“For years many a thinking people have had gloomy forebodings as to the result of the immense power of the church in our political affairs. . . And the first step in the disestablishment of the church & of all churches is the taxation of church property. The government has no right to tax infidels for everything that takes the name of religion. For every dollar of church property untaxed, all other properties must be taxed one dollar more, and thus the poor man's home bears the burden of maintaining costly edifices from which he & his family are as effectively excluded--as though a policeman stood to bar their entrance, and in smaller towns all sects are building, building, building, not a little town in the western prairies but has its three & four churches & this immense accumulation of wealth is all exempt from taxation. In the new world as well as the old these rich ecclesiastical corporations are a heavy load on the shoulders of the people, for what wealth escapes, the laboring masses are compelled to meet. If all the church property in this country were taxed, in the same ratio poor widows are to day, we could soon roll off the national debt. . . .
The clergy of all sects are universally opposed to free thought & free speech, & if they had the power even in our republic to day would crush any man who dared to question the popular religion.”
~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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I am still amazed by our culture's undeserved respect for faith. And the tax-exempt status of churches is a real sore spot with me. Obviously, since I believe religion is political, it should not be tax exempt. This is especially true in light of the christian right's dabblings in politics to the point where religious leaders direct their people to vote for the (republican) candidate of their choice (which is usually the one against abortion and gay rights, or the politician who claims to be a christian).
People such as James Dobson are especially dangerous. Evangelicals got W Bush elected and look what happened. I remember an argument i had with one of my uncles, who is also an evangelical preacher. This would have been in about 2003 or so. I had the nerve to say that I thought Bush was evil and would destroy the US. I may have exaggerated; it was probably Cheney who was the evil one! lol! But my uncle became furious; he turned red, pointed his finger at me and said "how dare you call a christian man evil!!!!" I haven't spoken to my uncle since...wonder what he thinks now...
A father AND uncle evangelical preacher? You are surrounded! At least you don’t live in the bible belt. I swear there are about 30 churches in a couple mile radius of my house. If I ever won the lottery I would buy a church and replace the cross with an atheist symbol and everyone would get so worked up about it but of course see no problem with having the christian symbol every where you look.
Don’t get me started on Bush and Cheney. Funny though, now that they are losing their power I pity them more than despise them. The god of the bible is a bit like that for me, I just want to give him some warm cookies and milk and maybe send him to anger management classes and teach him how to be happy. Biblegod, Bush and Cheney all seem like rather miserable creatures.
Oh, and James Dobson! Good gawd almighty I can’t stand that man and it makes me crazy how millions eat up his b.s. and feed his empire with their money.
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