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  • The liberal loonies are always trying to control everyones freedom of speech.

    Hell maybe some would be in favor of making Christians where a star on their shirt.

    What do you guys want, a totalitarian take over by the US Government.

    Maybe you would be in favor of a National religion so the US Government can control what is allowed to be preached from the pulpit. If the preacher speaks against a politician they can be sent to prison.

    You better wake up before its to late.

  • By being involved in politics I meant campaign contributions, etc.

  • By being involved in politics I meant campaign contributions, etc.

    @pumpkin-eater said:

    By being involved in politics I meant campaign contributions, etc.

    Its cool.

    IMO: Their are some who despise the churches and would love to be able to control what comes from the pulpit. It is hard to control the masses when they dont control peoples thoughts or dont place our worldly leaders on a pedestal. For centuries many dictators have imposed one religion or faith so that it could be controled.

    Before the American revolution many of the colonist were inspired by preachers and what they had to say from the pulpit.

    How Preachers Incited Revolution

    Angry colonists were rallied to declare independence and take up arms because of what they heard from the pulpit.

    By Harry S. Stout

    No turning back.

    At the Battle of Bunker Hill (June 17, 1775) Americans suffered 441 casualties and the British 1,150. Though a strategic victory for the British, English nerve was shaken, the colonists were emboldened, and any hope for peaceful reconciliation was lost.

    It's 1775. The year 1787, with its novel constitution and separation of church and state is a long 12 years away. At the moment, you and your friends are just a bunch of outlaws.

    You've heard the debates in Parliament over taxation and representation; you've seen British troops enforce royal supremacy at the point of a bayonet. Your king, George III, and Parliament have issued a declaration asserting their sovereignty in "all cases whatsoever" in the colonies. You are, at least in New England, a people under siege with British troops quartered in Boston. You've dumped tea into Boston's harbor in a fit of rage and had your port closed.

    Who will you turn to now for direction? There are no presidents or vice-presidents, no supreme court justices or public defenders to call on. There are a handful of young, radical lawyers, like the Adams cousins, John and Samuel, but they're largely concentrated in cities, while you and most of your friends live in the country. In many colonies, including Massachusetts, there are not even elected governors or councilorsthey have all been appointed by the British crown and are answerable to it.

    Where you turn is where you have habitually turned for over a century: to the prophets of your society, your ministers.

    The American Revolutionary era is known as the "Golden Age of Oratory." What school child has not heard or read Patrick Henry's immortal words, "Give me liberty or give me death"? Who has not seen reenactments or heard summaries of Ben Franklin's heroic appearance before a hostile British Parliament?

    Yet often lost in this celebration of patriotic oratory is the key role preaching played in the Revolutionary movement.

    Read more here.

    Another good link Religion and the founding of the American Republic

  • Rich,

    Sorry, martian buddy, but you didn't give any data. You didn't give any information. Your president is a complete and total failure.

    Obamao wants control over our judicial system, our farms, our guns, our electoral process, our corporations, our families, our educational system,

    and he wants control over every penny we make, he wants control or abolishment of states' rights, parents' rights, born and unborn childrens' rights,

    control over our culture, control over our private property ownership....

    Obamao is a fascist, Rich. The sad truth is, you and Vaporized and MosquitoZits, Heck and Shep and all, remind me of the

    German people cheering insanely for Hitler, then refusing to realize that they were cheering on a horror of horrors, until it was way too late.

    If your Obamao was so perfect, and brilliant, why has he not fixed any freakin thing in two years, but instead is breaking or attempting to break everything

    American over his last over two years? No wonder you want to end the debate before it really gets started Rich. Your side of the debate has lost all

    credibility. Ramble on all you want, but Obamao is still a complete disaster, and the approval rating for the stark naked and butt ugly Obamao tree has

    plummetted again, to a new low.

  • Churches are not taxed because it's in the constitution, first amendment.

    "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

    taxing churches would violate this amendment.

    @pumpkin-eater said:

    Churches are not taxed because it's in the constitution, first amendment.

    "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

    taxing churches would violate this amendment.

    Yeah, I'm with rich on this one. The reason churches aren't taxed isn't because of the First Amendment. By your logic, you could also make the argument that their tax exemption is unconstitutional.

    I've been reading, but I'm not sure exactly where their tax exemption stems from. I don't think they have nonprofit 501©3 status. From some of the stuff I've read it's just based on the assumption that any profit they turned would be for charitable works, but I haven't found any really unbiased sources that say that. I'd like to know the exact legal reason that they're exempt.

  • I kind of feel that taxing a Church's property would be prohibiting their free exercise of religion. What if the church cannot afford the taxes? would the government shut them down? take their property? Also keep in mind that The reason many settlers came to the new world was to escape the high taxes on their religion, which was England's way to weed out any religion other than the church of England.

  • I kind of feel that taxing a Church's property would be prohibiting their free exercise of religion. What if the church cannot afford the taxes? would the government shut them down? take their property? Also keep in mind that The reason many settlers came to the new world was to escape the high taxes on their religion, which was England's way to weed out any religion other than the church of England.

    @pumpkin-eater said:

    I kind of feel that taxing a Church's property would be prohibiting their free exercise of religion. What if the church cannot afford the taxes? would the government shut them down? take their property? Also keep in mind that The reason many settlers came to the new world was to escape the high taxes on their religion, which was England's way to weed out any religion other than the church of England.

    Taxing a church's property isn't prohibiting their freedom to exercise religion. If they can't afford the taxes, then they can have a sermon in a park, and their land can and should be taken by the government. You don't need a huge, golden, glorified building to be a good religious person, not in my opinion.

    We don't need to tax them unreasonable amounts (though if they opened their books, I'd argue that we should), but yes, they should be taxed.

  • respectfully disagree Vape.

    http://www.latimes.com/features/religion/la-oew-lynn-stanley23-2008sep23,0,2226105.story

    SCOTUS takes my stance.

    "In its 1970 opinion in Walz vs. Tax Commission of the City of New York, the high court stated that a tax exemption for churches "creates only a minimal and remote involvement between church and state and far less than taxation of churches. [An exemption] restricts the fiscal relationship between church and state, and tends to complement and reinforce the desired separation insulating each from the other." The Supreme Court also said that "the power to tax involves the power to destroy." Taxing churches breaks down the healthy separation of church and state and leads to the destruction of the free exercise of religion."

  • respectfully disagree Vape.

    http://www.latimes.com/features/religion/la-oew-lynn-stanley23-2008sep23,0,2226105.story

    SCOTUS takes my stance.

    "In its 1970 opinion in Walz vs. Tax Commission of the City of New York, the high court stated that a tax exemption for churches "creates only a minimal and remote involvement between church and state and far less than taxation of churches. [An exemption] restricts the fiscal relationship between church and state, and tends to complement and reinforce the desired separation insulating each from the other." The Supreme Court also said that "the power to tax involves the power to destroy." Taxing churches breaks down the healthy separation of church and state and leads to the destruction of the free exercise of religion."

    @pumpkin-eater said:

    respectfully disagree Vape.

    http://www.latimes.com/features/religion/la-oew-lynn-stanley23-2008sep23,0,2226105.story

    SCOTUS takes my stance.

    "In its 1970 opinion in Walz vs. Tax Commission of the City of New York, the high court stated that a tax exemption for churches "creates only a minimal and remote involvement between church and state and far less than taxation of churches. [An exemption] restricts the fiscal relationship between church and state, and tends to complement and reinforce the desired separation insulating each from the other." The Supreme Court also said that "the power to tax involves the power to destroy." Taxing churches breaks down the healthy separation of church and state and leads to the destruction of the free exercise of religion."

    Ah dammit, but nice article. I thought I typed up an earlier response, but failed to mention it. I agree with you on the fact that it's not unconstitutional to give churches tax-exempt status. I only argued that you could say the same thing about taxing them. And I would maintain that if they were to be taxed it wouldn't be breaking the first amendment, either.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walz_v._Tax_Commission

    The supreme court doesn't touch the issue of actually taxing them in that decision, it only states that giving tax-exempt status is within the constitution; which I would agree with.

  • Rich,

    Sorry, martian buddy, but you didn't give any data. You didn't give any information. Your president is a complete and total failure.

    Obamao wants control over our judicial system, our farms, our guns, our electoral process, our corporations, our families, our educational system,

    and he wants control over every penny we make, he wants control or abolishment of states' rights, parents' rights, born and unborn childrens' rights,

    control over our culture, control over our private property ownership....

    Obamao is a fascist, Rich. The sad truth is, you and Vaporized and MosquitoZits, Heck and Shep and all, remind me of the

    German people cheering insanely for Hitler, then refusing to realize that they were cheering on a horror of horrors, until it was way too late.

    If your Obamao was so perfect, and brilliant, why has he not fixed any freakin thing in two years, but instead is breaking or attempting to break everything

    American over his last over two years? No wonder you want to end the debate before it really gets started Rich. Your side of the debate has lost all

    credibility. Ramble on all you want, but Obamao is still a complete disaster, and the approval rating for the stark naked and butt ugly Obamao tree has

    plummetted again, to a new low.

    @calfoxwc said:

    Rich,

    Sorry, martian buddy, but you didn't give any data. You didn't give any information. Your president is a complete and total failure.

    Obamao wants control over our judicial system, our farms, our guns, our electoral process, our corporations, our families, our educational system,

    and he wants control over every penny we make, he wants control or abolishment of states' rights, parents' rights, born and unborn childrens' rights,

    control over our culture, control over our private property ownership....

    Obamao is a fascist, Rich. The sad truth is, you and Vaporized and MosquitoZits, Heck and Shep and all, remind me of the

    German people cheering insanely for Hitler, then refusing to realize that they were cheering on a horror of horrors, until it was way too late.

    If your Obamao was so perfect, and brilliant, why has he not fixed any freakin thing in two years, but instead is breaking or attempting to break everything

    American over his last over two years? No wonder you want to end the debate before it really gets started Rich. Your side of the debate has lost all

    credibility. Ramble on all you want, but Obamao is still a complete disaster, and the approval rating for the stark naked and butt ugly Obamao tree has

    plummetted again, to a new low.

    I gave a load of facts and substantiation to your lies.........counter them or keep fawkinbg lying as you now are accustomed to

    starting with 8 trillion in Bush debt and two wars to nowhere.........start by countering either.........or just be what you are an in denial ahole

    you just spewed eight or ten lines of numberless bullshoot .........and that makes you what you are a lying assholoe

  • @pumpkin-eater said:

    respectfully disagree Vape.

    http://www.latimes.com/features/religion/la-oew-lynn-stanley23-2008sep23,0,2226105.story

    SCOTUS takes my stance.

    "In its 1970 opinion in Walz vs. Tax Commission of the City of New York, the high court stated that a tax exemption for churches "creates only a minimal and remote involvement between church and state and far less than taxation of churches. [An exemption] restricts the fiscal relationship between church and state, and tends to complement and reinforce the desired separation insulating each from the other." The Supreme Court also said that "the power to tax involves the power to destroy." Taxing churches breaks down the healthy separation of church and state and leads to the destruction of the free exercise of religion."

    Ah dammit, but nice article. I thought I typed up an earlier response, but failed to mention it. I agree with you on the fact that it's not unconstitutional to give churches tax-exempt status. I only argued that you could say the same thing about taxing them. And I would maintain that if they were to be taxed it wouldn't be breaking the first amendment, either.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walz_v._Tax_Commission

    The supreme court doesn't touch the issue of actually taxing them in that decision, it only states that giving tax-exempt status is within the constitution; which I would agree with.

    @vaportrail said:

    Ah dammit, but nice article. I thought I typed up an earlier response, but failed to mention it. I agree with you on the fact that it's not unconstitutional to give churches tax-exempt status. I only argued that you could say the same thing about taxing them. And I would maintain that if they were to be taxed it wouldn't be breaking the first amendment, either.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walz_v._Tax_Commission

    The supreme court doesn't touch the issue of actually taxing them in that decision, it only states that giving tax-exempt status is within the constitution; which I would agree with.

    So I don't think it's unreasonable to allow them a standard amount of property or donations per parrishoner tax free.

  • @vaportrail said:

    Ah dammit, but nice article. I thought I typed up an earlier response, but failed to mention it. I agree with you on the fact that it's not unconstitutional to give churches tax-exempt status. I only argued that you could say the same thing about taxing them. And I would maintain that if they were to be taxed it wouldn't be breaking the first amendment, either.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walz_v._Tax_Commission

    The supreme court doesn't touch the issue of actually taxing them in that decision, it only states that giving tax-exempt status is within the constitution; which I would agree with.

    So I don't think it's unreasonable to allow them a standard amount of property or donations per parrishoner tax free.

    @pumpkin-eater said:

    So I don't think it's unreasonable to allow them a standard amount of property or donations per parrishoner tax free.

    Right, that's where we disagree. I think they should have to pay a property tax (they really don't have to pay this?). This is unfair because, as far as I know, there's no secular service organization that gets the same recognition without being a 501©3. I think their donations, however, should be tax free.