The NY Times has a long article that is basically a litany of the exemptions and privileges granted to religious organizations. A church-based daycare, for instance, has none of the licensing requirements of a private daycare, and doesn't have to meet any of the standards of a non-religious establishment, nor does it have to worry about civil rights requirements…and it's protected from lawsuits.
The practice of granting churches ever more special rights is accelerating, too, since legislators are always willing to hand over more to the pious frauds. Wouldn't want to be thought disrespectful of religion, you know—so what if they're greedily sucking up more and more money. That's what Christianity is all about!
I say we should revoke the tax-exempt status of all religious organizations. They can ask for exemption for their charitable efforts (and only that part of their work; I don't consider evanglism or missionary work to be charity) just like any secular organization, but simply having "Christ" in their name and mission statement and having a few guys running around with clerical collars is not sufficient justification. It's time to end the sacred scam.
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Hell yes! Especially when churches get involved in politics by endorsing candidates. Other tax-exempt organizations get reamed when they even think about doing this, but godd boxes can scream out candidates' names all they want without even a sniff.
I'm with you on this. For one whole subset of commercial enterprises to have this kind of legislated advantage over their competitors is just unfair.
I often disagree with PZ but here I found nothing to disagree about.
No wonder right wing zealots are so in love with religion... they have made it their living paradise: somewhere were the state is almost inexistent, no taxes, no regulations... and of course propaganda. It's like they are using religon as the wedge to progressively get to all of society
A question from an ignorant foreigner:
Do churches of all faiths get these excemptions, or do only christian churches qualify?
Can a muslim daycare center get the same protection from litigation, exemption from licencing, etc?
Ignorant foreigners should follow links before asking questions.
Ignorant foreigners only look more ignorant if the article they should have read first already answers their question.
Ignorant foreigner is going to go and hang his head in shame.
Here, here! (or is it Hear, Hear!) Any way, you know what I mean.
But wait a minute! I've been told over and over that Christians are withering under godless liberal persecution! This must be just more liberal propaganda. ;)
Well, secular tax-free organizations spend a lot of *their* money on what is basically "evangelism or missionary work". All organizations want to recruit more members and spend money to do it (After joining the ACLU I'm now on the mailing list of basically every left-wing organization and it is really ironic how much unsolicited literature environmental organizations send out by mail, recycled paper or no).
Stogoe: the recent mailing I got from Americans United for Separation of Church and State was focused on the whole candidate-endorsement issue. Which I imagine means that churches are for the most part getting away with it. But I have always wondered what's wrong with it. AU was trying to get me all up in arms about Pat Robertson telling people who to vote for, but as I see it, if people see someone as their spiritual leader, it makes sense that they'd want said leader's advice at the polls.
So, yes, we should take away there tax exemptions, and then we wouldn't have to make an issue of political endorsements
Ignorant foreigners only look more ignorant if the article they should have read first already answers their question.
You've done it now; you failed the test to join the rightwing punditocracy. :)
Remember
Rule one: never read about a subject before commenting on it.
Rule two: never read about a subject after you comment on it.
Well, secular tax-free organizations spend a lot of *their* money on what is basically "evangelism or missionary work".
You haven't got the slightest goddam idea how much money these organisations spend on anything. Do you? Please tell us or provide links.
Badger, are deliberately confusing "secular tax free" with "non-profit" or are you just being dishonest?
Yonatron wrote:
"The recent mailing I got from Americans United for Separation of Church and State was focused on the whole candidate-endorsement issue. Which I imagine means that churches are for the most part getting away with it.
Unless you're a left-leaning congregation denouncing the Bushies, then the feds come down on you hard.
"But I have always wondered what's wrong with it. AU was trying to get me all up in arms about Pat Robertson telling people who to vote for, but as I see it, if people see someone as their spiritual leader, it makes sense that they'd want said leader's advice at the polls.
So, yes, we should take away there tax exemptions, and then we wouldn't have to make an issue of political endorsements"
I agree, because enforcement was obviously selective and so far always targeting left-leaning congregations while ignoring more conservative congregations' transgressions...
-JJR
The godd boxes and their screechers always respond with "tax something, and you have the power to destroy it". I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. Maybe it's just anti-taxer woo.
Why anyone would want to work in a job where you have no legal recourse if you are treated unfairly is something I'd tell anyone who is considering working for a church. Giving management that sort of power is going to lead to it being abused, no doubt about it.
Well of course religious organizations should be kicked off welfare. Though the likely result would be that the corrupt megachurches would survive while the smaller congregations of tepidly liberal parishioners went under. But the excellent NYT story demonstrates exactly why that will never happen in the foreseeable future. Do you really think the Democrats would commit political suicide by attempting it?
"There is no separation of church and state"
YES TEHRE IS LOLZ U JUST HATEZORRZ AMERICCCA!!!1one
RELIGIN 4EVER, TAX-FREEEZ!!!11eleven
Neither. To be a tax free organization according to IRS code 501(c)(3) it must be a non-profit with a purpose that is "charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and the preventing cruelty to children or animals.". The only limitation is on the amount of lobbying. That's why, for example, the ACLU doesn't fall under 501(c)(3).
I know that 1) I receive many full-color brochures in the mail from 501(c)(3) groups that want me to join/give. 2) I know from experience that color printing is not cheap. What more do I need to know?
My point is that it isn't as if religious groups get a special dispensation in this regard -- both secular and religious groups get to use tax-free dollars to evangelize. It isn't as if religious groups can use tax-free dollars to evangelize and secular ones can't. You may prefer the messages of the secular groups (and I'd agree) but that doesn't change this fact.
the plural of anecdote isn't data, Badgey.
you are confusing evangelism with politics.
re-read the initial PZ post again.
legal:
spending money on advertising to increase membership.
illegal:
spending money for the promotion of any particular political candidate, or even having an official position wrt to any political candidate.
It's still just as illegal for religious non-profits to do this as secular ones, there are simply so many of them doing it that it becomes overwhelming for the IRS to investigate each and every claim.
I used to date an ex IRS employee whose job it was to do just that. Over a 5 year period, she brought down enough religious orgnanizations who violated non-profit statutes to recover around half a billion in lost IRS revenues.
it didn't even scratch the surface.
so it's not that religious non-profits are "expempt" from being prosecuted for violating non-profit statutues regarding the promotion of political candidates, it's just that there are far too many doing it for the IRS to cover them all. One could plausibly imagine that politics also plays a role in the investigation process, but I can't find direct evidence indicating that the IRS's efforts are being influenced by politics.
it seems the simplest and most direct solution would in fact to be to exclude only charitable efforts of church organizations, but then we would have to start examining the entire structure of the 501(c)(3) statute to determine how to apply this to all participating non-profits.
meh, the law seems perfectly clear to me, it seems more that the IRS just needs a little more "help" to enforce them.
ah yes, more money for the enforcement arm of the IRS. I'm sure i just took a baseball bat to a hornet's nest.
:p
That's not what I'm disagreeing with. Look at what I was quoting from PZ. PZ seemed to imply that getting to evangelize tax-free was something unique to religious organizations. It isn't.
Oh please, receiving brochures in the mail is not an anecdote. Nor is realizing that brochures cost money.
What, exactly, is standing between the rest of us and a nice, juicy set of religious exemptions? Why can't we just declare ourselves a Church of Atheism or FSM or whatever?
It's not like we don't have religious beliefs. "An anthropomorphic supreme being? I don't think so" is a religious belief. (And "All those other religions are full of crap" is almost universal.)
I expect there's paperwork (and probaly a few court fights) involved, but why shouldn't everyone get the exemptions?
Anyway, if you want to kill these exemptions, that's my suggestion. Don't attack them head-on. Soften the requirements so you can hand them out to every agnostic, atheist and pagan who wants to claim them. (The religious Right will insist that it's an attempt to de-sanctify their religions, sorta like their objections to gay marriage. Only in this case, they'd be right.)
Sorry, should read: "Only in this case, they'd be right, if only from a political POV.)
Hey PMZ and Stogoe,
Looks like the IRS is taking your advice and going after political pulpits:
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_69234_ENG_HTM.htm
http://hugoboy.typepad.com/hugo_schwyzer/2006/09/im_in_the_adjun.html
http://www.allsaints-pas.org/pdf/IRS%202%20Press%20Release%200915.pdf#s…
If the problem is really so immense, it seems to me that devoting more money to enforcing this particular issue would essentially pay for itself.
I'm all in favor of it.
PZ:
"It's time to end the sacred scam."
Or begin your own Mr. Cthulhu worshipper.
[b]Ichthyic[/b]: Non-profits do have to pay income tax on revenue that comes from business not directly related to their charitable purpose, so there shouldn't be anything changed w/r/t secular ones. It'd just be a matter of applying those rules to religions..
[b]Dr. Badger[/b]: I kind of see your point, and I'm also irritated at all the mailing lists I'm on. But I think fundraising appeals are different in kind from religious evangelism. The former says: "Here are things we do. We already think you'd approve and hope you can contribute material support." The latter says: "We know great spiritual truths. Join us so we can tell you how to live your life."
At any rate, I still think religions should be allowed to campaign for candidates. I don't think anyone should listen to them, but on that point the state obviously shouldn't interfere.
Oops. I forgot where I was posting. Shoulda used that preview button.
Molly: "An anthropomorphic supreme being? I don't think so" is a religious belief.
Really, it's more like a meta-religious belief. One or more supernatural beings with an interest in worldly affairs are pretty much a requisite for religion. Anyway, playing into the hands of those who insist that atheism is a religion strikes me as a terrible idea.
Oy, I should get all my thoughts in a row, then post.
I just re-read Molly, NYC's post and agree on the idea of getting an exemption for joke religions for something like Pastafarianism. Because when they try and shoot you down with, "You can't really believe in that, it's too ridiculous," you can be all "Yeah, what about the Mormons? Or multiple infallible popes who don't always agree?"
I was out on the Navajo reservation in Northern Arizona some years back, and observed that there seemed to be more Christian missions than convenience stores and gas stations.
Driving around my own town in upstate New York, I'm constantly amazed at the soaring stone cathedrals -- I've taken to calling them "castles," because that's what they amount to -- that dot the cityscape. I wish I had the patience to conduct a comprehensive inventory of them. There's one near the middle of town that I swear would take 35 million dollars to replicate, if you were to build it today, and this is not counting the city-center value of the land.
The value of these things goes completely unnoticed, but has to be huge, an appreciable fraction of the total commercial property in the city. And the lot of them go totally tax free, forever.
The value bound up in them is a tragedy in so many ways. There is what it represents, a vast store of frozen generosity that will never be realized as actual help for the needy, but there's also the aspect of this impressive palace as the permanent residence of the parasites who divert charitable impulses largely for their own benefit.
I was thinking today of those Christian panderers you see on late-night TV, the ones who beg for your money to help "little Pablo on the streets of Rio de Janiero," those constantly starving street urchins who are the stock in trade of broadcast missionaries.
And I wondered, what would it be like to set up a blatantly atheist organization to help kids like that? Someone who would say "We're devoted to helping get these kids off the streets and into school, fed and clothed and housed, and all without pounding Christianity into their unfortunate little heads. If you send us money, we promise to do our best to get these kids good educations and happy lives, and to help their mothers with health care, sex education and contraceptives, in order to lower the incidence of unwanted, starving children in the future."
And I wondered, what would it be like to set up a blatantly atheist organization to help kids like that? Someone who would say "We're devoted to helping get these kids off the streets and into school, fed and clothed and housed, and all without pounding Christianity into their unfortunate little heads. If you send us money, we promise to do our best to get these kids good educations and happy lives, and to help their mothers with health care, sex education and contraceptives, in order to lower the incidence of unwanted, starving children in the future."
Dinars to donuts says that Pat Robertson and other televangelists will then be castigating you and your evil organization on how you're corrupting those poor innocents with your poisonous, sinful secularity.
I wonder if atheism should not be treated the same as religion under the constitution. Any consitution experts out ther. Certainly "there are no gods" is a stance that should be logically just as protected under the establishment clause as "there is a god" or "there are several thousand gods."
If explicitly atheist groups could get on this unregulated, un-taxed gravy train, it would be fair engough for me. For fucks sake, if Unitarians qualify...
Why is the NY Times taking the initiative to rock the hyperchristians' boat at this time?
This story (by Diana B. Henriques) is well done. Unlike much NYT reportage, it shows whose bread is being buttered and asks a lot of the right questions.
Of course, it's not a patch on what could be done by a serious journalistic investigation of preachers-'n'-politics, but it's more than the Times has done for too many years. If there's any follow-up, this could mark a turning point in religion coverage.
PZ writes: "I say we should revoke the tax-exempt status of all religious organizations."
I agree, but let me point out that among the pious frauds this would spawn more interlocking directorates. For example, the odious D. James Kennedy has Coral Ridge Ministries, which is tax-exempt religious, but he also operates what are essentially right-wing PAC's as ministries, such as the Center for Renewing America. Jerry Falwell and James Dobson have similar setups. Lifting their tax-exempt status would cause many of these organizations to disappear and be 'born again' as non-profits or PAC's that appear to be religiously 'neutral.' So, while you would discourage new hucksters from going into business, the well-established players would simply take a lot of their ministries 'underground' and you would need a new sort of vigilance for their cat's paws.
Still, as a useful first step, this believer is convinced that granting tax-exempt status to religious organizations has been so widely abused that it should be eliminated...SH
And I wondered, what would it be like to set up a blatantly atheist organization to help kids like that?
Or:
(1) We work out an atheism-based drug rehab program;
(2) We hire lawyers;
(3) We apply for funds from the Faith-based Initiative;
(4) They turn us down;
(5) We sue their pants off;
(6) Hilarity ensues!
Were you around last month http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/09/i_have_a_new_favorite_charit… when PZ introduced us to The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science at http://richarddawkins.net/ ?
So apparently J Badger doesn't understand the difference between asking for donations and evangelizing. Wow, that's dumb.
The value of these things goes completely unnoticed, but has to be huge, an appreciable fraction of the total commercial property in the city. And the lot of them go totally tax free, forever.
Important point you raise. Buffalo, my home town, is a city with a great history which is full of beautiful archhitecture and neighborhoods, and they are being decimated.
One of the problems there is that as a city that historially had a high percentage of Catholics, it was loaded with cathedrals, seminaries, parochial schools, etc. Since white flight, most of the catholic church's properties have essentially been abandoned, but since they don't have to pay taxes on them, they are holding on to them for some reason.
The result is "demolition by neglect." Not only are some beautiful buildings being left to decay, but these huge complexes laying open for abuse also tends to drag down the surrounding neighborhood. A broken window left unrepaired leads to more.
This is great if you're into urban exploration - Buffalo has tons of great sites to trespass (to pass tres?) but it's helping drag the city down. In a sense, the catholic church is victimizing the poor neighborhoods not only by keeping prime property off the tax rolls, but by contributing to and even seeding the rot. (that's probably a mixed un-metaphor or something.)
...
...
The reason is: the properties have value.
Thinking of the total wealth of the Catholic Church, over the entire world, in properties like these; in business interests; in art, antiquities and artifacts looted or coerced over centuries from the entire world; in hard cash; in political control of entire nations ...
Well, hell, I'm at a loss to even guess. But ...
I'd bet that even today, Microsoft, or Exxon, or any for-profit multinational corporation you could name, would be a very distant second.
If you take all the religious organizations in aggregate, the frozen wealth has to be in the trillions.
How many people could that feed? How much scientific and medical research could that fund? How many college educations could that pay for?
How much REAL hope could that provide?
...
...
They may have value, but not much if they are allowed to crumble. A building or complex that would take tens or even possibly hundreds of millions of dollars to build today, allowed to fall to pieces - past the point of recovery.
Many of them are that bad now - I've explored them.
So now you have a liability - a building that will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to demolish (a small building that a friend of mine and I discovered and explored and he set out to save was recently demolished by the city at a cost of $200k)
This is much more than the property is worth. In the same neighborhoods, you can buy a house that is habitable for $5000. Vacant lots can go for $150.
Just as it is unconstitutional for the government to pass laws respecting the "establishment" of religion, it is unconstitutional to pass laws "restricting the free exersise thereof.
Hence, church and state are separate.
But as the founding fathers knew, "the power to tax is the power to destroy".
So if the state taxes the church, they are no longer separate.
Further, since there is to be "no taxation without representation", if you DO tax the churches you give them a voice in government.
"If explicitly atheist groups could get on this unregulated, un-taxed gravy train, it would be fair engough for me. For fucks sake, if Unitarians qualify..."
Do atheists outnumber Unitarians? If so get them all to join, and take over. Then you have an organisation that already gets religous perks of office, and you can slowly change the agenda.
On another note, if you were to form your own religion you could look forward to the likes of Anne Coulter supporting you - she says that atheism is a religion.
"I wonder if atheism should not be treated the same as religion under the constitution. Any consitution experts out there. Certainly 'there are no gods' is a stance that should be logically just as protected under the establishment clause as 'there is a god' or 'there are several thousand gods.'"
One is certainly free to express oneself non-religiously (freedom of expression, First Amendment, second clause), just as one is free to express oneself religiously (freedom of religion, First Amendment, first clause). A-theism is by definition not theistic, i.e., not religious.
Jud
I agree on the idea of getting an exemption for joke religions for something like Pastafarianism.
Hey it works for Scientology.
What *is* the objective difference? What is "evangelism"? Really just advertising[1]. Why do you think churches evangelize? To get members who then give money so the church can persue its agendas. Same thing for the World Wildlife Fund. They even both want to imply that if you a "good person" you will join. Their agendas are different, that's all.
[1] Even for-profit corporations get this. Both Apple and Microsoft hire people called literally "Technical Evangelists" to spread the "good news" of their products through lectures and blogs.
You would have to look really hard to find a "Pablo", little or otherwise, on the streets of Rio de Janeiro. Well, maybe an Argentinean tourist.
I know that 1) I receive many full-color brochures in the mail from 501(c)(3) groups that want me to join/give. 2) I know from experience that color printing is not cheap. What more do I need to know?
That printing can often be done as an in-kind donation, thus allowing both the organization to save money and the printer to claim a charitable tax deduction.
Even for-profit corporations get this. Both Apple and Microsoft hire people called literally "Technical Evangelists" to spread the "good news" of their products through lectures and blogs.
I work in marketing. Brand evangelists and technical evangelists are rarely employees of the company. In fact, if you have to hire brand evangelists, you're doing it wrong.
When World Wildlife Fund uses the threat of eternal damnation to extort money and time (attendance at services) from people, when it targets children to shape their beliefs before they are capable of independently weighing the evidence and coming to their own conclusions, and when it makes aid to refugees contingent on their joining, then I'll agree with you that they're the "same thing".
People seem to have focused on the tax exempt status of religion but a question about the first part of the post struck me. Is it really a right to have you kids being taken care by an unlicensed and unregulated daycare that you can't sue when they do something wrong to your kid (something that seems inevitable when it comes to religious folks).
I think that it kind of balances out. The religious organizations might not to pay taxes but their kids get abused. It seems fair somehow to me.
Wow, C.K., that was really despicable. Especially since, duh, it's probably not the kids who are insisting on going to a religiously-correct daycare.
Richard - . . . there is to be "no taxation without representation" . . .
. . . which is why Democrats shouldn't have to pay federal taxes.
Creating or inventing or establishing a "religion" is basically a license to steal, Scientology being a good example. None of them are offering real goods or services--except church services, he, he--so they are all engaged in taking people's money on fraudulent bases.
Let's follow the example of the Italian who is suing the catholic church under fraud laws in Italy.
miko, "I wonder if atheism should not be treated the same as religion under the constitution."
It is worse than you think in some states. Here is a video I found thanks to nogodblog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4fQA9mt-Mg
Story on the front of the USA Today (Oct. 9) about some cities deciding to zone churches out of some areas since they don't add to the tax base and can have an effect on wht businesses can be located near them. Many cities have ordinances about liquor establishments (bars, clubs) having to be a certain minimum distance from a house of worship.
Story here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-08-cities-churches_x.htm
(Sorry, I don't know how to embed the link.)
"What, exactly, is standing between the rest of us and a nice, juicy set of religious exemptions? Why can't we just declare ourselves a Church of Atheism or FSM or whatever? "
Mollie, you can, and in fact many do. Since there is absolutely no way to tell between a "real" and "fraud" religion (they are of course all frauds) anyone may start a church and become tax exempt. I supect if you scan the internet you will find sites offering advice about this and also for a very small fee offering you an umbrella group of which you could become a minister or bishop. There will of course be some local and federal laws to comply with. For example if you make your house a church so you don't have to pay property tax on it, you would have to hold services occasionally and have them open to the public. (No problem if no one comes). There does presumably have to be some sort of board to oversee your organization, you spouse and lawyer would do quite nicely. I have met people who have done this and claimed to have saved a fortune in taxes, There are small complications. If for example you want to send your kids to college and have it paid for by the church, you would have to set it up so at least nominally the scholaships were open to the public. Good luck.
Don't be stupid. Either you are willing to live in a representational democracy, or you aren't.
PZ: I agree with your proposal to divide missionary work (etc.) from genuine charitable causes, in principle. But do you have any proposals to prevent the likely shuffling around of funds that would no doubt result?
Horror stories are part and parcel of most recruiting efforts. I recall more than one environmental group making the claim that "If you don't give, the only animals your grandchildren will see will be cockroaches"
Ever hear of the magazine "Ranger Rick"? It's a kiddie environmental magazine featuring a anthropomorphic racoon who is a forest ranger. I used to love it as a child. But in some ways it is as scary as "The Chronicles of Narnia" -- the point is to make children environmentalists before they can understand the issues. For example, when I was eight years old I was convinced from the magazine that oil was about to run out (as in really soon and not decades) and tried to convince my dad that he had to make our house solar (he didn't).
Here you have more of a point -- such behavior is reprehensible -- but even so, many religious charities *don't* make aid contingent on joining. And how do you prove that non-religious charities don't also favor people who share their ideology?
Isn't there already a mail-order ministry titled "The Church of Universal Life" or some such? They've already set off some fights with the IRS. I've heard that in Germany at least, churches are in fact not tax-exempt. I dunno about the rest of Europe.
It occurs to me that in some ways the Christian Church was the original "corporation": (1) it holds property for use by its officials, (2) while shielding those officials from liability, (3) using the massive resources pooled from its international holdings, (4) and referring all challenges to "the rules", for which no single person can be held responsible.
Well, that's nice, but it doesn't address the point. If organizations take advantage of this they are just saving money -- they aren't doing it to avoid any laws preventing them from evangelizing tax free.
I don't think you understand what a "tech evangelist" is. They aren't just amateur fanboys who ocassionally blog a bit about products. Take a look at this blog by Jeff Sandquist, a professional Microsoft evangelist.
Don't be stupid. Either you are willing to live in a representational democracy, or you aren't.
Don't be stupid yourself. The GOP has made a point of seeing that Democrats--and that's at least half the country--haven't had any representation on the federal level in more than 5 years. Except to pay the bills.
I'd really like to see your citations on that claim. I have seen many environmental organizations make projections, but the ones I have seen were based on scientific and mathematical models. Estimates that at the current rate of species loss, x species can be expected to go extinct in y time is defensible, but if you can show me where anyone actually said "If you don't give, the only animals your grandchildren will see will be cockroaches", then I'll join you in condemning that claim. I am very interested in accuracy of information, and I've corrected a local feral cat spay/neuter organization, whom I support, on their misuse of statistics. So if you can provide the claim you cite, I'll agree with your point.
What was the magazine's claim, and what evidence did they base it on? I have no doubt that the children reading it are at different levels of understanding, but it is targetted at school-age children who are learning to evaluate the world around them, and it is based on evidence. You may argue the weight and validity of the evidence, but that is not the same thing as teaching metaphysics as fact to pre-kindergarten age under the threat of punishment if they dispute the "evidence".
Your positive claim was that the WWF engaged in "the same thing" as the religious charities who consider evangelizing as part of their mission. I've given examples of where Christian charities have browbeaten refugees into conversion as the price of aid ("rice Christians). Now, rather than backing up your positive claim, you are asking me to prove a negative. But since you made the claim that WWF's outreach is "the same thing", the burden of proof is on you to back up your claim.
Zappa said it years ago in a liver version of 'Heavenly Bank Account':
"Tax the churches! Tax the businesses owned by the churches!"
"Further, since there is to be "no taxation without representation", if you DO tax the churches you give them a voice in government."
Actually, if you read the article, and the point of much of PZ's summary and comments, that is precisely the point. Many churches DO participate in government functions in ways that other non-profits are not allowed, therefore, they already have a voice, we here are simply suggesting that they pay for it, like everyone else.
And for those interested, in some rare cases, state and local tax laws still apply to the property that churches own. Not many (and not nearly enough), but there are a few. The only thing being a 501(c)(3) organization is supposed to make them exempt from is income tax. In theory, they all still pay SS and Medicare taxes. In fact, many pay thier employees entirely 'under the table', and avoid reporting it entirely.
Cheers.
"It's time to end the sacred scam."
That's what the Godless liberal says
But he can't know how hard it is
To humbly serve the Great I Am...
Sacred Scam?
I'm not talking about scientific publications by serious environmental researchers; I'm talking about the envelopes that environmental groups send in the mail. There are certainly no scientific or mathematical models discussed in those. The idea is to alarm the receiver enough to make them write a check and send it off. I don't have any such envelopes on me at the moment; but the next time you get one in the mail take a look at it and notice the techniques. They are products of marketeers and not scientists.
We are talking about my experiences circa 1978. But "Ranger Rick" is geared to grade children, children who have not yet taken a biology, earth science, or chemistry course. I would argue that anyone without at least a high school grounding in those subjects can't make an informed decision on environmental issues.
I explained how it was the same thing in the cases where reasonable analogies can be made (horror stories and child brainwashing). As non-human aid recipients can't be made to change their ideology or religion, this is not particularly relevant to most environmental groups.
I was out yesterday so I didn't visit Pharyngula a find this thread. However, I did read the Times article (and the second one this morning in what will be a four part series). The series will bring to the fore a horrible distortion in civil rights that has endured for far too long, grossly distorting politics, municipal finance, and government budgets and enriching a group of frauds at the expense of the ignorant and deluded. I would submit that the cost to society far exceeds anything the Mafia and organized crime has imposed on society.
I should point out several facts.
1) In most older American cities, both major and minor, churches control/own close to half the real estate. For example in Buffalo, New York, where I used to live the Roman Catholic church owned between 40 and 50% of all the real estate in the city proper and paid not a dime in taxes on it. And that doesn't even consider real estate owned by Protestant institutions.
2) Organizations that claim to be religious are a priori defined as non-profit by the IRS and not required to file financial reports to anyone, public or private. Of course, many do prepare reports for their membership and have them audited by outside auditors, but unlike secular non-profits, IRS regulations do not require periodic reports of any kind; that First Amendment, which the Christian right so hates, stands in the way according the IRS and the US courts. In other words Coral Ridge Ministries, Pat Robertson's empire, Jerry Falwell's various enterprises, the Crystal Cathedral, and millions of similar ventures are accountable only to themselves. No one vets their books, unless they voluntarily ask for it.
3) These organizations run myriad commercial ventures from the day care centers in Alabama to multi-million dollar broadcasting and marketing operations selling everything from propaganda to products for the home. And they pay not a dime in taxes on the operations to local, state or federal agencies. They get a free ride on the backs of the rest of us.
It's a situation that I find intolerable and which must change for the long-term health of the nation. Personally, I think if they were taxed and transparency mandated by law, they would benefit. Most of the shysters would be driven from the industry. People could have confidence their donations were not just going into the pockets of the promoters. And the costs of sustaining society and the common good would drop on a per capita basis. It's a goal that politicians should pursue, now. Society needs to demand integrity and transparency in all religious institutions.
I've heard that in Germany at least, churches are in fact not tax-exempt.
David, you might be right that the churches in Germany are not tax-exempt in the narrow sense that their income is subject to taxation; I don't think that's right, but I confess I don't know enough about it.
However, the two main German churches (Roman Catholic and Lutheran), as well as the Jewish community, actually receive tax monies levied and collected by the state on behalf of the churches! It's not an insignificant sum, either. Even if one is completely irreligious, formal church membership (established for the state's purposes by the religious ritual of baptism) is enough to get one on the hook for the church tax. To escape it, one must go down to the town hall and declare that one is leaving one's church (and pay a small fee). A moderately significant minority of Germans has done just that. What is surprising is that so many more have not done so. As is typical of Europe, most Germans belong to a church, but most of them are purely nominal members. They like the idea of baptism, confirmation, weddings and funerals as markers of major life passages, but otherwise rarely darken the doors of a church. Sentiment and tribalism are strong attractors, I suppose.
Now the ostensible reason the churches get this tax is that they are expected to provide various (non-religious) services: kindergartens, hospitals, social services for the poor, the addicted, the handicapped etc. All well and good. But the real reason for the church tax is that this is part of the deal the RC church cut with Hitler in exchange for giving his regime the nod (and ordering the German RC political party, the Zentrum, to disband itself); the Nazi-Vatican pact was held by the postwar German supreme court to remain binding law. The Lutherans get the same goodies on the principle of equal treatment. (The RC church also gets annual compensation for the church properties expropriated by Napoleon at the onset of the 19th century.)
Even so, don't the churches run all those kindergartens etc., no? Yes; but. As employers, the churches are exempt from the rules that would otherwise apply. The RC church can (and will) fire you with impunity if you are an unmarried kindergarten teacher who becomes pregnant, or a divorced secretary who remarries. (For the record, I have no issue with a church firing, say, a preacher who takes an 'heretical' line; it's their club, they make up the rules. But in its civil employment relations, it should be subject to the same rules as anybody else.)
And of course there is religious instruction in the state schools. True, in recent years a lot of this has been a purely cultural, comparative look at religions, something I suspect even PZ wouldn't much mind. And most of the explicitly religious stuff tends to be lowest-common-denominator, 'Let's all be nice to each other' harmlessness. But even so, it's denominational religious instruction, it's in a state school, and unless the parents expressly opt out of it, it's mandatory till age 14 (at which age a child can legally make his/her own decisions about religion).
I am a theist. But I am also as committed to secularism in the public sphere as is PZ (or, for that matter, the Rev'd Barry Lynn). So my feelings about the German system are mixed. On the one hand, no matter how bad the things are that PZ describes, the fact is that America remains much more secular than Germany. The courts were right to throw that jackass Alabamian judge's 10 Commandments (and the jackass himself) out of the state judicial system. But in Bavarian courts, there are actual crucifixes -- overtly Roman Catholic sectarian symbols, not an ostenisbly nonsectarian 'tribute to a great lawgiving tradition' - and they're in the courtroom itself, not the lobby outside.
On the other hand, Germany is much less religious than America. Religion simply has almost no influence on public life. The right wing likes to talk about 'our western Christian traditions', but that is really just code for 'keep the Turks out the EU'. Bishops like to defend Sunday shop-closing laws by pointing to the biblically-enjoined day of rest, but the real reason the shops stay closed Sundays is the labour unions. By US standards, Germany is, politically speaking, a land without religion, for all that there is no US-style separation of church and state.
It is paradoxical, but people like PZ might well feel more comfortable in an atmosphere like Germany's, in which the churches have official status yet religion has far less influence on day to day life, than in America's. As for me, I would much prefer that Germany secularise itself altogether; you lot in the US might think your church/state barrier leaky, but I look at it with envy. Cetainly I agree with PZ that the income of religious bodies should be subject to taxation just like anybody's else. But I suspect he'd agree with me that it's even more outrageous the churches should actually receive tax money!
I must have missed the explanation. All I saw was a very specific unsubstantiated claim that multiple environmental organizations asserted that "if you don't give, the only animals your grandchildren will see will be cockroaches", an anecdote from 1978 about your own phenomenology, and two attempts to shift the burden of proof away from your assertion.
Could you show me where the evidence for your claim that WWF's outreach was "the same thing" as the evangelical Christian organizations' proseletyzing was, again? Thanks!
It is paradoxical, but people like PZ might well feel more comfortable in an atmosphere like Germany's, in which the churches have official status yet religion has far less influence on day to day life, than in America's.
One reason that Europe is in general less willing to let churches take charge and are also more willing to criticise them is that they are very familiar with state religions. They know from experience how much trouble they create.
Why is Badgey Badge Badge Badgamaroo always making stuff up and using anecdotes? Because he has nothing else.
This rarely if ever happens. The RC church is showing signs of going back to it's original stance on this issue if not for the fact annullments, as stupid as they are, create funding for the church.
Its a classic shakedown.
Richard:
*Grammar Police Hat On*
The mnemonic is simple: "Hear, hear!" means "Listen to him! Listen to him! He's saying something smart!"
"Here, here!", on the other hand, means "Look at me! I don't know what I'm saying!"
*Grammar Police Hat Off*
Well, secular tax-free organizations spend a lot of *their* money on what is basically "evangelism or missionary work".
Well, except that it's not evangelism or missionary work, because it's not religious in nature. The fact that it shares the general idea of "persuade people to do, think, or join something" with religious evangelism doesn't mean that the two should be treated the same by a nominally religion-neutral government.
So if the state taxes the church, they are no longer separate.
Further, since there is to be "no taxation without representation", if you DO tax the churches you give them a voice in government.
And if we don't tax them?
LOL.
You have many hypocritical xian "aid" organizations. One of the most notorious is Samaratin's Purse. Their statement of purpose,
"As our teams work in crisis areas of the world, people often ask, "Why did you come?" The answer is always the same: "We have come to help you in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ." Our ministry is all about Jesus--first, last, and always. As the Apostle Paul said, "For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake" (2 Corinthians 4:5, NIV)."
Then you have offshoots like this,
"Kids Around The World wants to help churches reach their goals, so we provide training and material. In 2003 we became affiliated with Campus Crusade for Christ and partner directly with The JESUS Film and "The Story of Jesus for Children." We have developed material that allows churches the opportunity to share the lessons of the film, again and again."
Or there is World Vision,
"All applicants for staff positions with World Vision United States will be screened for Christian commitment. The screening process will include:
* Discussion with the applicant of his/her spiritual journey and relationship with Jesus Christ;
* Understanding of Christian principles;
* Understanding and acceptance of World Vision's Statement of Faith and/or The Apostles' Creed"
And/or?
The Statement of Faith,
" * We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.
* We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
* We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
* We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful man, regeneration of the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.
* We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.
* We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.
* We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ."
The existence and ideological purpose of Ranger Rick is no way anecdotal.
Similarly, it is difficult to see how anyone can dispute the typical alarmist tone of most literature from non-profits asking for money. I don't keep such things after I decide to donate or not (does anyone?) so I can't very well show you any particular case right now.
How about this: for the next two months we will each save and scan all donation request literature we receive and we'll discuss the presentation tone and level of rigor presented therein on some blog. Maybe you really do get a better quality of literature that actually presents mathematical models rather than going for cheap pluckings of the heartstrings.
Here is an evaluation of Samaratan's Purse finances.
http://charityreports.give.org/Public/Report.aspx?CharityID=281
The fund raising and administrative expenses don't seem to be excessive, but what are the other funds used for?
Children's ministry 146,223,801
Medical assistance 14,458,541
Other ministry services 10,579,436
Christian education 10,354,828
Emergency relief 9,253,455
Community development 5,458,543
International HIV/AIDS ministry 1,168,893
Miscellaneous projects 846,937
Missions, missionary and personnel assistance 437,032
Related organizations 219,722
Total Program Expenses: $199,001,188
What in hell is "chilren's ministry"?
Even so, the director's salary, $349,529, seems to be more than comfortable.
Burden of proof, again, Jonathan--you're the one making claims about the WWF. You keep asking me to do your work for you, which makes me wonder just how much you actively understand about logic. Right now, it just looks to an outside observer like you were so traumatized by Ranger Rick that you can't distinguish anecdote from evidence.
But I'll settle for your backing up your one citation about grandchildren and cockroaches. If multiple organizations assert that, as you claim, it should be trivially easy to substantiate it. And if you can prove it with a citation from the WWF, I'll concede your original point about their outreach being "the same thing" as the fund-raising appeals from the evangelizers.
Cute.
I have no idea if one of the organizations who made such a claim was the WWF, and I never claimed it was. There's no way to prove to you that such an alarmist claim was made without showing you a piece of literature which is not reasonable to expect that I've kept, nor is it reasonable to expect that an identical claim will be made in the future (advertising campaigns change). You clearly doubt that such an alarmist claim was made, and so the only way to procede is to analyze future claims made in donation literature as to their level of alarmism or lack thereof. That is assuming you are actually interested in the subject and aren't just arguing because you like to argue.
I think it follows from our exchange:
You were certainly insinuating it, if not outright stating it. Either you were implying that WWF participates in those horror stories, or you were moving the goalposts.
Yes, that's correct.
If you're going to refer to it as an exemplar, you might want to keep it for those times when you're called upon to show your evidence.
But you would think that if multiple environmental organizations had used it in the past, my Google search would have returned more than zero hits.
But you're making claims in the here and now, not in the future. Which is fine, as long as you understand that when you can't produce evidence to back up your claims, you're likely to get called on it.
I am most interested in the subject, because it intersects two of my research interests, zoology and information quality. If what you said about the grandchildren and cockroaches turns out to be true, then the WWF can expect to get a strongly-worded letter, and maybe a journal article, from me on the subject of information quality and environmental education.
If, on the other hand, you're just making unsubstantiated claims, hyping alarmism for the sake of talking points, then you shouldn't be particularly surprised when you get called on it and asked to show your evidence.
Bernarda,
Samaritan's Purse has a huge program by which they have churches collect "Christmas gift" boxes and then ship them to missionaries in specific countries. They provide suggestions for the boxes, which parishoners fill, then add an evangelical tract and have the missionaries pass them out. Jesus gives you presents! That's probably the main money drain from their children's ministry. They bleed money, too - my church does those boxes, and no matter how many times people check "don't send me mailings" on the forms, they keep getting slick color brochures every other month all year.
My computer was seizing this morning and wouldn't let me, but I wanted to throw in that the NYTimes has a follow-up article today on how religious employers can walk all over their employees with impunity because federal fairness laws don't apply to them.
There's a good book that covers the legal exemptions for religious organizations (and whether such exemptions should exist at all) by Marci Hamilton called "God vs. the Gavel". Although in her final analysis I think her position falls short of what you would deem optimal - she argues that religious organizations should not be given exemptions from generally applicable laws unless such exemptions can be shown to cause no or minimal harm to the public good (and that such exemptions should be granted by the legislature, not the courts, but that doesn't really impact on your position).
It must be hard for such brilliant people to live in such a backward and ignorant country where the vast majority of people freely choose to ignore the pronouncements of obscure science professors. Forced to keep your innermost opinions on the nature of existence from public scrutiny, your primary release is a small corner of the internet. I am no biologist, but it seems 'confident' atheists lack the biological fitness to survive in present day America. You expend so much of your valuable time an energy trying to convert the unconvertable. Does venting in this space make you a better teacher, lawyer, video store clerk, or merely a better malcontent? Your sworn enemy, religion, provides the easy answers and certainty the ignorant understand and that science, by its very nature, cannot provide. In some sense I pity you because you ae waging minor battles in a war you cannot win in your lifetime (unless you are a transhumanist, which I would expect some of you are). I am not suggesting you throw in the towel. I am suggesting that unlike PZ you take a stoic aproach to this issue. Freaking out about a congressional debate reveals a possibly unhinged personality. Does intelligent design do anything material to 99% of you? I doubt it. Stop dwelling in these atheist eco-chambers and overreacting to the words of politicians. Get out and live your life!
I...have no energy to deal with Nigel.
What does Intelligent Design do to me? For the shortest answer possible, it makes newspapers, tv, the general public, and most elected officials in my own country say that my job is not only useless, but it is also wrong and makes people go to hell. That's the kind of thing that wears on you after awhile, you know?
I could go on about that and about how it is actually important to pay attention to what politicians do in a governmental setup whereby they do have to get re-elected occasionally, but I just can't. My heart isn't in it.
Does venting in this space make you a better teacher, lawyer, video store clerk, or merely a better malcontent?
venting? that's not all that is done here, to be sure.
indeed, i find the topics and discussions on Pharyngula have made me a better teacher, and more rounded as an individual.
It has much value from many angles, despite your apparently flippant dismissal.
Does intelligent design do anything material to 99% of you?
that it does ANYTHING material to anybody is of concern, especially when those somebodys are kids in a public shcool system.
your encouragment to "stoicism" sounds more like encouragment to putting one's head in the sand, to me.
that's kinda what got us to this state to begin with, as PZ has pointed out any number of times.
methinks you haven't much of a clue as to what this issue is really all about.
I am suggesting that unlike PZ you take a stoic aproach to this issue. ... Get out and live your life!
Once again! Atheists are just supposed to shut up!
I'm so fucking tired of hearing that.
We're here and complaining because the God faction is overtaking the country, and because people in pointy hats waste a lot of people's time debating things like whether there is a "Limbo." Think about it! Limbo! They are insane!
There are millions of demented fuckwits out there who believe insanely stupid things about their fantasy deities and their fantasy religions. They are the ones who should "get on with" their lives, NOT FUCKING US!
Hey Catholics! Get out and live your lives! Don't fret about whether dead, unbaptized children are in Limbo - take the stoical approach!
Limbo!
From an article in The Florida Catholic:
Theologians: Unbaptized babies in heaven makes more sense than limbo
By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- To hope that babies who die without being baptized will go to heaven makes more sense than the idea that they go to limbo, says a group of papally appointed theologians.
While no one can be certain of the fate of unbaptized babies who die, Christians can and should trust that God will welcome those babies into heaven, said members of the International Theological Commission.
The commission, a Vatican advisory board, met Oct. 2-6 to continue work on a statement explaining why the concept of limbo entered the common teaching of the church, why it was never officially defined as Catholic doctrine, and why hope for their salvation makes more sense, said Father Paul McPartlan, a member of the commission and a professor at The Catholic University of America in Washington.
"We cannot say we know with certainty what will happen" to unbaptized babies, Father McPartlan said, "but we have good grounds to hope that God in his mercy and love looks after these children and brings them to salvation."
[continues]
http://www.flcath.org/cns/cns-061009.htm
I so look forward to having this interesting problem resolved by the Pope!
This is a topic that's been bothering me for a long time. If I had a tax-exempt charity and refused to hire someone or fired them for not being an atheist, for being straight, or for praying at work I'd get sued into oblivion. Not to mention some wingnut would probably fire bomb my house.
But these guys are respected for doing just that kind of crap. Not to mention they're doing it while leeching off our tax money.
Warning: Another Hank Fox tome coming up. (Also, I apologize for burying this deep in the comments here. Feel free to echo it on your own blogs if you think it's worth passing along.)
Reading recently that atheists and agnostics outnumber Jews in the U.S., I thought again of the aggressive social/political approach that we unbelievers may be building up to. That authors like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins can write bestsellers and be interviewed in mainstream media is a sign that this thing is capable of taking off.
BUT ... more - a lot more - needs to be done.
I think we all need to get active beyond the reading and writing that most of us are doing. We need to show up at city council meetings, we need to have atheist marches in public places, we need to make sure our voices are heard.
As Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins are doing, we also need to clearly communicate to each other just what has been done to us, what is happening to us now, and what dangers we face.
Nigel (commenter above) thinks this is all a big nothing. But it isn't a big nothing. It's life and death, and it has been for all of history. Probably most of us have used the rhetorical examples of witch burnings, etc., as the sort of stuff believers are capable of, but I wonder how many of us have REALLY dwelled on the reality of it:
Your neighbors come.
They take you away.
They burn you alive.
They watch and enjoy it.
And they do it because you don't believe the things they believe.
It really happened. Really.
It was done BY real people, TO real people. Someone really died screaming in a fire, every second thinking "No no no! Not me not me, please no, not me!" And it happened over and over and over again.
Sure, we all feel calm and safe in this time and place. Ancient history, right? Too ridiculous to think stuff like that could happen today. But the motivations that cause such things to happen are alive and well. There are places in the world right now were you can be put to death in public for being an unbeliever. There are probably people in your own town who could seriously entertain the idea and not break a sweat. (Is the reason you meet so many nutcases on the web, and not in real life, because they're expressing their true thoughts and desires on the web, whereas in real life they feel they need to mask those thoughts and desires?)
Oh, but the really bad things only happen in some distant land, right? Not if the safe zone we all think we enjoy here in the U.S. continues to be actively chipped away by conservative Christians. Most of them probably have no idea where it will all lead, but at the end of it, for you and me, there's the possibility of fire.
The thing I think most of us don't really understand - what people like Nigel don't understand - is that there's no stopping point built into the Conservative Christian movement. There literally is no conscious end goal to what they're doing. They don't just want to end abortion and stop there. They don't want to just block gay marriage and stop there.
They want MORE. They want CHANGE. And they have nothing but a vague "days gone by when we were all happy white Christians and everything was wonderful" vision in their heads to strive for. Since there was no such time and place, they will never stop wanting more change, more regress, more draconian application of their foggy ideas. Every step of headway they make will have real social consequences ... and every step will make second and third and fourth steps possible.
If they turn the U.S. into their fabled "Christian Nation," it will eventually impact every one of us, in every area of our lives. Forget piker issues like the "under God" pledge of allegiance and Ten Commandments plaques in courthouses. You won't be able to get married, to have sex, to choose a life partner, to be born, to die, to go to school, to go to a doctor, to speak your mind freely in public, even to read a book, without them weighing in on your choice.
YOU ALREADY KNOW THIS IS TRUE. We've all seen Conservative Christian activism in each of these areas in the news, in just the past year.
Sadly, we also already know certain of our countrymen are capable of torture, and of ordering torture. We know others are capable of watching it, of knowing about it but letting it happen anyway.
Put these things together with the fact that there are people out there who really and truly do hate the fact that you think your own thoughts, that some of them really and truly would hurt you for it if they thought they could get away with it, and some seriously scary possibilities begin to emerge.
Do I think these things are going to happen?
No. Because I think we're all going to get up off our asses and make ourselves heard. We're going to stop them.
We're going to do it because we have to.
Because I don't think they can stop themselves.
"Get out and live your life!"
And what, exactly, are you doing here? The writing of your response, in addition to it's appearance close to the bottom of a long list of comments, seems indicative of quite a bit of time spent combing through this blog. So...do you really want your contribution to those comments to be a paragraph-long version of the pot calling the kettle black?
Oh, and....
"I am no biologist, but it seems 'confident' atheists lack the biological fitness to survive in present day America."
You know, hon, you really don't even need to put the qualifier in there. There are so many things wrong with that sentence, not only in terms of your knowledge of the concept of "biological fitness," but atheism and even American society, that we already KNOW that you're "no biologist," much less a scientist, or even a very good observer.
Ichthyic: Ironic that you should choose "stoicism" to describe Nigel's attitude, since one important component of actual stoicism was something like the idea that one had to understand nature in order to be good. Since this blog has as one of its themes understanding nature ...
why do we need to separate church and state and why not?