Atheists forced to subsidize religion
To start, I’m not an Atheist who has angst because “In God We trust” is printed on our money. I don’t mind it. I don’t think it’s entirely appropriate, but I don’t lose sleep over it. What does bother me is that nonbel
ievers are forced to bear the tax burden of the religious. What does this mean? Churches don’t pay taxes on revenue they generate. Sure, a lot of money comes from tithes, or gifts. It seems to me, at the very least, that any corporation or organization exempt from taxation should be required to provide full and open access to their financial records. Perhaps this is an over-reaction, but I suppose I just don’t fully understand why taxation exemptions exist. If you have more information on this, I would be glad to read it.
From another viewpoint, perhaps allowing the government to tax churches sets a dangerous precedent allowing the government to tax certain religious affiliations which it doesn’t agree with into oblivion. However, given the number of religious currently in the United States, I’m not sure why they would be worried about this. These days, if a politician has any religious affiliation, it’s as if he has a stamp of approval from the “moral majority”.
There are plenty of so-called secular mediums through which religion is promoted. Whether this is inappropriate or not is up for debate. I’m getting a little off-topic here. This doesn’t have much to do with the subsidization of religion, but schools requiring students to quote the pledge of Allegiance to the United States might seem like an annoyance to those who don’t necessarily believe that we are “one nation, under God”. I recently read about a non-religious student who refused to quote the pledge. This seems to fly in the face of the notion that we have a freedom of religion (or freedom from religion).
I’m not sure how much people actually care about these issues. I’d like to hear what you think.
The Evasion-English Dictionary
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