Comment 17 by mmurray :

When I was a Catholic as a kid my father gave money to the church (my mother was an Anglican). He donated in different ways. Some went to the upkeep of the local chuch and priest, some to the upkeep of the wider church as an organisation and some to church charities. I would be happy to call the last of these charity but the first two are more akin to paying a club membership. In return for these payments my father got membership of the church, access to church facilities and services, some form of life insurance for all eternity and political advocacy by the wider organisation on behalf of members. I'm a member of a bicycle organisation which gives me similar returns. I wouldn't call that charity.

Actually every time I give to charity an amount of over $5 I get a tax refund next time I do my income tax. Does that mean it is not an act of charity ?

Michael

First off a tax refund does not equal a net profit and is not money, simply less taking away of money.

Secondly Paying for a charity worker or a priest to do his job or maintain his building or the headquarters building (or simply giving the headquarters money to spend at there discretion) is charity and as long as the donations are not mandatory and specific then it is charity. If a church makes you pay X dollars to week to join then it is NOT a charity, if they pass around a collection plate it is. And priests do do good, even intelligent atheists like Richard Dawkins have talked about how it would be good to have a non believer equivalent because they try and succeed in a lot of cases in helping out their "flocks" with problems.