On October 11th, I posted “In God’s Name” pertaining to the four part series in the New York Times about the expansion of greed in religious organizations by obtaining more and more regulatory and tax breaks from state and federal governments in recent years.Now comes the first director of the Administration’s faith-based initiatives office in the White House, and left after the first six months on the job. He is a political science professor at UPenn. And guess what, he doesn’t agree that religious organizations receive too many regulatory and tax breaks from the government, in fact just the opposite. Of course, his sight is not all that perfect. Look where he printed his article, in William Kristol’s Weekly Standard, where all the news that is fit for Neo-Cons only is printed.The article is linked to in the title of this posting.Peter Nuhn
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I wonder if Odinists get tax breaks?
or Satanists? do devil worshippers get any faith based money?
Certainly the FSM should get tax breaks. We should each start our own branch, er, appendage. With permission from the founder and His Noodliness, of course. (Marinara Be Upon Him!)
That’s a good one, Karen!
Hey! My giggles got erased?!?
heatherlexis
God is not in a giggly mood today. All giggles will be struck down accordingly. :/
alexatheist is right. Isn’t Satanism a “faith”? They won’t be getting any federal grants for anything. What if a Buddhist organization wants to start up a clinic or a Wiccan society wants to open a school. “Sorry,” they’ll say, “you’re heathens.”
See how unholy the marriage between church and state is?
Well, since so many Christians accuse atheists of being just another faith, why not apply for our own Federal Butt Initiative money? If the gummint isn’t supposed to discrimminate based on religion then we should get some money.
Why should religion get tax breaks at all? They are profit seekers no doubt so why are they treated as a NPO?
Although a little off topic I must say this: People of faith rather live in a dream world than the real world. The GOP is a good example.
“We are doing great in Iraq!” Phft, yeah right! Don’t make me laugh. Why are we even there anyway? Is it for oil or something else?
Anthony
What do you think Cheney was discussing with Ken Lyon and the rest of the oil company executives in that secret energy meeting back in 2001?
How to steal Iraq’s oil.
Out of topic but worth mentioning:
I just read in the paper that Cambridge University will publish the complete works of Charles Darwin online, including field notes he wrote in the Galapagos and other never before published works.
http://darwin-online.org.uk/
Sword,
That’s awesome and hopefully it will make the works of Darwin more accessible to a wider audience. We all know that American kids especially need more science education.
If any of you are ever in London make sure to visit the Natural History Museum’s newish Darwin Centre where you can see the actual journals and specimens collected during the voyage of the Beagle. The museum itsself is one of my favourite examples of Victorian architecture in The City and has other wonderful exhibits on evolution and, specifically, human evolution:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/galleries/orange-zone/darwin-centre/index.html
Thanks for the link, the page that explains evolution is especially well done so that the average person can understand it better.
Some more good news that church-stae seperation still means something in the USA:
http://home.bellsouth.net/s/editorial.dll?pnum=1&bfromind=2214&eeid=5059052&_sitecat=1522&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=0&ck=&ch=ne&rg=blsadstrgt
Alex,
You are going to have to work on that bellsouth url. It’s huge.
Then when I picked it out of the source for this page, I got an error about not being authorised to edit the article.
Atheism has entered a Texas election,
” The Austin-based Republican Party of Texas played the religion card in a Sept. 21 online newsletter. As alleged in the newsletter, Texarkana solo E. Ben Franks, Democratic nominee for a seat on the 6th Court of Appeals, “is reported to be a professed atheist” and apparently believes the Bible is a “collection of myths.’”
But Franks says he has never professed to be an atheist and is not a member of any atheist organization. Franks says no one with the Republican Party ever asked him whether he professes to be an atheist. However, he says he’s not surprised by the allegation.”
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1160125527178
Found originally at Atheist Revolution Blog.
would it be okay if franks turns out to be a agnostic or satanist.this sure isn’t the republican party i knew growing up ike and goldwater would quit if they were alive.
Peter,
Mmm, well put. Sneaky pricks…
I can’t wait until we run out of oil and use solar energy of something.