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gwern comments on Open thread for December 9 - 16, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Interesting.
It certainly seems to make sense for the sake of the cause for (especially large, well-informed) donors to make their donations public. The only downside seems to be a potentially conflicting signal on behalf of the giver.
I'm not sure this is true. Doesn't MIRI publish its total receipts? Don't most organizations that ask for donations?
Growing up Evangelical, it was taught that we should give secretly to charities (including, mostly, the church).
I wonder why? The official Sunday School answer is so that you remain humble as the giver, etc. I wonder if there is some other mechanism whereby it made sense for Christians to propogate that concept (secret giving) among followers?
There may not be anything to explain: the early Christian church grew very slowly. Perhaps secret almsgiving simply isn't a good idea.
Hm. Possibly. Though it does still seem to be a rather popular convention in churches today to adopt an interpretation of secret offerings.
I would imagine popular interprations of scriptures on giving would evolve based on the goals of the church (to get $$$), and kept in check only by being believable enough to the member congregations.
Tithing seems to work for the church, so lots of churches resurrect it from the OT and really shaky exegesis and make it a part of the rules. If tithing didn't work for the church, they could easily make it go away in the same way they get rid of tons of outdated stuff from the OT (and the NT).
Secret offerings seems similar to me. I'd imagine they could make the commands for secret giving go away with some simple hermeneutical waves of the hand if it didn't benefit them.