JCC Arena The Theist/Atheist Thunderdome™

lol... okay, dude. Jesus Christ.

 

Lol, right, it's me not you. Anything else?

 

Uh.... exactly what have I done in this thread, that I started? You're acting like a complete tool.

 

Now you have selected memory. Keep going, please.

 

Link me to a post.

God damn, you're ****ing weird.

 

You:

lol... what does this even mean. You sound drunker than Montie, right now.

Then I hand you your crap back to you and here's you now

Shall I hit the report button at this point?

I mean really, who the hell do you think you are? you can make all the comments you wish and when someone hits back you act all perfect.

 

Oh, this is about that one quip? I was talking to wocky. Get over yourself.

As for the report button, you do you.

Edit... hi heels, thanks.

 

Religion - always causing divisions .

 

no one wants to criticize your religion. It's the Christine Blasey Ford of religions. Sincere and credible and friendly, and you'd like to give it a hug or a cup of tea and hope it enjoys the rest of its life in comfort without being hounded by right wing idiots.

 

Can always start another Baha’i thread...

But yeah, even when we had an Atheism only thread, it always turned back to Christianity.

 

The Satanic Temple is officially recognized by the IRS

Being granted tax-exempt status essentially means that the Satanic Temple has the same legal protections that other religions do, including “access to public spaces as other religious organizations; affirming its standing in court when battling religious discrimination; and enabling The Satanic Temple to apply for faith-based government grants,” according to a press release sent to Rolling Stone.

 

Good... should have happened a long time ago.

 

I would have assumed they already had that protection. Good for them getting it then. All religions should have it*



* Not you, Scientology. You're a pyramid scheme disguised as a religion.

 

No religion should have it. Pay your ****ing taxes.

 

But how would the Catholic Church pay off molestation victims? How would Prosperity Gospel megachurches pay for the pastor's private jets? Did you think of that?!

 

Yeah, I don't think religion should be tax-exempt. There's too many ways churches take advantage of this stuff.

 

I understand the idea of charitable institutions being tax-free and all that, but, honestly, Jesus paid taxes. And I'm not just saying, "Like, everybody paid taxes, so of course Jesus paid taxes." I mean, there's literally a story in the Bible about him paying taxes (by getting money out of a fish's mouth, but set that aside for the moment). And that's not even the story where he does the "render unto Caesar" speech, as memory serves.

It doesn't bother me that some churches don't pay taxes, but the notion that any organization that is able to backflip its way into being a "religious" institution is tax free isn't really good. We've all heard the stories about the pastor with the vacation home in the mountains that he calls a "Prayer Retreat" so it can fall under the ministry and not his own personal finances. And that's not even getting into things where entire institutions, like Scientology, essentially pressure their way into the religion category; Scientology is the most egregious because they did stuff that was downright illegal to get into that category, but they're not the only ones. The religious exemption is like just about all tax exemptions, a kind of good idea in theory that, in practice, is often used for dodges. I'm not enough of a wonk to have any specific ideas as to how to tighten the restrictions to cut out most of the dodges while still allowing legitimate religious/non-profit/charitable organizations to stay tax-free. If it's a straight either-or, I suppose it would be best if the exemption went away. It's a case of the negatives and abuses basically outweighing the positives at this point, which, as a religious person, pains me to say.

 

No. Pay your ****ing taxes.

 

Cults and taxes over here, for a comparison point:

- Religious cults are mandated to form a nonprofit association, under the 1901 law governing nonprofit associations; the same law covers NGOs, political parties or student associations, to give an idea of its breadth
- They have to declare their territorial reach and a list of their members meeting a minimal threshold; for France, using the Catholic Church since it's the dominant religion to give an idea of scale, that means all 12 054 parishes, all 104 dioceses and all 15 ecclesial provinces have to be declared independently, and not just the organization overseeing the Catholic cult in France; all have to maintain their own separate treasuries, and any financial flux between them has to occur under publicly accessible rules, notably so it can be taxed if relevant
- Religious cults are ineligible to state aids, except where the maintenance of the structure and the respect of security norms in cult buildings are concerned; this form of aid was initially allowed because the state appropriated all religious cult buildings existing in 1904 (mostly Catholic ones, but also a significant number of Protestant, Muslim and Jewish ones); it continues to applies to all religious cult buildings, including new ones and regardless of religion
- Their bank accounts and other financial assets are subject to normal taxation rules
- Their land, building and company properties are subject to normal taxation rules
- All employees' wages - including of course all who have clerical rank - are subject to normal taxation rules
- Cult activities are exempt from value-added tax, but economic activity is proscribed from being exerted by a cult association and has to be set up as a proper business, which is subject to a taxation regime equivalent to that applicable to some small businesses
- Cult associations are not exempt from paying value-added tax on their own purchases
- Voluntary contributions are excluded from taxation for individual contributors, and are not subject to direct taxation (although their use can be taxed, like it is for wages, property acquisition/sale, maintenance works, etc.)

 

It's ok. He consulted with Vatican exorcists.

Yeah, had to get those harry Potter books out of the school library because:

“These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception. The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text,” the Reverend Reehill wrote, apparently in all seriousness.