Why is it that secular businesses pay tax but churches don't? The sums of money involved are huge. Just talking about Australia, the combined wealth of churches and religious communities is estimated at over $1 billion. Cast your eyes further afield to the evangelical hyperbole in the USA and the worldwide empire of the Catholic church, and this would be a drop in the ocean. Yet in most countries not a dollar is given to the tax man.
If you ask a representative of any church, they'll tell you that they more than make up for the lack of taxes by charitable acts and volunteer work. In some cases, this may even be true. But there's no accountability to the rest of the tax paying public, where, in Australia, it's estimated that only 17% of the population regularly attends church. In effect, the churches are saying "trust us to do the best thing with our tax breaks as far as charity is concerned".
But what constitutes correct use of charitable funds? In its submission to the Australian Government on what constitutes a charity (http://www.taxboard.gov.au/content/charity_subs/Catholic_Church_in_Australia.pdf) the Catholic church argues that all of its parts should be tax exempt, as "All fulfil the requirements to be charities since all have as their objective the advancement of religion." (page 6)
Excuse me??? The purpose of a charity is to advance religion?? According to MSN Encarta, "organization providing charity: an organization that collects money and other voluntary contributions of help for people in need". Helping the poor is charity - religion has nothing to do with it.
Under their own (false) definition of charity, this gives the Catholic church carte blanche to use 100% of the money donated, raised, gained from business activities, gifts, legacies - any source possible - for whatever the church heirarchy wishes. Obviously, given their definition, their main focus is to advance their fairy tale instead of tangibly assisting those less fortunate.
In any case, the majority of Catholics throughout the world are not wealthy to begin with. This leads to the absurd situation of the poor providing funds to one of the wealthiest organisations on earth, for that organisation's expressly stated purpose of spreading ignorance throughout the world. Monty Python couldn't do a sketch this ridiculous!
I'm not just picking on the catholics - there's plenty of others out there. In contrast to most religions advocating austerity in earthly goods, the Pentecostals believe "God wants you to succeed in all aspects of life - including wealth." Don't forget though, they want 10% of that wealth back. What do they use it for? I'm willing to bet that the millions spent on huge new churches, pseudo-rock concerts and professional lighting and sound setups (in order to attract new, younger middle-class punters with good future tithing prospects) far outweighs any real charitable acts.
In my opinion charities should be FULLY accountable. If the churches want tax exemptions, they should prove comprehensive records that show that they spend at least the amount of business, payroll, and GST tax - that would otherwise be due - on charitable work for those in need. I'm not talking their dodgy definition of charity either - I mean money, products, goods or services directly delivered to poor people. If they can't, or refuse, then sorry mate - no tax exemption for you.
This doesn't even begin to address other problems with church-based businesses undercutting "real" businesses run by people who actually do pay tax. An example, sourced from the ABC's 7:30 report - http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2001/s421419.htm - the "Cornerstone Christian Community" runs a tax-exempt turf business - "Turf the Lot" in central NSW. Thanks to students labouring 25 hours a week for $15 (not $15 an hour, $15 a week) this "business" has grown by 80% in 5 years and now dominates the market. Real business such as Canturf in the same area obviously can't compete.
Churches make enough out of fleecing their gullible members. For a start, this income should be subject to tax. If they also want to start organisations that compete in the market place, they should be on the same level playing field as any other business - taxed and paying their staff award wages.
Friday, 22 June 2007
Thursday, 21 June 2007
Oops!
Hiya,
If there's anyone that's actually read this blog more than once, you'll notice that the URL has changed to www.theatheisthaven.blogspot.com . This is because I only just realised that the original was misspelled - i and e reversed - and that only happened when my wife went in for a look, spelled it correctly, and came up with someone else's blog! Which, I must say, is a very good one and has much the same focus as mine. Check it out - www.atheisthaven.blogspot.com - and all the best to its author, Roy Chui. Although I only recently created this blog, there are several similarities to Roy's, even though I didn't know of its existance. Great minds and all that...
Anyways, that's it for housekeeping, next time inspiration strikes I'll be back!
If there's anyone that's actually read this blog more than once, you'll notice that the URL has changed to www.theatheisthaven.blogspot.com . This is because I only just realised that the original was misspelled - i and e reversed - and that only happened when my wife went in for a look, spelled it correctly, and came up with someone else's blog! Which, I must say, is a very good one and has much the same focus as mine. Check it out - www.atheisthaven.blogspot.com - and all the best to its author, Roy Chui. Although I only recently created this blog, there are several similarities to Roy's, even though I didn't know of its existance. Great minds and all that...
Anyways, that's it for housekeeping, next time inspiration strikes I'll be back!
Sunday, 10 June 2007
Who's the real terrorist?
Picture: from a news article "Terror in their sights", Tasmania's Mercury, 25/6/07 (http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,21961594-921,00.html)I've just read an article from some right-wing retard named Andrew Bolt who writes for the Herald Sun, owned by News Corp, unsurprisingly controlled by Rupert Murdoch. (http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21828247-25717,00.html)
This bloke is surprised and shocked that two white democratic leaders, ie our own Little Johnny Howard and the USA's George Dubya, were named by Amnesty International's Secretary-General Irene Khan as being named as examples of "trampling and trumpeting an ever-widening range of fears". He seemed to think this was unfair. When you read the report itself - not just this bloke's skewed slant on it - you find an accurate, balanced and truthful document. John Howard DID use fear of asylum seekers to win an election. He's good at it - he uses National Security as his cattle prod to steer a majority of voters into his camp every 4 years. Luckily, current polls seem to indicate that the punters have stopped listening to him. If Labor don't stuff up too much in the next couple of months we should see a change of government.
And how about G.W.B? Yes, the USA suffered attacks on 11/9/01. Around 3,000 civilians were killed. Now compare this with the subsequent "War on terror" casualty figures. How many has George killed? 130,000? Are their deaths 43 times less meaningful than those of Americans? Fear is a powerful motivator. A scared population is easily led. These two, along with other dodgy leaders around the world (not only Robert Mugabe and Omar Al-Bashir, but Vladimir Putin of Russia and Lech Kaczynski of Poland, to name a couple) use fear of difference to consolidate their power base for their own ends.
Take Australia, for example. Not one act of terrorism has taken place on Australian soil. Bali, yes. 88 Australian lives, along with another 114 from other countries (including 38 Indonesian citizens) were lost. In 2005, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau states that Australia had 8 road deaths per 100,000. That's about 1,600 road deaths based on population of 20million, as it was in 2005, and this is accepted as normal.
In 2001, the USA had a population of roughly 283,000,000. Their road toll figure for 2005 was roughly 15 per 100,000. Assuming it hasn't changed much from 2001, that's a whopping 42,450 deaths on the road. They lost 3,000 to terrorism. Who's the terrorist?
After 9/11 (why the Yanks put the month first I'll never know), the Australian government started their scare campaign. Every few weeks there was a news story about some new special forces group being trained in counter-terrorism tactics, high-publicity stunts like SOG cops dropping from Blackhawk helicopters over Sydney Harbour, leaflets mailed to every Australian household, new terrorism hotlines. This is all scare-mongering and window dressing - the need to be "seen" to be doing something to protect you, the helpless public, from these scary looking bearded men with tea towels on their heads. As such, it's a waste of tax-payers money. Why didn't it go somewhere useful? Make the roads safer, improve driver training, tax tobacco, legalise drugs (then tax them), fund research into the major diseases. These are things that save lives - but they just aren't sexy enough. The issues are too complex for the average punter. No, get yourself an outside threat, with high-definition shots of planes flying into skyscrapers, pictures of deluded saps like David Hicks holding an RPG - inflate the profile and the threat, and Mrs Blogs with her 50 excess kilos and her high blood pressure, or Mr J Citizen with his 40-a-day habit, or even 18-year-old Davo with his new licence and V8 ute will vote in a leader who promises to protect them from this deadly danger.
In the USA, just to make sure you don't forget your fears, there's a whole raft of TV shows featuring terrorism - 24, Sleeper Cell, The Unit etc.
Check out the UN's "academic concensus definition" of terrorism.
"Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby — in contrast to assassination — the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperilled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought (Schmid, 1988)."
Anxiety-inspiring, as in instillation of fear - repeated violent action, such as invasion of another country - seeking intimidation, coercion, or propaganda. Sounds like our government, doesn't it.
Yes, terrorists are dangerous. Heart disease is worse.
Marty 10/6/07
This bloke is surprised and shocked that two white democratic leaders, ie our own Little Johnny Howard and the USA's George Dubya, were named by Amnesty International's Secretary-General Irene Khan as being named as examples of "trampling and trumpeting an ever-widening range of fears". He seemed to think this was unfair. When you read the report itself - not just this bloke's skewed slant on it - you find an accurate, balanced and truthful document. John Howard DID use fear of asylum seekers to win an election. He's good at it - he uses National Security as his cattle prod to steer a majority of voters into his camp every 4 years. Luckily, current polls seem to indicate that the punters have stopped listening to him. If Labor don't stuff up too much in the next couple of months we should see a change of government.
And how about G.W.B? Yes, the USA suffered attacks on 11/9/01. Around 3,000 civilians were killed. Now compare this with the subsequent "War on terror" casualty figures. How many has George killed? 130,000? Are their deaths 43 times less meaningful than those of Americans? Fear is a powerful motivator. A scared population is easily led. These two, along with other dodgy leaders around the world (not only Robert Mugabe and Omar Al-Bashir, but Vladimir Putin of Russia and Lech Kaczynski of Poland, to name a couple) use fear of difference to consolidate their power base for their own ends.
Take Australia, for example. Not one act of terrorism has taken place on Australian soil. Bali, yes. 88 Australian lives, along with another 114 from other countries (including 38 Indonesian citizens) were lost. In 2005, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau states that Australia had 8 road deaths per 100,000. That's about 1,600 road deaths based on population of 20million, as it was in 2005, and this is accepted as normal.
In 2001, the USA had a population of roughly 283,000,000. Their road toll figure for 2005 was roughly 15 per 100,000. Assuming it hasn't changed much from 2001, that's a whopping 42,450 deaths on the road. They lost 3,000 to terrorism. Who's the terrorist?
After 9/11 (why the Yanks put the month first I'll never know), the Australian government started their scare campaign. Every few weeks there was a news story about some new special forces group being trained in counter-terrorism tactics, high-publicity stunts like SOG cops dropping from Blackhawk helicopters over Sydney Harbour, leaflets mailed to every Australian household, new terrorism hotlines. This is all scare-mongering and window dressing - the need to be "seen" to be doing something to protect you, the helpless public, from these scary looking bearded men with tea towels on their heads. As such, it's a waste of tax-payers money. Why didn't it go somewhere useful? Make the roads safer, improve driver training, tax tobacco, legalise drugs (then tax them), fund research into the major diseases. These are things that save lives - but they just aren't sexy enough. The issues are too complex for the average punter. No, get yourself an outside threat, with high-definition shots of planes flying into skyscrapers, pictures of deluded saps like David Hicks holding an RPG - inflate the profile and the threat, and Mrs Blogs with her 50 excess kilos and her high blood pressure, or Mr J Citizen with his 40-a-day habit, or even 18-year-old Davo with his new licence and V8 ute will vote in a leader who promises to protect them from this deadly danger.
In the USA, just to make sure you don't forget your fears, there's a whole raft of TV shows featuring terrorism - 24, Sleeper Cell, The Unit etc.
Check out the UN's "academic concensus definition" of terrorism.
"Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby — in contrast to assassination — the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperilled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought (Schmid, 1988)."
Anxiety-inspiring, as in instillation of fear - repeated violent action, such as invasion of another country - seeking intimidation, coercion, or propaganda. Sounds like our government, doesn't it.
Yes, terrorists are dangerous. Heart disease is worse.
Marty 10/6/07
Friday, 1 June 2007
The creationist delusion
Welcome!
I've been thinking of creating a blog for a while now. While I occasionally get a chuckle from religious antics, I'm also concerned about the power and influence of the religious lobby on supposedly secular governments. The attempts (some successful) of the Creationists and their offshoot Intelligent Design(ists? ers??) to have their theory taught in schools, notably in the USA and Great Britain, is particularly concerning. Bobby Henderson's fantastic Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster brought much-needed opposition to the IDer's attempts to push their non-scientific views onto the educational community. However religions do have access to immense sums of money - easy enough to come by when you convince people that eternal life can be purchased - and with money comes political, advertising and educational power.
One example of this is the recent construction of the "Creation Museum" in Kentucky, USA - a multi-million dollar theme park for fundamentalists and evangelists. (The "Ways to Give" link on their website states that in April they crossed the 27-million dollar funds mark through donations). Through static and animatronic displays, each with video explanation (perhaps illiteracy is high in their customer demographic?) they attempt to validate their belief in the literal creation story in Genesis. This is obviously not science, but it is being portrayed as science - to a future generation of trusting and believing kids who are enticed by the exciting dinosaur displays. This pollution of young minds is perhaps the most pernicious aspect of religion. As any scientist will tell you, science relies on and welcomes vigorous and thorough testing of theories. Religion does not.
Let's teach the next generation to observe, use their brains, and question everything they're told.
Marty
I've been thinking of creating a blog for a while now. While I occasionally get a chuckle from religious antics, I'm also concerned about the power and influence of the religious lobby on supposedly secular governments. The attempts (some successful) of the Creationists and their offshoot Intelligent Design(ists? ers??) to have their theory taught in schools, notably in the USA and Great Britain, is particularly concerning. Bobby Henderson's fantastic Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster brought much-needed opposition to the IDer's attempts to push their non-scientific views onto the educational community. However religions do have access to immense sums of money - easy enough to come by when you convince people that eternal life can be purchased - and with money comes political, advertising and educational power.
One example of this is the recent construction of the "Creation Museum" in Kentucky, USA - a multi-million dollar theme park for fundamentalists and evangelists. (The "Ways to Give" link on their website states that in April they crossed the 27-million dollar funds mark through donations). Through static and animatronic displays, each with video explanation (perhaps illiteracy is high in their customer demographic?) they attempt to validate their belief in the literal creation story in Genesis. This is obviously not science, but it is being portrayed as science - to a future generation of trusting and believing kids who are enticed by the exciting dinosaur displays. This pollution of young minds is perhaps the most pernicious aspect of religion. As any scientist will tell you, science relies on and welcomes vigorous and thorough testing of theories. Religion does not.
Let's teach the next generation to observe, use their brains, and question everything they're told.
Marty
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