Obviously there's a component of charity as well as church maintenance in religious donations.
You didn't answer my question. Aren't church membership fees and collections two different things?
As I said, in my synagogue we have both yearly membership fees (which I assume you do not count as charity, despite the fact that the synagogue is open to all and used by many non-members, Jewish and non-Jewish; for example we have the odd Bahai pray with us as) and collections for charities unrelated to maintenance of our synagogue.
Some of those collections are for our own rabbinical schools, but most are for the JNF (Jewish National Fund, buying and developing land in Israel since the late 19th century), Darfurian refugees who came to Israel and asked for help, general charities in cooperation with the Catholic Church etc..
The real point here is that someone wrote a book and made some claims and then the story is posted and most people seem quite fine with the conclusions even though there are no listed references or other documentation to back up its claims. The premise seems to be that since it's a book it must be true.
I don't think the book fooled Brad. And it's not the first time I believe something he said. (And likewise I have seen Brad believe things I said.) Brad is not an idiot and he is knowledgeable in this area. I see no reason not to believe him and trust his abilities to read a book.
So I do what I usually do when something interests or annoys me and that is to google the topic and see what different kinds of information I can find on the subject. In this case what I mostly get are people trying to sell me the book. But that's not what I'm looking for. Ideally what I'm looking for is an independent and unbiased critique of the book.
Either the statistics in the book are real or they are not. An unbiased critique of the book could confirm either or argue why the statistics are used wrong (or right).
You seem to argue that the book is not an argument unless somebody confirms it. But isn't that like saying that the statistics are not an argument until somebody writes a book about it? And who is to say that the critique of the book will be accepted before somebody writes an essay about the critique?
At some point, I think, you will just have to decide whom to believe.
However this is the internet and apparently nothing exists that it is independent and unbiased. What I do get is a bunch of right wing blogs that pretty much do the same thing as has been done here, which is to present the conclusions of the book as established fact without any reference whatsoever to any kind of supporting argument. My other choices are left wing blogs that at least make some attempt at mounting a rational critique.
Do you find many independent and unbiased sources outside the Internet, in the world of big corporations making news? That would surprise me. The right wing blogs use a book about statistics as a source. Isn't that what they are supposed to do? Isn't that exactly what referring to a source means? What do youe left wing blogs do? What is the attempt at mounting a rational critique? Did they buy the book (or check it out in a library) and explain why the statistics are fake? Explain.
The point is that if the positions were reversed then so would the arguments. The left wing blogs would simply present anything that supported their case as fact and leave the hard work of disproving it to the right wing blogs.
And the right wing blogs always do it. The difference is that right wing blogs usually refer to sources that represent facts while left wing blogs often use complete fantasies as a source. Little Green Footballs are pretty good at pointing these things out.
All that I'm saying is that based on the discussion it would seem that this premise is pretty much universally accepted. I merely posted what contrary opinion I was able to find to indicate that not everyone believes this way.
Do you actually believe that liberals give more to charity or not?
That's pretty much it except if you're so quick to question the source for something that disagrees with your opinion should you not be as equally quick to question the source of things that agree with your opinion? To do otherwise just seems a tad disingenuous.
If by "questioning" you mean "looking for evidence that the source is wrong", I agree. But this is not what you are doing here. You are simply saying that you don't believe the source for no particular reason other than that you think you should. That's not "questioning", that's denial.
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