Oil companies are causing churches to go bankrupt.

[kuronosan]

Oh come on now.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38077826...r_in_the_gulf/

Months after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and its well started gushing oil, the British petroleum giant says it has yet to decide how to handle claims filed by religious groups and other charitable organizations that are endangered because people can no longer afford to contribute.
Pastor Dan Brown prays BP PLC comes up with a solution quickly: He said he filed a $50,000 claim last month over lost revenues at Anchor Assembly of God. His small, storefront church outlived Hurricane Katrina and is now struggling because of the oil crisis.


Shrimpers and oystermen left jobless by the oil spill in this seafood town can barely afford to feed their families and pay their boat loans, much less give money to their church, Brown said. Giving and tithing is down by $12,000 over the last few weeks, he said, and the oil spill will cost another $38,000 in lost revenues over the next year, making up the total of the church's claim.


"You can't tithe what you don't have," said Brown, whose congregation operates a food bank and gives away bread each Sunday to help struggling families. "We're fighting for our lives just like a business."

edit: Better tl;dr - Churches want money from BP to keep their doors open because their patrons can no longer afford to donate money, so instead of encouraging BP to pay out more money to the parishioners, they want a slice of the pie.

[Seanr]

lolreligion

[Merovingian]

At first i though they were losing money because they were helping the fisherman, but now i see they losing it because no "donations" lolreligion indeed

[Kohan]

Someone didn't pray hard enough.

[Khajit]

So to get this right.
Places that are directly stated to be giving food to the poor/homeless via donations from people that aren't poor are being greedy because the people donating became poor as well as a direct result of the natural disaster which causes the church to ask the people responsible for said disaster to "donate" in their stead. The homeless people being fed by said food bank of course must obviously be capable of filing the paperwork necessary to claim financial restitution despite needing the assistance from a food bank and somehow qualifying to receive proper compensation for being just as poor as they were the instant before the big giant oil spit.
All of these factors make the places using the donations to feed the poor/hungry automatically greedy,evil places. Correct?

[Kohan]

Because it's more important to give thousands of dollars to a church so they can hand out loaves of bread than it is to fix what's actually hurting the people, and help put them in situation that isn't so destitute?

Hopefully you now realize why it's retarded.

[Seanr]

So to get this right.
Places that are directly stated to be giving food to the poor/homeless via donations from people that aren't poor are being greedy because the people donating became poor as well as a direct result of the natural disaster which causes the church to ask the people responsible for said disaster to "donate" in their stead. The homeless people being fed by said food bank of course must obviously be capable of filing the paperwork necessary to claim financial restitution despite needing the assistance from a food bank and somehow qualifying to receive proper compensation for being just as poor as they were the instant before the big giant oil spit.
All of these factors make the places using the donations to feed the poor/hungry automatically greedy,evil places. Correct?

Why help keep someone on crutches? You don't like to help people walk on their own eventually?

[kuronosan]

So to get this right.
Places that are directly stated to be giving food to the poor/homeless via donations from people that aren't poor are being greedy because the people donating became poor as well as a direct result of the natural disaster which causes the church to ask the people responsible for said disaster to "donate" in their stead. The homeless people being fed by said food bank of course must obviously be capable of filing the paperwork necessary to claim financial restitution despite needing the assistance from a food bank and somehow qualifying to receive proper compensation for being just as poor as they were the instant before the big giant oil spit.
All of these factors make the places using the donations to feed the poor/hungry automatically greedy,evil places. Correct?

How about compensating them fishermen so that they can afford to donate instead of donating money to the church?

I understand the whole "hey this place feeds homeless people" but the church isn't asking BP to give money to the fishermen who are suffering, they're asking for money for the church. It's not greedy or evil, it's selfish.

Here's another angle:

Fishermen get money, church gets money. Problem solved.
Church gets money, fishermen don't get money - fishermen still broke.

Which do you think would be more prudent to ask for? Apparently the church doesn't seem to care too deeply for the hurting fishermen who can't afford to donate money.

[Kohan]

Why help keep someone on crutches? You don't like to help people walk on their own eventually?

Why would you do that? Gotta keep 'em prayin', donatin', and thinkin' the church and only the church does all that's good, and that there isn't a more viable solution to economic hardship and environmental disaster than prayer.

Those are some fucking golden loaves of bread, mother fucker. Not really, but it's like the water and wine shit. You pretend, and supposedly it's just as good as reality, you know?

[kuronosan]

Hey, don't get me wrong here. I'm all about charitable organizations feeding the homeless and trying to give them hope. What I'm not all about is a church being too stupid to see the problem would be solved if they asked for compensation for their parishioners, which would in turn help both them and the homeless. Instead they want compensation for themselves, which only helps the church and the homeless, and not the parishioners. It's purely selfish; nothing more, nothing less.

If they cannot afford to donate, I would think there are bigger problems than "Hey the church needs money, we're not getting it from our stupid foll- I mean, our loyal followers".

[Seanr]

http://phocks.org/stumble/images/prayer-purpose.png

[Khajit]

Aight . so you basically just said that instead of helping the people whom are affected by the spill the most the logical course of action is to sink more cash paying people to solve a problem they have no idea how to solve when the solutions/attempts take weeks to implement. Now since the people depending on that food to eat are more affected by the fisherman then logically the fishermen are less important to give money too than researching (to generally no avail) how to solve this growing problem(unless you want the good PR which you'd probably get from donating food to the homeless as well/instead so meh) which means no cash should be sent to the fisherman. You also said help put em in a situation that isnt so destitute. It appears as if you're speaking about the fishermen etc that had a semi stable income before this whole crisis but if you were speaking about the homeless/poor whom are now affected by the spill then you're asking for BP to basically become responsible for the all the homeless/poor of each and every state affected, track them down. sort through them, and somehow provide them with "a situation that isn't so destitute" which roughly translates into make a bunch of people whom have proven themselves incapable of getting jobs find jobs .
Now what seems easier to implement? Giving money to organizations previously taking care of these individuals or trying to sort through the extra logistics of tracking down far more people than you'd have to when donating to salvation army or the red cross?

Then there's the issue of the fishermen whom SHOULD ALREADY be able to(and are) applying for restitution much easier than the homeless and can be easily reminded on how to do so at a meeting. How much easier do you think it is for a guy who owns an actual business to quantify his/her losses than it is for a bum on the street. You guys are really stretching here. In addition the fishermen and various business organizations already HAVE applied at least enough to make the US newsreels i sometimes see on TV so what's the point in telling BP to give money that should already or will be on it's way once everything is sorted through?

TLDR:
The problem here the non profit organizations (including the church) are at least claiming concern about isn't the people capable of getting financial restitution. It's about the people whom cant or are hit by it alot harder. Cry all about the fishermen all you want but they at least have the free time to fill forms out now and at least a tiny bit of money to not starve to death as immediately as those dependent on outside help to live.

[kuronosan]

...

Now what seems easier to implement? Giving money to organizations previously taking care of these individuals or trying to sort through the extra logistics of tracking down far more people than you'd have to when donating to salvation army or the red cross.

...

How much easier do you think it is for a guy who owns an actual business to quantify his/her losses than it is for a bum on the street. You guys are really stretching here.

Well, now that you put it this way I do see where you're coming from. It makes sense to take the easier way and give money to the organization so that it directly benefits those it takes care of. What I was reading in the article, however, suggested that those in charge were more concerned about not receiving anymore donations than about those who no longer have a source of income and cannot donate.

If anything, they should be asking BP for donations so that they can take care of everyone in their community. Not because it's costing them too much money to operate without donations. They have a parish to think about, you know.

[Kohan]

Here's something that might help you out in the future.

Beyond that:

Now what seems easier to implement? Giving money to organizations previously taking care of these individuals or trying to sort through the extra logistics of tracking down far more people than you'd have to when donating to salvation army or the red cross?

The easier thing is the best thing to do? Yeah, I see what you're saying. Who cares about the source of the problem? Screw that. We can just apply bandage after bandage until we've magically remedied the whole issue.

How do you know that their food bank is even that remarkable? Do you know how many people it feeds? How long it's open? Did you know that the majority of their contributions during Hurricane Katrina weren't purchased by them, but bought and donated by others? Have you stopped to think about how much of the food in their food bank is even bought by them? Do you sincerely and foolishly believe that all of this money is going to be lovingly contributed to practically nothing aside from the homeless?

Here's another nugget for you: this "poor little church" has been expanding massively over the past few years, and no, those expansions did not include making their food bank bigger.

Now the small building the church had started in could no longer sustain the growing fellowship. A building just two doors down became available to rent. This building allowed Anchor to almost triple their sanctuary space and also gave them a 2000 square foot children's church. The Church held their first service in this building on Christmas day of 2005.

In May of 2008, Anchor purchased the building they had been meeting in. Though the building was not what many would think of as a traditional looking Church it allowed the vision to reach out from the center of town to be a reality.  In 2009 that reality was pushed even farther as Anchor obtained two more buildings that allow for further expansion of ministry. Renovations are now under way that will eventually allow Anchor to reach out seven days a week with multipule ministries aimed at all ages and races.

Source: http://www.anchorassembly.com/about.htm

Obviously, you haven't considered anything beneath the surface. Clearly, you're blinded by the church's supposed good intentions, and you don't care about the reality of the situation.

I am really stretching here.

You should stop doing that.

[Khajit]

This just In. Infusing excessive amounts of money into research on technology that should have been started decades before will magically create results within weeks/months.
It is also apparently better to create a massive money sinkhole from all the extra effort/wages put in when a much simpler solution covers it quicker, easier, more efficiently(at least requiring less work on BP's side for the same/similar results), with less risk of fraud. Despite it being a waste of cash to try and slightly improve one's PR image as a company via doing something that actually helps the victims of one's own fuckup who are already affected and wont magically get better the day you plug the leak in the dike it is apparently A-OK to exponentially increase the amount wasted that can be used for much more important things like that research you're blabbing on about.

[Uzor]

in before "If God truly cared they wouldn't be in this situation"?

They should just take 1 loaf of bread to feed everyone. Alternatively they could start their own brewery with buckets of water, or help the fishermen out by duplicating the fish.

[Kohan]

ANGRY WORDS

You should probably actually read my posts instead of arguing about something I haven't even touched upon, but given your willfully ignorant defense of this church, that's surely too much to ask.

If you'd like to, have fun continuing to argue against a point I didn't make, though.

[kuronosan]

...

apparently A-OK to exponentially increase the amount wasted that can be used for much more important things like that research you're blabbing on about.

Are we reading the same topic? What research?

[Demosthenes11]

Why help keep someone on crutches? You don't like to help people walk on their own eventually?

Why would you do that? Gotta keep 'em prayin', donatin', and thinkin' the church and only the church does all that's good, and that there isn't a more viable solution to economic hardship and environmental disaster than prayer.

Those are some fucking golden loaves of bread, mother fucker. Not really, but it's like the water and wine shit. You pretend, and supposedly it's just as good as reality, you know?

serious posts? (yes i get the second is satire)
retarded bullshit from you two, shocking

[Kohan]

serious posts? (yes i get the second is satire)
retarded bullshit from you two, shocking

Evidently, plain English is the only item on the menu today. All right, then. Let's handle that.

The church is begging, with big ol' puppy eyes, to help them help the homeless. However, they've been sinking tons of money into purchasing new buildings and expanding their staff. Apparently, those hard-on-their-luck fishermen single-handedly supported every single one of these purchases, except they didn't, obviously. Nonetheless, the church is claiming that, because of their plight, the money well has completely run dry. They are using someone else's suffering to excuse their begging.

Now, let's broaden the scope of this discussion. Has everyone else in the entire world ignored what's going on? No, they haven't. We've all heard about the volunteers, many of whom are unpaid, and the various organizations supplying aid to the afflicted. Is this church the only source of food for any of the local homeless people? Surely they aren't. Wouldn't it be better to supply money and actual food to the organizations more concerned with providing nothing but that?

For a moment more, we'll consider fixing their destitution. The church may have a food bank, and that's undeniably useful. What about a shelter, or better yet, a multi-purpose establishment?

Keeping that in mind, let's bring the focus back to the church itself. They, evidently, didn't care much about mentioning their food bank beforehand. They've heavily expanded their sermon-givin' space (which would capably provide a roof over the heads of the struggling, but they're not concerned with that), but you'll be hard-pressed to find any mention of their food bank on their impressively flashy website. Oh, it's there, but you'll spend a while looking for it. Go ahead and search, if you're bored.

Alternatively, you can keep portraying them as a white knight. That's cool too, I guess.