Those who call themselves Christians

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Scooter
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Those who call themselves Christians

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BoSoxGal
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Re: Those who call themselves Christians

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In an article in The Atlantic this month, author Ken Stern details the charitable divide between the income classes. The author of “With Charity for All: Why Charities Are Failing and a Better Way to Give,” writes that in 2011, Americans with earnings in the top 20% of income levels contributed, on average, 1.3% of their income to charity. Those at the bottom 20% donated 3.2% of their cash to charity—more than double of what their more-wealthy counterparts donated.

What’s more, Stern says those at the bottom income levels often do not itemize their tax returns, so they aren’t taking advantage of the charitable tax deduction.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxbus ... doesnt.amp


Many, many articles available discussing this well known, exhaustively studied phenomenon. Poor people are far more charitable than the vast majority of rich assholes.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
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Bicycle Bill
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Re: Those who call themselves Christians

Post by Bicycle Bill »

I would wonder whether or not some of the "rich assholes" consider what they're paying in taxes (at least the rich assholes who pay taxes.... and yes, I'm looking at YOU, Dumb'old Trump) as "charity".
Or whether or not some of their other expenditures ... like the money people like Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, among others, paid to give their kids a leg up in getting into the desirable college they wanted to attend, or the 'old-school' way of funding some campus building or program (and of course getting their name all over it) ... are "charitable donations" in their eyes.
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Big RR
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Re: Those who call themselves Christians

Post by Big RR »

That statement was so asinine that I thought it had to be taken out of context--but NO, the original statement is even more asinine:

In the heavenly kingdom the responsibility is to treat others as you'd like to be treated. In the earthly kingdom, the responsibility is to choose leaders who will do what's best for your country. Think about it. Why have Americans been able to do more to help people in need around the world than any other country in history? It's because of free enterprise, freedom, ingenuity, entrepreneurism and wealth. A poor person never gave anyone a job. A poor person never gave anybody charity, not of any real volume. It's just common sense to me. (from the Chicago Tribune)

There was also an even more asinine statement in that interview--wen asked if there was anything that Trump could do that would endanger his (Falwell's) support or that of other so-called evangelical christian leaders he answered an unqualified "No"--I guess that statement about shooting someone on 5th avenue is true.

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Re: Those who call themselves Christians

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

I would like to see the charitable deduction taken out of the tax code.

Give the tax advantage to the charity.

At the moment if I give $1000 to a charity and if I itemize, I get say $200 back in reduced taxes. So the charity gets $1000 and I pay $800.

What if I give $800 to the charity and the govt gives them $200? Costs me the same; costs the govt the same; and charity still gets the $1000 they need for whatever good works they do. It simplifies the tax code (always a good thing) and at a stroke removes the widespread (IMO) abuse of the charitable donation such as donating a portrait of oneself to a foundation. Or (I'm looking at you, Bill Clinton) getting a tax break because you donated your used underwear to some homeless shelter.

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Scooter
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Re: Those who call themselves Christians

Post by Scooter »

I would go further, actually.

The current definitions of charitable purposes in common law countries include the advancement of religion because churches were the primary purveyors of charity for most of the last two millennia. It is long past time to restrict the privileges of charitable status to those activities that are actually charitable (relief of poverty, care of the sick, advancement of education, etc.) and extend those privileges to churches only to the extent of their direct expenditures on such activities.
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Big RR
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Re: Those who call themselves Christians

Post by Big RR »

While I agree in principle Scooter, it would be difficult as many non religious foundations (like the Aerican Red Cross, e.g.) have very high administrative expenses which are only tangentilaly related to the actual charitable purposes, and many so-called non profit universities pay big fat salaries (you have to get rid of the excess tuition some way to maintain non profit status)and pour tons of money into big sports programs, fairly unrelated to the educational purpose. If we do it to the churches, we should do it to all charities, and only allow deductions to the extent of the direct expenditures on charitable activities.

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Re: Those who call themselves Christians

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getting a tax break because you donated your used underwear to some homeless shelter.
Hey, maybe not Bill's, but some of that used underwear can be sold for profit to Japanese businessmen through vending machines.

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Scooter
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Re: Those who call themselves Christians

Post by Scooter »

Big RR wrote:While I agree in principle Scooter, it would be difficult as many non religious foundations (like the Aerican Red Cross, e.g.) have very high administrative expenses which are only tangentilaly related to the actual charitable purposes, and many so-called non profit universities pay big fat salaries (you have to get rid of the excess tuition some way to maintain non profit status)and pour tons of money into big sports programs, fairly unrelated to the educational purpose. If we do it to the churches, we should do it to all charities, and only allow deductions to the extent of the direct expenditures on charitable activities.
What I had in mind was something along the lines of a church should not be able to claim its mortgage interest as charitable expenditure because they run a soup kitchen in a corner of the basement once a month, nor its pastoral salaries when none of them have any hand in operating or managing charitable activities. I think the same should apply to any other organization whose purposes are not exclusively charitable.

High overhead charities like the Red Cross are a stickier issue that probably has a somewhat different solution. In Canada we have the 80% rule, whereby 80% of the amount of donations eligible for tax receipts must be spent directly on charitable activities. It's not a perfect fix, because revenues from other sources not eligible for tax receipts (like government grants and fundraising) can skew the numbers and allow for higher spending on overhead.
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Bicycle Bill
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Re: Those who call themselves Christians

Post by Bicycle Bill »

Big RR wrote:
getting a tax break because you donated your used underwear to some homeless shelter.
Hey, maybe not Bill's, but some of that used underwear can be sold for profit to Japanese businessmen through vending machines.
Yeah, I think even wes would pay mucho dinero for some of Hilly's...
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Scooter
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Re: Those who call themselves Christians

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BoSoxGal
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Re: Those who call themselves Christians

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I’m sure these parents are filthy atheists.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... ating.html
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Scooter
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Re: Those who call themselves Christians

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In Canada they could probably be charged with production of child pornography.
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Scooter
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Re: Those who call themselves Christians

Post by Scooter »

If White Conservatives Loved All People The Way They Do Embryos

MAY 13, 2019 / JOHN PAVLOVITZ

Conservatives love embryos.

They tell us all the time.

They speak effusively about them in conversation, publicly revere them, shed crocodile tears over them, accost strangers entering clinics over them, viciously troll people on social media over them, sermonize on street corners about them.

They even claim to have voted for an otherwise reprehensible monster they’d never otherwise tolerate to lead them—solely because of them.

Republican people of faith regularly fall all over themselves, carry on wildly, and tear their garments in showy grief over embryos; unleashing all manner of histrionics at those they deem a danger (those who believe in a woman’s right to have autonomy over her own body.)

And they do all of this (they claim) because they believe that embryos are human beings and they want those beloved embryonic human beings to be cherished, defended, and protected at all costs—which all sounds quite admirable were that the whole story—though it isn’t.

The problem with their breathless, tearful zealotry, is that once these embryos are no longer embryos—these supposed life-lovers often don’t treat them like they’re at all human.

Nine or thirteen or thirty-two or sixty-five years later when they show up in their communities and in their emergency rooms and along their borders, in need of food or refuge or healthcare or compassion—they’re no longer something sacred or beautiful. Unless these lives conform to the narrowest and most stringent of criteria (usually being white, Republican), they’re more often treated as threats to be neutralized and adversaries to be destroyed.

Embryos that grow into LGBTQ teenagers aren’t worthy of their protection now. In fact, they receive their contempt, bear the brunt of their jokes, and absorb the full damnation of their brimstone sermons. They can’t get married or use a public bathroom or get benefits for their partners without being assailed at every turn by these “lovers of life.”

Embryos that become terrified migrants fleeing crime and poverty and pressed up against the most urgent desperation, don’t merit the passionate defense once within their borders they might have received while inside the womb. Instead they sustain their scorn and suspicion and every bit of their malicious, wall-building bitterness.

Embryos that become sick middle-aged adults fighting metastasizing tumors, facing astronomical chemotherapy bills, and desiring healthcare that will not drive them to bankruptcy—don’t elicit a shred of the empathy they’d have garnered when they were still microscopic.

Embryos that one day stand in need of Government assistance to keep the lights on or food on the table for their children because they have endured unthinkable adversity along their journey—will not be met with tearful embraces by these so-called life-lovers. They’re derided as lazy and irresponsible, and told to pull themselves up by their boot straps, while never having the benefit of boots.

Embryos that one day worship in Muslim communities around these white Christians, aren’t afforded any passionate defense and aren’t celebrated with effusive social media soliloquies. They’re branded as terrorist sympathizers, their religious freedoms ignored and their very existence resented with checkout line coldness, airport side-eye stares, and travel ban exclusion.

And perhaps most ironically of all, embryos that grow into women who desire the final say regarding their own bodies—will find their lives and wills are now of little concern. They will be legislatively subjugated by those who’d have once declared them precious.

Recently at a Trump rally in Panama City Beach, Florida, as the President was speaking about the supposed crisis of immigrants overrunning our borders, someone in the crowd yelled, “Shoot them!”

Trump erupted in curled Cheshire cat grin, while sarcastically saying, “Only in the panhandle you can get away with that statement, folks.”

The crowded roared in their approval.
Later they reposted clips on social media.
They were proud of this moment.
These are supposedly pro-life Christians.
These are declared defenders of human life.
They’re not.
They’re white Republican embryo lovers—and sadly that’s it.
Beyond that, you get jokes and threats and taunts and bans and walls and middle fingers—and “look how irreverent our guy is” giddiness.

A moment like this is revelatory because it exposes Conservative Christian’s willful delusion. By putting all their eggs (so to speak) into fervent defense of embryos, they can feel the intoxicating easy high of self-righteousness and moral virtue—without having to actually love people.

That’s because embryos can be idealized into something pleasant and palatable; removed of any of the messy characteristics they find undesirable in actual human beings. They get to feel like noble advocates for Life, and still hold onto their prejudices and hang-ups and hatreds. They can dispense all kinds of cruelty and expose human beings to staggering forms of bigotry—and still say they’re defending the living.

It’s also why they can claim to be single-issue voters—because they are single-issue protectors of life. These people have no interest in a consistent pro-life ethic regarding healthcare or poverty or the environment or gun violence or the death penalty—because they won’t let themselves sit with the hypocrisy of their current conduct toward vulnerable communities that this necessitates. To live with any consistency would require an empathy that is simply too high a price for them to pay, it would demand an equity that encroaches on their comfort, and it would mean facing the reality of their privilege. It would be too confront their phobia and their nationalism and their whitewashed religion.

I wish white Christian Conservatives had the same passion for migrant children, school shooting victims, sick toddlers, young black men, Muslim families, LGBTQ teens, the environment, and women’s autonomy over their bodies that they have for embryos.

Then they’d actually be pro-life, and then we’d all be able to go about the work together of caring for humanity wherever there is need to do so.

Yes, white Conservatives love embryos.

Disparate human beings who bear little resemblance to them—not so much.
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MajGenl.Meade
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Re: Those who call themselves Christians

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

People like Falwell (both of 'em) make it difficult to keep the lid on un-Christian ideas, even in one who IS a Christian. There may be no fake news (except what emanates from the ShiteHouse) but there are certainly fake pastors coining it like crazy.

John Marshall 1819: "the power to tax involves the power to destroy." (Quoting Daniel Webster's argument in the context of restricting the power of states to use taxation to resist Constitutional protections)

And that's one reason why churches are tax-exempt. It's also one reason why atheists get so excited at the possibility of exempting churches from the Constitution. To prevent those (relatively) few pastors who abuse the privilege (and I wish someone would stop 'em!), y'all want to close down the very many more who don't. In other words, you want to wave your disbelief in others' faces instead of keeping it in your trousers. Sorry women, don't mean to exclude you.

Sadly, it's probably true that without the tax exemptions, the kind of super-pastors who get super-rich will still be (and new ones will still get to be) super-rich. They can afford to pay the taxes and still coin it. What will go are places like Mountain Baptist Church in Virginia where, when the choir gets up to sing, there's no one except visitors sitting in the body of the church. The kind of establishment that must share a pastor with three other churches, and that man or woman lives hand to mouth anyway. And although you may not find Islamic, Jewish or other groups involved in such irregularities at variance with their profession of faith, you don't mind closing them down either as by-products of hatred for Christianity. But that, of course, is the agenda, streaked by crocodile tears.

Yep, the Constitution works fine when it's used to keep religion out of government, but some folks have little orgasms at the thought of preventing the Constitution from keeping government out of religion.

It is, however, a thorny subject. The government here in SA is wrestling with establishing some form of oversight over the churches (of all stripes) - licensing pastors with a review committee to make sure no one starts spraying Doom in people's faces and producing fake resurrections and healings (oh yes, that's a biggie). Issues of sexual abuse and sheer inhumanity (walking on prostrate worshippers) as well as financial abuse of congregants are to the fore - and not Roman churches either; it is black churchgoers that are victim of these kinds of crimes and their pastors are defended vociferously by the very people being fleeced and the whistle-blowers are attacked.

But who should be on the committees? You can't have Christians judging Moslems or vice versa; you can't have Communists running the program; and who is to say what is "Christian" and what is not? Atheists?

And I'll add that when it comes to these kinds of scandals, it's really not that prevalent outside of self-starter "Christian" groups where the pastor ordains himself as "Prophet" (a very big word here) a la Jim Jones, but without the suicidal element. Everyone (except those who profit by this blasphemy) agrees that something should be done; but all of the "somethings" have many problematic and foreseeable consequences.
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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Scooter
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Re: Those who call themselves Christians

Post by Scooter »

More Christian than any Christian:

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MajGenl.Meade
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Re: Those who call themselves Christians

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

And there's the agenda. It is insufficient to praise the righteous activity of another faith. It must be at the same time a blanket statement springing from hatred of ALL Christians.
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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Re: Those who call themselves Christians

Post by Big RR »

Meade--we are mixing two things, the ability of churches to qualify as charitable 501 c 3 organizations and the ability of churches to qualify as non profit businesses which do not pay income taxes. The latter is easy--just don't show a profit--many (like many big charities do) big salries and bonuses to your top employees to reflect that there is no profit. There are some other rules, but this is the major thing the church has to do.

The second, the 501 c 3 organization has to do with the tax exemption for charitable donations; I would bet that for the vast majority of 501 c 3 churches the bulk of the donations come from people who don't itemize their deductions, so minimizing the deductability would hardly destroy them. FWIW, I agree with Scooter that the taxability of donations should be based on the value of actual charitable works done.

There is a third type of taxation from which churches are exempt which is a bigger injustice IMHO--generally they do not pay state or local taxes even though they receive services from public education of the monister's children to police and fire protection, etc. This is a big problem for some towns where there are many churches occupying large areas of property on which they pay not taxes (my church owns about 5 acres in a very high tax towns including the church building, two manes for the ministers, and a parking lot). Indeed, many municipalities have taken churches running businesses in their buildings (like nursery schools) to court to get taxes for at least the portion of the property used for the business (which do not get the exemption even if they are charitable) to be payable, and they have been successful. This will be more and more important as we witness many churches like the one you described--having few congregants, yet occupying large areas of the town which would otherwise be contributing taxes for the services--I recall reading that a sginficant portion of property in Manhattan is owned by churches and tax exempt.

I do think the time has come where all of the religious tax exemptions should be reviewed.

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Re: Those who call themselves Christians

Post by Big RR »

MajGenl.Meade wrote:And there's the agenda. It is insufficient to praise the righteous activity of another faith. It must be at the same time a blanket statement springing from hatred of ALL Christians.
Where is that agenda/hatred included in Scooter's post?

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Re: Those who call themselves Christians

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

Good points about taxation - appreciate the discussion.

"More Christian than any Christian".

I think the word "bigot" covers that kind of generalization and there is a definite agenda on the part of many to hate Christianity both by insult and by silence. One only has to compare the treatment of the Sri Lankan massacres and those in New Zealand to see the latter at work. The one is noted while the second produces acres of angst from the haters.
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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