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I have been catching hell lately from many Christian friends and family members on Facebook. It all started when I started challenging bigotry, racism and my love for Rev. Wright. This was my general response to all of them.
Here is the problem. All data from the Census, and other sources, show that American wages have become stagnant, not keeping up with inflation. As the real wages of working Americans have gone down, it has put strains on charitable giving by regular folks, this included churches. As giving decreased, churches had to adapt to the new economic conditions, such as having double services, instead of building new churches. As wage stagnation continued, churches depended more, and more, on wealthy contributors. To maintain wealthy contributors, sermons slowly became more to their liking to keep contributions coming in. To make wealthy givers happy, churches have become more political, not seeing the economic or spiritual needs of working class people (meaning a type of thinking, not necessarily an actual economic condition). This condition of the churches has contributed to the polarization of religious and political beliefs, as it gets more difficult to find a church that has not been corrupted by politics. Forty years ago, political matters were considered outside of the workings of the church, for the most part. They were more interested in actually saving a soul, instead, they want to legislate salvation, using the money of the rich. I do not wish to offend anyone when I do not want to be apart of this perversion. If they do not want to change their ways, they should be taxed, just like any other business operation.
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Tax free religion must become a thing of the past. No matter your faith,we still have to plow the roads and run effective fire departments. Tying up land and using the shield to operate your “charity” While paying for those who administer it. Is a business in my view.
Excellent post. Several doctoral thesis here on political religionism; the reunification of America’s church and state in the 21st century to create wealth and solve the deficit dilemma.
Somebody make a movie: How the righteously wealthy tricked the pagan commies and forced them to make holy stuff for us, without firing a shot! Put our military economy to better use. Use our weapons on folks that dress like Jesus.
The Church of the Callously Capitalist Christians, here we come. Or do we already have them, called Catholic’s, Mormon’s, Jew’s?; hell they all pass the plate pretty frequently, take your pick.
Just how big is the Pope’s portfolio? Whats the Vatican worth in Euros? Or is their money, like Romney’s, partly/mostly in Swiss Banks, in Swiss Francs. The Mormon’s baptizing Jew’s angered them more than the holocaust gold stashed in Swiss Banks, go figure. I suppose using spiritual weapons of afterlife destruction/relocation/re-salvation is of the poorest form, foul ball, out of bounds,… for us living to go around thinking we can control which of our dead get to heaven or not. Unless, of course, you can make some money doing it.
Guys, don’t get your religious defensive shields torqued up. Religion has been providing God’s blessings as political cover for the powerful for millenia,… America’s newest form is Mormonism and its coming into its own as we speak.
Just mentioning the thought of taxing churches will pull them all together so fast you would think the Devil himself was chasing and herding them together to build the strongest congressional lobby yet; the Tea Party on evangelic steroids! God help us all.
Should they be taxed, their utility to the state must come into question.
Capitalism and monotheism are co-dependent. Their insane adherents want all the power and in return they’ll grant token blessings.
The demagogued are not a suitable audience for the analysis of demagogues.
This seems self-evident to me. Churches should pay taxes on their property and on their profits, just as any other enterprise. Professional religious persons should pay taxes on their income, same as any other person.
If they don’t make a profit, there are no taxes. And, I have to ask, why would a church make a profit?
What I can’t understand is why should churches ever have been tax-exempt?
As long as they want to stay political, they should have to pay taxes, just like you and me. The idea was that religion provided a social service for communities. Since they want to take political positions that alienates members of the community, the idea no longer stands. Tax them.
Follow-up Post
It takes many years to become fluent in Greek, but I did learn to read and write in that language, using the Textus Receptus, or the oldest complete version of the New Testament.
The error that many people make is assuming that other people are smarter. I discovered that they are not. Sometimes, smarter people turn out to be outright fools. Mine and Darrel’s great grandfather became a baptist minister, learning to read from the Bible while kneeling in a corn patch in prayer. I wish he could have written well, as I would have accepted his interpretation over a University Scholar. The Bible says what it says, but people who have really no interest in our physical or spiritual well being tell us how to read it. When you read it as it is really saying, it is not the same. It is about love, not hate, but there are a lot of interpretations out there these days where they want to hate, in the name of love.