OH NOES A CAUSE!!!  LES KNOWS MY WEAKNESS!!

Sign me up in any way or form you can.  I am a sucker for helping causes and would love to get involved.  Granted I’m still a student so things are tied for me and I’m really only a specialist in molecular biology with a focus on proteomics.  I’m a good writer (damn good) and researcher however (was considering to become a PI if I couldn’t enter science)and am an excellent debator.  I’ll happily join your merry band.  Would prefer writing articles and such but I’ll dig around if you want, there are a few Megachurches around here.

You have my E-mail, or at least one of them.

The problem with Megachurches is that while they draw millions in donations, they typically fail to direct this money to social outreach programs where it is intended or they use the money for overtly political purposes which happens to be a big no-no for non-profit oganizations. Case in point, Rick Warren’s church sent out pamphlets prior to the 2004 election directing pastors of associate congregations to urge their followers to vote for Bush. As per US Law, no non-profit organization may endorse a political candidate or use its profits for the promotion of a political party. As of 2007, Rick Warren’s ministry still enjoys its tax-exempt status. Had his ministry’s profits been taxed, tens of millions of dollars would have been available for the government to disburse to social reform and outreach programs. Some have argued that the church already has these programs in place. While many of these ministries do have social outreach programs, their focus is directed towards conversion and or their budget suffers due to costs associated with the church’s extravagant spending. Surmise to say, information is the key. We have a voice, now we need something to say.

Where’s the pissed Jesus with the Angry Eye Sparking Action when you need him?

My uncle’s church has a Starbucks in it.  Seriously.  (money changing?)

I’ve heard reports of a Megachurch in Colorado Springs that labels the children in its daycare center with a barcode tag so that they aren’t “misplaced”. Seriously. Additionally, the focus of our efforts at present are Texas Megachurches. Primarily, Lakewood Church in Houston. Its attendance rate is so high that they purchased the former home of the Houston Rockets after which it underwent a 75 million dollar renovation to accomodate their congregation.

As an aside, we are currently offering 30 charter memberships to anyone who is willing to participate. Membership does not require any fees or any obligations aside from contributions. Contributions can be one-time or more, it does not matter. Every little bit helps.

Neo, on your application for tax-exemption does it require ‘a cause’, cos if it does and you’re honest and you say ‘exposing the wasteful expenditure [or pick another word or phrase] of mega-churches’ I reckon you’ll get a knock back.

You may like to get in contact with the author who first awoke this passion in you.
He, too, may feel rather resentful toward those scamming mother fuckers [sic] and have some ideas of his own – you could save some time. 

By the way, watch out for the FBI or in this case the CIA seeing as you’re safely (?) outside USA – you’ll be on the anti Commie-in god we trust -xian nation-one nation under god, hit list and that won’t do your chances of promotion much good.
How strongly do you really feel?

Having said that, logic doesn’t seem to work when you’re argufying against established religions spending up big on their leaders – they’ll twist it and say you’re against the American god; don’t you think the American god’s worth it?
In this case Benny, Pat, Gerry or Creflo, et al, is GOD (maybe all of them are – xianity is very accommodating).

Even though I and many others agree with your sentiments don’t be too idealistic – never forget these mother fucking child abusers have been playing this game for hundreds of years.
Don’t forget they convinced the most powerful leader in the free world that he could use justifications in their religion to make a pre-emptive strike on another nation, look like a crusading saviour (initially) and still make money outa oil – this is a very powerful meme.

As a bit of strategic advice, collect lotsa generic data on all the mega-scammers and when one of the mother fuckers hits a wall go for the jugular but do not even consider striking this year, you won’t be ready.

Ingersoll: The king owned the bodies, and the priest the souls, of men.
One lived on taxes, the other on alms.
One was a robber, the other a beggar, and each was both.

Always remember: Information is power.

Oh and good luck. 

John,
Our application for tax-exemption status won’t be for some time. Our purpose, while directed primarily at institutions such as Megachurches is not to attack these organizations because of their religious affiliations, but because they are amongst the most profitable non-profit organizations in the United States and, in general, appear to be the biggest abusers of this legal status. We intend to investigate other such groups, but these happen to be the most prominent. We neither endorse an organizations principles nor do support them. Our focus are their practices. If an organization exploits current law in order to circumvent taxation for the purpose of generating wealth for its leadership, it is fraudulent in its filing for tax-exemption status. As I said before, we do not attack principles, we attack practice. As for the issue of my status of living abroad, that will soon be rectified. Additionally, you are correct in your assumption that arguing against those who are guilty is fruitless, that however is not the purpose of argument. Our goal is not to convince them of any wrongdoing, but to convince the IRS and the public at large. We can accomplish this through viral marketing campaigns, and the very documentation provided by the NPO themselves. The issue here is money, as it always has been. If we assume that half of the Megachurches in the United States will be subject to taxation, we can assume that the federal government will profit in taxes will not be millions, tens of millions, but hundreds of millions of dollars. The almight dollar reigns supreme. Finally, when it comes to striking back, let me digress to discuss the American Evangelicals themselves. This group has been organizing for 30 years, they have managed to influens American culture to the point of influencing national elections. A single strike, no matter how small will have an effect. The real question is, will we as moderates or liberals have 30 years to organize? Any action, just so long as it is appropriate and soon will have an effect.

The category is: Things that should be quoted. 

We have a voice, now we need something to say.

Membership does not require any fees or any obligations aside from contributions.

Now, within the same paragraph-

Our purpose, while directed primarily at institutions such as Megachurches is not to attack

A single strike,

Nothing finer than an atheist soliciting contributions to say something, they don’t know what yet, and that whatever is decided on to say, it won’t be an attack, but rather a strike.

I suppose you have a point consigliere. I was a not only unclear, but in my caffeing-driven sermon, I misrepresented our intentions. Allow me to be clear.
Our Message:
    Any organization which misrepresents its true purpose in order to operate under the financial shelter of tax-exemption is defrauding the Federal Government. Furthermore, any organization which claims tax-exemption should be subject to review, and if found to be at fault, should lose its exemption and suffer appropriate penalties in the form of retroactive taxation for the period in which the non-profit violated the terms of application. We believe that a large number of non-profit organizations in the United States may be violating the terms of their status are subject to review by the IRS. By providing a detailed review of an organizations spending policies and practices to the public, we believe we can provide support for those who rightfully enjoy tax-exemption while subjecting those who do not, to proper review by the IRS.

As for whether any action would be an “attack”, I did not mean to confuse to distort our message. Let me be clear, any review of an organization that finds it to be at fault would be negative. A review which found an organization to be in line with the principles of a non-profit would a positive review.

As for the first two quotes, allow me to give a more proper explanation for each.
1. “We have a voice, now we need something to say.“ Translates into, we have a purpose, but we require research data in several fields.

2. “Membership does not require any fees or any obligations aside from contributions.“ At the time, I thought I was fairly straightforward. Should you be willing to support us with research data, expertise, etcetera, we would be more than happy to list you as a member for filing purposes, but without support of some kind, even if only in name, we cannot reasonably claim you as a member. To do so would be dishonest.

I think the cause is good.  And there is no need to shut down megachurches.  There just needs to be some defined limits of how they can operate.  But without a lot of evidence being collected this may be an uphill battle.

If you are going to push a review by the IRS of these organizations in violation, make sure you do so once Bush is out of office…

I have a better idea.  Instead of worrying about which companies might be tax exempt, why not campaign for the government to repeal income taxes on all corporations, for-profit or otherwise?

The corporate income tax is probably the single most wasteful and couter-productive source of government revenue.  It’s estimated that upwards of $200 billion is spent by companies to reduce their tax burden.  That’s actually more than the $150 billion in tax revenues the government collects.  In other words, the majority of the corporate income tax’s cost doesn’t end up in federal coffers—it simply disappears.

Having a corporate income tax creates a huge economic incentive to move manufacturing and production plants outside the U.S.  Companies like Intel build all their captial-intensive facilities in countries like Thailand where corporate profits are untaxed.

American companies also carry significantly higher debt burdens than companies in other countries.  That’s no accident.  Interest on debt is tax-deductible, whereas the capital gains accrued from assets sitting on your balance sheet are taxed.  The rational thing for a corporation to do is pile up debt.

Neodromos: Had his ministry’s profits been taxed, tens of millions of dollars would have been available for the government to disburse to social reform and outreach programs.

Or, what’s more likely, tens of millions of dollars could have disappeared into the black hole known as “the Federal government”.

Your concern for social outreach is touching, considering that secular liberals are far less charitable than Christians by just about any measure—monetary donations, hours volunteered, or even blood donated.

it simply disappears.

Doubit it. When’d they start eating money?

Your concern for social outreach is touching, considering that secular liberals are far less charitable than Christians by just about any measure—monetary donations, hours volunteered, or even blood donated.

And this has been knocked elsewhere on the site. Your preoccupation with people’s voting habits is as bizarre as Christians’ preoccupation with sex.

Daryl, what the hell are you talking about?

Intel doesn’t have to pay taxes on the specific operation in Thailand, yes.  But if that plant was in the US they would pay more taxes at a state level.  Which is why a lot of manufacturing jobs try to hook up in New Jersey.  New Jersey has no tax for plants in their state as do other states.

But if you go here, you can obviously see from the PDF that Intel still pays taxes.  Corporate profits are not taxed by Thailand, because Intel registered as a corporation in the US. 

Which, despite your irrational argument, many companies still do.  Most companies register in the US as a corp because of the limited liability they get, and other protections as a corp.  Other countries have different rules and some higher taxes than the US.

This is about all I could go after in your incoherent diatribe.

I’m kinda with LuckyJohn on how this should be carried out.  The CIA and FBI still sees the #1 enemy as the communists, terrorists are just small frys.  Push for an agenda that some communists can cling to and you will end up in trouble.

If you really want to hit those scammed churches than be very cautious. Like John said, information is key so make sure that the argument is air tight before moving.  Remember that they can turn this into an “atheist” comspiracy and with their money, if they feel threatened they can really put on the hurt.  Maybe branch out to cover other subjects like psuedo-science and “mystic” con-men.  They are a much more disorganized institution that are just as much in need of some selective pressure as the mega-scam churches.  Good practise too.  Make sure that the methods employed are highly effective and through the correct streams, else the tables can turn on you and society will tar and feather you.  These guys are good at covering their tracks and you will need exceptional personal who are just as incorruptable as the bloody FBI.  Else everything will go to hell for the organization.

The ideal situation is where all quacks using religious and mystic jargon to further their greed will have to spend so much time watching their backs that their ability to convincingly con is severly diminished.  Will take a lot of excellent sleuthing however to make the “observer effect” feared.

With the right conditions and the right people, this could really work out.  It can also work out horribly wrong like John is hinting.

Maybe branch out to cover other subjects like psuedo-science and “mystic” con-men.

My issue with this is how do we handle the PR when we equated churches with con-men and “satanic” mysticism. They can flog it out much harder than we can, and such a perspective does not necessarily align with the values of the people we’re appealing to.

I like the idea of hitting a spectrum of things, but specialization seems to be the better mode of operation.

I am soooo down for this. I am not the most eloquent or the quitest nor am I very smart, but I make one hell of a rabal rouser when needed.

“flectere si nequeo superos, Achaeronta movebo”

The issue here is with any non-profit that exploits their status. Megachurches are a prime example of this. Of course, there is the distinct possibility that not every Megachurch operates in this fashion. In order to remain neutral, we would like to review and investigate secular and non-secular entities alike and issue a rating based up the evidence. Should a church or any other institution pass muster, we would be willing to promote their “clean bill of health” on our website. There is the distinct possibility that this could be construed as an endorsement, however, with a constant emphasis on a critique of practice instead of principle, we can hope to maintain a level of neutrality.
As to the issue of fighting any corporation. I think it would be unwise. More to the point, I think it would suicide to lobby for the repeal of corporate income taxes. That is a fight that I cannot win. But to expose fraud in institutions that rob local economies of millions in tax dollars? Who would be willing to stand by and say, “It’s alright if our city’s schools are overcrowded, the poverty rate is above the national average, and our police and fire departments are underfunded so that men like Creflo Dollar can rake in millions in untaxed income while the people around them suffer.“ That is my point, a non-profit organization such as a church is respected for its efforts in social outreach programs, when they not only fail in this regard, but exploit the poor they are supposed to be serving, this is fraud, and its an initative I think more blue-collar Americans would support than repealing taxes they can’t understand or care about.

Have to enlist a guilter. A person who guilts people out of their money.  Count the money in the back…not enough bring out the guilter. Sinners all sinners need more only YOU can make it happen…guilt guilt guilt.

Daryl: why not campaign for the government to repeal income taxes on all corporations

How is it gonna benefit you personally? Are you a part ‘owner’ of a corporation.
You made a lot of waaaaayy out claims there inya post with not a scrap of evidence.
This is the way of the xian ... you oughta join’em - you’d make a good xian. 

American companies also carry significantly higher debt burdens than companies in other countries.

That sounds terrible ... butcha don’t really know. Got any proof?

The rational thing for a corporation to do is pile up debt.

No; the honourable thing would be to pay the due taxes (something about rendering unto Caesar) AND stay in the black.

Or, what’s more likely, tens of millions of dollars could have disappeared into the black hole known as “the Federal government”.

Betcha voted for the Shrub, dintcha? Yeah?
Reckon he wasted a coupla bucks in Iraq? Yeah?
Reckon the Halliburton CORPORATION got some? Yeah?

Your concern for social outreach is touching, considering that secular liberals are far less charitable than Christians by just about any measure—monetary donations, hours volunteered, or even blood donated.

You’re guessing, aren’t you? You don’t know how many atheists are out there.
I’ll tell you what though, many xians are paying lip service to xianity so they can: get a job, keep a job, run for and win public office (in many states you can’t do so unless you’re ‘a person of faith’)), keep families together, stay part of a family and too many other things to mention … you sure as hell couldn’t become the president unless you were ‘a person of faith’.
By the way, per capita in USA there are more ‘people of faith’ in your prisons than atheists.
Guess their ‘people of faith’ moral compass went awry. Yeah?

Aw yeah and, the main reason corporations go overseas is the low wages they can get away with paying the workers.
Didn’t you know that, ya goose?

[/rave]

Your concern for social outreach is touching, considering that secular liberals are far less charitable than Christians by just about any measure—monetary donations, hours volunteered, or even blood donated.

Wait a minute. I thought Daryl was against charity. At least where federal money is concerned…

Sadie, I like your new signature.

Megachurches are an abomination under god.

I have no idea what the hell bobo was talking about, but as for the gracious offers for help. Anyone having experience or expertise in drafting a set of articles of incorporation would be nice.

Additionally, I wouldn’t want to become an unwelcomed guest and use Les’ bandwith so you can expect our organization’s site to go live within a the next couple of weeks so your questions, comments, concerns can be directed there where I’ll be paying for it.