Anyways I don't understand how if God is infallible that he needs to release a second edition and its still full of errors.
If you think the New Testament is a "second edition", then you may have read it, but you didn't understand it. Again, historical context is important.
The Old Testament was specifically catered to the Jews' culture; they weren't spiritually mature enough to handle the gospel as Jesus would later teach it. So God gave them a list of "do"s and "don't"s, so that they could determine the intent behind the rules and extrapolate from there. (Parents do this for their children all the time, for comparison.)
The first four books of the New Testament consist of Jesus' teachings, which were meant to replace the Law of Moses; rather than a list of actions that were prohibited or permitted, Jesus taught more abstract concepts (e.g. "love thy neighbor"). These were the things the Jews were supposed to have learned by examining the intent behind the Law of Moses.
Sure, two thousand years later there are plenty of translation and transcription errors. But the Bible never claims it is literally, word for word, the word of God (but even if it did, it wouldn't be referring to some English translation made thousands of years later). Instead, the Bible tells us to look for prophets to guide us. Why would this be our instruction?
Well, why do courts of law prefer witnesses rather than transcripts of witness testimony? So they can get clarification beyond what the transcript contains.
God sends prophets for precisely that reason - to give us guidance specific to our time, guidance beyond what the two-thousand-year-old New Testament contains.
The bible (new test) also talks about slaughtering disbelievers jesus having swords coming out of his mouth.
I guess you don't know symbolism when you see it?
Sleeping with relatives, the proper way to beat people and condemning whole cities of people to hellish deaths. If you saw no evil pushed by jesus or god in the new testament you are blind.
o_O Near as I'm aware, those examples come from the Old Testament, not the New. I am interested in seeing examples of Jesus pushing evil in the New Testament, though. Feel free to reply here or e-mail me.
Also, if you are expected to extrapolate why didn't they put that in the intro?
Maybe because there isn't an intro? The Bible was not written as one volume, you know; it was written as separate accounts by separate people over thousands of years (if you include the Old Testament). The New Testament is little more than a bunch of letters of guidance specifically directed at one group of people or other; 1 Corinthians, for example, was written to specifically address questions that the Corinthians had. We don't have their original questions, but we can guess them based on the content of Paul's epistle.
This is why there's a verse where the writer asks the recipient to hang on to his boots for him (or something along those lines). We're not meant to extract spiritual meaning from it (though I've seen people try); it was merely a personal addendum from the writer to the recipient.
The Bible as we know it was put together by a council of Catholic Bishops in the fourth (fifth?) century who couldn't even agree on which texts to include. The votes were by no means unanimous, and the New Testament at least was not ordered chronologically. For example, the Gospel of John was written after the Book of Revelation, though the Book of Revelation was put at the end; the Epistles of Paul are listed more or less in order of decreasing length, rather than by when they were written... and so on and so forth.
As far as extrapolation goes, the Bible tells us to do two things when we need guidance. One thing is that we are to seek true prophets (as opposed to false ones); another is that we are to pray t
Gah, you're going to make me give my dad a call to talk about this:P (He's a tax accountant who is a partner in his relatively small accounting company.)
The reason that I find this germane to the discussion at hand is the fact that true non-profits shouldn't really be holding onto capital or making a profit.
In general, I agree with you, but it would depend on what you mean by "holding onto capital". If by "capital" you mean "money", then that's kind of a silly thing to say; there's nothing wrong with a non-profit having some savings. It's what they do with it that matters;)
With respect to making a profit, there is a good example non-profits can follow. The LDS Church owns some for-profit farms and such; it pays full taxes on those efforts (including property tax). It keeps those profits separate from its other funds, and re-invests them in existing or new efforts. (It's helpful to own lots of farms in times of need, given the large humanitarian efforts put forth by the LDS Church.)
Three paragraphs is "tl;dr"? Why are you even replying?
Besides, all you had to do was pick out the sentence in bold. There's a reason I bolded it - precisely so the "tl;dr" crowd wouldn't have to read the whole thing. That one sentence sums up my entire post.
Also the new testament is cool with slaves and dozens of horrific things please don't go there.
Is it, now. If you think that, you either haven't read it (which I think most likely) or you're ignoring the context (either textual or historical) in which the text was written.
For example, nowhere in the New Testament will you find anyone saying "it's cool if you go out and buy a bunch of slaves"; what you will find is "if you're a slave (or master), don't be a jerk to your master (or slave), because that's not how Christ would behave in that situation."
Point being, if you own slaves, and you convert to Christianity, then inevitably you will reach the conclusion that no true Christian could keep slaves. Christ had no desire to dictate every detail about how we should behave; that was in fact something he wanted to avoid. We are expected to extrapolate appropriate behaviors based on the guidelines Christ gave us.
Yes, I believe that as well. What I meant was, whereas physical resurrection is (at least by some Christians) considered to be a universal thing (received by all people regardless of obedience), eternal life in the presence of God requires adherence to some set of rules (whatever those rules may be).
As a Utah Mormon, I just want to point out that excommunication is not used as a threat, and when someone is excommunicated, it's for one of two things:
- Member broke the law, and remained unrepentant (i.e. continued breaking the law). In the case, if that person is shunned, it is for being a criminal, and for no other reason. - Member cheated on member's spouse, and remained unrepentant (i.e. continue cheating on spouse). In that case, if the person is shunned, it's for being a disloyal jerkface, and for no other reason.
Generally speaking, if Steve is excommunicated, chances are most of the people Steve knows won't even find out unless he tells them. It's not something that gets announced in Church meetings. Furthermore, Church members are generally encouraged to maintain existing friendships with people who leave the Church.
Any FORMER mormon who leaves the church will be prevented from seeing his family and friends again. Anyone current mormon who breaks the rules and speaks to a FORMER mormon risks the same.
I already responded in general here, but these claims merit separate response.
First, recall that I am a Mormon who was raised mostly in Utah in mostly Mormon communities with mostly Mormon friends.
I have many family members who are FORMER members. I have never been instructed to avoid them. I have never seen any other Mormon avoid them. I have never heard of any other Mormon being instructed by Church leaders to avoid a FORMER member.
I regularly communicate with FORMER members, both family and non-family members; I do this in person, over the phone, and online. I have never been instructed to stop. I have never heard of anyone being instructed to stop.
I have never been threatened with excommunication for any reason, let alone communication with FORMER members.
The LDS Church explicitly encourages members to maintain relationships with those who leave the Church.
I don't know where you're getting your information, but your claims certainly do not reflect my experience living among Mormons.
Tithing goes toward (for example): - meetinghouse and temple maintenance and construction, and purchase of land for new church buildings - funding for church ecclesiastical activities, both religious and social - funding the Church Education System, which runs seminaries and generates printed materials for distribution to members - some of the missionary effort is funded through tithing
You'll note that none of these things generate profit (and in fact none of these things generate any return at all). My list is not complete, but it does account for the vast majority of tithing expenditure as far as I'm aware.
The Church's for-profit activities are entirely separate from tithing, and are taxed appropriately.
Look at Mormons. They shun their own family if they don't buy into their crap. Threatening to make you effectively dead to your whole (brainwashed) family - that's not extortion?
Speaking as a Utah-raised Mormon with several family members who are no longer active in the Church, I call your bluff.
Nobody in my family is shunned for not believing. I have many friends who are not members of the Church. Furthermore, the LDS Church explicitly disapproves of shunning people who have left the Church, especially family members, and we are encouraged to befriend those around us who are not members of the Church.
There's always isolated examples of person X shunning person Y for reason Z, no matter what group of people you're talking about. Don't judge an entire group of people based on third-hand stories.
The LDS Church spent less than $200k on the effort.
The problem is, the people complaining are trying to claim that independent donations by members (through non-Church channels) are part of the Church's official contributions.
The logical extension of that claim is that any donation made to any cause by any member of a church must be counted toward that church's expenses, which is quite frankly a counter-intuitive, idiotic, unworkable, and unenforceable idea.
The result would be all churches losing tax-exempt status merely for having charitable members!
Well that's sort of my point. There is little difference between a Church and a non-profit charity organization, and the tax code already treats them largely the same. There's no reason to change anything, we merely need to better enforce the existing rules for the non-profit tax-exemption status to cut out the groups that try to take advantage of the rules for their own personal benefit.
Regardless of whether you believe baptism to be necessary (the "just say you believe and you're saved" group comapred to the "obey all of Jesus' commandments" group), for example, there is at a minimum one rule that all Christian sects can agree on:
If you want to be "saved" (whatever they may construe that to mean), you must believe in Christ (whatever they construe "belief" to mean).
I can't speak for the Catholic Church on this, because it operates differently, but the LDS Church uses a lay clergy; none are paid for their religious service. For example, an LDS Bishop is not paid for the time and effort he puts into his duties (which are given on top of his normal full-time job and family responsibilities).
The vast majority of LDS missionaries pay their own way (the Church absorbs the overhead of managing fund distribution from a missionary's family at home to missionaries out in the field).
Whatever profits the LDS Church makes on its commercial activities it does pay taxes on, and even then, that money is not used for non-commercial activities.
As far as "employee pay", the Church has very few actual employees; a handful of accountants at Church headquarters, some janitors. That number pales in comparison to the expense of managing the Church's humanitarian aid programs:)
since the company is running at virtually no profit.
A company needs profit to grow;) Besides, I don't think you understand how taxes on small businesses work. It's not just "you're taxed on gross minus employee salaries minus expenses". If that were the case, then no company would ever pay taxes, because they'd make sure to spend all their income.
What I mean is, it's far more complicated than you're making it out to be, and yes, higher taxes do make things more difficult to small businesses - especially when the business' profit is the owner's income. If the profit is virtually zero, then the owner is living on virtually zero, and that situation doesn't work very long.
If you are an organization taking in money, and then using that money either for charitable donations or direct charitable activity, there is no tax levied. That, sir, is why your argument for tax-exempt status seems like a bogus argument
I'm not sure what you're getting at. You switch from talking about tax-exempt, non-profit organizations which take donations and spend all of the donations on charitable work, to talking about for-profit small businesses with no mention of charity.
There's a disconnect in there somewhere, and I think you need to revisit this a little more clearly.
I try not to reply to myself, but I feel compelled to add that the link you provide doesn't understand the law it's claiming is broken: it claims the LDS Church is violating US Code Title 26, Section 501(c)(3), but ignores the fact that the ban on activities mentioned in 501(c)(3) explicitly excludes activities permitted by 501(h). The LDS Church's involvement in Proposition 8 was permitted by 501(h), and therefore it was permitted by 501(c)(3), so according to the law, no law was broken. (IANAL, but IMO it's pretty clear.)
Question 12: “Does the Church own substantial farm properties, as some have indicated?”
The Church does own a number of farm properties. As you know, we have some welfare properties whose produce is used to supply food for the needy. These are operated strictly for charitable purposes and legally qualify for tax-exempt status.
Then we have some commercial farm properties. I spoke earlier of the reserves of the Church. Prudent management requires that this money be put to use. In that process, we have purchased and hold some good, productive farms. They are well operated under capable management, and they yield a conservative rate of return. We have felt that good farms, over a long period, represent a safe investment where the assets of the Church may be preserved and enhanced, while at the same time they are available as an agricultural resource to feed people should there come a time of need.
Again, all such commercial properties are taxed under the government entities where they are located. Not only do they pay property taxes, but also income taxes on any profits. So it is with all of the commercial operations of the Church.
In other words, the LDS Church does in fact pay property tax and income tax on commercial efforts. One would assume the Catholic Church does the same.
Do you realize individuals get tax breaks for charitable donations? The exact same reasoning is behind a church's tax-exempt status - except that charitable activities of a church often far outpace what individual citizens could hope to accomplish:
Donations, principally from [LDS] Church members but also from people around the world, are used to make relief projects possible. One hundred percent of the donations given to the Church’s humanitarian services are used for relief efforts. The [LDS] Church absorbs its own overhead costs.
No for-profit organization would be willing to do that - and an organization that operates that way has great incentive to streamline its operations for efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Do you think a government-operated agency would ever be as cost-effective?
Clamor for removing tax exemption from churches if you want, but you'd better not complain when you succeed and your taxes rise to compensate for the government's increased humanitarian aid spending.
The churches long ago abrogated that responsibility and turned responsibility for the social "safety net" over to the state -- and yet they still retain their tax-exempt status?!?
Maybe some churches have abrogated that responsibility, but many have not. The LDS Church, for example, spends millions of dollars every year on welfare and other aid both for its members and for non-members. Any time there's a large-scale natural disaster in the world, the LDS Church is among the first to send aid. Guess where all that money comes from? If that money were taxed, then the Church would have to send less aid, and then the government would have to send more aid, so that money would be spent on aid anyway.
As far as I'm aware, the Catholic Church spends quite a bit on the same sort of aid.
I see no reason to universally remove tax exemption, but I would not be opposed to requiring tax-exempt organizations from proving they qualify for tax-exempt status (by providing accounting records). I'm not qualified to determine how much an organization should have to spend to qualify, but I'm sure the IRS could come up with some reasonable number.
Modern "Christianity" is not one single entity, so if you were to try to prosecute "Christianity" you'd have to prosecute a lot of groups who have widely disparate views. What is it, exactly, about Christianity that you think is fraudulent? Is it the promise of immortality in exchange for obedience to some set of rules? That doesn't meet any definition of fraud that I'm aware of, unless you can conclusively prove that the promises given by Christian teachings are false (and even then, not all false things are fraudulent).
Scientology is being attacked because it's a group that's actively engaged in fraud and extortion; their sci-fi "religion" is merely a front for their money-making activities. Christianity does not meet that definition - or more accurately not every group that calls itself "Christian" meets that definition (and if they are engaged in fraud, then they're clearly ignoring what they claim to believe). They are not being prosecuted merely for their beliefs.
That's one thing you have to realize: Scientology encourages fraudulent behavior, whereas Christianity (as taught by the New Testament) does precisely the opposite. It is the behavior that is being attacked in court, not the beliefs.
Yeah, your cable provider's TOS prohibits running a server
Actually you could argue that an ssh (or even FTP) server running on your normal-use machine doesn't break ToS, as long as you're not allowing anonymous public access to it. For example, based on my reading of Comcast's ToS, Comcast would really have to stretch their ToS to claim I'm violating their ToS by running an externally-accessible ssh server on my linux machine (which is of course a machine I use regularly).
The way the ToS reads, you'd have to run a standalone physical server that's externally accessible before the ToS would be broken (even if it's just for personal use). Now, that may be an oversight on their part, but that's hardly our problem;)
(I'm obviously ignoring the fact that they can shut down your connection just because they feel like it.)
Of course, there's very little they could do to determine whether or not a given ssh connection is going to a standalone physical server or a personal machine, which means you're right - they'll never check and they won't notice if you're the only one using it.
It's not really relevant to talk about FiOS; it's not even available in most of the places Verizon is advertising it, and it's certainly not available in enough places to be called "common". For example, Verizon is spending tons of money advertising FiOS around here (South King County, WA), but not only is FiOS not available in my zip code, my address isn't even in their system, so their customer support people can't even record an upvote for my area.
You might get away with calling Comcast's availability "common", but its price is not on par with what 14.4 modem connections cost in 1995 as far as I know. (Feel free to correct me.)
You're obviously intelligent as well, yet I find it curious that you blindly assume that every study that contradicts your opinion must be "partisan". (I think you mean "biased", but even biased studies are relevant, even if they're less relevant than unbiased studies.)
I didn't say the fourth link itself gives contradictory results; I only said the the report cites studies on both sides of the debate - studies which obviously contradict each other. And yet when the report makes its conclusion, it merely chooses to believe the pro-gay-adoption studies without really explaining why.
More accurately, the bulk of the report is made up of "there's this study against it, but there's this other study that contradicts the first study, so the second study must be right" - that's hardly concrete logic. I could just as easily reverse the order of the studies and have the report give the opposite conclusion.
We're not getting anywhere, so I see no reason to continue this discussion.
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Anyways I don't understand how if God is infallible that he needs to release a second edition and its still full of errors.
If you think the New Testament is a "second edition", then you may have read it, but you didn't understand it. Again, historical context is important.
The Old Testament was specifically catered to the Jews' culture; they weren't spiritually mature enough to handle the gospel as Jesus would later teach it. So God gave them a list of "do"s and "don't"s, so that they could determine the intent behind the rules and extrapolate from there. (Parents do this for their children all the time, for comparison.)
The first four books of the New Testament consist of Jesus' teachings, which were meant to replace the Law of Moses; rather than a list of actions that were prohibited or permitted, Jesus taught more abstract concepts (e.g. "love thy neighbor"). These were the things the Jews were supposed to have learned by examining the intent behind the Law of Moses.
Sure, two thousand years later there are plenty of translation and transcription errors. But the Bible never claims it is literally, word for word, the word of God (but even if it did, it wouldn't be referring to some English translation made thousands of years later). Instead, the Bible tells us to look for prophets to guide us. Why would this be our instruction?
Well, why do courts of law prefer witnesses rather than transcripts of witness testimony? So they can get clarification beyond what the transcript contains.
God sends prophets for precisely that reason - to give us guidance specific to our time, guidance beyond what the two-thousand-year-old New Testament contains.
The bible (new test) also talks about slaughtering disbelievers jesus having swords coming out of his mouth.
I guess you don't know symbolism when you see it?
Sleeping with relatives, the proper way to beat people and condemning whole cities of people to hellish deaths. If you saw no evil pushed by jesus or god in the new testament you are blind.
o_O Near as I'm aware, those examples come from the Old Testament, not the New. I am interested in seeing examples of Jesus pushing evil in the New Testament, though. Feel free to reply here or e-mail me.
Also, if you are expected to extrapolate why didn't they put that in the intro?
Maybe because there isn't an intro? The Bible was not written as one volume, you know; it was written as separate accounts by separate people over thousands of years (if you include the Old Testament). The New Testament is little more than a bunch of letters of guidance specifically directed at one group of people or other; 1 Corinthians, for example, was written to specifically address questions that the Corinthians had. We don't have their original questions, but we can guess them based on the content of Paul's epistle.
This is why there's a verse where the writer asks the recipient to hang on to his boots for him (or something along those lines). We're not meant to extract spiritual meaning from it (though I've seen people try); it was merely a personal addendum from the writer to the recipient.
The Bible as we know it was put together by a council of Catholic Bishops in the fourth (fifth?) century who couldn't even agree on which texts to include. The votes were by no means unanimous, and the New Testament at least was not ordered chronologically. For example, the Gospel of John was written after the Book of Revelation, though the Book of Revelation was put at the end; the Epistles of Paul are listed more or less in order of decreasing length, rather than by when they were written... and so on and so forth.
As far as extrapolation goes, the Bible tells us to do two things when we need guidance. One thing is that we are to seek true prophets (as opposed to false ones); another is that we are to pray t
Gah, you're going to make me give my dad a call to talk about this :P (He's a tax accountant who is a partner in his relatively small accounting company.)
The reason that I find this germane to the discussion at hand is the fact that true non-profits shouldn't really be holding onto capital or making a profit.
In general, I agree with you, but it would depend on what you mean by "holding onto capital". If by "capital" you mean "money", then that's kind of a silly thing to say; there's nothing wrong with a non-profit having some savings. It's what they do with it that matters ;)
With respect to making a profit, there is a good example non-profits can follow. The LDS Church owns some for-profit farms and such; it pays full taxes on those efforts (including property tax). It keeps those profits separate from its other funds, and re-invests them in existing or new efforts. (It's helpful to own lots of farms in times of need, given the large humanitarian efforts put forth by the LDS Church.)
Three paragraphs is "tl;dr"? Why are you even replying?
Besides, all you had to do was pick out the sentence in bold. There's a reason I bolded it - precisely so the "tl;dr" crowd wouldn't have to read the whole thing. That one sentence sums up my entire post.
Also the new testament is cool with slaves and dozens of horrific things please don't go there.
Is it, now. If you think that, you either haven't read it (which I think most likely) or you're ignoring the context (either textual or historical) in which the text was written.
For example, nowhere in the New Testament will you find anyone saying "it's cool if you go out and buy a bunch of slaves"; what you will find is "if you're a slave (or master), don't be a jerk to your master (or slave), because that's not how Christ would behave in that situation."
Point being, if you own slaves, and you convert to Christianity, then inevitably you will reach the conclusion that no true Christian could keep slaves. Christ had no desire to dictate every detail about how we should behave; that was in fact something he wanted to avoid. We are expected to extrapolate appropriate behaviors based on the guidelines Christ gave us.
Yes, I believe that as well. What I meant was, whereas physical resurrection is (at least by some Christians) considered to be a universal thing (received by all people regardless of obedience), eternal life in the presence of God requires adherence to some set of rules (whatever those rules may be).
Well put, and exactly right. This was about a group's behavior, not their beliefs.
As a Utah Mormon, I just want to point out that excommunication is not used as a threat, and when someone is excommunicated, it's for one of two things:
- Member broke the law, and remained unrepentant (i.e. continued breaking the law). In the case, if that person is shunned, it is for being a criminal, and for no other reason.
- Member cheated on member's spouse, and remained unrepentant (i.e. continue cheating on spouse). In that case, if the person is shunned, it's for being a disloyal jerkface, and for no other reason.
Generally speaking, if Steve is excommunicated, chances are most of the people Steve knows won't even find out unless he tells them. It's not something that gets announced in Church meetings. Furthermore, Church members are generally encouraged to maintain existing friendships with people who leave the Church.
Any FORMER mormon who leaves the church will be prevented from seeing his family and friends again. Anyone current mormon who breaks the rules and speaks to a FORMER mormon risks the same.
I already responded in general here, but these claims merit separate response.
First, recall that I am a Mormon who was raised mostly in Utah in mostly Mormon communities with mostly Mormon friends.
I don't know where you're getting your information, but your claims certainly do not reflect my experience living among Mormons.
No, but it's also not used for profit ;)
Tithing goes toward (for example):
- meetinghouse and temple maintenance and construction, and purchase of land for new church buildings
- funding for church ecclesiastical activities, both religious and social
- funding the Church Education System, which runs seminaries and generates printed materials for distribution to members
- some of the missionary effort is funded through tithing
You'll note that none of these things generate profit (and in fact none of these things generate any return at all). My list is not complete, but it does account for the vast majority of tithing expenditure as far as I'm aware.
The Church's for-profit activities are entirely separate from tithing, and are taxed appropriately.
Look at Mormons. They shun their own family if they don't buy into their crap. Threatening to make you effectively dead to your whole (brainwashed) family - that's not extortion?
Speaking as a Utah-raised Mormon with several family members who are no longer active in the Church, I call your bluff.
Nobody in my family is shunned for not believing. I have many friends who are not members of the Church. Furthermore, the LDS Church explicitly disapproves of shunning people who have left the Church, especially family members, and we are encouraged to befriend those around us who are not members of the Church.
There's always isolated examples of person X shunning person Y for reason Z, no matter what group of people you're talking about. Don't judge an entire group of people based on third-hand stories.
The LDS Church spent less than $200k on the effort.
The problem is, the people complaining are trying to claim that independent donations by members (through non-Church channels) are part of the Church's official contributions.
The logical extension of that claim is that any donation made to any cause by any member of a church must be counted toward that church's expenses, which is quite frankly a counter-intuitive, idiotic, unworkable, and unenforceable idea.
The result would be all churches losing tax-exempt status merely for having charitable members!
Well that's sort of my point. There is little difference between a Church and a non-profit charity organization, and the tax code already treats them largely the same. There's no reason to change anything, we merely need to better enforce the existing rules for the non-profit tax-exemption status to cut out the groups that try to take advantage of the rules for their own personal benefit.
Precisely.
Regardless of whether you believe baptism to be necessary (the "just say you believe and you're saved" group comapred to the "obey all of Jesus' commandments" group), for example, there is at a minimum one rule that all Christian sects can agree on:
If you want to be "saved" (whatever they may construe that to mean), you must believe in Christ (whatever they construe "belief" to mean).
I can't speak for the Catholic Church on this, because it operates differently, but the LDS Church uses a lay clergy; none are paid for their religious service. For example, an LDS Bishop is not paid for the time and effort he puts into his duties (which are given on top of his normal full-time job and family responsibilities).
The vast majority of LDS missionaries pay their own way (the Church absorbs the overhead of managing fund distribution from a missionary's family at home to missionaries out in the field).
Whatever profits the LDS Church makes on its commercial activities it does pay taxes on, and even then, that money is not used for non-commercial activities.
As far as "employee pay", the Church has very few actual employees; a handful of accountants at Church headquarters, some janitors. That number pales in comparison to the expense of managing the Church's humanitarian aid programs :)
So... what's your point?
since the company is running at virtually no profit.
A company needs profit to grow ;) Besides, I don't think you understand how taxes on small businesses work. It's not just "you're taxed on gross minus employee salaries minus expenses". If that were the case, then no company would ever pay taxes, because they'd make sure to spend all their income.
What I mean is, it's far more complicated than you're making it out to be, and yes, higher taxes do make things more difficult to small businesses - especially when the business' profit is the owner's income. If the profit is virtually zero, then the owner is living on virtually zero, and that situation doesn't work very long.
If you are an organization taking in money, and then using that money either for charitable donations or direct charitable activity, there is no tax levied.
That, sir, is why your argument for tax-exempt status seems like a bogus argument
I'm not sure what you're getting at. You switch from talking about tax-exempt, non-profit organizations which take donations and spend all of the donations on charitable work, to talking about for-profit small businesses with no mention of charity.
There's a disconnect in there somewhere, and I think you need to revisit this a little more clearly.
I try not to reply to myself, but I feel compelled to add that the link you provide doesn't understand the law it's claiming is broken: it claims the LDS Church is violating US Code Title 26, Section 501(c)(3), but ignores the fact that the ban on activities mentioned in 501(c)(3) explicitly excludes activities permitted by 501(h). The LDS Church's involvement in Proposition 8 was permitted by 501(h), and therefore it was permitted by 501(c)(3), so according to the law, no law was broken. (IANAL, but IMO it's pretty clear.)
So... yeah.
This is true, how clumsy of me.
I should have said "Christianity's promise of living eternally in the presence of God in exchange for obedience to some set of rules".
(And to others who didn't see the connection Culture20 made: yes, there is a difference between that and immortality.)
They make a profit on a lot of these activities just like a business, why shouldn't they pay taxes like everyone else?
From here:
Question 12: “Does the Church own substantial farm properties, as some have indicated?”
The Church does own a number of farm properties. As you know, we have some welfare properties whose produce is used to supply food for the needy. These are operated strictly for charitable purposes and legally qualify for tax-exempt status.
Then we have some commercial farm properties. I spoke earlier of the reserves of the Church. Prudent management requires that this money be put to use. In that process, we have purchased and hold some good, productive farms. They are well operated under capable management, and they yield a conservative rate of return. We have felt that good farms, over a long period, represent a safe investment where the assets of the Church may be preserved and enhanced, while at the same time they are available as an agricultural resource to feed people should there come a time of need.
Again, all such commercial properties are taxed under the government entities where they are located. Not only do they pay property taxes, but also income taxes on any profits. So it is with all of the commercial operations of the Church.
In other words, the LDS Church does in fact pay property tax and income tax on commercial efforts. One would assume the Catholic Church does the same.
Do you realize individuals get tax breaks for charitable donations? The exact same reasoning is behind a church's tax-exempt status - except that charitable activities of a church often far outpace what individual citizens could hope to accomplish:
From here:
Donations, principally from [LDS] Church members but also from people around the world, are used to make relief projects possible. One hundred percent of the donations given to the Church’s humanitarian services are used for relief efforts. The [LDS] Church absorbs its own overhead costs.
No for-profit organization would be willing to do that - and an organization that operates that way has great incentive to streamline its operations for efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Do you think a government-operated agency would ever be as cost-effective?
Clamor for removing tax exemption from churches if you want, but you'd better not complain when you succeed and your taxes rise to compensate for the government's increased humanitarian aid spending.
Merely owning large quantities of land is not enough to be called a "real estate company". What exactly makes you consider them a real estate company?
Linking to "How to File an IRS 501(c)(3) complaint" does not prove your claim that the Catholic Church is a real estate company.
It is customary to link a claim to a source, rather than to a solution. (The proposed solution should be linked separately.)
The churches long ago abrogated that responsibility and turned responsibility for the social "safety net" over to the state -- and yet they still retain their tax-exempt status?!?
Maybe some churches have abrogated that responsibility, but many have not. The LDS Church, for example, spends millions of dollars every year on welfare and other aid both for its members and for non-members. Any time there's a large-scale natural disaster in the world, the LDS Church is among the first to send aid. Guess where all that money comes from? If that money were taxed, then the Church would have to send less aid, and then the government would have to send more aid, so that money would be spent on aid anyway.
As far as I'm aware, the Catholic Church spends quite a bit on the same sort of aid.
I see no reason to universally remove tax exemption, but I would not be opposed to requiring tax-exempt organizations from proving they qualify for tax-exempt status (by providing accounting records). I'm not qualified to determine how much an organization should have to spend to qualify, but I'm sure the IRS could come up with some reasonable number.
Modern "Christianity" is not one single entity, so if you were to try to prosecute "Christianity" you'd have to prosecute a lot of groups who have widely disparate views. What is it, exactly, about Christianity that you think is fraudulent? Is it the promise of immortality in exchange for obedience to some set of rules? That doesn't meet any definition of fraud that I'm aware of, unless you can conclusively prove that the promises given by Christian teachings are false (and even then, not all false things are fraudulent).
Scientology is being attacked because it's a group that's actively engaged in fraud and extortion; their sci-fi "religion" is merely a front for their money-making activities. Christianity does not meet that definition - or more accurately not every group that calls itself "Christian" meets that definition (and if they are engaged in fraud, then they're clearly ignoring what they claim to believe). They are not being prosecuted merely for their beliefs.
That's one thing you have to realize: Scientology encourages fraudulent behavior, whereas Christianity (as taught by the New Testament) does precisely the opposite. It is the behavior that is being attacked in court, not the beliefs.
Isn't that the big problem Bart solved for Lisa?
China: "Where is our money? You pay now!"
Bart: "What happened to you, China? You used to be cool."
China: "We're still cool! Later - you pay later!"
I'm pretty sure that's intentional ;)
Yeah, your cable provider's TOS prohibits running a server
Actually you could argue that an ssh (or even FTP) server running on your normal-use machine doesn't break ToS, as long as you're not allowing anonymous public access to it. For example, based on my reading of Comcast's ToS, Comcast would really have to stretch their ToS to claim I'm violating their ToS by running an externally-accessible ssh server on my linux machine (which is of course a machine I use regularly).
The way the ToS reads, you'd have to run a standalone physical server that's externally accessible before the ToS would be broken (even if it's just for personal use). Now, that may be an oversight on their part, but that's hardly our problem ;)
(I'm obviously ignoring the fact that they can shut down your connection just because they feel like it.)
Of course, there's very little they could do to determine whether or not a given ssh connection is going to a standalone physical server or a personal machine, which means you're right - they'll never check and they won't notice if you're the only one using it.
It's not really relevant to talk about FiOS; it's not even available in most of the places Verizon is advertising it, and it's certainly not available in enough places to be called "common". For example, Verizon is spending tons of money advertising FiOS around here (South King County, WA), but not only is FiOS not available in my zip code, my address isn't even in their system, so their customer support people can't even record an upvote for my area.
You might get away with calling Comcast's availability "common", but its price is not on par with what 14.4 modem connections cost in 1995 as far as I know. (Feel free to correct me.)
You're obviously intelligent as well, yet I find it curious that you blindly assume that every study that contradicts your opinion must be "partisan". (I think you mean "biased", but even biased studies are relevant, even if they're less relevant than unbiased studies.)
I didn't say the fourth link itself gives contradictory results; I only said the the report cites studies on both sides of the debate - studies which obviously contradict each other. And yet when the report makes its conclusion, it merely chooses to believe the pro-gay-adoption studies without really explaining why.
More accurately, the bulk of the report is made up of "there's this study against it, but there's this other study that contradicts the first study, so the second study must be right" - that's hardly concrete logic. I could just as easily reverse the order of the studies and have the report give the opposite conclusion.
We're not getting anywhere, so I see no reason to continue this discussion.