Howdy Omar:
O- Whatever makes you a profit should be taxable. For example, the Church itself could be untaxed, just like theist churches, but retailers that sell christian cd’s, for example, coffey much and those ever-present bracelets “WWJD” do yield a profit and I do believe that they are treated as retail stores and not as NPOs, or am I wrong about this? Wherever there be a cash resgister there is probably a tax liability. Wherever you make a profit, the govt will find it’s way to get a cut of the booty…or am I missing something here?
PM146- You’re absolutely right that any profits the business decides to show would be taxable, but they could always, “Donate,” the entirety of the net profits to the COTA at the end of the fiscal year. Like I said, though, if you want to keep it clean you expect to pay the tax, but the COTA legitimately existing is necessary for licensing to make the apparel official. The point is that there is a strong and untapped Athiest market out there and by having the COTA license its apparel to only one merchandiser (owned by individuals that represent the COTA) you monopolize the very market you created!
You gave me a good idea bringing up, “WWJD,” apparel. How about, “WWND,” which is, “What Would Nobody Do?”
O- I am not a CPA, but would not the balance of profit retained by the owners or higher ups at the COTA still remain taxable? What could keep COTA a lucrative enterprise is to declare purchases of homes, jets and other consummer goods as declared necessities for the purposes of the COTA, much as evangelists do.
That’s exactly what it would do, and it would also operate under a break-even Philosophy. However, with the COTA (itself) operating as an NPO it would not be subject to having its profits taxed, but it (again, itself) is not really designed to make a profit.
O- Someone with no knowledge of gods may well be called an atheists, but that is not the point. The point is that if not gods, we remain credulous enough to believe in other measures of control. A person who has never been exposed to gods may still believe in ghosts and in their power, or in the power of other things, like ammulets. The point of religion is not god. God is just a means to an end and that end is control. Now “control of what?”…yes, yes, but we should also ask “fear of what?”. Man is as prone to credulous creations, supertitions as he is of inventing or feeling phobias. Each time he is in the grip of this human assett: imagination.
PM146- I’m going to agree with all of that.
O- Not really. In this I adhere to Paul and Luther. You cannot “teach” god, nor love of God, nor belief itself. You can direct the natural ability of man to believe. Thus you can take a credulous child and teach him about Santa Claus, but you cannot teach him to believe in the invisible and fantastic- that he brings to the table on his own. It is “by grace”. Some science has been directed at finding a gene for belief, a gene for God, sort of. I don’t think that this is a fruitful pursuit, because I think that we are just prone to believe. What we learn is what NOT TO believe.
PM146- You might not be able to teach God, but you can condition a belief in God, which is essentially almost forcing a belief in God. All you would have to do is create a reward/punishment plan based upon how a child’s words/actions relate to the Christian teachings. As you know, there are many who become Athiests for specifically this reason, or do they merely think they became Athiests for just this reason? If you were to ask me, the very fact that they were ever able to question the existence of God at all is due to the fact that the conditioning program was not effective enough.
To that same extent, you could also condition Athiesm. My argument is that you don’t have to, though, because as you said, “What we learn is what not to believe.” I bring this up because the necessity to learn what not to believe wouldn’t be there if we had never been taught (or at the very least, exposed to) what it is that we are learning not to believe. For that reason, I still consider Athiesm to be the, “Natural,” way of things.
O- That says little. Mathematics is a human construct, so is language. It would be one thing if they were RANDOM constructs, but quite another when they represent a norm, and in that norm, I suppose, we can see a human phenomenon.
PM146- You can well make the argument that in the U.S.A. Christianity (or some form thereof) is representative of a norm, in fact, you could probably generally include the West in that argument. However, you should keep in mind that Christianity was closer to being a random construct than a norm prior to Constantine being the emperor of Rome.
O- Religion is created by humans and therefore a part of the natural order, as we humans are not unnatural, or are we? Wherever we see a bird’s nest we can conclude that it is a bird’s construct, but I wouldn’t say that a bird’s nest is unnatural, but that it is part of nature, just as the bird is part of nature, just as it’s feces are part of nature. Of course, religion is a product not of our physical necessities for shelter and digestion but our imagination. But it is as natural because wherever you find the human footprint you are likely to find religion. It defines us and separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. And I don’t mean that religion defines humanity or that belief in God defines us, but that credulity does, that the predisposition for belief defines us and that God and religion are just outcrops or by products of this disposition for belief and pattern composition. Though, again, I do think that the ever presence of some form of religion makes the case that religion is “normal” to our species, part of our natural order, just like growing hair.
PM146-What should it be that tells us Religion is, “Ever-Present,” the Bible? How can we safely assume that Religion was ever-present prior to written language which documented that Religion for us?
If we do not assume that the Bible is correct, then I ask you, would you assume that the first man had a God or Gods?