I don't think Madison for example would favor property taxes on churches.
I thought I was quite clear that I was not speaking about taxation and did not want to speak about taxation. That involves a lot of different issues.
For example I myself would not be for taxing churches among many other types of organizations. However many modern orgs have used this loophole to create new types of entities (church yet not church, not for profit yet totally for generating huge cash bases) to try and avoid taxation, and I would be for lifting protection for them.
So please lets not discuss this topic as it will get way to complex and I am not arguing that churches should be taxed. It is just that if your sole argument for non taxation is that it is okay for govt to support religion, then you are wrong on that.
Madison and Jefferson are just some of the founders. Look at George Washington and others.
I have. I have even posted info from people like Washington, only to watch you fade away. You keep pointing spot lights at words and phrases and single acts, and wholly avoid the massive body of works (word and deed) which put it in perspective.
Indeed your answer to anything coming from the most unquetionably influential members, is to then simply say they weren't the only ones. Yeah, but they were still the most influential. They were the ones most trusted to the most important tasks by all those others you are referring to, and they agreed on the results.
There is no mention of supporting religion as long as it is nonsectarian. They sometimes used the term sects within their writings, but those are broad terms meaning more than just denominations and indeed these people even reference atheists as those within protection.
I gave you Madison's reasoning and it was not about preferential sectarian treatment, it was about merging state and religious tasks. It was in his own words.
The simple fact is the first Congress paid for a Congressional chaplain and that alone makes your argument moot, as the majority, represented by Congress, felt it was OK to pay for Christian chaplains. The fact some prominent few disagreed with that does not change the fact that the majority that voted to ratify the Constitution disagreed.
Uh... I have already stated to you that I don't care about chaplains for congress. It seems okay as it is a service for members who live well away for home. Why not?
The point is that even that, which I as an atheist and for firm secular govt am okay with, was not supported by everyone including major contributors to our govt.
And what I think is really hypcritical is that you point to the majority which allowed chaplains, yet ignore the other two issues which were successfully turned down. Yeah, they accepted chaplains as personal service for themselves, and accepted not aiding religious institutions using public money for charitable causes. You choose one small item, and ignore the two more glaring counterexamples which put that one in context.
the federal government wasn't in the welfare/charity business back then.
That was not the stated reason for the denial. The reason for the denial was made clear.
Jefferson, for example, for all his heathen emphasis, nevertheless used federal tax dollars to pay missionaries out west.
You have said this more than once. I will need some documentation on this. Which western states did he missionize?
Or did you mean his desire to send people out to the wilderness areas, which is patently NOT within the US, to help build a bridge between westerners and the native americans... both through helping them learn our language and the most common values among US citizens?
Granted I would NOT have agreed with this, but regardless this had nothing to do with propagating religion within the US at all. Indeed as far as I am aware that was part of a package deal including vast scientific resources for exploration as well.
While he did write at times on the utility of using missionaries to help civilize nonwestern societies by exposing them to common US cultural beliefs (religious ones), after taking such actions he also criticized the idea of how much utility they can have (indeed championing math and language and agriculture more) and ultimately dismissing it as perhaps wrongminded.
From 1823 in a letter to M Megear...
...I do not know that it is a duty to disturb by missionaries the religion and peace of other countries, who may think themselves bound to extinguish by fire and fagot the heresies to which we give the name of conversions, and quote our own example for it.
Were the Pope, or his holy allies, to send in mission to us some thousands of Jesuit priests to convert us to their orthodoxy, I suspect that we should deem and treat it as a national aggression on our peace and faith.
Jefferson owned slaves, and did not press for the rejection of slavery, despite being an opponent of slavery and wrote that it was a goal to remove it from the US.
It would seem that according to you, slavery should be allowed and our nation was founded to be a slave nation as most supported it and Jefferson acted the way he did.
By picking out little tiny pieces, you truly miss the big picture and ultimately the context.
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
™ Version 4.2
