Yes but it’s just sad not evil. Evil, ya hear me!! EVIL!!
Mmwaaa ha ha hah ha,… crap…I spilled my drink
I think that’s a valid point.
Of course the individuals who go to church already do but I don’t see any reason for churches to not pay sales tax when they buy stuff.
Because they want to do it directly! “Only connect”, as the poet said.
Cynicism and disdain towards something with a track record as bad as religion isn’t ‘paranoia’.
I was more in the mind of these guys paying property taxes.
Not all religion is bad. You really need to learn that religion can lead to people doing good things.
I spent last Sunday feeding the homeless at a church. One of the church volunteers was even gay. No one tried to convert me or anything.
The result of this dogmatic faith based venture? One hundred homeless men and women didn’t go hungry that morning.
Obama’s proposal clearly distinguishes between the religious and secular programs. There is no reason to think that he is promoting religion of any kind.
There was a report on 60 minutes that showed groups pretending to be secular who taught abstinence based programs. All you really have to do is teach abstinence without quoting the bible. States would also get more federal funding if they taught abstinence in their schools.
There is no reason to think Obama would sanction any of the crazy religious programs that have no justification for working other than a bible passage.
This is the real fear when people hear “Faith Based”, that money will go into abstinence, keeping gays from adopting and other irrational ideas. The way to prevent that is to pick a leader who doesn’t believe in those ideas so that the government won’t fund them. Giving money to churches that preform services that work isn’t going to hurt anyone.
Hell, I don’t care one bit what my leader believes in the privacy of his own bedroom, so long as it stays there.
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If I want to volunteer my time in a soup kitchen, that’s my choice. And if I want to donate my money to a charity, religious or otherwise, that’s also my choice. But I sure as hell should not be forced to fork over money to a religious institution that attacks my sexuality in its sermons or degrades women in its practices . . . or tacitly condones the behavior of sex offenders. That should also be my choice.
With some exceptions, there’s a certain moral neutrality that comes with governmental aid to people who need help. But religious organizations are (rightly) not bound by neutrality. Their doctrines and practices can be whatever they decide. And some of those doctrines and practices do real harm to some people. Why should I have to indirectly support the spread of that harm?
And if you think the government is going to stop them from redirecting some of the funds they would have spent on social programs, toward pushing their hateful agenda . . . you’re being incredibly naive.
No, you are being baselessly hostile.
The books of Catholic Charities are open for review. They are each incorporated. If you think that no one has tried to find those corporations “passing money” up to the church, you are sadly mistaken. However, no one has found such actions. Each Catholic Charities tends to run at a loss with extra money being donated by the diocese to keep it going. In effect, we are actually taxing the church simply so that the church can handle programs that the government does poorly.
(And even within Catholic Charities there is still a wall of separation between church projects and secular services that are handled by contract.)
Interesting to note that conservatives use a similar argument against social programs in general. Why should anyone be forced by the government to give up money they earned to help someone else? After all, some of those people are just plain lazy.
Interesting. Thank you. I assume it follows that nothing good can ever be done by the religious in the name of religion, because it will necessarily tend towards evil and destruction?
You know, that’s practically St. Augustine’s definition of sin.
Are there religious people who are not evil and malicious? Is it just the church hierarchies, or all members?
Thanks all for all the opinions and info.
As I’ve indicated, churches and Bush are purt near to the top of the list of “things I don’t trust.”
But I appreciate the assurances from people who know far more about this than I care to, that at the very least the worst of my fears are unfounded. Have to admit, at least a part of my kneejerk opposition was due to this coming out of an administration that IMO panders to school prayer, anti-abortion, institutionalized “God Bless” and other religious crap I abhor.
The argument that funding these social programs allows churches larger budgets for religious programs is specious at best. For one thing, the church would have to demonstate that it could not fund the program without the govenment grant, and they have to provide matching funds, so there is no “savings,” here which can be redirected.
This is not about going around giving bags of money to churches. What happens is that grants are offered up for a specifically wanted program. Say they want to fund a few after-school programs in some inner cities. Anyone who thinks they can provide a good program can apply (religious or not). Whoever provides the best proposals and can provide matching funds, gets the grants. The object is not to enrich churches or further any religious agenda, but to build some after school programs. These are programs that are needed in the community, and if they are providing a needed service without pushing a religious agenda, what difference does it make who’s running them? Is it better to have a food shelf run by the Salvation Army or no food shelf at all?
And remember, any church group who gets a grant to run such a program is forbidden by federal law to preach at those receiving services or discriminate in who they serve. They stick to that too. My wife just told me about a church that got defunded for some kind of teenage outreach program (I forget exactly what), because one of the federal overseers (who my wife says was a 20 something young woman), said she had heard the church was “too soft in its support of GLBT teens.” What she heard wasn’t true and was based on nothing but what some non-member had told her, but it was enough for her to strip funding. Like I said, they tend to over do it, not underdo it. My wife also told me about a prison fellowship program that got stripped and shut down because (as my wife put it), the lines began to get “blurry” between that program and some other specifically religious programs in the same prison. They do stay on top of that.
I’ll also reiterate that these grant are equally available to any non-religious groups who want to compete for them. The grants are aimed at predetermined program goals, not at “funding churches,” per se.
I too have volunteered at soup kitchens (well, catered dinners actually). The priest doesn’t even dress up. The priest does ask that before eating that they maintain some silence and pray to themselves. Some do, some don’t. There are reading materials and games and none of them are religious in nature. There is no banner or signs that even say it is a church. In fact, the actual facility, while on church grounds and attached to the church, would not be mistaken for a church at all, but merely an administrative building.
Our local shelter is in a synagogue. While I assume its members don’t proselytize, I also assume that, if they did, they wouldn’t get very far because this is an overwhelmingly Christian area. 
No, sometimes by accident they do good. But being at best delusional and often outright malignant, people acting in the name of religion are much more likely to do harm than good; their intent and the results of their actions have little connection because they base those intents and actions on false premises.
That is correct. We used to be killed for it.
So if the government were to fund these accidental programs of theirs, would you be on board?
Is this directed toward me? If it is, I never said that. I know there are religious social programs that do good.* But I also know that some churches have a religious agenda that I’m vehemently opposed to, and I don’t like the government even indirectly supporting that agenda.
*I also believe that some of that good is, in fact, undoing problems that were partially caused by religion itself. But that’s for another thread.
No. First, there’s separation of church and state. Second, just because they do good for the moment doesnt mean they won’t change, essentially at random, since they are delusional. And third, I consider religion a scourge upon the world that should never be supported.