The churches create righteous, giving, loving people. The schools create people that only think about money & jobs and teaches nothing about how to interact with other humans and teaches nothing about giving or helping others. Advantage...church. Therefore the church has a greater value to society. Now if you had said which has greater value to the economy, you might have won that argument...but you said society.
churches are related to poverty. i just saw it first hand when i vacationed around ft meyers florida. we drove through some black areas. we saw crappy old schools but we also saw dozens of churches. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Survey Finds Africa Is Most Religious Part Of World WASHINGTON (RNS) Researchers say they've found the most religious place on Earth--between the southern border of the Sahara Desert and the tip of South Africa. Religion is "very important" to more than three-quarters of the population in 17 of 19 sub-Saharan nations, according to a new survey. In contrast, in the United States, the world's most religious industrialized nation, 57 percent of people say religion is very important. "On a continent-wide basis, sub-Saharan Africa comes out as the most religious place on Earth," said Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which released the study Thursday (April 15.) According to the survey, 98 percent of respondents in Senegal say religion is very important, following by 93 percent in Mali. The lowest percentage was reported in Botswana, 69 percent, which is still a healthy majority. "That begins to paint a picture of how religious sub-Saharan Africans are," Lugo said. The study is part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project. More than 25,000 sub-Saharan Africans responded in face-to-face interviews in more than 60 languages. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/15/survey-finds-africa-is-mo_n_539704.html
loik, i'm afraid hermit cannot elaborate, he's intellectually challenged. exactly, forced redistribution of other people's money is socialism, they want to give it a good veneer so they like to call it being 'charitable'. It's like the Salvation army bell ringer pointing a gun at you to make you give, then claiming its being compassionate.
In my personal experience with dozens of christians, they never really live to the letter of 'give the shirt off your back, but they do a hell of a lot better than liberals I've know who are some of the most selfish and miserable people out there. Studies back me up, people who shout that it's the goverenment's job tend to be more selfish and want to abstract away 'other people's money' as if it belongs to some evil faceless entity. It's also like sex, people who like to bragg it up probably are not getting as much as you think. People who like to talk about how much they care probably don't give two shits, but they don't mind forcing you to donate. Those of you who go to church- beware the guy who wears it on his sleeve the most. The over-under on him being a hypocrite is at about 80%.
no, ... you got it about right. No need to write a book, or get millions in grants for a "scientific" study. Your statement stands alone. should be interesting in the coming decade as public pensions, (ie; those promises you refer to), implode Madoff was vilified by the "charitable" left