About two weeks ago on Reddit there arose such a clatter, as if someone gently rapping, rapping for the taxation of the Church. Churches make a lot of money in this country, as well as almost every other country. They get tax exemption, they file themselves as non-profit organizations (because of the whole charity thing), and don't have to pay taxes. So the solution on r/atheism was to tax churches to help with the deficit. For one thing, that will barely put a dent on fixing the deficit, and second, that will officially and legally end the separation of church and state.
Now, the separation of church and state already has blurry and ambiguous boundaries in this country. In fact, many legislations have been put forth that practically already end it. But the ideology of it isn't dead... yet. Sure, America is growing more and more as a theocracy, but the longer it can be resisted, the better. America is the only country ever founded on the principles of reason and logic. And those those foundations have long degraded, why end it all so quickly? And by the hands of liberals, at that! We're throwing all that away, while other countries are striving for it; many with their own lives.
We should consider the effects of taxing the churches would have on American policy. For one, religious organizations are given tax exemption because with taxation comes political say. Citizens get taxed, but we also get to vote. Churches themselves can't vote, although they can encourage their congregation to vote a certain way (walk into any church for the next nine months and you will find pamphlets and signs on who you should vote for and why). If we started to tax churches, then they will have political pull, especially with the money some churches have... and some already do have political pull, such as donating funds to a particular Republican candidate's campaign.
If I'm not mistaken, churches were originally taxed in the early years of this country. But that plug got pulled quickly when churches demanded political say. Taxing religious organizations not only ends the separation of church and state, redistribution of wealth will take a portion of each person's pay check and put that money in the bank accounts of religious organizations. I was glad someone wrote that bit of information on r/atheism, but like most idiots, that didn't have a lot of impact. They naively carried their cross of oppression, as all people in this country tend to do.
Now, it sounds so horrible that in taxing churches they would get a portion of tax payers' dollars. But the sad thing is that churches already do get tax dollars. During the Bush Jr. administration a piece of legislation was passed that gives federal funds to churches for "charity" purposes. No doubt some churches actually use the funds to promote charity work, but I doubt everyone with that much free money and power uses it all for charity... *cough* megachurches *cough*. Where there is power and wealth, you are sure to find corruption (i.e. Zimbardo's Lucifer Effect).
This faith-based initiative is, in my opinion, absolute bullshit for one reason, and one reason only: it is the government taking social programs and giving them over to religious organization. And to give an extreme of how social programs can be horribly effected by religion, just look at Romania during the Ceausescu's reign. The Ceausescu's demanded each family have at least eight children, in order to better Romania's army. Many families could not afford to have eight children, but because of fertility police, they had eight, and usually kept one or two. The other children were shipped off to orphanages that were run by overzealous, superstitious nuns. These orphanages were often more horrible than some concentration camps, with starved, beaten, diseased children. Which is why many orphanages in the States are government run, or, at the very least, regulated.
The faith-based initiative takes the responsibility of social programs and hands that over to church. This can be seen two ways: the breakdown of government and what government does, as well as a switch to theocracy. Now that religion can run social services, if you want food, you have to pray to Jesus. If you want to rehabilitate from a life on the street, you have to pray to Jesus. As opposed to just being able to feed, house, clothe, and rehabilitate people. And anyone who has ever spent a significant amount of time around homeless people, they will say anything, or pray to anyone for food. Ask a starving man to pray to Satan himself for food, I'm sure he will do it. Primitive instincts override God.
The point of all of this is, one, where it is secular, it should remain in the hands of the People and the government; and two, where it is religious, let it stay in its houses of the holy. I have absolutely no problem with Evangelicals getting so much money from their congregation, nor people practicing the rigorous and respectable discipline of yoga. I do have a problem with churches getting tax payers' dollars for stuff the government should be doing, or fraud yoga teachers making money without regulation as a secular activity.
I mean, churches building great, big, monumental buildings through the tithings and donations of their members is a long held tradition. In fact, most cathedrals of the Middle Ages were lavishly built by the funds of trade guilds. Essentially, the guilds wanted the Church out of secular power, so gave money to their churches to build bigger and better structures, but asked them to stay out of politics, which churches gladly obliged. I don't oppose churches with wealth. That's not a problem, because they have a right to get donations from their members. As for churches getting government funding, we might as well close the book on the separation of church and state idea and say, "Fuck it. It was a nice experiment. Initiate theocracy."
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