we need to re-think the Inviolability of religious and philosophical institutions

Don Quixote

Don Quixote

cancer survivor
Contributor
should not for profit and just plain religious or philosophical organizations be accorded special privileges not accorded to private citizens (including tax breaks and no-financial oversight)


i say not tax breaks for the above PERIOD if someone wants to support their beliefs, fine, but do not add to my tax burden and relieve theirs

nor should said institutions be provided with property tax relief

not to mention legal restrictions or inviolability - holy do not disturb should not be invoked so as to break the law
 
Bullshit.

There is no significant burden placed on the taxpayer by leaving religious institutions tax exempt.

Couple that with the fact that most religious institutions perform community support work, to include helping the poor, the end result is a reduction in your overall tax burden by lightening the load on government programs.

As for the inviolability notion, that too is a crock. If the practice of a religion breaks secular law, the membership of that religion are subject to criminal penalties. Of note is the recent take down of the FLDS group. It is a question for the law enforcement agencies why they did not act sooner against the FLDS if they knew about the practices taking place there.

Also, in history, the original LDS church was forced by secular law to rewrite their code on polygamy.

Now there are some areas of inviolability, such as the confessional. But there is also a similar law covering the relationship between clients and lawyers, and patients and doctors.

In short, your complaints are without merit.
 
Good Luck said:
Bullshit.

There is no significant burden placed on the taxpayer by leaving religious institutions tax exempt.

Couple that with the fact that most religious institutions perform community support work, to include helping the poor, the end result is a reduction in your overall tax burden by lightening the load on government programs.

As for the inviolability notion, that too is a crock. If the practice of a religion breaks secular law, the membership of that religion are subject to criminal penalties. Of note is the recent take down of the FLDS group. It is a question for the law enforcement agencies why they did not act sooner against the FLDS if they knew about the practices taking place there.

Also, in history, the original LDS church was forced by secular law to rewrite their code on polygamy.

Now there are some areas of inviolability, such as the confessional. But there is also a similar law covering the relationship between clients and lawyers, and patients and doctors.

In short, your complaints are without merit.
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i disagree with your reasoning and stand by my post

if groups want to 'do good', fine i do not have a problem with that, but let them do it on their own nickel

once upon a time and still rather too much today, religions have been a hands off for law enforcement

yes, law enforcement is going after some church leaders, but nowhere near enough

the various church management have tried (successfully in too many cases) to cover up the illegal activities perpetrated by clergy on the people that they are supposed to counsel and bring spiritual healing

look at how long and how many children have been damaged by these predators

when clergy go bad, it is a serious blot on all of us for not protecting these children from these predators

we must educate all of our children that when a person preys on their innocence - regardless of how high or important they are - that they need to tell their parents and law enforcement

fyi, i am also known as rev. rich and i stand by all of my comments - i am 63 now and have seen and heard much
 
How amny tax deductable dollars are given to religious institutions each year ? 100 billion ? I don't really know. This is tax revenue not collected by the govt. And we know the gummit will get the revenue from someone somehow.
 
Good Luck said:
Bullshit.

There is no significant burden placed on the taxpayer by leaving religious institutions tax exempt.

Couple that with the fact that most religious institutions perform community support work, to include helping the poor, the end result is a reduction in your overall tax burden by lightening the load on government programs.

As for the inviolability notion, that too is a crock. If the practice of a religion breaks secular law, the membership of that religion are subject to criminal penalties. Of note is the recent take down of the FLDS group. It is a question for the law enforcement agencies why they did not act sooner against the FLDS if they knew about the practices taking place there.

Also, in history, the original LDS church was forced by secular law to rewrite their code on polygamy.

Now there are some areas of inviolability, such as the confessional. But there is also a similar law covering the relationship between clients and lawyers, and patients and doctors.

In short, your complaints are without merit.
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You make a good argument .. however

There is a growing desire among a great many Americans to re-examine the special relationship religion has with our government, politicians, and the law.

The answer to your question of why didn't law enforcement act sooner against the FLDS is exactly because of the "special" relationship religion has with government. From the child-porn-sex for babies abomination just discovered in Texas. the freaky commune for dummies at Waco, to all-too-known polygamist practices in Utah .. they've all been cloaked in religion .. which operates like some cloak of invisibilty.

I, for one, welcome greater scrutiny of religious institutions and leaders ,, including the mega-preachers who go to the bank with millions every monday morning.

Any idea how much money gets deposited by churches every monday morning?

Mega-millions .. and far, far more than what trickles down to the poor.

There should be nothing legally sacrosanct about religion.
 
I think for an organization to be tax exempt it should have to prove that a certain percentage of it's income is actually routed to the poor/needy.

If a church meets those guidlelines then fine, if not too bad. It should not be tax exempt just because it is a church.
 
Yep, also note I changed my post to say percentage and not amount as it would make it more universal and not size dependent on the church. Big or small they would carry the same percentage of burden to the poor to maintain their exempt status.
 
uscitizen said:
Yep, also note I changed my post to say percentage and not amount as it would make it more universal and not size dependent on the church. Big or small they would carry the same percentage of burden to the poor to maintain their exempt status.
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Check out this "Elmer Gentry" clown ...

The Atlanta Journal Constitution
08/30/05

Bishop Eddie Long contends that a church can give alms to the poor and a Bentley to the pastor.

The morality of Long's driving a $350,000 luxury car and living in a $1.4 million six-bedroom, nine-bath mansion on 20 acres is probably best left to a higher power. However, the legality of how Long financed those extravagances and whether he violated the tax laws governing charities demands a public airing by the Internal Revenue Service. Long leads the 25,000-member New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in south DeKalb County.

An investigation by Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter John Blake raises serious questions about the compensation Long collected from a nonprofit, tax-exempt charity he created in 1995 to help the poor and spread the Gospel. Between 1997 and 2000, Bishop Eddie Long Ministries Inc. provided its founder with at least $3.07 million in salary, benefits and use of property. In those same four years, the charity only made $3.1 million in other donations. It's impossible to tell to whom those funds went as the records aren't itemized, as required by the IRS. The four-person board responsible for overseeing the charity included both Long and his wife.

Under the law, nonprofits are exempt from paying state and federal income taxes if they meet certain criteria. Among the requirements of the federal tax code is that their executives' benefits may not be excessive. Authorities on nonprofit compensation who examined Long's pay say it certainly qualifies as excessive.

"I've never seen anything quite like what Long [was] getting, when you include his salary, the house and the car," said Jeff Krehely, deputy director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a Washington-based group that promotes accountability in the philanthropic community.

Long defends his CEO-sized perks, saying that he is the confidant of presidents and prime ministers. "We're not just a church, we're an international corporation," Long said. "We're not just a bumbling bunch of preachers who can't talk and all we're doing is baptizing babies."

Well, international corporations pay taxes, and they don't ask taxpayers to chip in when they decide to bestow a kingly sum on their CEO.
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more at link ..
http://www.ncrp.org/AR-083005-AJC.asp

He's brazen, but he's far from being alone in fucking the flock.
 
I believe there should be excessive taxation on Christianity And Judaism because they're externalizing the costs of their Holy Quest For Holy Land For Holy People delusion onto the rest of the nation.
 
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As a devoiutly religious person and a preacher for a local congregation of about 50 people with a Sunday offering of about $400 I appreaciate all of the above concerns (with the exception of AH whom I think is extreme) about religion and taxation. I also think that the "church leaders" use of church money needs to be scrutinized. Just because something is labeled as "religion" doesn't make it on the up and up. I fall short of placing the same taxation on ALL religious organizations as on business though. Check them out and if they are not following the guidelines then take action.
 
leaningright said:
As a devoiutly religious person and a preacher for a local congregation of about 50 people with a Sunday offering of about $400 I appreaciate all of the above concerns (with the exception of AH whom I think is extreme) about religion and taxation. I also think that the "church leaders" use of church money needs to be scrutinized. Just because something is labeled as "religion" doesn't make it on the up and up. I fall short of placing the same taxation on ALL religious organizations as on business though. Check them out and if they are not following the guidelines then take action.
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There is a distinct difference between religion and spirtuality.

Spirtuality helps the poor, not religion.
 
blackascoal said:
There is a distinct difference between religion and spirtuality.

Spirtuality helps the poor, not religion.
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I have to disagree to an extent. Many people are spiritual because of their religion. The religion itself brought these people to the point of their spirituality. I happen to believe there is a pattern in the Bible for religion. It teaches care for the poor as part of the pattern. That is part of what we are to be about as religious organizations.
 
leaningright said:
I have to disagree to an extent. Many people are spiritual because of their religion. The religion itself brought these people to the point of their spirituality. I happen to believe there is a pattern in the Bible for religion. It teaches care for the poor as part of the pattern. That is part of what we are to be about as religious organizations.
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Many people are spiritual because of their religion, many people are moral because of their religion, many people are immoral because of their religion.
 
leaningright said:
I have to disagree to an extent. Many people are spiritual because of their religion. The religion itself brought these people to the point of their spirituality. I happen to believe there is a pattern in the Bible for religion. It teaches care for the poor as part of the pattern. That is part of what we are to be about as religious organizations.
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It depends a lot on the church and the religious sect.

some churches are somewhat stingy and only support their church. Others are very generous.

I dropped the local church in my support since they seem to fall into the stingy aspect and only seem to want to support their little "country club" church group.
 
Leaningright. Im trying to assess the degree to which noahidism has permeated christianity. Is it your belief as a christian preacher or reverend or priest or pastor that Jews need to accept christ for salvation?
 
leaningright said:
I have to disagree to an extent. Many people are spiritual because of their religion. The religion itself brought these people to the point of their spirituality. I happen to believe there is a pattern in the Bible for religion. It teaches care for the poor as part of the pattern. That is part of what we are to be about as religious organizations.
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I appreciate your perspective my brother.

However, religion is a vehicle for the spirituality of some people. One does not need religion to express spirtuality, nor work to help the poor or any community of people. Nor does any particular religion have propriety on good works.

The bible itself is interpretive, which is why there are so many variations and sects of christianity, although there is only one book. The bible and its passages acn come to mean anytyhing the believer wants to, or has been told to believe they mean. Just ask slavers or the Klan, or those who don't believe in the rights of women or gays.

One does not need religion to be spiritual.
 
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