Google excludes churches from its non-for-profits discounts

[Castiel]

i realise that, but it really isn’t that unusual or unexpected especially as google will have rightly identified that actually some of these not-for-profit amass huge amounts of money which serves to benefit the organisation's leaders, even if they do some good community projects.

I don't disagree with you, I do think however that the policy is a little strange. Earlier in the thread I identified two groups who by the terms of thecrestrictions will not be eligible for the pricing, that being Refuge and Orchid, both of whom serve gender specific demography. They are only examples, the policy seems poorly thought out, and many groups are going to be penalised and to what end. I think that google should simply scrap the whole program and divert the money to organisations it feels it wants to support rather than excluding those it doesn't.

what never ceases to amaze me though, is how we get from google’s policy to "killing in the name of" etc.

Quite, although the OP concentrated on religion, when in fact that is a small part of the policy and one that has less significance I feel than examples like I illustrated above.

 

[Johno please?]

Well you could argue that whilst they are united by religious ideology they rallied against a political one. I'm sure al-Qaeda would say that what they perceive as agressive foreign policy was also at play, making the religious motives less strong.

Given that what Islamic terrorists are basically objecting to is the West's intervention in the middle east, I'm going to say yes, they would have done.

Ahhh yes, it's the wests fault! we see this so much on this forum.

Don't make them angry yea, they wouldn't be this way if it wasn't for the west!!

Read that back and you know how silly it sounds.

 

[RDM]

All that means is they'd find a way to kill 3000 people without killing themselves...

Generally easier to do if you have no fear of getting caught. Bear I mind I am no anti-religious fanatic but it does lend itself quite well to getting people to do things they otherwise wouldn't consider. The whole "To get a good man to do bad things" malarky.

Religion isn't a prerequisite for belief in an afterlife.

True, but it is somewhat more prevelant amongst the religious and more open to abuse. An afte life as reward/punishment for deeds done on earth has throughout history been used as a very dangerous tool.

 

[Castiel]

Ahhh yes its the wests fault we see this so much on this forum.

Don't make them angry yea? They wouldn't be this way if it wasn't for the west.

Read that back and you know how silly it sounds.

He didn't say it was the fault of the West, he said the motivations are not solely religious, but predominantly political.

He made no judgement of the policies of the United States or the motivations of either group themselves.

I would suggest you take your own advice in respect of your own posts.

 

[Castiel]

True, but it is somewhat more prevelant amongst the religious and more open to abuse. An afte life as reward/punishment for deeds done on earth has throughout history been used as a very dangerous tool.

Aye, it has. Which illustrates the point I made earlier as to the nature of religion in general to be used as a tool for good or evil. Of course the converse is also equally true, but far less historically relevant or media friendly.

 

[RDM]

I do however have to laugh at someone using Cromwell as an example of the positives of Christianity. I would assume they are not a student of history!

 

[checjb]

iD is quite unique in that aspect, but then it's easy to make up a theory to fit the evidence.

Oh man, don't tell me Apple have jumped on this bandwagon too!

By the way, did you see what I did with the "Oh man" comment?

 

[platypus]

Did anyone else read that as Robert Pattinson?

Am I the only person to never have heard of Pat Robertson?

He's a right wing neo-conservative Christian, charlatan, con-man, who condemns feminism (fair enough!), homosexuality, abortion and liberalism, blames the september 11th attacks on "pagans, the gays and lesbians", hurricane Katrina as "gods retaliation for America's stance on abortion", and has financial links to Charles Taylor and Mobutu Seko, both mass murderers.

In short, he's a nut.

 

[platypus]

The Catholic church is a joke, how anyone can believe they are a force for good astounds me, its a horrible cult.

Sell The Vatican, Feed The World.

Probably because by and large it is a force for good.

I'm not going to debate all the evils that the Church has done in the name of God here, because they are huge in number and great in their evility.

I'm not a fan of the Church. I'm really not. But to turn a blind eye to everything they do that is good simply to further your argument that they are not a force for good is hypocritical.

 

[Tefal]

Given that what Islamic terrorists are basically objecting to is the West's intervention in the middle east, I'm going to say yes, they would have done.

I thought they were objecting to the us building military bases on holy land?

 

[byteagig]

I wish the buggers would stop knocking on my door to try and recruit me. I used to stand there and listen to their bull**** to be polite, but now I just tell them I am not interested. The last time I said that one of the ladies she looked shocked and horrified and asked me if I had always felt this way to which I replied yes. It was as if she couldnt comprehend that someone did not believe in her religion! I think I will start asking them when was the last time someone knocked on their door to try and convert them into non religous people. They are just as bad as the door to door window salesmen and all the rest of them.

 

[Castiel]

I do however have to laugh at someone using Cromwell as an example of the positives of Christianity. I would assume they are not a student of history!

I must have missed that.

Some might consider that his genocidal tendencies toward Catholics especially in Ireland and Scotland as a positive thing, going on some of the views in this thread anyway.

The reality is that Oliver Cromwell was a religious extremist independent from the Church Of England.

 

[platypus]

I wish the buggers would stop knocking on my door to try and recruit me. I used to stand there and listen to their bull**** to be polite, but now I just tell them I am not interested. The last time I said that one of the ladies she looked shocked and horrified and asked me if I had always felt this way to which I replied yes. It was as if she couldnt comprehend that someone did not believe in her religion! I think I will start asking them when was the last time someone knocked on their door to try and convert them into non religous people. They are just as bad as the door to door window salesmen and all the rest of them.

It would be an amusing experiment to go door to door trying to convince people to give up religion !

 

[RDM]

Probably because by and large it is a force for good.

I'm not going to debate all the evils that the Church has done in the name of God here, because they are huge in number and great in their evility.

I'm not a fan of the Church. I'm really not. But to turn a blind eye to everything they do that is good simply to further your argument that they are not a force for good is hypocritical.

The issue that I have is that, far too often, religious people will hold double standards as far as their faith goes. Pointing out all the good that they do as the religions yet dismissing all the bad that they do as just people. Either claim responsibility for both or neither.

That said the basic intolerance at the heart of most religions is enough to turn me away from them, especially the abrahamic faiths.

 

[Castiel]

I wish the buggers would stop knocking on my door to try and recruit me. I used to stand there and listen to their bull**** to be polite, but now I just tell them I am not interested. The last time I said that one of the ladies she looked shocked and horrified and asked me if I had always felt this way to which I replied yes. It was as if she couldnt comprehend that someone did not believe in her religion! I think I will start asking them when was the last time someone knocked on their door to try and convert them into non religous people. They are just as bad as the door to door window salesmen and all the rest of them.

I have successfully converted one away from the Jehovah Witness religion, while I was not actually attempting to do so, we had many conversations on the nature of the scriptures and varying interpretations including the history and reality of early Christianity to which his church profess to abide, the result was that he is now seeking his answers to his spirituality elsewhere and I expect he will lean toward the Baptists.

I am not a Christian and my interest in religion is purely academic so don't even begin to accuse me of indoctrination etc....

 

[Castiel]

The issue that I have is that, far too often, religious people will hold double standards as far as their faith goes. Pointing out all the good that they do as the religions yet dismissing all the bad that they do as just people. Either claim responsibility for both or neither.

That said the basic intolerance at the heart of most religions is enough to turn me away from them, especially the abrahamic faiths.

Again, double standards is indicative of people in general and not only limited to people of religious faith. The same with intolerance, as we have seen in this thread, some the most intolerant of people are not religious at all.

As with society in general, religion is becoming more tolerant over time, with some notable exceptions, most mainstream religions are become more and not less inclusive. The Catholics are even whispering about allowing marriage within the Clergy.......OMG, they will be talking about Woman ordination next.....(maybe not!).

Religion reflects society and society reflects religion, with each a step behind the other dependent on what is being considered.

I have never tended toward tradition religion because I think it is in essence flawed (like society and Mankind in general) and too enamoured in politics and not enough in the actual spirituality of mankind. Religion is a reflection of Mankind, not a reflection of God.

 

[platypus]

The issue that I have is that, far too often, religious people will hold double standards as far as their faith goes. Pointing out all the good that they do as the religions yet dismissing all the bad that they do as just people. Either claim responsibility for both or neither.

Indeed, I couldn't agree more. The hypocritical nature of most faiths and religious types is what irritates me the most about the whole affaird. And as Castiel has put rather more eloquently than I; hypocrisy is not the provincial bailiwick (man I love that word!) of religion!

That said the basic intolerance at the heart of most religions is enough to turn me away from them, especially the abrahamic faiths.

We're probably on the same page, with religion at least .

 

[spudbynight]

I think its a brilliant step in the right direction and is the start of people noticing that churches do more harm than good, and are at heart, act purely in the name of self interest.

Hmm.....these people believe in God and give money to charity. There are more of them than Bill Gates and Warren Buffet - do I win?

Oh, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Stalin, Nicolae Ceausecsu and Slobodan Milosovic were all athiests and did bad things. Does that act as any sort of barometer on the worth of athiests in general? No, of course not, that would be silly.

 

[Naffa]

The difference is, atheism isn't a belief system, its the absence of one. So yes, it would be silly.

 

[Vonhelmet]

The difference is, atheism isn't a belief system, its the absence of one. So yes, it would be silly.

LET'S ARGUE ABOUT ATHEISM AND AGNOSTICISM SOME MORE!!!!