10  at  02:55 PM

  14. I don’t know, Mike.  You’re assuming this was just fine with the kids.  I’m as much for depravity as the next guy, but I don’t see these as benign occurrence.

    Posted by  on  07/10  at  03:23 PM

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