A Century Later, Watchtower Leaving Brooklyn

Jehovah’s Witnesses Watchtower society false prophets declare end of world in 1874, 1878, 1881, 1910, 1914, 1918, 1925, 1975, and 1984….

http://www.dannyhaszard.com/1975biu7.jpg

Click for Newspaper articles collage of Jehovah’s Witnesses end of world 1975 hysteria

…and please don’t get me wrong folks,
the 14th amendment is vital to our society and it’s importance goes without saying,
what I am referring to specifically is it’s role in certain lawsuits recently brought up by “athiests” to force courts to tear down references to the ten commandments in a court of law and the removal of nativity scenes from public squares.

benson,

allow me to summarize the major points of this verbose and stimulating discussion;

-certain individuals feel that the tax exempt status, that is afforded the religious institutions of this nation, should be discontinued on the basis that these same organizations have had an undue influence on politics.

In your opinion(and mine) this ignores the well established historical reality that religious institutions have always, as a matter of course, been involved/engaged in informing their followers and fellow citizens on issues pertaining to the community at large , and by extension, to politics.

Which is why I stated earlier that you cannot dissociate the individual/citizen from the individual/believer or something to that effect. Religion has always informed political movements and opinions. It is only recently that certain secular/liberal institutions have attempted to re-write history stating that the founding fathers themselves were not intimately aware of religious traditions and did not, in fact, incorporate that same judeo-christian value system into their writings and the foundation documents of this nation. Remember; “endowed by our creator”.

What is surprising is a point you previously made;
that many of the political views espoused by the religious institutions being questioned, actually favor the political ideas of those protesting their tax exemption;

Case in point; The Catholic Church’s position on the illegal alien issue, in some instances, bishops have stepped in to provide “sanctuary” status and a platform for
illegal immigrants and their lawyers. Another case in point; The REVEREND Martin Luther King.

My argument by extension is that if we are going to slide down that slippery slope and start removing tax exemptions from our relgious institutions, we should start examining the other institutions that influence the political process more directly like ACORN which is clearly a political organization masking as a non-profit and receiving tax payer monies to push a very distinct and one-sided agenda.

My secondary argument is that certain cultural institutions have arisen in the past 40-50 years as counter weights to the traditional/conservative religious venues; namely the colleges/major media and hollywood. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. I just think we are being fundamentally dishonest if we think that Larry David peeing on an image of Jesus Christ in a recent episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm doesn’t represent a very real and ongoing attempt by the secular culture to diminish the religious culture of our nation. I can list many, many more examples.
Thus my statement that liberalsim/socialism has become a sort of secular religion.

I am also making the point that secular proponents have recently been using the constitution and in particular the 14th amendment to tear down the reality of our nation’s religious make-up (approx 80% believe in God). This is dangerous, not only because it undermines the very foundation of democratic society (a vote by majority) but it sets us up for a fundamentalist backlash, a la Iran in the 1970’s.

benson–you disagree with the notion that religious organizations that engage in overtly political activities should be taxed?