I shouldn’t have to pay taxes. God is in my tub.
Corporations give money to charity all the time and take the tax write-off. In your arbitrary definition’s world, where you couldn’t advertise where the charity came from, you’d see an end to corporate charity.
That is a religious opinion. You cannot arbitrarily expect somone who is religious to adhere to your narrow cultural definitions of a word just because you use the cop out that “you don’t have a religion”. It’s horse shit. You’ve got a political agenda toward some sort of atheist end and are trying to convince others via an online message board of a particular opinion. The seperation in this case being the very matter of religion, so you obviously HAVE a religious opinion because you are involved in a religious debate.
Erek
If you can get the majority will of the populace to agree with you then you’ll be on the winning side of that debate.
The thing here is, if we eliminated property taxes outright, then I’d agree with you all about taxing churches. It’s really easy to run a business without any profit to tax.
Erek
Wrong; if the chruch does not pay, someone else has to make up for it.
The First Amendment disagrees.
It’s two places, so of couse they should pay twice. If they can’t afford it, tough luck.
“Democracy” and “Republic” do not mean “Mob Rule”. The rule of law trumps religion here, like it or not.
Nonsense. First, theocracys by definition are all about “not about respecting one religion over another”. Second, I’m an atheist; if this was a theocracy, I’d be in prison or dead.
Well, I’m serious. A church is a combination of live theater and political rally; tax it.
Yes, I am that cynical.
Exactly; it’s advertising.
No, the purpose is to spread the preacher’s religion; it’s no different than extolling the virtues of IBM.
Let’s see; you agree with Bin Laden, and this is supposed to help your case ?
First, no one has a “relationship with God”; that phrase is either a metaphor or a delusion. There is no evidence for such a creature, therefore no relationship.
Second, the only way all religions will become one is in an orgy of genocide; it certainly won’t be “enlightenment”. Religion and enlightenment are contradictions.
Disbelief in religion is not a religious opinion by definition.
Nowhere. I never said there was seperation im the Marine motto. You seemed to miss the point that the term state used to mean country in both cases. Or state as used in the US consitution.
Which brings me back to the original point. The Marines obviously feel that the state is more important then God, as per their ordering, which is why I find it bizarre that you’d bring it up in support of your point.
If I could get the majority to believe that God is in my tub, I’m throwing myself in a river somewhere.
Which reminds me. Dude is late with his rent, but I don’t want to go knock because I’m sure he’s all pruny.
Regardless of what I personally think, the current rule is that it’s OK to advocate policies, but **not **OK to advocate for a specific candidate. So, if I’m enforcing existing rules, then the answer to your question is “No”.
Think about it. Any given policy is going to have multiple supporters and very, very few polices are going to be supported solely by members of one party. From that standpoint, the current rule does seem to make sense. And referring to your specific example, note that Kerry said he was opposed to SSM, too.
Umm no, that’s not true, because the church is removed from the pool. It’s not counted toward the overall sum.
No, the first amendment says the government isn’t going to make a law respecting ONE religion over ANOTHER. It doesn’t say shit about all religion. Sorry, America’s not your atheist paradise.
You haven’t given me a sufficient explanation as to why the state’s need to make money trumps people’s need to seek union with the divine.
I’ll let you in on a little secret. My side has won this debate in the realm of law. Churches are tax exempt. Just a little FYI for you.
Who says a theocracy has to hate atheists? A theocracy is a rule by God. I think God is cool with atheists or else you wouldn’t even exist.
You’re an intolerant little fuck.
Ad Hominem, look it up. I do not doubt that Osama bin Laden is very serious about his religious convictions.
Just because you can’t understand something, doesn’t mean no one can.
You’re a fucking idiot.
How are you having a debate about religion if you don’t have a religious opinion?
Erek
- My definition is from the dictionary.
- You quoted me in an exchange where I was arguing that religious proselytization is not charity. What does that have to do with corporations offering charity and getting tax breaks? I haven’t said that people shouldn’t be able to advertise their own charitable actions. You must have confused me with somebody else.
- This is a debate about tax emptions, not religion.
- Stating that preaching isn’t charity is not a religious or cultural opinion, it’s a simple observation that it doesn’t match the definition.
- I’m an agnostic. By definition, agnosticism is a complete lack of any personal religious beliefs.
No, it’s very precise. “Unit (my buddies), Corps (All of the Marines), God, (God), Country (State)”
Corps is not synonymous with the state. The Marine Corps was formed before the State. The subtle implication here is that if the Marines suddenly turned on the state, they would do so as a whole. I’m not saying it’s likely to happen, only that it shows a very precise hierarchy of responsibility.
Erek
Why? Corporations are made up of people. People have causes they support. They support those causes because supporting those causes makes them happy in some way.
Do you advertise your charitable giving? Do you need a placard to do it? No, you give (if you give) because you want to.
The goovernment’s need is a demonstrable reality. There isn’t a shred of evidence that people “NEED to seek communion with the Divine.” As soon as you can prove that’s something you NEED rather tahn something you want, then we can talk about whether the government should have to subsidize your pursuits.
Could you please explain why you think this stupid slogan has any relevance to the conversation?
If you get an answer out of him, please let me know. He lost me with that post.
He brings it up, starts on a sematics hijack, apparently then agrees with me while pretending not to, and then goes off somewhere so now I have no idea where the hell he is.
Things still need to be paid for.
It can’t promote any religion without promoting one over the other.
When did I claim Ameica was any kind of paradise ?
There either is no “divine”, or it does not interact with the world; either way, as it affects nothing, everything else is more important than it.
That doesn’t make it right.
Theocracy is rule by theocrats; there is no god (s) to rule over anything. Since God doesn’t exist, he has no opinion on me.
“Tax the Church” is intolerant ? Wanting it to be treated like everyone else is intolerant ? Typical religious arrogance; if I don’t grovel I’m “intolerant”. :rolleyes:
If you use him as a moral authority, his nature reflects on yours. Being seriously religious is an intellectual and moral flaw, not a virtue.
What’s to understand ? God/gods are either nonexistent or do not affect the world in a verifiable fashion; either way, that makes it impossible to have a relationship.
First I am not a mod but, no swearing or personal insults in GD; it’s a rule. It’s also annoying if I’m not allowed to retaliate. Second, that’s not much of a rebuttal.
I’m an atheist; none of my opinions are religious.
From what I’ve seen quoted so far, neither candidate was endorsed. The arguments that you’ve made so far seems to be that the preacher was more harsh towards Bush’s policies, not that he was advocating either candidate. Perhaps he wanted everyone to vote for Nader or Badnarik, as I don’t see mention of them being trashed at all.
But Kerry is less opposed to SSM than Bush. You’ll also note that I was quite careful in the term I used, which was “homosexual union”, not SSM. Do Kerry and Bush have similar stances on unions?
Once again, I’ll add that I’m fine with churches losing their tax exempt status for sermons such as the one in the OP, as I think churches need to get back to feeding the hungry if they want to not pay taxes, but let’s go after all of the guilty parties.
And you are in Great Debates where such insults are far more out of place than a mere ad hominem.
Take this as a Warning that you are letting your emotions jeopardize your posting privileges.
[ /Moderator Mode ]
Which is yet another reason that my “don’t mention any candidate by name” rule is probably the best way to go.
No, they’re pretty much the same, at least if you believe what they say. Kerry says he’s against SSM (although I suspect he’s really not) just as Bush is and Bush says he’s OK with civil unions, just as Kerry is. The only real difference is that Bush wants a SSM ban at the federal level, while Kerry wants states to be able to decide, even though he claimes he would not support SSM at the state level himself.
I’ve already made reference to an earlier thread, in which churches that made statements more supportive of the Bush campaign were criticized – even though what you just said, above, was equally true for them.
I think people – not you, specifically, but people in general here – seem to be applying the standard you offer a bit unevenly. When the issue was the Bush campaign’s impact, the tenor of responses to the thread seemed to agree that even if neither candidiate was endorsed, the mere act of commenting on specific policies in such a way that one campaign was given more of a boost than the other was enough to earn censure and loss of tax privileges. Now comes this instance, and the general tenor of responses is that because, technically, no candidate was specifically endorsed, it’s OK.
I believe that’s dishonest.
No, you made reference to a thread where church resources were used to organize a campaign. That is not even remotely comparable to preaching an anti-war sermon.