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Goodbye Jesus

Church Giving To Help The Needy


electech98

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One thing many don't consider is the charitable remainder trust. In a nut shell, if your estate is large enough to be taxed, you can open a trust account, donating your entire estate to charity (often the church) held by you in the trust account until you die and then buy a life insurance policy for the value of your estate. Life insurance proceeds are not taxable, so at death, your heirs can use the life insurance money to buy your estate from the church, the church gets the money and your heirs get the estate.

 

This is important if your estate is in property, as otherwise your heirs would likely have to sell it in order to pay the inheritance tax.

 

Churches make out like gangbusters here.

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I'm not going to say that every church should be taxed but those mega millionaries ripping off the poor should be taxed and taxed heavily.

 

Here's billionaire Kenneth Copeland and his 1.3 billion dollar tax free business.....

Billionare? BILLIONARE? WTF has this schmuck done to become a billionare.

 

Ugh I'm so ANGRY! vtffani.gifWendybanghead.gifcussing.gif

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I'm not going to say that every church should be taxed but those mega millionaries ripping off the poor should be taxed and taxed heavily.

Well I'll say it - EVERY fucking church should be taxed - every one of them. Why should they get off when the blood sucking IRS even goes after widows of spouses who may have filed erroneous tax returns? And the clergy ought to be tossed out on their asses because there is NOTHING in the bible that supports the 21st century job of a pastor. In fact, saying they have a job does a disservice to people with REAL jobs.

 

The French had it right. When they had their revolution they closed all of the churches, eliminated many of the clergy since they'd been blood partners to the royalty, and then re-opened the churches as 'centers for rational thought'.

 

Oh dear, am I too harsh regarding them? I hope so. It's no coincidence that over 63% of regular church goes are also right winging republicans. Not that I'm hooked with the Dems because I'm not. Just stating facts folks.

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I'm not going to say that every church should be taxed but those mega millionaries ripping off the poor should be taxed and taxed heavily.

 

Here's billionaire Kenneth Copeland and his 1.3 billion dollar tax free business.....

 

Interesting to watch those lemmings standing before Kenneth Copeland applaud with approval when he delcares the 1.3 billion that has gone through their mafia organization. They stand behind their god Kenny when his intent and what he says is blatantly laden with narcissism; a true cult characteristic of surrendering reasoning to being controlled.

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In fact, saying they have a job does a disservice to people with REAL jobs.

 

 

I remember when John Hagee boldly looked into the camera and scolded the men of America who did not have jobs as deadbeats. I thought to myself, Mr. 'too many bigmacs' has no room to speak.

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Kenneth Copeland looks shady. And has alaways seemed shady. Billionaire? So is Pat Robertson and almost all those telescum assholes. Another reason I was starting to have doubts about christianity was the amount of cashola these assholes make. Pat supposedly arrived in virginia beach 50 yrs ago with 700 bucks in his pocket (which was a shitload back then) and started his ministry, now he owns manufacturing plants in china and has been estimated to worth 1.5 billion by some estimates, lower estimates in the 100 milliond ollar range.

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Ugh, I have a feeling all the "financial problems" my church goes through have to do with the fact that my pastor is paid well over $90k a year...and then people like, just randomly give him Jaguars and motorcycles and shit. Sure, when we started the church out, he didn't have much, but is a ONE MILLION DOLLAR HOUSE WITH A MOVIE THEATER really necessary?! Jesus Fictional Christ, man.

 

I can't even really say our charity is really charity because most of it is in the interest of "saving souls for Jesus" and making the homeless and hungry children good little Christ-bots.

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Ugh, I have a feeling all the "financial problems" my church goes through have to do with the fact that my pastor is paid well over $90k a year...and then people like, just randomly give him Jaguars and motorcycles and shit. Sure, when we started the church out, he didn't have much, but is a ONE MILLION DOLLAR HOUSE WITH A MOVIE THEATER really necessary?! Jesus Fictional Christ, man.

 

I can't even really say our charity is really charity because most of it is in the interest of "saving souls for Jesus" and making the homeless and hungry children good little Christ-bots.

 

 

 

I have no issues with pastors/priests making a semi decent living, but a movie theatre, jaguars, motor cycles, No fucking way.

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I'm not going to say that every church should be taxed but those mega millionaries ripping off the poor should be taxed and taxed heavily.

 

Here's billionaire Kenneth Copeland and his 1.3 billion dollar tax free business.....

Billionare? BILLIONARE? WTF has this schmuck done to become a billionare.

 

Ugh I'm so ANGRY! vtffani.gifWendybanghead.gifcussing.gif

 

This scammer has gotten filthy rich off of his religious empire, and I don't want to defend him or his practices (I didn't even approve of him when I was a Christian). However, there seems to be a misunderstanding here, because he's not saying that he's literally a billionaire. Watch the whole clip and you'll see that he's declaring himself to be a billionaire in the kingdom of God because over a billion dollars has flowed into his ministry over a four decade period, and he also used that to symbolize reaching billions with the ministry. It's simply a play on words. However, I'm sure he's worth many millions, due to his con game.

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That's what I meant by 1.3 billion dollar tax free business. Copeland is filthy rich himself though, do an internet search for pictures of his home and jet.

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By the way, I know I'm actually being generous with that 5.23%. Some of the money that went to "benevolence" actually went to another church in the denomination for a new sign for their property. I wouldn't be surprised if the actual figure for money going to humanitarian causes was closer to 3.5% or 4% at the most.

 

I suspect that even that is probably generous, because it's most likely that a lot of the rest of the money went for pushing a religious agenda. The net value of humanitarinaism is probably quite low.

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That's what I meant by 1.3 billion dollar tax free business. Copeland is filthy rich himself though, do an internet search for pictures of his home and jet.

 

Some seemed to be taking it as if he himself is literally a billionaire, though. At any rate, indeed the guy is extremely wealthy, despite having a completely unproductive "job."

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From what I'm seeing, KC is over 3/4 of the way to a billionaire:

http://wiki.answers....land's_networth

 

Though I knew he had to be raking in the millions, that's even more than I expected.

 

Here's a little more:

http://www.inplainsi...l#Tele-Copeland

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I guess I don't know how anyone could be surprised at how rich the high profile televangelists and religious media titans are? Wendyshrug.gif

 

Christianity is a hugely profitable business, in fact profits probably dwarf those of many publicly held corporations in the US.

 

So accordingly, the heads of any Christian franchise ~ lets call them what they are ~ are compensated similar to CEO's.

 

It's kind of funny how Americans bitch and whine and complain about the outrageous salaries of the 1% corporate CEO's relative to the lowest paid workers, yet nobody ever questions how much "men of god" are raking in which puts many of them in the 1% along with all those CEO's. They get a free pass - why?

 

Just remember, Cheesuz loves you - but he'll love you even more if you tithe your entire paycheck at next Sunday's services!! jesus.gif

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Why aren't these fuckers in jail for fraud?

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Jerry Coyne (Why Evolution Is True) has a good article that includes an interesting-in-a-sickening-sort-of-way flowchart.

 

I was going to paste the flowchart but that might make me into some sort of major internet criminal, so I'll just post this little snippet instead:

 

So what does this add up to? The chart below gives the estimates of government subsidies to religion, which the authors consider conservative—especially because they couldn’t estimate several subsidies. The bottom line is that the U.S. government, i.e., the U.S. taxpayer, subsidizes religion to the tune of at least $71 billion per year!

 

 

http://whyevolutioni...ion-in-america/

 

 

edited to correct the link and add this:

 

The authors show early on in the article that direct charity is actually quite small for many churches (the Mormon Church, for example gives only 0.7% of its annual income to charitable causes, while Methodists give 23%, but these are still considerably less than charitable organizations like the Red Cross. which gives 92.1% of its revenue as direct help to the afflicted).
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By the way, I know I'm actually being generous with that 5.23%. Some of the money that went to "benevolence" actually went to another church in the denomination for a new sign for their property. I wouldn't be surprised if the actual figure for money going to humanitarian causes was closer to 3.5% or 4% at the most.

 

I suspect that even that is probably generous, because it's most likely that a lot of the rest of the money went for pushing a religious agenda. The net value of humanitarinaism is probably quite low.

You are probably right. There's probably more there in the Benevolence line item that went to evangelistic endeavors, such as helping one of the struggling churches with bills, over things like food/shelter for the poor, schools, etc. I know for sure some of the money went to help a few ministers with medical bills, so I don't know where to place that money.

 

The money I would attribute to the true work of charity would be that which would have gone to the local Pregnancy Center, Shriner's Club, Rescue Mission (homeless shelter, albeit an evangelistic homeless shelter), etc.

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I'm not going to say that every church should be taxed but those mega millionaries ripping off the poor should be taxed and taxed heavily.

Well I'll say it - EVERY fucking church should be taxed - every one of them. Why should they get off when the blood sucking IRS even goes after widows of spouses who may have filed erroneous tax returns? And the clergy ought to be tossed out on their asses because there is NOTHING in the bible that supports the 21st century job of a pastor. In fact, saying they have a job does a disservice to people with REAL jobs.

 

The French had it right. When they had their revolution they closed all of the churches, eliminated many of the clergy since they'd been blood partners to the royalty, and then re-opened the churches as 'centers for rational thought'.

 

Oh dear, am I too harsh regarding them? I hope so. It's no coincidence that over 63% of regular church goes are also right winging republicans. Not that I'm hooked with the Dems because I'm not. Just stating facts folks.

 

Amen brother! Preach it! I couldn't have said it better myself.

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Jerry Coyne (Why Evolution Is True) has a good article that includes an interesting-in-a-sickening-sort-of-way flowchart.

 

I was going to paste the flowchart but that might make me into some sort of major internet criminal, so I'll just post this little snippet instead:

 

So what does this add up to? The chart below gives the estimates of government subsidies to religion, which the authors consider conservative—especially because they couldn’t estimate several subsidies. The bottom line is that the U.S. government, i.e., the U.S. taxpayer, subsidizes religion to the tune of at least $71 billion per year!

 

 

http://whyevolutioni...ion-in-america/

 

 

edited to correct the link and add this:

 

The authors show early on in the article that direct charity is actually quite small for many churches (the Mormon Church, for example gives only 0.7% of its annual income to charitable causes, while Methodists give 23%, but these are still considerably less than charitable organizations like the Red Cross. which gives 92.1% of its revenue as direct help to the afflicted).

 

This is the sort of thing that really frustrates me. The "separation of church and state" that we are supposed to enjoy in America is undermined by such inexcusable government subsidizing of religion.

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I'm not going to say that every church should be taxed but those mega millionaries ripping off the poor should be taxed and taxed heavily.

 

Here's billionaire Kenneth Copeland and his 1.3 billion dollar tax free business.....

Billionare? BILLIONARE? WTF has this schmuck done to become a billionare.

 

Ugh I'm so ANGRY! vtffani.gifWendybanghead.gifcussing.gif

 

This scammer has gotten filthy rich off of his religious empire, and I don't want to defend him or his practices (I didn't even approve of him when I was a Christian). However, there seems to be a misunderstanding here, because he's not saying that he's literally a billionaire. Watch the whole clip and you'll see that he's declaring himself to be a billionaire in the kingdom of God because over a billion dollars has flowed into his ministry over a four decade period, and he also used that to symbolize reaching billions with the ministry. It's simply a play on words. However, I'm sure he's worth many millions, due to his con game.

OK, I was a bit confused about that.

 

Still angry though. WWJD Ken?

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Why aren't these fuckers in jail for fraud?

Because their doing 'god's work' dammit! So don't question them - they're just servants of de loyd... LOL

Seriously though - that's exactly what they all believe.

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Why aren't these fuckers in jail for fraud?

 

You need an airtight case to prove fraud, and these twatwaffles know religion can't be 100% proven or disproven.

 

Fuckers preaching the widow's mite bullshit. The widow should have been on the receiving end. Not the giving end.

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Why aren't these fuckers in jail for fraud?

 

You need an airtight case to prove fraud, and these twatwaffles know religion can't be 100% proven or disproven.

 

Fuckers preaching the widow's mite bullshit. The widow should have been on the receiving end. Not the giving end.

 

Years ago Dateline did an expose on a few teleevangelists, including Robert Tilton. Tilton's mailing address was his bank and prayer requests were opened by bank employees. The news crew showed boxes of requests dumped in the bank's dumpster with the checks removed. I would think this is a pretty good start for a prosecutor or AG who had some balls.

 

I'm betting this doesn't happen because these are elected positions and they don't want to be seen going after xians, not because they don't have the goods.

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  • 2 months later...

Whoa....so when a Pastor from another congregation comes to speak at my church....WE pay for that? .....wow. My mind is like, blown right now.

and also.....almost $90,000....??!!??! What happened to living in poverty for god? ugh.

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Does anyone know of where I could find an estimate of the revenue that would be received if churches were taxed? I am sure it is some shocking amount. We could do all sorts of things with that money.

 

Perhaps someday our country will be secular enough and desperate enough economically (well, we already are) to see the wisdom in taxing churches. Not to mention legalizing marijuana and taxing the hell outta that, too. smile.png

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