Hitch is dead

It's ALL religious wealth.Why would it matter if it was held in stocks and shares or land and property?

It was a radio programme - no link. I'm currently trying to find something. I'm afraid the wiki doesn't help you much if you're not prepared to believe that the religious are the wealthiest on the planetWealth and religion - Wikipedia

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Global
According to a study from 2015, Christians hold the largest amount of wealth (55% of the total world wealth), followed by Muslims (5.8%), Hindus (3.3%), and Jews (1.1%). According to the same study it was found that adherents under the classification Irreligion or other religions hold about 34.8% of the total global wealth.[3]

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A study done by the nonpartisan wealth research firm New World Wealth found that 56.2% of the 13.1 million millionaires in the world were Christians,[4] while 6.5% were Muslims, 3.9% were Hindu, and 1.7% were Jewish; 31.7% were identified as adherents of "other" religions or "not religious".

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This appears to be individual wealth rather than th3 religious organisations themselves. But more than half of world wealth held by Christians - fine Christians they are eh? I'm still not understanding your point. Wealth is wealth regardless of the assets it's composed of and that sort of dosh would solve an awful lot of the world's problems and, it would also be a Christian act.

No true Scotsman, eh? Er, there are more of them...But I note you're no longer denying facts. For example, It's anyone's guess what the Vatican's wealth is. They're too smart to be open about it. Best guess... But they also own a whole bloody country and god only know what the wealth imbedded in their land and buildings are. Thousands of years of tithing...

What you're doing is quibbling about unimportant details while ignoring the very obvious fact that neither the general Christian public nor their pious institutions are following Jesus's teachings. They're all rich.Here's some information on the Church of England wealth. I suspect that it excludes the real value of its land and buildings.

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The Church’s property portfolio and investments are immense. It is sitting on a combination of ancient endowments and investments worth 8.3bn, which last year alone increased by 400m.

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The holdings of the Church's governing bodies alone mean that it has 8bn to start with.

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The Corporation of Church House has 27m, the Archbishop's Council is worth 49m, the Church Commissioners has 6.7m, and the Church of England Pensions Board is worth 1.2m reported secularism.org.

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The Church's wealth started out in property. It owns 16,000 churches and 42 cathedrals, and many are Grade 1 listed - though they do come with huge maintenance bills.

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The Church owns a string of property, including Hyde Park Estate in London and and 105,000 acres of land across England and Wales.

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It purchased 17,000 acres of forestry in Scotland and Wales, and 765 acres of land in Kent last year, reported The Independent.

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It also owns 10% interest and associated land in the MetroCentre in Gateshead.

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It has also made 57m in financial collections from parishioners.

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It's a religious organisation, yes - but it's also a billionaire investor. Here's how much the Church has and what it does with it.

I'd be very surprised if they didn't. But how come 38% of religious households give nothing? And what are the givers giving to? Charities can be anything from making their own institutions even wealthier to supporting a stray cat home.Anyway, the point being made is that religious institutions are incredibly wealthy and not doing what their saviour instructs them to do. Why?

Do you genuinely think that 'fallible' covers it? Really? You would hope? Why do you have to hope, this is factual? Why don't we know how much the Vatican is worth and what it's doing with it? Why don't we know in detail the wealth of your Anglican church and how it's being used and - more importantly - why it has any wealth at all? Why is it not following its founder's teachings?

Apart from that, Mr Lincoln, what did you think of the play?The major religious organisations of the world are staggeringly wealthy (and secretive about it) - don't you think that's at odds with the Christian message? Just a teeny bit? Well if you think an instruction like this ....Jesus looked at him and loved him. One thing you lack, he said. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me..... is cherry picking, then I think I picked the whole tree. Exactly. And the Christian (and other) organisations have amassed a huge amount of wealth but what are they doing with it? Making more. Where does the NT instruct them to do this? Doesn't it rather say the opposite? Eyes of needles and all?As for not having liquid assets (which is both wrong and irrelevant anyway as land, building and art are easily sold and would not be a concern any creditor), in North America alone, the Catholic church has paid $1.3 billion cash in compensation for sex abuse.Settlements and bankruptcies in Catholic sex abuse cases - WikipediaThe final amount is likely to be double. And, that's just the bloody Catholics.

Sure, but the churches are staggeringly wealthy and are not using it - they're hoarding it. Why is the Vatican stuffed full of priceless art when it could be sold to help the poor. If Bill Gates can do it - give away his wealth to help solve human suffering - why can't religious organisations do the same? Yes, religious organisations are man made. And so, of course are the beliefs that made them. Well as a minimum it should raise the question that if the organisations of religion are man-made and seriously flawed, designed and used to build wealth, power and empires then the beliefs that they're built on are flawed also. A house built on sand?

More 'I believe'.That's all fine for you but we're not discussing you. Or me. We're discussing the wealth of religious institutions and whether any of them are following Jesus's teachings and it seems very obvious that they are not.There's nothing wrong with He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness... it's just the universal stuff of being decent that any reasonable person of any religion and none can and does agree with. You mark it with a supernatural significance that it doesn't have.Of course I think the ... And to walk humbly with your God. is redundant and meaningless, but so long as it doesn't result in building entire empires, it's 'mostly harmless'. I really wish you guys would stop telling us atheists what we believe. You never, ever get it right no matter how many times we try to explain it. Can you at least try? Instead of defensively inferring that it's the opposite of your own belief, try to understand our actual position.1. Atheists don't believe that life is transitory, they know it is. We all die. All life dies. Ashes to ashes etc. Some people hope for some kind of afterlife. Atheists just assume the base case that as there was no consciousness before life, there will be none thereafter. And that's fine with us. It is what it is. We don't need the fantasy of an afterlife to get us through this life. Oblivion was ok before I was born; it'll be ok after.2. We do not think that how we should live our lives is arbitrary and you'll notice that we don't go around doing random things. Apart from the kneeling down chanting embarrassing rubbish in order to placate a needy god we're remarkably similar to you. We do the same things. Weird huh? I haven't built a house GDR, I'm just living a life. I haven't created a fantasy of an afterlife and built this life here around it. That's the believers way not the atheists way.

Such as? Uh? Of course it is. It's the null hypothesis. You're claiming knowledge of something that there is no knowledge of. Thanks. I don't have beliefs. When we die, we die; do you doubt that? If something happens after that, neither of us has the faintest idea. It's a fact that I have no problem with oblivion and that we all had it before we were born and as far as I know, nobody was complaining. I do have an idea about what I think and it pisses me off when you guys tell me what it is. It would be annoying enough if you were right but you never are.It's fair to say that I perhaps have a better idea about that than either you or GDR. It would be great if both of you stopped pretending you know what atheists think - you don't. You can't begin to grasp that some people don't need your belief to lead a good and useful life. But it's obviously true isn't it? Ordo you really think otherwise?

There you go again, completely uncomprehending. Of course I can speak for all atheists! I can say without any chance of contradiction that we all know that we're going to die. And that it's dead dead. Not dead, try again like a video game, dead.I can also claim that all atheists can lead a perfectly decent life without kowtowing to an invisible superbeing. Was there anything else that I missed? Why is this so hard for you? We all don't believe in god/s. That's it. It's really not at all complicated. It's not just that none of you follow his instructions- you'd be crazy to do it. It's that your institutions actually do exactly the opposite - they behave like rabid capitalists while telling you the opposite. Why doyou fall for it?

I'd just like you to recognise that the institutions that have created your belief don't practice it themselves. Just saying that they're human creations and therefor fallible doesn't cut it. You tell us all the time what you believe, it's impossible to stop you! And you forget that I have the advantage of having believed the same stuff as you do and belonged to the same institutions. I'm sure you're not denying your believe in the afterlife and all the paraphernalia that comes with it, but you've told us enough to make it clear that the church and your beliefs are central to your life.

I'm showing you that the source of the Christian belief system is not Christian. And you seem to agree. This should give you pause for thought. You only believe what you believe because of these institutions. They created and maintain the belief systems and they're human, failed organisations.You can add that to the unanswerable problem of suffering and the natural source for morality in our society. You were the purest form of atheist. You didn't believe in god. More importantly, you probably didn't even think about it. That's real atheism. Perhaps you would; people with similar interests form clubs and communities. However, Christianity does teach belief in resurrection and redemption - it's its central message isn't it? You tell us this yourself - often. Without it it would just be another social gathering.

But GDR, don't you see? It was the institutions that taught you what to believe. Without the institutions you couldn't possibly know about the Jesus myth. They created it and propagated it. Just like other belief systems do.People become Muslims - of whatever flavour - because they are taught it by muslim institutions that invented it. Even better examples are mormonism and scientology. There are hundreds of other invented religions that people become members of only because their culture teaches it. It's not an accident that you're not a Hindu. To believe in something is a positive action. You know if you believe in god don't you? If you don't even think about it, how can you be a believer? If you're not a believer you are an atheist. There really is no such thing as an agnostic. As Yoda almost said, 'there is no don't know, only is or is not' We all do that - it doesn’t require a god.

If I am, you have to show how. Well, you got that right. First blood to you. Huh? Why do you think you are able to remove all rational argument? Have you heard of blasphemy? I live in an advanced, Western liberal democracy but the blasphemy law was only repealed in 2008. A few generations ago people that believed the things that you believe would demand my death by nasty means for saying the things I say.And in many countries theocratic states still murder blasphemers. So guess what, not many people are brave enough to speak ill of Mohammed. Check my signature is GDR is fond of saying. Why do you think that it's worth quoting me something that you know I won't think is worth quoting? Are you trying to convince me or yourself? Why should I or anyone else care what you believe? Unless you can provide a good reason why I should too, it's just a shrug. Only?Would you rather rely on prayer or have a CV19 vaccine? Pick one.