What does committing fraud mean for a religion? When I eat a cracker is it really the body and blood of Christ? Do emotions really live in my hips like Hinduism claims?
Fraud in a religious context just means they don't agree with the religion.
Well GP's claim was that Secret Religions don't exist. He was trying to disqualify Scientology on the basis of being a secret religion.
You are trying to disqualify them on the basis of engaging in harassment. Harassment is bad but lots of religions harass people. We bust those groups for harassment we don't cancel the right of their people to practice their religion.
The USA doesn't require being a charity. And general religious instruction is treated as a public good in and of itself. Otherwise many religious institutions would be taxed.
The problem in Germany has to do with state organized harassment of Scientologists in areas like custody and employment discrimination. The tax stuff while annoying isn't going to destroy Scientology, criminalizing the individuals involved might.
As for "cult" vs. "religion" cult just means small religion you don't like. There isn't a difference.
As for fraud and con artists, I don't know what a religious "con" is vs. what a religious ritual is. If there are actual cons i.e. they are being sold goods that have clear non-religious purposes then I have no problem with Germany protecting people from cons associated with Scientology. That's different than persecuting people who believe in Dianetics.
Plenty of religions harass x-members including telling secrets and lies about them. Those are typical. As for framing people for crimes, no that is illegal and obvious Scientologists who do that sort of thing should be prosecuted.
As for this being standard practice. BS. There are isolated examples of them doing things like creating false crimes. There is no broad practice. People leave the Church all the time.
on a case-by-case basis, and subject to all the same scrutiny as any other nonprofit.
What scrutiny. You declare yourself a non-profit and then are prohibited from some acts. Philanthropy has nothing to do with it, but of course non-profits have strict limits on what they can do with profits. You seem somewhat confused on the criteria for non-profits and the rest of your post seems to be based on the idea that the government pre-certifies them rather than regulating their cash flow.
In general the USA defines religious a religious institution as one that has functional equivalence with those institutions primarily concerned with the relationship with man and his creator. So anything that acts like a church.
Because my "Church of the Big Titties" could definitely use some tax free status if we're just handing it out like that, that way we can have more "Sacraments of the Holy Wet T-Shirt" while imbibing "The Blessed Beer".
Go ahead. You can have a Church of the Big Tits and Wet T-Shirt contests as sacraments. You can't easily pull lots of money out of the business but you can draw salary. To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. That's it.
They just setup two separate organizations one that owns the copyright and one that is the tax exempt church the church then buys from the taxable entity or encourages others to buy. The Southern Baptists do this already across the board so for example the copyright on the HCSB is with Holman not the SBC. Most other religions have arms like this: Ignatius Press, Jewish Publication Society..
Well the secrecy predates copyright law. We are talking 1000 year old religions vs. 50 years. They do analogous things though. A lawsuit is basically asking the wider secular authority to punish. Sunnis consider Druze, Alawite, Ishami... beliefs heretical proselytizing. So if they become aware of someone spreading them outside the community (i.e. not to children) they will often kill them. These sects have also been known to kill people or mutilate them for revealing secrets to outsiders.
Show me another religion that hides their religious texts behind the concept of "trade secrets".
Druze (Israel and Lebanon), Alawite (governing religion in Syria) are two huge ones that have been around a 100 years. In the west groups like the Raelians. Not all religions want their doctrines to be public.
All tax churches are charities and don't have "profits" in the business sense. When they engage in profitable activities either 100% go to the non-profit part or they have to setup a for profit tax paying subsidiary.
As far as the tax code being transparent that doesn't stop anything. Regulations can be very narrowly targeted. You want to go after Islam you tax parking on Fridays and then give a rebate to stadiums. You meat preparation (halal) and then rebate the non-halal producers.
That's a totally different issue. I think its a very bad idea. The government has the ability through taxes and subsidies to either encourage or destroy them. People won't die for businesses. Subject religions to the same regulations as businesses and religions tied to the state can use the state to persecute rival sects and religions. Which creates religions which are underground and hostile to the state.
And for what? How much revenue do you think you'll get? The USA system has worked well for centuries why mess it up?
It isn't just legal or tax advantages. There is also state organized discrimination against Scientologists. For example child custody issues or employment discrimination. Let's not minimize what Germany is doing here and what their advocates are arguing for. The difference with Al-Shabaab is say one of degree not one of kind.
However, not only do churches do this but the right to church discipline was one of the reasons the America was a land of religious freedom. Mennonite churches (think the Amish), most certainly do harass those who quit. And that Baptist tradition was all during the 19th century quite common. The LDS church, Jehovah's Witnesses. Many of the stricter Protestant faiths do this. And of course Islam does this. So no what you are saying is just false.
Yes it is rather routine. But the institutions who get their status revoked aren't close to being exempt. The Church of Scientology does so many things that qualify it as a church its hard to imagine anything more than a fine without blatant intentional discrimination. The intent here is to encourage the state to attack a religion because they don't like it.
The reason for the tax free status is the power to tax is the power to destroy. By having religions subject to government regulation like businesses, religions tied to the state can use the state to persecute rival sects and religions. Which creates religions which are underground and hostile to the state.
And for what? How much revenue do you think you'll get?
No Germany didn't get this right. Scientology has engaged in some very questionable behavior. As has Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Paganism and all the associated sects. State sanctioned attacks on religions because the state doesn't like some of their acts are potentially very very bad things. Any kind of governmental abuse starts by picking an unpopular victim and then using that as a precedent for the real target.
Officials associated with The Church of Scientology have committed crimes. They deserved to be punished for those crimes. The Church of Scientology in so far as it has institutionally cooperated with those crimes deserves to lose lawsuits and pay damages.
That's vastly different than giving the state the authority to destroy religions it disagrees with.
The problems they are listing are violations of anti-trust not your annoyances with how you have to develop. Apple isn't a monopoly. The costs associated with the lockin (even if one wanted to grant that) for iOS development are trivial.
The article is about increased scrutiny from Europe for a range of tech companies on a variety of issues. In terms of Google it mentions there is no specific list of charges yet. The summary indicates there is a specific list of charges and names a dollar figure. So for example when talking about hypothetical charges the articles says, "If Google fails to rebut any formal charges, Ms. Vestager could levy a fine that could exceed 6 billion euros, or $6.4 billion" which is very different from the summary.
How is having your config file in a config subdirectory off your application so horrible. The registry is a bad design. Prone to single point of failure.
So you want to configure your apache settings go to/usr/apache/etc To run the program go to/usr/apache/bin
Because configuration isn't often that simple. So I want to change the behavior of a program X that uses PHP on Apache. Are the settings in/usr/apache/etc or/usr/apache/PHP/etc or/usr/PHP/etc or/usr/apache/PHP/X/etc or....
See TeX distributions for a good example of where your model leads. TeX is easy to add stuff to but the complexity comes in when you use both X and Y and want to control the interactions.
Well first off moving technology down market is an improvement. All sorts of cool features that are available in mainframes become a big deal when they are introduced for PCs. In specific Zones are more like LXC than Docker. Docker itself has a much wider and more complete ecosystem than Zones ever had.
The two main things that allowed Linux to displace Solaris, 1) Lower cost of hardware 2) It frequently requires less man hours to get X to work on Linux than on Solaris (the ecosystem).
Moreover the Linux ecosystem is more diverse than the Solaris ecosystem. The comparison (in terms of functionality) for Docker would have been a during the 1980s a Solaris system for running: SCO, Xenix, IRIX, Digital Unix, HPUX,... applications bundles under Solaris.
Well I don't know about "also ran". There were lots of CP/M machines. Visicalc was after basic word processing one of the first major applications for CP/M machines moving them from hobbyist to usable for home businesses...
Regardless the Apple 2 was not designed around the specs for Visicalc per GP. That's just not true.
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What does committing fraud mean for a religion? When I eat a cracker is it really the body and blood of Christ? Do emotions really live in my hips like Hinduism claims?
Fraud in a religious context just means they don't agree with the religion.
Well GP's claim was that Secret Religions don't exist. He was trying to disqualify Scientology on the basis of being a secret religion.
You are trying to disqualify them on the basis of engaging in harassment. Harassment is bad but lots of religions harass people. We bust those groups for harassment we don't cancel the right of their people to practice their religion.
The USA doesn't require being a charity. And general religious instruction is treated as a public good in and of itself. Otherwise many religious institutions would be taxed.
The problem in Germany has to do with state organized harassment of Scientologists in areas like custody and employment discrimination. The tax stuff while annoying isn't going to destroy Scientology, criminalizing the individuals involved might.
As for "cult" vs. "religion" cult just means small religion you don't like. There isn't a difference.
As for fraud and con artists, I don't know what a religious "con" is vs. what a religious ritual is. If there are actual cons i.e. they are being sold goods that have clear non-religious purposes then I have no problem with Germany protecting people from cons associated with Scientology. That's different than persecuting people who believe in Dianetics.
Plenty of religions harass x-members including telling secrets and lies about them. Those are typical. As for framing people for crimes, no that is illegal and obvious Scientologists who do that sort of thing should be prosecuted.
As for this being standard practice. BS. There are isolated examples of them doing things like creating false crimes. There is no broad practice. People leave the Church all the time.
What scrutiny. You declare yourself a non-profit and then are prohibited from some acts. Philanthropy has nothing to do with it, but of course non-profits have strict limits on what they can do with profits. You seem somewhat confused on the criteria for non-profits and the rest of your post seems to be based on the idea that the government pre-certifies them rather than regulating their cash flow.
In general the USA defines religious a religious institution as one that has functional equivalence with those institutions primarily concerned with the relationship with man and his creator. So anything that acts like a church.
What happens is the individuals involved including those in a conspiracy are prosecuted. But absolutely it still gets tax-exempt status.
Go ahead. You can have a Church of the Big Tits and Wet T-Shirt contests as sacraments. You can't easily pull lots of money out of the business but you can draw salary. To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. That's it.
So yes you can have your religion.
They just setup two separate organizations one that owns the copyright and one that is the tax exempt church the church then buys from the taxable entity or encourages others to buy. The Southern Baptists do this already across the board so for example the copyright on the HCSB is with Holman not the SBC. Most other religions have arms like this: Ignatius Press, Jewish Publication Society..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
Well the secrecy predates copyright law. We are talking 1000 year old religions vs. 50 years. They do analogous things though. A lawsuit is basically asking the wider secular authority to punish. Sunnis consider Druze, Alawite, Ishami... beliefs heretical proselytizing. So if they become aware of someone spreading them outside the community (i.e. not to children) they will often kill them. These sects have also been known to kill people or mutilate them for revealing secrets to outsiders.
Druze (Israel and Lebanon), Alawite (governing religion in Syria) are two huge ones that have been around a 100 years. In the west groups like the Raelians. Not all religions want their doctrines to be public.
All tax churches are charities and don't have "profits" in the business sense. When they engage in profitable activities either 100% go to the non-profit part or they have to setup a for profit tax paying subsidiary.
As far as the tax code being transparent that doesn't stop anything. Regulations can be very narrowly targeted. You want to go after Islam you tax parking on Fridays and then give a rebate to stadiums. You meat preparation (halal) and then rebate the non-halal producers.
That's a totally different issue. I think its a very bad idea. The government has the ability through taxes and subsidies to either encourage or destroy them. People won't die for businesses. Subject religions to the same regulations as businesses and religions tied to the state can use the state to persecute rival sects and religions. Which creates religions which are underground and hostile to the state.
And for what? How much revenue do you think you'll get? The USA system has worked well for centuries why mess it up?
It isn't just legal or tax advantages. There is also state organized discrimination against Scientologists. For example child custody issues or employment discrimination. Let's not minimize what Germany is doing here and what their advocates are arguing for. The difference with Al-Shabaab is say one of degree not one of kind.
Harassing people who are not members is illegal.
However, not only do churches do this but the right to church discipline was one of the reasons the America was a land of religious freedom. Mennonite churches (think the Amish), most certainly do harass those who quit. And that Baptist tradition was all during the 19th century quite common. The LDS church, Jehovah's Witnesses. Many of the stricter Protestant faiths do this. And of course Islam does this. So no what you are saying is just false.
Yes it is rather routine. But the institutions who get their status revoked aren't close to being exempt. The Church of Scientology does so many things that qualify it as a church its hard to imagine anything more than a fine without blatant intentional discrimination. The intent here is to encourage the state to attack a religion because they don't like it.
The reason for the tax free status is the power to tax is the power to destroy. By having religions subject to government regulation like businesses, religions tied to the state can use the state to persecute rival sects and religions. Which creates religions which are underground and hostile to the state.
And for what? How much revenue do you think you'll get?
No Germany didn't get this right. Scientology has engaged in some very questionable behavior. As has Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Paganism and all the associated sects. State sanctioned attacks on religions because the state doesn't like some of their acts are potentially very very bad things. Any kind of governmental abuse starts by picking an unpopular victim and then using that as a precedent for the real target.
Officials associated with The Church of Scientology have committed crimes. They deserved to be punished for those crimes. The Church of Scientology in so far as it has institutionally cooperated with those crimes deserves to lose lawsuits and pay damages.
That's vastly different than giving the state the authority to destroy religions it disagrees with.
The problems they are listing are violations of anti-trust not your annoyances with how you have to develop. Apple isn't a monopoly. The costs associated with the lockin (even if one wanted to grant that) for iOS development are trivial.
The article is about increased scrutiny from Europe for a range of tech companies on a variety of issues. In terms of Google it mentions there is no specific list of charges yet. The summary indicates there is a specific list of charges and names a dollar figure. So for example when talking about hypothetical charges the articles says, "If Google fails to rebut any formal charges, Ms. Vestager could levy a fine that could exceed 6 billion euros, or $6.4 billion" which is very different from the summary.
Because configuration isn't often that simple. So I want to change the behavior of a program X that uses PHP on Apache. Are the settings in /usr/apache/etc or /usr/apache/PHP/etc or /usr/PHP/etc or /usr/apache/PHP/X/etc or ....
See TeX distributions for a good example of where your model leads. TeX is easy to add stuff to but the complexity comes in when you use both X and Y and want to control the interactions.
Well first off moving technology down market is an improvement. All sorts of cool features that are available in mainframes become a big deal when they are introduced for PCs. In specific Zones are more like LXC than Docker. Docker itself has a much wider and more complete ecosystem than Zones ever had.
The two main things that allowed Linux to displace Solaris,
1) Lower cost of hardware
2) It frequently requires less man hours to get X to work on Linux than on Solaris (the ecosystem).
Moreover the Linux ecosystem is more diverse than the Solaris ecosystem. The comparison (in terms of functionality) for Docker would have been a during the 1980s a Solaris system for running: SCO, Xenix, IRIX, Digital Unix, HPUX, ... applications bundles under Solaris.
Well I don't know about "also ran". There were lots of CP/M machines. Visicalc was after basic word processing one of the first major applications for CP/M machines moving them from hobbyist to usable for home businesses ...
Regardless the Apple 2 was not designed around the specs for Visicalc per GP. That's just not true.