CELIVIA... I'm glad you raised the issue of Mother Theresa.... I found the report very disturbing.. almost sounded like the 'pimp' who deliberately makes his team of begger children look 'pathetic and horrible' to extract more from passers by....

http://www.infomutt.com/m/mi/missionaries_of_charity.html

JOYCE MEYER ?

Anyone stupid enough to give to this has more money than sense.

http://www.trinityfi.org/press/JoyceMeyer1.html

Joyce Meyer says God has made her rich.

Everything she has came from Him: the $10 million corporate jet, her husband's $107,000 silver-gray Mercedes sedan, her $2 million home and houses worth another $2 million for her four children — all blessings, she says, straight from the hand of God.

It's been an amazing run, nothing short of a miracle, says Meyer, a one-time bookkeeper who heads one of the world's largest television ministries. Her Life in the Word organization expects to take in $95 million this year.

CATCH THE FIRE? As far as I know, Danny Naliah does not draw any funds from the ministry itself, but is supported by private donations towards his support. If they are private they are none of anyone's business but his.

HINN? "There is a sucker born everyday" Word to street..DON'T be a sucker!

MY OWN....background... Our mission holds a multi million dollar chuck of real estate in Singapore... and in various other places in Asia. How did we get it? Simple, when the Dutch were getting out of Indonesia, they had a 'fire sale' of many assets and we picked up a former embassy dirt cheap. Holiday Home in Cameron Highlands Malaysial ? Again.. During the Communist emergency, Wealthy 'capitalists' were getting out, and again.. valuable land at bargain basement prices. The General Director of our 900 member mission... is paid the same as the ordinary worker. Plus.. he has a modest car available.. (belongs to the mission)

I was most amused by Dan S Merengue and pmark's comments.

Essentially, they can both be summed up with the old 'you're just jellus!' argument.

The problem with this argument, is that you can apply it to any successful person at any given time.

Thus if you're to actually pay any attention to this argument, you must accept that any successful person, anywhere, shouldn't be scrutinised, and they must all be good and proper.

Bollocks.

Sorry you two, but didn't you notice the five private jets and the marble topped dunny?
I honestly can't believe you'd just gloss over the fact these people are being investigated for financial indiscretions and assume it's just jealousy. What are you basing this one? What do you know of their financial practices, especially given their lack of transparency?

How on earth can you actually advocate a course of action that turns a blind eye to improper behaviour. The only conclusion I can draw is that you've decided that because they're christian they must be being unjustly persecuted.

Again, I say, bollocks.

I've got to agree with boaz on this one. It boggles the mind that people really think that five private jets is normal for a preacher.
Despite my occasional frustration with the one-eyed nature of some conservative preacher types, I do have nothing but the utmost respect for genuine men of the cloth, be they liberal or conservative in attitude, if they're actually putting the welfare of others at the forefront of their concerns.

But by no stretch of the imagination can that include people who need to buy private jets.

Let's take the idea of the preacher out of the discussion. He is now a movie star, a ball player, a race car driver, a wine seller. Are five jets too many and all the other things that have been brought to light. When was it said the preacher is to be poor. I'm a preacher and I work two jobs to support my family. I'm not doing that good of a job at it either. But I love my church and I love the people God has brought to us. Yet the money is not there. But it is abundantly clear in the Bible - which by the way is not well sited by most in this little blog site that it is God that gives the power to get wealth... not just get by but the power to get wealth. I dare you to find that passage and the merid of others like it and be bothered that a preacher makes a few million a year. And no I don't know the personal finances of these people but it looks like we all will find out. Funny noboby is going after me or... you for that matter. I'm not sure what a preacher needs with five jets my two 19 and 18 year old cars are not yet paid for but for those that fly from state to state and country to country I can see why they might need that type of ability. by the way i am not putting my p.o. box in this for donations. money is a tool people. the Gospel is free yet the medium to preach it is not.

The A.O.G in particular spends their money on more branches [churches] and the money goes to the poor after it pays to maintain the lifestyle of the "pastors" to a standard they have become comfortable with. These parasites fill their own pockets first and charge parishioners a % of their income to belong. They sell what every other church sells hope and fear and act like policemen themselves, that is do what I say, not what I do. This con has been going for thousands of years.It's the best business in the world.

Looks like with politics, it should be a case of Socrates' term 'Out with the Gods and in with the Good'?

It is also interesting that Socrates also talked about finding the 'True Good' through philosophical depth of thought.

Maybe Socrates has been proven correct when proven that philosophers like Thomas Aquinas and John Locke have been able to change history peacefully as Aquinas did when he accepted Socratic Reasoning to balance Christian faith and as Locke did when he virtually organised the 1688 Glorious Revolution which lowered the status of the Christian
Church in British politics forever.

On the other hand we have had the most imhuman of our wars caused by religion or against religion.

Even the 6,000,000 Jews who died in Hitler's death camps was brought on by one religion believing it was superior to the other.

Sadly we are seeing religous problems now, and if Iran is attacked through the theories of Cheney and Bush - and with the Iranians having virtually defeated America twice previously, the second when an American-backed Iran was defeated in the 1980s, one wonders how many Iranians will give their lives, if they eventually are defeated?.

All so much through religion rather than Wisdom and Understanding.


Cheers - BB, WA.

From Bushbred.

In previous Post, please replace Iran with Iraq where obvious misprint is noted.

Regards - BB.