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via tax breaks, non-church goers are subsidizing church-goers. I am sure Jesus would not want to get free money or participate in this wealth transfer. It is interesting to see some posters who hate tax breaks taking an opposite stance for the church - presumably because the shoe is on the other foot now.
Anyway, I am for taxing churches, temples, mosques, acorn, atheist institutions, etc etc. - everyone should play fair.
They'd be fine if they had invited all politicians to attend. It just so happens that's not the case.. It's pretty sad the first thing you see is racism though.
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That's just silly; churches routinely ask people to speak...and a former community organizer who paired churches with the needy is a good choice. I was thinking it was interesting that the 2 churches targeted are
generally liberal in their ministries, but you seem to see it as racially motivated. Even more interesting.
Your unproven, subjective life experiences count for squat my friend.
Why is it wrong to post hate speech against gays and people of color and alright to bash religion and churces. Especially Catholics and the Catholic Church?
It's hate speech, pure and simple.
Many Churches still run schools that get no subsidy from the Government. Parents of these students pay their school tax and then have to pay an additional tuition to send their kids to these parochial schools. These parents get no tax break. Yet they are educated and become contributing citizens. To be fair, the government should subsidize or make allowances for all the subjects taught except Religion.
In my city there are many religious run hospitals that provide emergency care and health services; many times for free or a slight nominal fee, that is not reimbursed by the government.
My church runs a food pantry for poor folks. They help people with all sorts of related problems. They don't evangelize unless asked and yet they get nothing in return except a thanks occassionally.
Can you say that about your community group?
And you volunteered at any of these churches, how often?
So when all these do-gooder churches close their doors they can come over to you for help, right?
Hate speech? Not so much. We have no religious run hospitals, nor religious run PUBLIC schools in my area (the private Christians schools, of which there are at least 6, charge ridiculous amounts to attend).
And yes, my 4H county club(s) DO have food drives and not only at Thanksgiving and Christmas time, which seems to be the only time that the churches around here do it.... but all througout the year! We use the county fairgrounds to distribute foodstuffs ALL YEAR ROUND. And since we are also non profit, we do not get anything but a thanks either. Keep in mind that the vast majority of the people volunteering for this are youths age 6-19.
Yes, I have volunteered at many churches and I simply don't like the way they run things. When they're dealing with people they're very nice, but behind closed doors they're just as backstabbing as anyone else. In fact, one of the main reasons I don't volunteer with the churches in my area anymore is because of the way they treated me because of the tattoos I have. None are hateful, no bad symbols, no nudity, just flowers and birds... and they treated me as if I had the plague.
Sorry, I like being around people who accept you for the actions you do, not what you look like.
And regarding the schools, I did learn about religion in my public school. I also attended a few private school classes with a friend of mine and the injected religion into EVERYTHING from English to Science...so no, they should absolutely not be subsidized at all.
Not really necessary!
If we could get them all to convert to a single denomination, I'm sure a few of them could be closed.
BTW, in those two towns, how many stores are there?
Is it really necessary to have that many stores?
wouldn't just a few stores make more sense?
Stores? Well, that depends. I live on the beautiful central coast of California which is a popular tourist destination so there are a lot of stores. Of course, they make money which then goes back into the city so I'm perfectly okay with that. In addition, in my town and the town next to mine there are no big box stores (Target, Wal Mart, Kohls, JC Penny, etc etc) so we try to keep it local
If you're talking grocery stores, we have 2 in my town, 3 in the town over (of which 2 are locally owned and operated regional stores)
I actually play piano (and sometimes stand in as a bass player) for 2 of my local 'churches' and while they're nice enough congregations, they do diddly squat for the community around them. I spoke to the pastor of one of the churches and asked if I could start something and he told me they already donate money to 'charities' so it wouldn't be necessary.
The people make up the government as in, we the people. The government itself is not a person and, by our constitution, can not take sides or punish anyone for a religious belief or lack there of. Other government aren't so nice about all that... The founding fathers knew we'd have a large mix of people so they setup a government that just stays out. It never claimed the people themselves should stay out of government because they're religious. It's not freedom "from" religion...
Firstly, yes it is freedom FROM religion. Otherwise relgiion would be free to impose itself onto people. One cannot have freedom OF religion without freedom FROM religion. A no brainer, really.
Secondly, it isn't the congregation that is worrysome. Clergy, by their definition, hold a certain authority over their congregation. They are respected (usually) members of a community. Clergy can wield power over their congregation and influence their votes, thus magnifying one person's vote (the clergyman's) many times over.
So, in effect, instead of a priest merely going to the polls and casting his vote, he is going to the polls multiple times in his congregation as they cast his vote as well.
Does that sound fair to you? Does that sound like a proper democratic process?
Your unproven, subjective life experiences count for squat my friend.
Why is it wrong to post hate speech against gays and people of color and alright to bash religion and churces. Especially Catholics and the Catholic Church?
It's hate speech, pure and simple.
Many Churches still run schools that get no subsidy from the Government. Parents of these students pay their school tax and then have to pay an additional tuition to send their kids to these parochial schools. These parents get no tax break. Yet they are educated and become contributing citizens. To be fair, the government should subsidize or make allowances for all the subjects taught except Religion.
In my city there are many religious run hospitals that provide emergency care and health services; many times for free or a slight nominal fee, that is not reimbursed by the government.
My church runs a food pantry for poor folks. They help people with all sorts of related problems. They don't evangelize unless asked and yet they get nothing in return except a thanks occassionally.
Can you say that about your community group?
And you volunteered at any of these churches, how often?
So when all these do-gooder churches close their doors they can come over to you for help, right?
1. Being criticle of an institution is not "hate speech". Sorry, no easy out for you.
2. Parochial schools teach and indoctrinate the children into that relgiion, be it a Christian, Jewish, or Muslim parochial school. Only the adherents of that religion should be supporting that school. Our Constitution guarentees that I do not have support your religion. Despite this, parochials still recieve g'ment subsidies, which are illegal in this Nation.
3. Taxes are a civic duty. Whether one utilizes the public school system, one supports that public institution as one supports roads, police/fire services, and other g'ment provided services. If one cannot afford the high price of a parochial elementary or high school, the public elementary/high school is there for them to utilize with no further cost that the school tax.
4. There are plenty of secular charity organizations out there. And if your "do-gooder churches" were to close their doors, true charity would continue as existing secular charities, and new, would pick up the slack.
BTW, "mandated charity through a duty" and "charity" for the purpose of prostylization are not charity.
The consequences of taxing churches out of existense, what you espouse, has been explained to you.
The good that churches do far outweighs any temporary tax benefit you would get in the short run.
Why do you hate churches so much?
Taxing churches is a form of control. What about separation of church and state?
1. Tax exemption is a form of support for that religious institution, which is, in fact, Cosntitutionally illegal.
2. What "good" churches do does not outwiegh the benefits of collecting property, and profit, taxes. Of course you could attempt to show that welfare, for one example, is lowest in areas with a high concentration of churches.
3. Churches already come under the auspices of local health and building codes. Taxes, besides NOT being any form of "control", would certainly not equat to building andf health codes were control is concerned.
Location: The Chatterdome in La La Land, CaliFUNia
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PurpleLove08
Nowhere in my post did I say we need to tax them out of existence.
It works best in your favor on this board if you don't make sh** up.
Simply charging churches property taxes would drive most, if not all, churches out of existence because they would not be able to afford the tax. Contrary to popular belief on this forum, most churches are small and can barely keep their heads above water. Pastoring a church is NOT a lucrative career choice money-wise.
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