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No, what bothers us is fairness and the separation of church and state!
I just want so badly some Sunday to walk up front and start talking about the war and how unjust and see what happens to me!
No, what bothers us is fairness and the separation of church and state!
I just want so badly some Sunday to walk up front and start talking about the war and how unjust and see what happens to me!
uscitizen
Villified User
You would obviously be posessed by an evil liberal spirit and need exorcism.
Lots of prayer and donations would also be required.
Good Luck
New member
Give me a break. We saw how many clips of Obama's former (former because he became a political liability) pastor making rather blatant political statements? What was the AVERAGE response from the diehard emacratic pussheads here? "I didn't hear anything wrong with what he said."
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
And if your church allow their parishioners to have a say at the pulpit (as several do), go right ahead and have your say. It's called free speech, protected by the First Amendment. You know the same one you insist on for separation of church and state?
But how separate is church and state when you TAX churches because the pastors have the unmitigated gall to exercise their first amendment rights? That is called PUNATIVE taxation. It is unconstitutional as well as morally corrupt.
Yes, and then there were all those Sunday's that Obama and Hillary spent speaking at churches during their campaigning. Of course those were churches whose members vote the democratic ticket.
Notice the lack of outcry over how often other entities with tax exempt status have stepped over the line without any consequence; Think NEA.
For a little history on tax exempt status http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3736/is_200601/ai_n17177507/pg_3
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New member
Anyone who thinks lack of punitive taxation is the equivalent of support has their head WAY too far up governments ass to think clearly.
As for benefit to society, just because YOU do not see a benefit from organized religion does not mean hundreds of millions of others do not also. Hundreds of millions DO see a benefit. I do not see the benefit derived from all non-profit tax exempt organizations, but do not demand they lose their status because of what I think.
Oh yes. Donations are always important when casting out spirits. I heard it on the radio.
It isn't "punitive" to pay property tax. You aren't sentenced to it, you are required because you own the property. Just as a church should be.
Again, what makes them so special to get this special hand up?
Minister of Truth
Practically Perfect
"...Or preventing the free exorcize thereof..."
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New member
And again, the idea that NOT paying a tax is a "hand up" is ludicrous in the extreme. Calling it a hand up, or "government support" does not make it so. It don;t quack, walk, or swim like a duck, yet you insist on calling it a duck. Your argument does not wash.
Besides, ALL property tax is punitive. It punishes ownership.
And property tax is not the only type of tax churches are exempt from, and you have basically attacked the entire premise of their tax exempt status by questioning their status as community benefit organizations.
But go ahead and try to get the tax exempt status removed from religious institutions. Any party or politician that seriously PROPOSES such a measure will be fucked for a LONG time. No fucking way will they ever get it passed.
It doesn't prevent you from exercising your religion to have them pay tax on property they own.
That is preposterous.
uscitizen
Villified User
But go ahead and try to get the tax exempt status removed from religious institutions. Any party or politician that seriously PROPOSES such a measure will be fucked for a LONG time. No fucking way will they ever get it passed.
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True it is populist. But being populist does not make it right.
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True it is populist. But being populist does not make it right.
It gives them money they otherwise wouldn't have, forcing people who are not supporters or believers to "donate" the amounts necessary to meet the budget that they would have paid into otherwise.
It is punitive to everybody else and an aid to the religion. It's pretensive and disingenuous to pretend that being able to avoid a tax that everybody else pays isn't helpful financially. If you didn't have to pay income tax would it be helpful to you and your family? What if you also got to avoid sales taxes? Add property tax to that and it is most definitely support, and forcing others to "pay" for their existence this way is definitely punitive for them.
Let them pay their fair share, in short, to "render unto Caesar".
You can even deduct for amounts spent on helping the community, which is what the tax free existence is supposed to pay for. Let them actually prove it like other non-profits.
Good Luck
New member
Like I said, head WAY the fuck up government's ass.
Sorry, but you can call it whatever the fuck you like to call it, but you are working from the false premise that the money is the governments to begin with. If the government decides to give me a tax break, they are NOT "supporting" me with that tax break. It MY fucking money.
That goes for money I give to the Church, and every one else who gives to the church. It is OUR money, which we give for the expressed purpose of supporting THE CHURCH, not the fucking government. We already support the government in the taxes they take from us. What the fuck makes you think they have the right to tax us indirectly also?
We give to the church because we derive benefit from the church, in OUR way, as WE believe. Neither you nor the government have the right, nor authority, to impose your definition on what comprises community benefit on everyone else. Just because you do not believe in spiritual bbenefit does not make it untrue. You can believe whatever the heck you want about the existence of God. But do not think for one nanosecond you have the right to enforce that belief by denying a church is a community benefit organization just because you don't believe in that kind of benefit.
Dumb. Head way up your pastor's butt, so far you are willing to maintain that THIS particular entity is special enough that it is "punitive" to make them pay taxes and therefore are willing to charge individuals against their will to maintain that priviledge for an entity.
The individual is the ultimate minority, whatever can be done to protect the individual above any entity should be done. I don't care if the entity is there because people believe in that particular magic-man or not.
You choose to maintain the church, we do not, therefore those who do not attend your church should not have to pay that extra share of taxes that helps to maintain the church. Unless we choose to attend and help to maintain that church with our own freely given dollars. There is nothing special about that dirt under that place that it should be given a pass from the property taxes that others in the area pay. Nothing special about the buses that they purchase that they should be exempted from the sales taxes that otherwise would be paid that helps to pay for the cops that help to protect that entity. The firefighters that do so as well. Why must the burden fall to unbelievers to give special treatment to that brick house? Why must they have their money taken by force in order to pay for the share of expense caused by the entity?
Nothing you say makes any sense, other than "Try to remove that exemption and you'll see, you'll be voted out of office because people love their churches and there are more of us."
How do you have to pay to maintain a church? Tithes are dollars that in almost all cases are what's left over from individual taxed dollars. Further, the amount of charitable good a church does within their communities and for their members harms you or the government how? People are not taxed to support churches.
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Some of those preachers would have to give up their Armani suits! fine cars and luxury homes! It would be most unfortunate!
One more time for the deliberately obtuse.
I'll try to type slowly.
We have to pay extra taxes in order to pay what is lost if a different business took over that plot of ground. This makes it so people who do not believe, do not support, do not wish to support must pay for the existence of the church in their community.
We pay more in sales tax, because sales tax is as high as it needs to be in order to pay for the general services that are given by the locality, including police and firefighters (both used by the churches). We either pay more, or we do with less.
Crap, the church I grew up in, most of the members were from outside the community, over 20,000 members by the time I left. While portions of the money may have gone to the community, the vast majority of it went to purchasing things like buses we used to go skiing in. Seriously, I never saw them used for other than transportation to activities like skiing, the amusement park. Or things like plane tickets so people could go to places like Hawaii (not kidding) and preach.
What makes those buses and those plane tickets so special that sales tax wasn't paid? Because the people riding in them all believed in Jesus? Please.
I doubt it, a couple less plane tickets to go to Hawaii as a missionary and viola. The preacher gets to drive a Beemer. But when the police are called because something happens at the church, well they've actually contributed to their salary, like every other member of the community.
Good Luck
New member
Now you are truly stretching. Churches cost YOU because there is not a BUSINESS on that piece of land? Churches pay their share of municipal expenses, such as sewer, water, electricity, etc. Churches do not sell durable goods as a primary function, nor are church services for sale (at least I hope not) so sales taxes do not apply. If a church DOES operate a gift shop or such, then sales taxes DO apply, just as anyone else.
Churches do not TAKE anything from the communities in which they operate. Any claim to the contrary is an outright lie. Quite the opposite, churches operate most of the non-government charitable assistance programs in any given community. What churches give to their community far outweighs any thing "missing" from your poor, religion-abused pocket book.
And I'll bet you are either completely ignorant of where the money for church buses comes from, or lying to make your atheistic anti-religion point. Offertories and tithes are used for the everyday expenses of operating the church, including paying water and sewer bills, paying the Pastor's salary, paying the wages of the secretaries and bookkeepers, buying linens, candles, wine, eucarists, printed materials for Mass and RE classes (one of the bigger expenses), as well as the Church's commitments to local, national, and international charities, youth and international missions, etc. etc. etc.
If our youth groups take a special trip, it is paid for through fund drives aimed at that specific purpose. If the RE leadership goes on a ski trip, we pay for it ourselves. If we use the church bus, we reimburse the church for the cost. At present our church building is way too small for the congregation, so we need to rebuild. The costs are being derived from a special fund drive so we do not diminish what we do with the normal offertory.
Go ahead and not believe in God. No one is forcing you to. I personally think you'd be, overall, a happier, more content person if you were to accept Jesus into your life. But neither I nor my church has any designs to coerce or otherwise force that on you. But don't think you can force your belief system on us, either. The church is every bit the community service organization as any other - except it deals in things not able to be measured. (actually, most churches DO deal in those things also, but it is not their primary function.)
Also, in counter to an earlier lie you came up with in your bullshit "I'm repressed by religion" crapola, tithes are 100% voluntary. No one is forced to pay them. I am not aware of any church that will even so much as deny worship services if someone does NOT donate. Contributions are a private matter between each parishioner and the Church.
No one is forced to go to worship either. It is a choice of the individual as an expression of their faith, and their gratitude to God for all God has provided for us. If someone decides they don't believe any more, they stop going. A concerned leader may visit them and ask why, but that is about the extent of it.
In short, your stated views of religion are skewed and prejudiced. And your reactionary desire to tax churches because YOU personally do not believe, is nothing short of totalitarian.
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However, they do not pay sales taxes or property taxes. They are exempt. Now, they pay directly for their electricity, yet I never made the point that they didn't. It isn't paid for by taxes for any entity, unlike the cops and firefighters that respond to calls.
And sales taxes would apply to YOU if you made a purchase at that shop, however if they were to make a purchase at your shop they use the TIN and are exempted from the sales tax. You are simply misinformed.
Again rubbish. Almost all of the non-government charity in my area is run by non-profits, but not churches. Usually the HOAs.
I am not an atheist. I just make the point that if you are going to use community services (such as police and fire rescue) then you should pay for it, like any other entity.
Most churches that are not Catholic do not have most of the expenses you give. However when they buy the candles and linens they don't pay tax because they are exempt. The church I grew up in, the one I used as an example, simply did not use printed materials other than the hymnals which were pretty much a rare expense.
I understand that I was simplifying it, but it was for a matter of time, to show examples of how rich that particular church was. And again, "youth international missions", one that I actually took part in.... A trip to Hawaii. Yup. It really happened. Tokyo too.
You may dislike it, but they are simply over-exempted for the benefit society gets from them. Back in the day when almost all the schools were run by churches it made sense, it doesn't as much any more.
Yup. And some churches don't even need to do that. However, when you purchase your new digs, you should pay property tax on it.
I have been far more content and happy since I converted to Buddhism while I was in the Navy. I cannot describe to you what I felt when I finally heard somebody speaking what I knew to be truth, except I finally knew how happy the converts to Christianity were and why it was new coverts with all the zeal and none of the knowledge. Much like youth is wasted on the young, zeal is wasted on the knowledgeable.
I never said you were forced to pay contributions to your church, that's inane and simply an untruth. I said, in fact, you choose to donate to your church and some of those donations should be used to pay for the services you get from the community that are otherwise charged larger because of the impact a church brings depending on its size. As in the church I grew up in, 20K members plus when I left to join the Navy, most from outside the community it was in. The added need for police and fire services were quite large. We even had outposts inside the church building.
As for forced to go to worship? Who the heck said that? I said that the community has to either pay more in property and sales taxes to make up for sums uncollected where churches are (although they are using the community paid services). I said nothing about being forced to go to church. Although I will tell you, until I left for boot camp at 17, I was most definitely forced to go to church. But that has nothing to do with the current conversation.
They are based in experience and knowledge. Part of being forced to participate for me as a child was being part of nearly every "ministry" and committee allowed at my age and knowledge level. My mother believed that more exposure would finally change my mind. I was an angry and frustrated individual when I left that church, however I found peace in the knowledge that they wouldn't have tried so hard if they didn't care and any true believer would go to any level of effort to save their own child. (See? I can even put myself into the shoes of a believer and walk a mile).
This opinion has nothing to do with me personally, or what I believe and everything to do with logic. I am not an atheist. It is silly to assume such from my posts here. I may not believe in your type of Deity, but I do believe in a Deity.
I can however put myself into the shoes of the unbeliever who pays for the community services that will be used by any church, as I stated, roads, firefighters, cops, sometimes ambulances and even governmental doctors in some cases.
The reality is, any one of us here would likely jump at the chance to be as exempt from taxes as a religious organization with the same total lack of requirement to show benefit to the community. While many churches do provide some community services, they receive a benefit that usually outweighs it. And put the government in the position of choosing winners and losers of "religion". Smaller religions are labeled "cults" and are unable to obtain such an exemption for example. To pretend that the exemption is not some sort of benefit is pretense only.