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Location: The Chatterdome in La La Land, CaliFUNia
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kevcrawford
Cute. The biggest section of that list is those "charities" that are fighting religion. FAIL (as you like to say)
There are a lot of great secular charities. Nobody's denying that, but without the religious based hospitals and charities, this country would be in a world of hurt.
Exactly. These folks who advocate for churches to pay property taxes do not realize the magnitude of the snowball effect that would cause. There will be MUCH less funding available to support charitable operations and many operations would cease because of the financial burden of property taxes added to the cost of operations.
Then you either know that the Church is responsible for the vast amount of charitable contributions in this country. You're complaining about some "agenda" but the agenda is to help those less fortunate. By GIVING. Which they do.
No, the agenda is prostyilization, not charity.
Spreading the word of god is in no way, shape, or form, a charity.
The very last local church I worked with was gathering supplies and donations, boxing them up and sending them to Africa, everything from sturdy shoes to jeans to toothbrushes.
What made me stop?
Part of the donated money was used to buy bibles and print religious liturature which was placed in the boxes for distribution to those recieving the parcels. The destination? Central Nigeria, a heavily non-Christian area.
How many bowls of rice or bottles of fresh, clean water do you think that wasted money would have bought?
Exactly. These folks who advocate for churches to pay property taxes do not realize the magnitude of the snowball effect that would cause. There will be MUCH less funding available to support charitable operations and many operations would cease because of the financial burden of property taxes added to the cost of operations.
Don't the hospitals charge their patients through their insurances? Are the churches donating directly to the hospitals to keep them going? It would be interesting to see a study on just how much $$ the hospitals receive from the churches' coffers. I still think that if the churches had to pay the property taxes that the public gov'ts would quickly replace their services with public ones. It would be a "wash".
Exactly. These folks who advocate for churches to pay property taxes do not realize the magnitude of the snowball effect that would cause. There will be MUCH less funding available to support charitable operations and many operations would cease because of the financial burden of property taxes added to the cost of operations.
Maybe if churches concentrated on actual charity instead of the false charity of prostylizing, there would't be a problem.
Looking back through the thread, I see I have been remiss in emphasising that I do not believe that "churches are breaking the bank" so to speak.
However, I see no logical reason to exclude churches from paying taxes.
It would simply be too cumbersome to attempt to develope a property tax structure that seperates the alleged charity work from the actual house of worship portion of a church, and/or a church would merely create a front organizations, as they do now, to preserve the property tax exemption of their church, it would merely be easier, and generate more tax revenue for local municipalities, to simply erase tax exemption for church buildings and properties.
Increasing the tax base of a municipality would also create an situation where the local property taxes would not have to be raised, thus benefiting everyone in that community.
People argue that "the good churches so outwiegh any losses from property taxes".
Yet even in those areas with a high concentration of churches, poverty and welfare still run rampant.
That cancels any credibility in the "good work offsetting tax revenue" argument.[/quote]
Churches cannot end poverty. They can only help people in need, and they do.
What you fail to understand is that often people are poor by choice. They are lazy. Churches do not hand out free "stuff" to people who are not deserving. But I have seen them go overboard to help the truly needy.
Obviously, you wouldn't know, though, since you probalbly have never been involved with a church.
Spreading the word of god is in no way, shape, or form, a charity.
The very last local church I worked with was gathering supplies and donations, boxing them up and sending them to Africa, everything from sturdy shoes to jeans to toothbrushes.
What made me stop?
Part of the donated money was used to buy bibles and print religious liturature which was placed in the boxes for distribution to those recieving the parcels. The destination? Central Nigeria, a heavily non-Christian area.
How many bowls of rice or bottles of fresh, clean water do you think that wasted money would have bought?
A true believer in Jesus believes that in addition to providing them food and water, scripture provides them with MUCH more, so that's charity too. Charity for their souls.
So your logic is "well you fed and clothed 100,000 people, but you're wrong because you could have fed 100,500..." Brilliant. Just further proof that you have an agenda. You care only for defaming Christians.
A true believer in Jesus believes that in addition to providing them food and water, scripture provides them with MUCH more, so that's charity too. Charity for their souls.
So your logic is "well you fed and clothed 100,000 people, but you're wrong because you could have fed 100,500..." Brilliant. Just further proof that you have an agenda. You care only for defaming Christians.
That's fine, but sad for you.
Nah, I think more people are more interested in the quality of life for human beings rather than if these human beings have had their daily dose of Christianity.
Churches cannot end poverty. They can only help people in need, and they do.
What you fail to understand is that often people are poor by choice. They are lazy. Churches do not hand out free "stuff" to people who are not deserving. But I have seen them go overboard to help the truly needy.
Obviously, you wouldn't know, though, since you probalbly have never been involved with a church.
Your argument absolutely does flall flat.
What you fail to understand is that your false charity is given to everyone, whether lazy or just in hard times.
If you're going to argue against me, at least start with factual statements.
And as I've stated ad nauseum on this thread, and forum, I used to work very closely with several churches and religious so-called charities, so your appeal to my ignroance on the matter is as factual as everything else you wrote above.
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