Mumble, you might actually try reading the book.

The book includes studies of who donates blood, who volunteers time in nursing homes, animal rescue, domestic violence services, Katrina help, etc.

The book also has studies on per capita giving to the Salvation Army in different states and locales.

I don't understand. Don't churches charge membership fees AND collect money for charities? My synagogue has a yearly membership fee and collections (on holidays) for charities. Why should those charities be excluded?

The Sudanese refugees in Israel sat in prison for a while. Now some work in Eilat, the others hand around Tel Aviv. Some Jewish organisation in Israel looks after them now.

Yes, but if exclude collections in churches, what's really left of the blood donations and the time volunteered in nursing homes?

does it exclude donations to fund the operations OF the church... or charities collected AT the church to give aid to people who do NOT belong to that church? one should be excluded, the other not.

The real point here is that someone wrote a book and made some claims and then the story is posted and most people seem quite fine with the conclusions even though there are no listed references or other documentation to back up its claims. The premise seems to be that since it's a book it must be true.

So I do what I usually do when something interests or annoys me and that is to google the topic and see what different kinds of information I can find on the subject. In this case what I mostly get are people trying to sell me the book. But that's not what I'm looking for. Ideally what I'm looking for is an independent and unbiased critique of the book.

However this is the internet and apparently nothing exists that it is independent and unbiased. What I do get is a bunch of right wing blogs that pretty much do the same thing as has been done here, which is to present the conclusions of the book as established fact without any reference whatsoever to any kind of supporting argument. My other choices are left wing blogs that at least make some attempt at mounting a rational critique.

The point is that if the positions were reversed then so would the arguments. The left wing blogs would simply present anything that supported their case as fact and leave the hard work of disproving it to the right wing blogs.

All that I'm saying is that based on the discussion it would seem that this premise is pretty much universally accepted. I merely posted what contrary opinion I was able to find to indicate that not everyone believes this way.

That's pretty much it except if you're so quick to question the source for something that disagrees with your opinion should you not be as equally quick to question the source of things that agree with your opinion? To do otherwise just seems a tad disingenuous.

That's really all I have to say on the matter.

According to you a reference is a link to a database and saying "do your own research here".

I don't see it as unreasonable. There comes a point in every debate where you run out of adequate existing research and have to do your own. You couldn't find a counter-argument for the arguments Mumblefratz found, so you demanded that he provide a source for you to use.

There's no source stronger than the original source. If you're not willing to use original sources, what's the point of debating at all? That data is a goldmine of interesting information. You just need to crack it open with a little hard work, present some arguments from the book that negate the charity angle Mumblefratz has taken, or give up.

It's really up to you how motivated you are.

You didn't answer my question. Aren't church membership fees and collections two different things?

As I said, in my synagogue we have both yearly membership fees (which I assume you do not count as charity, despite the fact that the synagogue is open to all and used by many non-members, Jewish and non-Jewish; for example we have the odd Bahai pray with us as) and collections for charities unrelated to maintenance of our synagogue.

Some of those collections are for our own rabbinical schools, but most are for the JNF (Jewish National Fund, buying and developing land in Israel since the late 19th century), Darfurian refugees who came to Israel and asked for help, general charities in cooperation with the Catholic Church etc..

I don't think the book fooled Brad. And it's not the first time I believe something he said. (And likewise I have seen Brad believe things I said.) Brad is not an idiot and he is knowledgeable in this area. I see no reason not to believe him and trust his abilities to read a book.

Either the statistics in the book are real or they are not. An unbiased critique of the book could confirm either or argue why the statistics are used wrong (or right).

You seem to argue that the book is not an argument unless somebody confirms it. But isn't that like saying that the statistics are not an argument until somebody writes a book about it? And who is to say that the critique of the book will be accepted before somebody writes an essay about the critique?

At some point, I think, you will just have to decide whom to believe.

Do you find many independent and unbiased sources outside the Internet, in the world of big corporations making news? That would surprise me. The right wing blogs use a book about statistics as a source. Isn't that what they are supposed to do? Isn't that exactly what referring to a source means? What do youe left wing blogs do? What is the attempt at mounting a rational critique? Did they buy the book (or check it out in a library) and explain why the statistics are fake? Explain.

And the right wing blogs always do it. The difference is that right wing blogs usually refer to sources that represent facts while left wing blogs often use complete fantasies as a source. Little Green Footballs are pretty good at pointing these things out.

Do you actually believe that liberals give more to charity or not?

If by "questioning" you mean "looking for evidence that the source is wrong", I agree. But this is not what you are doing here. You are simply saying that you don't believe the source for no particular reason other than that you think you should. That's not "questioning", that's denial.

Yes, but that's also the point when one side, in this case MumbleFratz, has to admit that he doesn't actually have those facts he would need to "question" something.

There is a difference between saying that "X is wrong because Y contradicts X" and saying that "X is wrong because there could be a Y that might contradict it, here is a database, go look for the Y".

That's another good point. It's always up to how motivated the conservative is. Brad is apparently supposed to look for arguments for his position as well as for any other position, while liberals can dismiss any source he uses because he cannot offer evidence that it is wrong. And if he did offer evidence that his source was wrong, liberals can dismiss the source because it is wrong. It's a win-win situation for the liberal, if the goal is winning rather than finding the truth.

The book confirmed what I see in real life every day.  My research was having my eyes open to what is going on around me.  The book did actually statistical analysis of what I had casually observed.  I therefore am at ease in accepting the validity of the book.

EXACTLY! if he is claiming to have solid proof that I am wrong, why does he tell me to "find it by yourself"? I want to see the same proof that he is supposedly basing it on.

It's worse than that. I understand he is not saying that he has such proof. He is saying that since there could be such a proof, Brad's source is not to be believed.

I've attended many churches over the years and moves, and many different denominations, and I've never had to pay a "membership fee". They take collections, tithes, love offeerings for special events, occassions or missions projects....not membership fees. It's a church, not a gym or a fraternal organization!

but there is a difference between a donation that goes to help the needy, then donations that go to fund local church operations (which you personally partake of), it might be a donation but it is a donation whose ultimate reciepient is yourself.