It’s hard for me to see why the IRS should treat the Catholic Church any differently than any other political action committee:
The role the bishops played in the pushing the Stupak amendment, which unfairly restricts access for low-income women to insurance coverage for abortions, was more than mere advocacy.
They seemed to dictate the finer points of the amendment, and managed to bully members of Congress to vote for added restrictions on a perfectly legal surgical procedure.
And this political effort was subsidized by taxpayers, since the Council enjoys tax-exempt status.
I don’t say this because I don’t agree with the Catholic Church on reproductive rights (because the truth is, I probably do agree with them on most other issues, aside from same sex marriage). I just don’t see how what happened with Stupak doesn’t make a mockery of election finance laws.
calipygian
I was listening to NPR this morning and they were commenting on Joe Cao’s vote on the reform bill and how the US Council of Bishops essentially gave Cao the green light to break ranks with the GOP and vote for the bill.
Then I stopped and thought for a minute and asked myself, “Wait. Who the fuck gave the fucking Catholic Bishops a vote in Congress”.
I swear, we are inching toward an Iranian style religious republic and are in complete denial about it.
General Winfield Stuck
You can’t levy taxes against baby jeevus and expect to get to heaven. The rest of it is off the books.
JHF
Hear, hear. Enough is enough.
Incertus
This has been going on for decades. That’s not to say it shouldn’t stop, and in fact I’m pleased that there’s at least some public discussion about it, but the reality is that churches have flaunted this law for a long time, and no one has ever, to my knowledge, even started to call them on it.
scav
complete with pograms against religious minorities. Excuse me while I go elf all my hair in nots “And worse I may be yet: the worst is not So long as we can say ‘This is the worst.”
scav
must have nots instead of knots on the brain, the party of no is invading everything!
calipygian
What is very interesting to me is that the Malkinites screech about how Muslims, who make a tiny minority in the country, are an existential threat to the American Way of Life ™ because of their special Jihad powers which provide for an unquenchable drive for Sharia and a New Califate stretching across the globe, yet don’t bat an eyelash when the Council of Bishops gets a giant vote in Congress.
jack fate
Remember when we made JFK promise to not take directives from the Holy See?
WereBear
It’s simple. If it’s their repressive religion, it’s a good thing.
toujoursdan
I think the regulation is that unless a religious group actually endorses a candidate or political party, they remain tax exempt: Referenda and behind the scenes manoeuvring are perfectly okay.
Not that I agree with it.
calipygian
I can’t wait to see how the wingnuts of the future handle it after the House Islamic Caucus asks the al-Azhar Mosque weigh in on a piece of legislation.
BFR
@calipygian
There’s nothing new about this. The Catholic church is super organized and has probably always been able to control a significant number of reps.
Demo Woman
The only time that the Catholic Church stayed out of politics was during the Kennedy election. I don’t even recognize the church that I grew up under.
ericblair
@WereBear: It’s simple. If it’s their repressive religion, it’s a good thing.
Just wait until the Baptists start getting worried that the Papist mackerel snappers are getting a wee too big for their britches. Then we can sit back and they can figure out why they were in favor of the separation of church and state in the first place.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I’m just waiting for the day when all of the different Christian faiths finally win control of the country, and then realize that they don’t agree with each other. Then we’ll have the ultimate holy war.
The Populist
If the church wants proselytize more than their religion, they should pay their fair share of taxes to the government. After all, there is a cost to being a “citizen” right?
The Populist
Yep, and then you will see Bosnia all over again.
Bubblegum Tate
Out here in the Bay, the church has a little tax trouble, too. The (kinda messed-up) punchline is that the church is doing this little dance in order toa void having its property potentially seized and sold in order to pay out settlements due to victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy.
BFR
@Belafon
Or we’ll go back to the status quo pre-abortion debate years. The Catholic hierarchy hasn’t been part of the GOP coalition for all that long.
calipygian
Some of you see a rodeo clown here. I see a third rate, Radovan Karadzic wannabe.
General Winfield Stuck
@calipygian:
We are descending more and more by the day into rank tribalism, where common sense solutions and public policy retreat from our national discourse in equal portions. It is a road traveled by failing empires.
If HCR were to fall, as now House liberals are threatening to cause, if the Stupak amendment remains, and Blue Dogs the same if it doesn’t make it in the final bill, it will be quite possibly the last straw for any turnaround from the failsafe point of remaining a united nation that we are getting closer to by the day.
Hopefully,, there will be some compromise for both sides to save ideological face, which is what is at stake for a procedure that most of the time is paid out of pocket in the range of 300 to 500 bucks, and less for ru-486 pill. Poorer women are going to need some break to that cost, but there are ways for this to happen to satisfy the pro life crowd.
John Sears
Heh, in the Senate Bill the Christian Scientists are trying to buy/insert language that would allow publicly subsidized health care plans to pay their quack faith healers to pray.
Seriously. Tax dollars to PAY FOR PRAYER.
Meanwhile in the House Pelosi and Waxman got down on bended knee to appease the Church of Cathol. The JFK thing is worth noting; the Catholic Church isn’t just a religious organization, bad as that is, intruding into our public sphere. They’re a foreign government!
If Pelosi had been begging for table scraps from the French Embassy, would that be ok?
Yeesh.
Nellcote
What is the rationale for religious tax exemtion in the first place?
John Sears
@General Winfield Stuck: Fuck the pro-life crowd. I will not swear allegiance to a non-secular government. If they want to live in El Salvador, they can pack their shit and leave.
It’s not just the abortion thing, bad as that is. The subsidies are a joke, way too low. People will be expected to pay 11 percent of their income in premiums for health plans that can average a 30-40% copay. Meanwhile the House bill has language that more or less makes patents on the best new lifesaving drugs eternal, so that there will never be affordable generics. The public option is firewalled so that very few people will be eligible to get it, and the Exchange is rigged so that the private insurers can dump the sickest people onto the PO until it drowns in red ink.
This is a shitty, shitty bill.
Lex
In light of its coverups of crimes and protection of criminals in the priest sex abuse cases, It’s hard for me to see why the IRS should treat the Catholic Church any differently than any other
political action committeecontinuing criminal enterprise.Fixed.
John Sears
@Lex: After this debacle I think Catholic Bishops should have to register as what they are – agents of a foreign government.
cleek
McNulty: I’ve gotta ask you: if every time Snot Boogie would grab the money and run away… why’d you even let him in the game?
Suspect: What?
McNulty: Well, if every time, Snot Boogie stole the money, why’d you let him play?
Suspect: Got to. It’s America, man.
Lex
Also, toujoursdan @10 has pretty much correctly recited the law w/r/t tax-exempt organizations’ political involvement.
Lizzy L
I’m Catholic, and I don’t see a problem with getting rid of the tax exemption for churches. Fine with me.
General Winfield Stuck
@John Sears:
Well, yea. Compared to the ideal.. If we are going to pitch the system we have and demand what we want now, or else, then there is no reason to do politics other than by other means. Which means saddling up to the front and decide things with guns and knives.
It may come to that, but I would rather do progress in the meantime, and that’s what this bill is. A public insurance option is the zygote of a single payer system. Once it comes into existence, more progress is possible. If not, then none is.
As far as the wingnuts religious and otherwise, they are here and have a vote. We just need to get more than they do.
Glidwrith
Oh, it gets even better with the Church – the bishop of our area sent my family a request for funds to pay for the cost of defending the pedophile lawsuits, while not giving up one iota of their properties.
Anoniminous
@General Winfield Stuck:
FTW
gwangung
@General Winfield Stuck: And haven’t a lot of people (including you, I think) point out that Social Security and Medicare started out as REALLY crappy, but got better over the years? And that no country jumped from private to single payer in one step?
Why are people clutching pearls given that history?? (OK, I know the answer is that people are pig ignorant of history, but still….).
The Grand Panjandrum
The IRS has threatened to revoke the tax-exempt status of a church as recently as 2005. Interesting case they chose:
They were not sanctioned although they probably did violate the law:
I suspect the Bush administration decided it wasn’t worth the effort, because so many Christianists were already preaching what are essentially political speeches. Go to any one of these churches close to a Federal election day and you would be horrified to hear some of the the things that are said from the pulpit. It isn’t subtle.
Time to end the farce and tax all of them. Period. Churches are members of the community and should pull their weight just like the rest of us. They are a business just like any other business. Selling god and goddess is a full time industry.
John Sears
@General Winfield Stuck: The public option is doomed. The CBO analysis says that it will be loaded down with the sick patients the private plans in the exchange don’t want, until it can’t compete on costs.
It will end up being a more expensive refuge for sick patients that the private people don’t want. Sort of Medicaid+.
It won’t solve anything, or be the basis for any future progress. It will be lucky to stay solvent.
This bill is arguably worse than doing nothing. People will be taxed and those taxes handed to the private insurers, and in exchange they get health care plans with a 40% copay. So they pay up to 11% of their paycheck for a health plan they can’t afford to use.
Plus, going forward, all the lifesaving drugs will be brand name, forever. So that’s 40% of the full cost of, say, chemo. Now, sure, there’s a cap on annual out of pocket… at 10k per family.
So. You pay 11% of your income, and then 10k on top of that if you ever get really sick. What do you want to bet they roll the costs over 10k over to the next year, too, to get around the cap?
John Sears
@gwangung: Err, what?
The NHS in England was formed almost overnight after WWII. Before that they had an ugly mess of a system, much like us.
There was no intermediate step.
toujoursdan
I attended that church for a few years and know the priest that gave that sermon. It’s a stretch to say that it conflicted with the law. The priest essentially asked whether Jesus would endorse the Iraq War as George Bush said He did. According to Regas Jesus wouldn’t.
He didn’t say who to vote for at all.
jpe
To convert the correct statement in #10 to the jargon, charities can’t do political activity (endorsing political candidates), but can engage in issue advocacy / lobbying (taking positions on legislation, referenda, etc. It just can’t be a substantial part of overall activity (typically interpreted to mean between 5 and 15 percent of overall expenditures.
General Winfield Stuck
@John Sears:
see @gwangung:
Legislation like this, even when everybody agrees on it, goes thru big changes and a lot of fixes before it works right. It is a hell of a lot easier to amend to a bill than pass one, especially one that so many are dead set against. This one is going to help around 6 million peeps get insurance that have none, nada, zilch, zero now and no prospects of getting it. That is better than none getting it, which will happen if this thing goes down.
Cheer up dude.
mistermix
Amen, brother. The solution to this problem is simple–split churches into two parts for tax purposes. The “charitable” part wouldn’t pay taxes. The part that functions like an Elks club or a PAC would pay taxes. That would cause a hell of a lot of churches to stick to their knitting.
Something Fabulous
@The Populist: Or Ireland, or…
J. Michael Neal
This is it exactly. There is no law being broken here.
Further, any attempt to do what DougJ suggests will fail on First Amendment grounds. You absolutely, positively can not base a decision whether or not to tax an organization based upon its political views or expression thereof. Really, there is no greater core purpose to the amendment. Such a law would get shot down instantly, and it should get shot down instantly. Either you eliminate the tax exempt status for all churches, or none, but you can’t do it on this basis. Alternatively, you could try to undo the Supreme Court decision that corporations, which the Catholic Church legally is, are persons and have Constitutional rights.
The only reason that their tax exempt status is at risk over endorsing a specific candidate is due to a rather odd Supreme Court ruling that the direct statement of support for a specific candidate is not protected speech. Honestly, it makes no sense at all, and points to some of the incoherence of campaign donation/finance laws. I’ve rapidly come to the conclusion that there is no way to structure campaign finance laws that aren’t an encroachment on the First Amendment.
I expect, however, that some of those who are ill-informed absolutists on the establishment clause in this, and yesterday’s, thread are going to be strangely squishy on the free exercise and free speech clauses.
geg6
Fuck those perverts in dresses. Fuck them with a rusty sword sideways. Fuck the Catholic Church. Fuck the Vatican. And fuck every asshole in America who gives them a penny or darkens their doors. That Church is the most evil, corrupt, and conscienceless institution in world history. We ought to tax them into bankruptcy and take every goddamn church and cathedral in this country as public property. They stepped way over any line ever drawn that allows them to keep their tax exemption back in 2004 when they went to war from the altar against Kerry. If my parents were still alive, I’d sue them for abuse for subjecting me to that criminal syndicate. Gawd, I hate pretty much all religions with a special contempt for conservative ones. But the religion I grew up in is the one for which my hate burns brightest. Because I know very well what it purports to be and what it really is. And two more opposite things do not exist on this earth. /rant
J. Michael Neal
If you would like to advocate for a massive war that destroys our infrastructure and bankrupts our economy in an attempt to radicalize the population so that they demand something for the effort they put into winning the war, I’m going to let you climb that hill on your own. The circumstances behind the creation of the NHS are not readily repeatable, or desirable.
R-Jud
@Demo Woman:
I do. Glad to be out from under it, personally.
J. Michael Neal
Uhm, you realize that neither the Elks Club nor PACs pay taxes, right?
John Sears
@General Winfield Stuck: Everyone assumes we have time to tinker with this, and that’s sort of infuriating. We don’t. Our international competitiveness is tied to, and completely undermined by, our shitty healthcare system.
There’s going to be outright revolt when people see how much this costs, and how little they get out of it. I guess that *might* lead to the kind of reforms we need, to compete with countries where the population isn’t constantly sick and dying far too young. Or it might lead to a solid Republican takeover.
Meantime, we’ve done more damage to abortion rights with this one bill than the right to life fanatics managed in decades of litigation and assassinating doctors, while religious groups get their foot in the door to actually writing our laws, and big Pharma gets the biggest wet-kiss of a deal imaginable, which will come out of our collective hides, either as taxes, or as unaffordable treatments for cancer and other serious ailments.
I’m sorry but I see no reason for optimism here. This victory is ashes in our mouths, and that’s before it hits the Senate, with utter wastes of skin like Lieberman and Baucus and Nelson, who all want to gut the few things in the bill that you actually like. Lieberman pledged today to join the Republican filibuster for any health bill that has a public option, for example.
Admittedly, he’s a pathological liar, but his wife is an insurance industry whore, so he might be telling the truth on this one.
Incertus
@Nellcote: It’s a tradeoff–if the church keeps its nose out of government, then the government keeps its nose out of church. And there’s the worry that the government could use taxation as a way to persecute a particular sect, so the general rule is to give churches a tax exemption. I’d just as soon see it go as well, at least for any property not being actively used for actual worship services, you know, like the private planes and mansions.
John Sears
@J. Michael Neal: For the love of… please shut up. Please.
A lot of good things have come about in the aftermath of wars, but that doesn’t mean that you have to have the war to get them. People can learn from example, and learn from history.
At least, some people can. I’m not so sure about you.
Our national highway system was inspired by the Autobahn, but that doesn’t mean we had to dress up in brownshirts and goosestep to get it. Moron.
General Winfield Stuck
Well, once the precedent is set that money equates to free speech, and that is the current precedent, then you are likely right, and most CCrs agree that a constitutional amendment will be necessary to enshrine the concept of publicly funded elections, at least national ones. I really don’t agree personally that money is free speech, but that it only buys you a bigger megaphone, but several decades of a conservative court has said it is free speech. We should learn soon with the current case pending how far the SCOTUS will go to rule against CF laws. I suspect a sweeping decision opening up the spickets to about full. And we will see how the public responds.
John Sears
@J. Michael Neal: I’m all for both revoking the tax-exemption on all churches and revoking personhood for corporations. Both are a bad idea. Neither group serves the public interest in any special way that justifies this tax giveaway.
J. Michael Neal
Originally, the rationale for religious tax exemption was because the money flowed the other way. In much of the 13 colonies, taxes were levied and used to subsidize whatever the orthodox church of the area was. The idea was to get churches out of the tax game altogether, and it made a lot of sense.
Since then, churches have become another type of tax-exempt non-profit organization, of which there are many different sorts. It’s actually a fairly complicated area of tax law, what the restrictions on the many different kinds of non-profits that they have to stay within in order to maintain their status.
The reason to reform the whole system really isn’t that churches are both tax exempt and engage in political action. As I said above, allowing that goes to the very core of the First Amendment. What really needs to be examined is the definition of what it means to be operating not-for-profit. Some of the charitable organizations are incredibly wealthy and use the money in ways that makes one question what “non-profit” means.
The churches are by no means the worst offenders on this. Actually, I’d probably put Harvard at the top of the list. Income taxes aren’t even the most troublesome aspect. Wander around the downtown of a major city someday and look at all of the expensive property that some organization owns without paying property tax.
John Sears
@John Sears: that last line should read ‘tax and/or rights giveaway’
General Winfield Stuck
@John Sears:
I will agree that this bill, though it will slow some the collapse of our HC system from wanton profiteering, will allow the track of failure to continue. Having at least a program in place, albeit a weak one, for the government to accelerate to single payer in case it becomes necessary is a very good thing imo. Whether it’s existence will act as a deterrent to current private insurance profiteering remains to be seen. But having a PO structure in place is not to be scoffed at, given the political realities in this country, which no amount of wailing about it will change.
J. Michael Neal
I might point out that the interstate highway system was created in the same post-war environment that the NHS was. There was less destruction here, but, then again, we overhauled our society a lot less than the British did. It was a different era. I challenge you to find an example of a society overturning itself like the Brits did between 1945 and 1960 without having undergone a cataclysmic experience. The interstate highway system doesn’t come close.
What comes closest in US history supports the idea that change will have to be incremental. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society was an attempt to introduce the level of change that Labour started after the war. Much of it failed, and the parts that succeeded either began as something less than they are now (Medicare), or were the incremental growth of something that came before (Social Security).
It is worth pointing out, though, that this is exactly why those that argue that now is not the time to pass health care reform are wrong. Because of the recession, we are looking at a time when things are traumatic enough that major legislation can get passed.
They can, but they tend not to. I’d be very surprised if right now was a moment that causes everyone to want a complete change.
The thing is, I try to learn what history actually has to tell me, not just what I want to hear.
toujoursdan
As a liberal Episcopalian I still have mixed feelings about taxing the church.
Arguably religious institutions have given more to the common welfare of this country than they have taken out of it. Our hospital and higher education system have disproportionately religious roots: from the Ivy League universities established by the Puritans (Harvard, Yale), Baptists (Brown), Episcopalians (Columbia, William and Mary), Presbyterians (Princeton) and Catholics (Georgetown, Boston College) to the other prestigous schools – Northwestern (Methodist), Notre Dame (Catholic), University of Toronto (Anglican), Bishop’s University in Quebec (Anglican), etc. to top quality small liberal arts colleges found in almost every metropolitan area like Occidental and Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles, Fordham in New York etc.
The hospital system in the U.S. was essentially built by religious institutions – the majority of American hospitals still having religious roots.
Most mainline churches today are still heavily involved in administering food banks, employment networking agencies and other social outreach. Tax the church and the ability for them to maintain these services dries up. The wealth of religious institutions is potential wealth, not real wealth.My parish is probably worth several million dollars and even if the Episcopal Diocese broke up the congregation, sold the building and distributed the assets, that may help the needy of today, but not help the next group of needy tomorrow.
So I am not there when it comes to the usual calls to financially get the church. I think it would cause more harm over the long term than good.
I do think laws against political activity need to be tightened so that churches can’t raise money for referenda or influence candidates and legislators. The church and state have to remain separate.
And I am wistful for the late 19th and early 20th Century when Protestants were a progressive force rather than a regressive force in society.
J. Michael Neal
I agree on the second. Not so much on the first. Churches actually do a lot of good. I realize that you had a particularly traumatic childhood, but it might be worth pondering whether that gives you a rather skewed view of religion.
For instance, I’m a member of the First Universalist Church here in Minneapolis. I’d argue that we do a lot of good.
J. Michael Neal
Uhm, I’d take a closer look at William Jennings Bryan if I were you. The church, then as now, was mixed in its effects. If you want the good, you’re going to have to take the bad.
I agree that they need to remain separate, but I think you misunderstood what separation of church and state means, or has ever meant, in the US. It has never included the idea that a church can not, or should not, take political stands. Frankly, I’m not sure how you could possibly separate the moral mission of most churches from politics. Lord knows you couldn’t among UUs.
John Sears
@J. Michael Neal: So first you argue that we can’t pass a major health reform like the NHS (which isn’t something I was advocating per se, but I could live with) because we weren’t devastated in the aftermath of an enormous war.
Then you say that now is the time to pass health care reform, because… we’re devastated by the economy.
Huh?
Is all social progress for you tied to nearby historical tragedy? Even I’m not that big of a cynic. We are occasionally capable, as a species, of making progress without being in the rubble first.
As for society doing it without a cataclysm, I’d argue that there was no world-ravaging cataclysm that led to the information technology revolution. It’s been going in fits and starts since Babbage, and while it’s certainly benefitted from defense spending, it doesn’t seem dependent on it.
jwb
@John Sears: And if it really is this bad, then people will throw a hissy fit and the pols will change it for fear of the pitch forks.
toujoursdan
@J. Michael Neal:
No doubt there are progressive Protestants. The UUs, United Church of Christ, Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutherans, etc continue to proclaim progressive social action, but they are overwhelmed in numbers and money by the religious right.
My second point is that while I am fine with churches taking political stands, I don’t think they should be raising money to influence votes. There is no way gay non-Catholics or gay non-Christians in California or Maine should have to conform to legislation bought and paid for by the Roman Catholic and Mormon churches.
John Sears
@jwb: People throw hissy fits, but not always, or even often, in the right direction. Or any direction in particular, ala the tea partiers.
They could just as easily demand the program be entirely canceled and go back to what they had before. Or that we caused this mess by regulating the big bad insurance companies, and that the only way to improve things is deregulation.
John Sears
@J. Michael Neal: Churches do a lot of good and a lot of evil. We should make their specific charitable operations, so long as they conform to the same rules on non-discrimination as everyone else, tax-exempt. Food drives, homeless shelters, what not.
The larger religious instructional purpose of a church serves no particular public function, and should not be tax exempt, any more than a rock concert or a poetry reading. It’s a hobby, an entirely subjective entertainment experience.
toujoursdan
@John Sears:
Churches already pay tax on religious functions though. They pay sales tax to buy supplies – from communion wafers to robes. Clergy pay income tax on their salaries.
Otherwise churches work like any non-profit.
John Sears
@toujoursdan: Do they pay property tax on their often enormous facilities, though?
I still question whether ‘religion’ is a good enough reason to qualify as a non-profit in the first place. Some churches do nothing but snake-handle and speak in tongues, and they get the same status as a church that does a lot of public good.
Blast. Speaking of doing good, I have light fixtures to purchase and install for the household plants.
We have northerly facing windows and live in Wisconsin, so it’s either that or everything green in the apartment dies a slow, lingering death.
Later.
J. Michael Neal
In part, yes. If you want most people to think that society needs to be overhauled in a major way, you need them to think that society needs to be overhauled in a major way. If there isn’t something going on that leads them to conclude that the status quo is really bad, they won’t feel the need to change.
Uhm, yeah. Notice that you just admitted that it has happened in fits and starts. That’s a pretty big difference from your argument that we should just implement the NHS in one shot, don’t you think? Note also that most of the IT revolution didn’t involve passing any legislation. The People never decided on it in any meaningful sense. Had we sat down in 1970 and had a Congressional debate about a massive, federal government led effort to create super fast computers linked to each other all over the world in order to completely change the way businesses run, including firing lots of middle management, you’d need a microscope to measure the chances of it passing.
Is all social progress tied to tragedy? No, though a lot of it is. The parts of it that aren’t, though, tend to be small and incremental, and usually comes about through channels other than legislatures. Your argument is that we don’t need such impetus in order to pass massive, quick changes through Congress. I’m looking for any historical evidence that this is frequently true.
J. Michael Neal
J. Michael Neal
Meeting the spiritual needs of people is a public good.
Corner Stone
@J. Michael Neal:
IMO, parallels could easily be made to our current situation.
We have two wars that are doing their part to bankrupt our economy. Our infrastructure is certainly a long neglected mess, with or without steel bombs falling on it. And a significant portion of our population has been radicalized.
But I don’t think John Sears is advocating for those things.
JadedOptimist
@General Winfield Stuck:
Great. We may have finally found a case where the right wing will favor abortion…
General Winfield Stuck
@JadedOptimist:
or favor single payer.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
I was raised a Roman Catholic from day one, altar boy, Catholic school and all, and I never ‘got’ religion. My earliest memories of the church were of absolute bewilderment. I was being told lots of stuff but none of it made sense to me. I was supposed to believe in someone who I could not see, smell or touch, to live my life as this entity (through other people) told me to.
Or I would burn in hell forever. You want to scare the shit out of a kid then this is the way to do it. You better ‘feel’ the spirit in you, or else. You can bet that the ‘or else’ bit made lots of kids pretend that jesus/god was swimming around in their body. I bet many kids were lying to avoid the dire consequences of not being a believer. What a great way to start your life, lying to avoid hell.
I was told that god and jesus lived in all of us, yet I didn’t ‘feel’ it. I always felt like I was going through the motions without believing what I was hearing, it was an odd sort of disconnect. I felt like everyone else was seeing and feeling something that was not available to me. I had thoughts that if I didn’t ‘see’ this entity then I was going to go to hell. It was an odd feeling, like I was on the outside looking in, yet I was on the inside with everyone else. It made me try harder, if it can be described that way, to be like everyone else. The problem was that every time I was in a situation where our religion was being discussed and I had to answer a question, I felt like I was lying in giving an answer because the ‘spirit’ was not dwelling in me. I really didn’t know what to do about it. I prayed about it but since I didn’t ‘believe’ then I was pretty sure that no answer would be forthcoming.
Actually, the answer came to me by not being answered.
My Mom kept us in church for a couple of years after her and our father divorced but church school was out of the question due to distance and financial difficulties. While in public school I dove into every subject on religion that I could via libraries and when I was 13 I told Mom that I did not want to go to church any more. I finally told her about what I wrote above, saying that I was not a part of the church because I do not believe as they do. We argued about it for some time but eventually she let me (and the rest of the kids) make our own decisions on the matter.
All seven of us left the church and we have never looked back. Mom even quit going after a short time, eventually turning her back on the church due to their stand on reproductive rights. As we kids discussed our feelings on the church it became clear that they had been having the same problems as I had been, we just didn’t believe and that there were too many contradictory stances that the church held in contrast to the teachings of the bible. To this day, none of us have returned to religion and I really don’t see it ever happening.
Regarding the church being involved in politics, if they want to affect law and politics then let them pay taxes. The Vatican is a foreign government and I don’t like the idea of our politicians taking marching orders from bishops who are given their marching orders from the pope. Churches like to talk about staying out of politics but they have always been deeply involved in it and now they are becoming more and more open about it. Religion has shaped law in our country since day one and the bullshit about a separation of church and state is just that, bullshit. There is no separation, the tentacles of religion are deeply intertwined in the politics of our country and they always have been.
Tax them all.
econlibVA
@Nellcote:
Churches are charities, and are treated accordingly under Section 501c3 of the tax code, which allows a tax exemption and limited lobbying, as long as they don’t directly endorse candidates.
Wile E. Quixote
Don’t you just love being lectured on morality by an organization that’s run by a former member of the Hitler Youth and staffed by a bunch of pederasts.
Wile E. Quixote
@J. Michael Neal
About as much as cooking meth or pushing smack is.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Wile E. Quixote:
Amen to that. People get stupid on crank or smack and religion seems to have the very same effect on too many. One guy gets cranked up, goes for a drive and ends up killing someone in his car and another guy gets his fill of religion and then goes out to kill a doctor. At least the guy on crank didn’t start out with the intention of killing someone. The religious guy, the one who is supposed to value every single life, kills deliberately and claims to be saving lives.
No, he is playing judge, jury and executioner and he is using his religion to justify it. In his mind, he is doing the work of god. Or more accurately…
In his mind, he is
doing the work ofgod.bob h
It is some compensation that they have been pushing for HCR overall, I guess.
Little Dreamer
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
Ummm, I’m not a huge retainer of scripture in the New Testament (I favor reciting the original testament more often) but, I seem to recall something in the the book of John about Christian followers being gods themselves.
Oh yeah, here it is:
John 10:34
“Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?”
The killer Christian type you portray above is only acting upon scripture, as he is made to understand it – not realizing how derogatory the lesson in John 10 was to humans acting as gods.