In the spirit of openness and transparency--

[_Some Schmo]

"Publicly funded" means on its face that money is provided by the government, not individual members of the general public. Charity is correct - the church is not a "publicly funded" organization. There is no corresponding right for tithe payers to see the books.

I understand what the term generally means, and I also understand that the church is not legally bound to disclose their financials. I can see how my comments could be misconstrued.

To be more clear, I was more or less making a statement about the way the church gains the majority of their money (they acquire it from the public), and what they ought to do as a result of that situation, given how other organizations are modeled and the conventions surrounding them.

But really, I couldn't care less. They'll never get a dime of my money, and if the people who do give up their cash don't care, why should I? Frankly, I'd like to get in on their racket.

Now if I could just convince my wife that marrying other men's wives will secure our financial future...

[_antishock8]

Tell you what, Charity. You disclose your finances. I want to see a transcript of your bank account before we go any further. You do that, then you have something to say. If not, then you're a goose.

You don't give me any money, or add in any way to my bank account. So you don't have the right to ask. You aren't on my website helping me get ad revenues.

You are such a goose. You have no idea what you're talking about reference websites, ad revenue, and costs. You make an assertion, based on your own erroneous assumptions, and then liken your own assertion to the argument critics of your church make regarding financial transparency. Meh.

If any high-falutin' erudite types wonder why this board isn't highbrow enough for y'allz... Well, there ya go. You have a goose for an apologist on this board.

[_skippy the dead]

"Publicly funded" means on its face that money is provided by the government, not individual members of the general public. Charity is correct - the church is not a "publicly funded" organization. There is no corresponding right for tithe payers to see the books.

Well, in a sense, it is funded by the government, and by default - the general public.

I guess if we're allowed to make up any definition we want, then we (and you and Schmoe) can pretty much declare that anything means anything. Silly me - I was actually going by real definitions from the real world. [/sarcasm off]

Who Knows - by your definition then pretty much everybody is "funded by the government" if we get any sort of tax deduction or credit. That's quite a reach there.

You can probably make your point nicely without such contortions.

[_Who Knows]

Who Knows - by your definition then pretty much everybody is "funded by the government" if we get any sort of tax deduction or credit. That's quite a reach there.

You can probably make your point nicely without such contortions.

Not really. I was referring to the fact that religions are not taxed. So we (the public) are subsidizing them.

But we're way off-topic now...

[_skippy the dead]

Who Knows - by your definition then pretty much everybody is "funded by the government" if we get any sort of tax deduction or credit. That's quite a reach there.

You can probably make your point nicely without such contortions.

Not really. I was referring to the fact that religions are not taxed. So we (the public) are subsidizing them.

But we're way off-topic now...

I figured you were talking about the taxation issue - that's why I brought up individual tax exemptions and credits. By your reasoning, we should all open our financial records to everybody else, since we are all essentially "publicly funded" in that way. But that's not really what the phrase means, or a conclusion we'd like to follow through on. Just saying.

On the other hand (to get back on topic ever so smoothly), I am of the mind that the LDS church should be more transparent to its tithe payers as to the intake and disposition of funds. Since I'm no longer a tithe payer, it owes nothing to me. But for those who do contribute 10% of their hard earned cash, the reasonable thing to do would be disclosure. Trust, but verify, as they say.

[_charity]

Shades, thank you very much for the explanation. I still don't understand how the ad thing works, not being very techni-savy about stuff. But I know more than I did when I started.

So, then when MA&D runs their board with no ads at all, and with all the posting there running up bandwidth costs, then their site is completely funded through donations and out of pocket from individuals as you provided.

Thanks again for the infor.

[_charity]

Not really. I was referring to the fact that religions are not taxed. So we (the public) are subsidizing them.

Subsidized in the fact that a fire truck has to come to a fire at a church builiding? Or if a church building vandalized, the police have to investigate?

I will agree with that. But the rationalization for this has always been that churches do more good than they cost in lost tax revenues. Certainly with the LDS social services and adoption services there is a load off local human resources departments. LDS welfare services certainly take a lot of strain off in that area. I know many, many instances of our local ward taking care of welfare emergencies where the people in need to do use state or federal agencies.

[_the road to hana]

I like consistency. I often don't see that in critics of the Church, leaders, etc. Critics demand things they are not willing to provide for themselves.

In order for your request to be parallel, Charity, you'd have to demonstrate that almost all other discussion boards that have ads make their finances available to the public, and that Shades' board is the exception in not giving full and faithful disclosure.

[_JAK]

Am I not donating to the site by participating? And since revenues must be determined somehow on usage of the site, then all of us posters have contributed by our use to the revenues generated.

No.

“Donation” in connection with the maintenance of a website can correctly be understood to be financial.

JAK

[_Who Knows]

Not really. I was referring to the fact that religions are not taxed. So we (the public) are subsidizing them.

Subsidized in the fact that a fire truck has to come to a fire at a church builiding? Or if a church building vandalized, the police have to investigate?

I will agree with that. But the rationalization for this has always been that churches do more good than they cost in lost tax revenues. Certainly with the LDS social services and adoption services there is a load off local human resources departments. LDS welfare services certainly take a lot of strain off in that area. I know many, many instances of our local ward taking care of welfare emergencies where the people in need to do use state or federal agencies.

Subsidized by the fact that the church doesn't pay taxes. I have to pay taxes. You do. Businesses do. But churches don't.

What you say above about churches doing more good than costing in revenues - i agree with that. That's partially the rationale for them being non-taxable. However, my big beef, is that there's no external/independent oversight to ensure that what you say, is occurring. If I'm going to subsidize a religion, I should have a right to know what's going on.