Gotcha - I was thinking of a tax on the other end. Someone else had mentioned taxing the offerings brought it (revenues?), but that wasn't Donny - my bad. Then the argument is simply whether a Church qualifies as a non-profit. Given that we have non-profits of all sorts to support everything from the poor to the arts, I don't see why a Church wouldn't fit here. I think there are at least some reasonable limits on this. At least for most non-profits, the profit-generating entity has to be at least somewhat related to your non-profit's purpose. For example, if a homeless shelter starts opening up Subway Franchises that have nothing to do with their mission, I think that profit is still taxable, even if the income ultimately goes back to the non-profit. I could be wrong on this, but that was my understanding when setting up my business (which is a partnership with a non-profit).
Absolutely - and there's where independent audits would be useful. For most non-profits, activities that don't qualify can cause you to lose your non-profit status. The same should be true for Churches. I think a big thing that the IRS should focus on is politicking at the pulpit.
I think we agree on this one, taxation can and should be applied to churches if they don't fill the role of a church. I wouldn't tax all churches, but the few that do exploit their congregants and run around in excess politicking should not be assigned full tax-exempt status, and yes, that is hard to know unless there are independent audits.
Most terrorist claim to be Muslim. According to your deduction, should we assume most Muslims are terrorist?
I believe they just can't promote political *candidates*. They regularly get involved in political fights on various issues. That said, the problem is that they do sometimes promote political candidates as well - but no one really enforces this rule.
I don't know if this is enforced with religious groups, and TBH I don't see how it could be. If a catholic priest gives a sermon against abortion, or if a rabbi calls for support for Israel b/c that's what their faith is, then IMO it's wrong to penalize that. However, if they were to fund political causes, then that would be a problem.
Unfortunately the actual logic behind morality and altruism is actually more complex and boring than most kids would understand well enough to implement, so magic, exaggerated hurricane and brushfire reports and catchy songs have to fit the bill.
What you are addressing are social issues. A church teaching their views on abortion, gays, or any of the many other issues is fine. What they can't do is organize as a group and go politicking or suggest their congregation on how to vote.
Religious people in general are lumped into a category of uneducated, uninformed, chauvinist, racist, selfish, etc. Refer to the movie Religilous for reference. Though you may find people of that character within what some refer to Christendom; you will find plenty of non-religious people in those categories as well. You are correct about not believing in other Gods; even early Christians were sometimes referred to as atheist by Romans. I believe all beliefs have the freedom to teach their worldview as long as it causes no harm to the individual or community. I believe in Religious freedom. This also includes the basic right of a parent to rear their child in such a religion and then when they come of age are able to follow and live as they see fit even if they decide to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I will not agree with it but I will love them unconditionally. Even though I disagree with you; I still believe you have that right and I will fight to protect that right for you. Just please don't think you are doing the world a favor by trying to rid it of people like myself who want you to have that freedom.
Again, this isn't true - as demonstrated by the earlier post about the Mormon Church pouring $20 million into the fight to ban gay marriage in California.
I will agree that you can lump Religioulous as anti-religion. But how many shows are like this? How many atheist do you know do this? I don't want to list all the negative things that Christians say or have done to Atheists as it will only prolong this conversation. I can only suggest that you reflect on the past injustices that Christians has done with non believers and compare it to the current events that you are claiming. You will see that the religious has always had the upper hand. I don't understand why you like to put words in my mouth. I have never thought or even mentioned anything in this thread where I wanted to get rid of Theists.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-10/how-the-mormons-make-money If an entity wishes to pay taxes and forgo its tax exemption status, they are free to do whatever is allowed within the law. Personally, I completely disagree with many of the mega churches use of funds. Unfortunately, the "mean" of churches is appx 184 people while the median is appx 75 people per church. Over half the churchs in America barely survive. If these were forced to be taxed, they would be forced to shut down. To be perfectly honest, that might not be such a bad thing. Very small churches are not very effective at helping the community and are often full of the extreme abusive type of pastors. For the churches who actually do things for the community, 25% tax would pretty much eliminate the effectiveness of those churches.
two things would happen, as some previous posters have mentioned: 1. Religion popularity would decrease. 2. Government overthrow.
