AMERICAN ATHEISTS, INC.http://www.atheists.orghttp://www.americanatheist.orgFor more information, please contact:Robert J. Bruno, Counsel at 952-890-9171FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 26, 2006ATHEISTS FILE SUIT AGAINST MUNICIPAL SUBSIDIES FOR CHURCH “FACADE IMPROVEMENT”Joining with a local plaintiff, an Atheist civil groups has filed suit against the City of Detroit, Michigan against the awarding of $690,000 in public money given to churches for “fix-up” and facade improvement in anticipation of the recent Super Bowl.The churches, including the Central United Methodist Church and the Second Baptist Church received seven grants under a local program run by the Detroit Downtown Development Authority.The suit charges, “Such direct subsidies of religious organizations from taxpayer-derived funds violate the plaintiff’s rights to be free of taxation for the support of religious organizations.” Attorney Robert Bruno added that the use of taxpayer money for churches and other houses of worship violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and Article 1 of the Michigan Constitution which stipulates that “no money shall be drawn from the treasury for the benefit of religious societies.”Ellen Johnson, President of American Atheists, said that her group filed the suit in response to a disturbing trend where religious and political leaders are trying to divert tax money to private, faith-based groups. “This amounts to a ‘religion tax’ on all Americans including millions of Atheists, Freethinkers and other non-believers,” said Johnson.The suit asks for immediate injunction against such grants to religious organizations, and that the churches return the money.Media inquiries may be directed to Robert J. Bruno, Counsel at 952-890-9171.AMERICAN ATHEISTS is a nationwide movement that defends civil rights for Atheists; works for the total separation of church and state; and addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.
First post, huzzah!
All I have to say is:
Fucking religious morons. If you want to worship, fine. I don’t. You have NO RIGHT to take my money. End of story.
Dave, do you have a link to the full story here? It seems a little odd that just churches would get money to improve their facades while other places wouldn’t in context of upgrading for a superbowl. I think I find it actually more offensive that tax money goes for improvement of areas in anticipation of sports events while we can’t seem to find enough money to fund social programs. I wonder how much money has been spent over the years in anticipation of sports events compared to how much money was spent on the levees in New Orleans?
hell the only tax money i want going towards a church happens to say cattepillar on it
sorry i am just sick of ny money being wasted in such manner why fix the facade of a church they are a blight on the community and humanity
I need free money for my church to get some strippers for my b-day. It’s called the “Church of the Holy Stripper”. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD I NEED THIS MONEY!!! SEND ME FUCKING MILLIONS OH TAXPAYERS OF AMERICA!!!!! FUCKING MILLIONS!!!!!!!
Wonder if any of that tax payer money went to fix up any of the many mosques in the most islamic state in the Union (MI)?
Alex.
Anyone like WWE wrestling here?
AnswerMeThis,
Are you referring to the tag team match coming up at the next pay per view?
Shawn “HBK” Micheals and “God”
vs.
Vince McMahon and Shane McMahon
I may have to tune in for a laugh or two!
Eh, No. I was going to say that I was at their Wrestling event in Belfast on Tuesday night. It was a good show, HBK was fighting but some guy jumped over the fence and attacked him! I don’t know what happened, but apparently the guy shouted ”You screwed bret” and then jumped. What a plonker. He fought on though.
Met most of them in the Hilton after the event. Matt Striker is really cool. Big Show is huge! lol.
Somewhat on topic… just got the email from my pastor about this:
See? It’s not just the atheists who are concerned about this issue. I’ll try to go to this, but I’ll have to see how my day goes.
Just saw this and couldn’t help but laugh and pity them.
http://www.earnedmedia.org/pray0426.htm
TX,
I actually cried at your link – I laughed so hard.
The headline reads
It’s just pathetic.
heathenz thats something that might be worth praying for lol
HZ, TX:
Yeah, that is pretty funny.
If it drops a 3rd of a cent, they’ll all holler ‘Hallelujah! It worked!’
If it goes up, they’ll pray all the harder.
Knock, knock, hello? Nobody’s listening!
“Clergy…Pray for Lower Gas Prices”
Why bother? It’s god’s will, right? So he/she/it must want them to be the way they are, and will change them when not distracted by trying to find 72 virgins x HOW MANY?!?!
I reckon prayer is what a person does when they can’t (or won’t) really do anything. It gives a sense of control to a person who has none. Pathetic.
Alex.
wwe wrestling only bearable between jesus and santa!
Alex, I would suggest that people who pray or the act of prayer is not pathetic. Over time I’ve built up an opinion that you can be dismissive at times of those who disagree with you. Some of those people engaging in prayer are the same people fighting for equity in marriage and gay rights. I think your comment leads to the sensible question what does prayer do without action? I agree that praying for lower gas prices is absurd in the extreme. However, I would be slower to add the commentary of calling it pathetic.
Spanders,
I think I started the pathetic prayer theme. For my part it was a reaction to a mass prayer event for lower gas prices. Perhaps bizarre would be a better adjective than pathetic, but my point is that to pray for such a thing, regardless of the efficacy (or lack thereof) of prayer, seems to debase the purported spiritual nature of prayer.
In other words, such a campaign is materialistic, self-serving, and demeaning to the nature of prayer, thus in my view it’s pathetic.
Spanders,
I’m not sure Alex was suggesting those that pray are pathetic, but that the act itself is?
My own belief is that the act of prayer is pathetic. It is a submissive act meant to invoke the supernatural to magically perform the bidding of a group or individual – especially in this case. Whether their requests are self-serving in nature or not is irrelevant.
I prefer to believe Alex’s statement leads to a more interesting questions – not what does prayer do without action – but rather, without action, is there any value in prayer?
I think the trouble I often run into is my own pedantic assessment of language. DVanWechel, you are correct in that what I react to more is associating negative values to the person rather than the action. I focus a lot of effort to attempt to avoid judgement of people and judge actions or ideas. Essentially I’m fairly uncomfortable with idea of judging others, which also makes me a little nuts and my wife gets mad at me sometimes as she wishes I would call people any profanity you care to plug in.
While I disagree about prayer being pathetic, I respect your position. I think that spoken (or silent) thoughts combined with action is the single action of prayer. Like most of what I think, I can certainly see where people could come in and say it’s all mental gymnastics. That’s okay with me.
I think I tend to react most when I think blanket statements of judgement are made. Again, back to the pedantic interpretation, but I guess I’d rather err on the side of speaking out. Alex, my apologies, but I would still encourage you to be as open minded as you hope people may be with you.
Actually I believe that the act of prayer is both pathetic and futile and that those who pray are just talking to themselves. If I wished for a million dollars and didn’t receive it should I be surprised? Most reasonable people would say no. If I worked hard for it and I earn it then should I be surprised? Most reasonable people would say no. Why is prayer considered to be any different? Actions speak louder than words especially if those words are in the form of a prayer. Nothing fails like prayer as the bumper sticker says.
This is my opinion and as you all know I have strong opinions that I don’t hesitate to share. Take it for what you will.
Alex.
I am a taxpayer.
If I pay for it, I own it.
If I own it, I’m gonna burn it down
Pass out the torches boys, we’re gonna have us a BONFIRE.
Or we could just force them to let atheists teach evolution to sunday school students.
nah, I am in a Dawkinsian mood today. confront the bastards.
Tomorrow I may think differently, but today, nah. Burn it down.
Sounds to me like American Atheists is just trying to make sure the government continues to discriminate against churches and other religious organizations.
That’s sarcasm, btw.
If you go to youtube, you can find a sketch by Bill Maher talking about churches and taxes.
He says that if the church doesn’t pay taxes it shouldn’t be able to call the fire department if it starts burning.
They should just pray for rain.
“Pray, v. to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.” — Ambrose Bierce in his “Devil’s Dictionary”
You can find this wonderful book online. Great definitions of well-known words.
“WWE wrestling only bearable between jesus and santa”
Or Stacy Kiebler and Trish Stratus.
I’m going on ebay.
“atheist: will pray and/or go to church for superbowl tickets”
Friggin dumbass Chargers….
New Orleans… you got a good deal.
I know I have probably bugging most of you for a while now, but I came across this website and I think you should have a look at it. http://www.godandscience.org/
Please, just have a look at it and read a few of the articles and see what you think. Forget about what people on this website will say, just try and read it with an open-mind. I know it will be very difficult for most of you, but just give it a go.
I read over many of the articles on your link and found them to be the same old recyceld and logically flawed arguments that xians use to defend the indefensible. Nothing new in there.
Alex.
answermethis,
I looked over the website, seems alot of thought went into it. It doesn’t say anything new we haven’t heard before.
My biggest problem is the whole idea of an all-powerful one day being lonely and creating us. It makes no sense. It never has to me. It’s almost like an experiment. The angel one failed, so he tried with us, 0 for 2.
Maybe I missed it, or havent’ dug deep enough, but does it talk about the fact that this god created the ultimate evil in the world…satan? And the fact that when the humans became too evil he destroyed them in a flood, but never did anything to satan but throw him out of heaven, where he then could wreak havoc on his new creations.
Done ranting for now.
AMT,
Out of morbid curiosity, I checked out your link to see how far I’d get.
Not surprisingly I found this statement in the first paragraph
Of course tis is a mischaracterization of atheism (which means without theism). The site then goes on to argue against this position – which is of course pointless as the position is not representative of reality.
Waste of time.
One thing I found interesting is the absolute truth about god’s extistance. One way to get it is to die. The other is to just believe.
So, you believe, then you see the truth, which you already believe. My brain just turned to mush. Oh, and this truth comes from the bible, which you should believe before you read. After all the bible says so, even though you haven’t actually read it yet.
For some reason, it feels like http://www.godandscience.org/ was made for people who think like Homer Simpson.
Or Flanders.
Here is a site that should please AMT.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/
I wonder if it isn’t where he gets all his “information”.
“For some reason, it feels like http://www.godandscience.org/ was made for people who think like Homer Simpson. Comment from: DVanWechel
Or Flanders.”
Abso-didilly-utely!
Tax support of churches is obviously bullshit. I fully support this filed injunction. I’ve recently studied the history of Establishment Clause violations that have reached the Supreme Court, there is no way that this subsidy can be found constitutional, even with Bush’s clones on the throne.
It will be great to see this “Atheist group”’s victory in the history books.
How many times does this take…
There’s no reason for us to prove that God doesn’t exist. First of all, it’s my own effing business if I don’t want to believe in God. Second, it makes no sense. I could make up a million mythological creatures, and there’s no way anyone could DISprove them. Sure, I couldn’t prove them, either. But putting it on the shoulders of my opposers is an easy way to turn things around.
How would one go about disproving anything? If I were to look everywhere on the planet for God (or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the Invisible Pink Unicorn or whatever) I wouldn’t find anything. The argument could be made that the deity of choice doesn’t reside on the planet. Let’s say it’s possible for me to search every corner of the solar system, the galaxy, the universe. Still wouldn’t find anything. It’s impossible to do, though.
Disproving things is completely pointless. It’s on the shoulders of the believers to prove it if you really want to get down to facts. You can make up anything you want, but until you PROVE it is TRUE, it is still just a story. Disproving God is none of my business.
Religion is fairly new in comparison to the history of mankind.
(that comment was in reference to some of the circular logic found on godandscience.org, by the way.)
Can anyone tell me when the US began granting churches and religious organizations tax-exempt status? Has it always been that way?