What do Churches Have to Hide?

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Bob Seidensticker

IRS filings don't help show that God exists The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a freethought organization that has won some high-profile lawsuits that support the separation of church and state. It is also known for displaying freethought statements to balance religious Christmas messages on state property.

Want to know what the revenue of the FFRF is? For 2010, it was $2,234,307. Exactly.

Want to know how I know that? I looked it up; it’s public information. That’s true for all U.S. nonprofits. All nonprofits, that is, except churches and other religious organizations.

Isn’t it startling that church leaders, who supposedly believe that the all-knowing Accountant in the Sky will judge them eternally for how ethically they spend the money given by parishioners, are embarrassed to show their financial records to the rest of us? That they want church donations to be tax exempt but refuse to show the public (who is picking up the slack for the missing taxes) how they spend this money? What do you suppose they have to hide?

The Freedom From Religion Foundation’s form 990 has a bold “Open to Public Inspection” at the top. The form gives the salaries of each staff member, to the dollar. It shows revenue, expenses, cash in the bank, mortgages, and lots more financial details. They seem to shoulder this burden pretty well, and I think churches can, too.

Go to GuideStar, the Foundation Center, or similar organizations to look up any nonprofit to which you’re considering a donation to check how they spend their money.

Any nonprofit, that is, except churches.

Let’s remember what religion we’re talking about. It’s the religion that tells the story of the rich man who was (tragically) too attached to his wealth to follow Jesus’s command, “Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven” (Mark 10:17–31). It’s the religion in which Jesus will say to the worthy people, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matt. 25:31–46). And, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:25). And, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth … but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven … for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:19–21).

Apparently Jesus didn’t care much for rich people but cared greatly for the poor. How do you suppose he would react to churches and ministries being secretive today about how they spend the money given to them? About churches exempting themselves from the requirement to open their books?

There are some groups trying to fix this problem. MinistryWatch asks for financial information from ministries and publicizes the results. For example, Greg Koukl’s Stand to Reason gets an A rating, and they deserve praise for doing the right thing. But this is just a baby step. First, MinistryWatch has only 600 ministries in their list when there are an estimated 335,000 congregations in the U.S. Second, the financial information is still not as thorough as that provided on Form 990s by nonreligious nonprofits.

And third, many of the ministries don’t get an A rating. In fact, those who get an F (typically because they ignored MinistryWatch’s request for information) are a Who’s Who of high-profile televangelists and religious newsmakers: Benny Hinn, Creflo Dollar, John Hagee, Kenneth Copeland, TD Jakes, Trinity Broadcasting Network, Rod Parsley, Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral, Harold Camping’s Family Radio, and more. They all got an F. Doesn’t this evasion reflect badly on all religious organizations?

Some churches are open about their finances, but only to members. According to one survey, 92% of churches provide financial information upon request to members. Why is this not 100%? And what good is this to the U.S. taxpayer who wants to verify the claimed benefit that churches provide a good to society that earns them nonprofit status? Compare this with the financial records of the more than 1.5 million ordinary nonprofits easily accessible in a single database.

Let’s make a simple, logical change—a change that helps churches look better. This cloud of doubt hangs over every church. The change costs churches and other ministries very little and makes things fair, and it shows that they have nothing to hide. Remove the exemption allowing churches to avoid providing financial information.

Some ministries will have to clean up their acts, but isn’t that a good thing? Doesn’t this benefit the Christians at the churches that spend their income honorably?

Photo credit: IRS

National Day of Actually DOING Something

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Bob Seidensticker

People working together, like this barn raising, is more effective than praying about it Today is the National Day of Prayer. How about a National Day of Actually Doing Something instead?

The president issued the obligatory proclamation today: “Let us pray for all the citizens of our great Nation, particularly those who are sick, mourning, or without hope, and ask God for the sustenance to meet the challenges we face as a Nation” and blah, blah, blah.

We’ve had a National Day of Prayer since 1952. What good has it done? In 1952, the world had 50 million cases of smallpox each year. Today, zero. Guinea worm and polio should soon follow. Computers? Cell phones? The internet? Science delivers, not God.

I can appreciate that praying to Jesus can help someone feel better, but so can praying to Shiva or Quetzalcoatl or whatever god they’ve been raised with. In terms of actual results, praying to Jesus is as effective as praying to a jug of milk.

I understand how the National Day of Prayer helps politicians get right with Christians. But how it coexists with the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”), I can’t imagine.

My own departure from Christianity was pretty gentle, and I learned a lot from the painful road taken by Julia Sweeney (creator of “Letting Go of God”). As she gradually fell away from first Catholicism, then Christianity, and finally religion, she realized with a shock how ineffective prayer had been. Prayer lets you imagine that you’re doing something when you’re actually doing absolutely nothing. All that prayer that had helped her feel like she was helping people—whether the person on hard times down the street or the city devastated by natural disaster around the world—had been worthless.

In fact, not only does prayer do nothing in cases like this, but it is actually harmful. The pain that people naturally feel when they hear of disaster—that emotion that could be the motivator for action—is drained away by prayer. Why bother doing something yourself when God is so much more capable?

Prayer becomes an abdication of responsibility, and atheism can open the doors to action.

Sweeney’s conclusion: if you want to help the victims of the tsunami in Haiti (or whatever the latest disaster is), you need to do something since God clearly isn’t doing anything. Contribute to a charity that will help, or demand that the federal government spend more to help and demand the tax increase to pay for it. If it’s a sick friend, Jesus isn’t going to take them soup and cheer them up … but you can.

Prayer doesn’t “work” like other things work. Electricity works. An antibiotic works. Prayer doesn’t. As the bumper sticker says, Nothing Fails Like Prayer.

Even televangelists make clear that prayer is useless. Their shows are just long infomercials that end with a direct appeal in two parts: please pray for us, and send lots and lots of cash. But what possible value could my $20 be compared to what the almighty Creator of the universe could do?

Televangelists’ appeals for money make clear that they know what I know: that praying is like waiting for the Great Pumpkin. People can reliably deliver money, but prayer doesn’t deliver anything.

Instead of a National Day of Prayer, how about a National Day of Actually Doing Something? Many local United Way offices organize a Day of Caring—what about something like that on a national level?

Doing something makes you feel good, just like prayer, but it actually delivers the results.

Prayer is like masturbation.
It makes you feel good but it doesn’t change the world.
— Don Baker

Photo credit: Wikimedia

Televangelists Prove Prayer Is Useless

More Pointless Parables

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Bob Seidensticker

Atheism wrestles with Christianity I’ve posted before about some modern-day Christian parables. Here are two more.

Ah, for the good old days when biblical parables made a compelling point! These are pretty weak. If you come across more, let me know.

Here’s one I heard on the radio.

A man goes into his pastor’s office. “I’ve got money problems,” he says. “I try to give what God commands of me, but I’m having a hard time making ends meet. At the end of the month, there are still bills to pay.”

The pastor says, “What if you did what God commands of you and then, at the end of the month, you bring any bills that aren’t covered to me and I’ll pay them. Would you do that?”

“You’d do that? You’d pay the extra bills?”

“That’s not the question,” said the pastor. “If I agreed to pay the extra bills, would you do that?”

“Sure!”

The pastor said, “Isn’t it odd that you’d trust a frail human like me when you wouldn’t trust God, the all-powerful creator of the universe to help you with your problems …” and blah, blah, blah about how fabulous God is and all the stuff that he’s done for us.

If you’re already drinking the Kool-Aid, this one might hit home, but it does nothing as an argument for Christianity. And the pastor is making a very testable claim—almost a science experiment. He’s all but quoting Luke 12:27–8:

Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you? You men of little faith!

Test the claim! I wouldn’t hold my breath for verifiable results, though.

I heard the next story decades ago.

In the early days of the space program, NASA scientists were checking the position of the sun, moon, and planets to make sure that they could safely put up satellites. They checked thousands of years in the future and the past, but the computers ground to a halt. The problem was a missing day in elapsed time. They rechecked their data and the software, but the problem wouldn’t go away.

Puzzling over the problem, one scientist said, “You know, I remember a story from Sunday school. Something about God making the sun stand still so that Joshua could win a battle. Could that be it?”

The scientists were skeptical, but they found a Bible. With a little searching found Joshua 10:12–13. “The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.” With a little calculation, they found that this accounted for 23 hours and 20 minutes. They were much closer but were still stuck. They had to resolve that last 40 minutes.

The other scientists looked expectantly at the one with the Sunday school story. “Well, I remember another story,” he said. All eyes were on him. “Something about the sun going backwards.”

There were a few chuckles, but they got out the Bible again and found 2 Kings 20:8–11, where King Hezekiah asked God for a sign, that the sun move backwards ten degrees. Ten degrees out of 360 degrees in a circle—that is, 1/36 of a day. In other words, exactly 40 minutes!

The scientists plugged in this information, and, sure enough, the calculations ran smoothly.

Ooh—let me guess the moral! Modern science needs to get its guidance from the Bible. (Did I get that right?)

Well, Mr. Smarty Pants Scientist—looks like the Goliath of Science has been defeated by the David of Christian Truth!

Despite its longevity and popularity—this story originated in a 1936 book by Harry Rimmer and was popularized by a 1974 book by Harold Hill—it’s bogus. NASA even released a press release denying the popular story.

There are lots of red flags. Even if God had stopped the sun 3000 years ago, there is no way to deduce that from information available to astronomers today, so the entire premise is flawed. And let’s not even speculate at what “stopping the sun” (that is, stopping the rotation of the earth) would’ve done. Concluding 23 hours and 20 minutes from “about a full day” is wishful thinking, and the ten degrees is more properly translated as “ten steps”—an angle based on local instrumentation that we can’t reproduce.

As usual, imagining that the Bible’s miracle stories really happened takes us to nowhere that can be scientifically justified.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Word of the Day: Argument from Authority (and How Consensus Fits In)

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Bob Seidensticker

An authority could argue that God exists, but why believe them? I can’t count the number of times that I’ve said something like, “I accept evolution because it’s the scientific consensus” and gotten the response, “Gotcha! Argument from Authority Fallacy!”

Let’s take a look at this fallacy and see where it applies and where it doesn’t.

Suppose I said, “Dr. Jones is smarter than both of us put together and he agrees with me, so I’m right!” This statement could fail due to the Argument from Authority Fallacy for two reasons: (1) we haven’t established that Dr. Jones’ expertise is relevant to the question at hand, and (2) even if Dr. Jones is an expert on the subject, that he agrees with my position doesn’t make me right—at best, it would make me justified in holding my position.

Chastised at my poor argument, I go back and rework it. Now I’m careful to first establish Dr. Jones’ relevant expertise and I modified my claim this way: “Dr. Jones, an established authority, agrees with me, so therefore my position is well justified.” This is better, but my statement could still fail due to this Fallacy. What if Dr. Jones is a maverick in his field? He could be a cosmologist still holding on to the Steady State model of the universe now that the Big Bang model is the overwhelming consensus. Conversely, imagine that it’s the 1930s and he is arguing for an expanding universe when that was the minority position. Either position makes Dr. Jones a maverick, and the layman (as an outsider) has no grounds from which to conclude that this minority position is the best approximation.

The Argument from Authority is not a fallacy when the person indicated (1) is an expert in the field and (2) is arguing for the consensus. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily make you right, but being in line with the relevant consensus is the best that we can hope for.

I’m amazed when I hear people reject evolution who aren’t biologists. I can imagine browsing biology textbooks and concluding that evolution is a remarkable claim. I could even imagine thinking that the evidence isn’t there (though the fact that I’ve only dipped my toe into the water would scream out as the explanation for this). What I can’t imagine is concluding, based in my “research,” that the theory of evolution is flawed. I mean—on what grounds could I possibly make this statement? On what grounds could I reject the consensus of the people who actually understand this stuff? The people who actually have the doctorate degrees and who actually do the work on a daily basis?

And yet I hear people justifying this step all the time.

Let’s move on to another topic, the question of consensus. After many discussions that have forced me to carefully think my position, let me offer my views on consensus from different fields. Note that this is the view of a layman—someone who is an outsider to these fields.

Scientific consensus: I always accept this.
Historical consensus: I always accept this.
Consensus of religious scholars about their own religion: I always accept their statements of what their beliefs are. For example, when the consensus of Catholic scholars says that within the Catholic church the eucharist (the communion wafer) is believed to transubstantiate into the body of Christ, I accept that.

But don’t accept everything. I draw the line at supernatural claims, whether by scholars or believers, and whether the consensus or not. I will consider evidence for these claims, but so far I have always rejected them. If I were to accept these claims, that would probably be based either the scientific or historical consensus.

Supernatural claims are in a very different category than scientific or historical claims. For more, see my post Map of World Religions.

Photo credit: Wikimedia

See all the definitions in the Galileo Unchained Glossary.
Map of World Religions

Book Review on “Bible Geek” Podcast

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Bob Seidensticker

Dr. Robert Price gives a review of the novel "Cross Examined" I’m a big fan of Dr. Robert Price’s Bible Geek podcast as many of you know. If you’re interested in the Bible and the culture from which it came, this podcast is a fire hose of information. His other (more recent) podcast is The Human Bible. I recommend both.

On a recent Bible Geek podcast (scroll to 5:45), Dr. Price was good enough to give a review of my novel, Cross Examined.

Very flattering!

MS-DOS and Objective Truth

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Bob Seidensticker

Jesus, atheists, Christians, and apologetics Back in the character-based Stone Age of the personal computer, all IBM-compatible MS-DOS PCs started up with a C-prompt, the “C:\>” text with a blinking cursor. At least, all PCs that weren’t broken.

Can we conclude anything from that? That “C:\>” is a reflection of some supernatural or transcendental truth? That it is an insight into God’s mind? No—it’s just a useful trait shared by this class of PCs. There’s no objective meaning behind these characters. This text is useful (it shows the directory in which any typed commands will take place), so it was selected. There’s nothing more profound than this behind it.

Human morality is like this. Almost all humans have shared moral instincts, not dissimilar from instincts in other animals. Through instinct, honeybees communicate where the nectar is, newborn sea turtles go toward the ocean, and juvenile birds fly. Training or acculturation can override human instincts, of course, but in general we have a shared moral sense—a shared acceptance of the Golden Rule, for example.

We think our moral instincts are pretty important, and that’s understandable, but there’s no reason to imagine that they are objectively true—that is, based on some supernatural grounding. Said another way, we think that our morality is true because it tells us that it’s true, but we can’t infer from this that it is grounded outside us.

We must not confuse universally shared moral instincts with universal moral truths.

Human moral instincts are what our programming says they are—it’s no more profound than that. There’s as much reason to imagine that they are a window into the transcendent as that the MS-DOS C-prompt is.

More on how our instincts are well tuned to the environment: Plantinga’s Nutty Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism

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