I’m not American, but my uneducated ass believes America is basically a theocracy. The president has to pretend that he does everything in the name of god, you have to swear your official vows on the bible, every hotel has a bible, every child in school has to pray to the god-emperor every morning, your money says “in god we trust”, your churches are payed for by tax-evasion.
So then, what renains to be the difference between “state run” and “church run” benefits really?
1: The president does not need to pretend everything is done in the name of god. One party does this to appeal to a religious base.
2: You do not need to swear into office on a bible, many have sworn in on nothing at all or other holy books.
3: Every hotel is provided a bible (and often a book of mormon) by that company. This is because the company many of these hotels are owned by is a mormon company. Many hotels do not have bibles in them now.
4: Children are not required to pray in the morning, unless you attend a religious school specifically. If you mean the pledge, that is also optional and not done in many schools.
5: In God We Trust is an odd case yes. It was added in the 1950’s to “combat socialism.”
6: Churches are not required to pay taxes because they are also charities that perform good acts for the poor. Other religions claim this benefit as well.
Actually they all functionally do, just to varying extents. Good luck finding a President who has never mentioned God in any of their speeches.
Technically correct, but those who choose Not A Bible are routinely targetted with bigoted smear campaigns, often death threats, many of them credible, actionable.
I mean you just do admit that this happens, that’s how normalized religion is, the state doesn’t do anything and it just happens.
Clearly you have no idea how widespread and common it is for parents to force their kids to do this, for teachers in more religious states to force the pledge. Actual rules on the book be damned, don’t follow the unwritten ones and you are a pariah.
You again concede this is the case.
Churches can perform charitable acts, but there is no requirement for this, many of them don’t, many of them either directly or indirectly donate money to political think tank/campaigns and call that ‘charity’, many of them explicitly endorse particular political candidates, despite that being illegal, because either no one reports the violation and/or nobody bothers to prosecute it.
See also: The entire megachurch/megapastor phenomenon in the US, which would be described as a massive cult in basically any other country.
Because they are religious? You would be hard pressed to find politicians who do not appeal to a higher authority except in countries where religious freedoms are restricted.
Targeted by smear campaigns from their political opponents who would have smear campaigns running anyways. Credible death threats is a different story and not the norm, politicians recieve death threats from wackos over everything they do.
What would the state do? It’s a first amendment protected right. If you dislike this practice you can stay in hotels without bibles.
Anecdotal evidence at best, maybe in the more religious areas of the country in the south this happens, but they are a minority.
Good job realizing that.
Yes megachurches do provide some charity to maintain their tax exempt status. There is no defined percentage of revenue you must spend to be a charity. This is a larger issue that affects secular charities as well.
You have really only argued one of your six points.
You seem to arguing the US is not literally an official theocracy.
I am arguing that religiosity in the US is significantly more pervasive, common and extreme than in any other developed country, and I don’t even need to argue this, all kinds of stats have borne this out in detail, for decades.
Almost half of the US believes that we are all living in ‘the end times’, that the Rapture will either happen in their lifetimes, or even very, very soon.
Thats almost half the US that literally exists in an apocalyptic death cult.
They wouldn’t call it that, but that is literally what it is. Most other Christians in most other parts of the world do not believe in this essentially uniquely American fan fiction version of Christianity… and most Americans don’t even know that, that everyone else thinks we are weird.
Its a huge reason why we also statistically abberantly don’t believe climate change is real or is caused by humans or should have something done about it.
Its also a huge reason that US Evangelicals, up untill extremely recently… basically uniformly support anything Israel does.
They largely hate Jews, but, they literally want to hasten the apocalpyse, to hit all the conditions that they ‘interpreted’ into their scenario for the preamble to the Rapture.
So then, what renains to be the difference between “state run” and “church run” benefits really?
What kind of question is that? Churches are funded through donations rather than through taxes and they have no legal obligation to perform charity, so the difference is that they are not as reliable for people in need.
I agree with everything you’re saying. But I just wanted to mention that politicians are not actually required to swear in on a Bible. That’s just what most use because of everything else you said. But every once in a while a politician will choose something different to swear on. Two I can remember of the to of my head was swearing in on Dr seues green eggs and ham and another one that swore in on a Captain America comic. Of course the religious nut jobs always lose it when that happens though
The state has no control over the food at the pantries beyond basic health standards. The state cannot force me to give out bread when I run a soup kitchen. It can encourage me to continue with charitable acts with tax credits and subsidies, but it cannot force me to.
In the US? The church and the state are joined at the hip. Go look up the history of Mitt Romney. The man is an ordained Mormon Bishop while he lived in Boston.
We organize our charitable relief at the retail end through church fronts. But the money and the materials routinely come from state coffers.
You do, they’re called food pantry lines, and they tend to be run by churches in my experience
There are still plenty of local government run food pantries too, since I have to spell this part out in crayon for some people…
If the food pantries are run by churches, then they are not state run, meaning you do not see state run food pantries.
I’m not American, but my uneducated ass believes America is basically a theocracy. The president has to pretend that he does everything in the name of god, you have to swear your official vows on the bible, every hotel has a bible, every child in school has to pray to the god-emperor every morning, your money says “in god we trust”, your churches are payed for by tax-evasion.
So then, what renains to be the difference between “state run” and “church run” benefits really?
Well let’s break your points down.
1: The president does not need to pretend everything is done in the name of god. One party does this to appeal to a religious base.
2: You do not need to swear into office on a bible, many have sworn in on nothing at all or other holy books.
3: Every hotel is provided a bible (and often a book of mormon) by that company. This is because the company many of these hotels are owned by is a mormon company. Many hotels do not have bibles in them now.
4: Children are not required to pray in the morning, unless you attend a religious school specifically. If you mean the pledge, that is also optional and not done in many schools.
5: In God We Trust is an odd case yes. It was added in the 1950’s to “combat socialism.”
6: Churches are not required to pay taxes because they are also charities that perform good acts for the poor. Other religions claim this benefit as well.
Trump is a religion here. His devout call themselves christian but its clearly distinct in both beliefs and rituals.
Actually they all functionally do, just to varying extents. Good luck finding a President who has never mentioned God in any of their speeches.
Technically correct, but those who choose Not A Bible are routinely targetted with bigoted smear campaigns, often death threats, many of them credible, actionable.
I mean you just do admit that this happens, that’s how normalized religion is, the state doesn’t do anything and it just happens.
Clearly you have no idea how widespread and common it is for parents to force their kids to do this, for teachers in more religious states to force the pledge. Actual rules on the book be damned, don’t follow the unwritten ones and you are a pariah.
You again concede this is the case.
Churches can perform charitable acts, but there is no requirement for this, many of them don’t, many of them either directly or indirectly donate money to political think tank/campaigns and call that ‘charity’, many of them explicitly endorse particular political candidates, despite that being illegal, because either no one reports the violation and/or nobody bothers to prosecute it.
See also: The entire megachurch/megapastor phenomenon in the US, which would be described as a massive cult in basically any other country.
Because they are religious? You would be hard pressed to find politicians who do not appeal to a higher authority except in countries where religious freedoms are restricted.
Targeted by smear campaigns from their political opponents who would have smear campaigns running anyways. Credible death threats is a different story and not the norm, politicians recieve death threats from wackos over everything they do.
What would the state do? It’s a first amendment protected right. If you dislike this practice you can stay in hotels without bibles.
Anecdotal evidence at best, maybe in the more religious areas of the country in the south this happens, but they are a minority.
Good job realizing that.
Yes megachurches do provide some charity to maintain their tax exempt status. There is no defined percentage of revenue you must spend to be a charity. This is a larger issue that affects secular charities as well.
You have really only argued one of your six points.
You seem to arguing the US is not literally an official theocracy.
I am arguing that religiosity in the US is significantly more pervasive, common and extreme than in any other developed country, and I don’t even need to argue this, all kinds of stats have borne this out in detail, for decades.
Almost half of the US believes that we are all living in ‘the end times’, that the Rapture will either happen in their lifetimes, or even very, very soon.
Thats almost half the US that literally exists in an apocalyptic death cult.
They wouldn’t call it that, but that is literally what it is. Most other Christians in most other parts of the world do not believe in this essentially uniquely American fan fiction version of Christianity… and most Americans don’t even know that, that everyone else thinks we are weird.
Its a huge reason why we also statistically abberantly don’t believe climate change is real or is caused by humans or should have something done about it.
Its also a huge reason that US Evangelicals, up untill extremely recently… basically uniformly support anything Israel does.
They largely hate Jews, but, they literally want to hasten the apocalpyse, to hit all the conditions that they ‘interpreted’ into their scenario for the preamble to the Rapture.
Good luck getting an atheist elected president in the US.
Thomas Jefferson was a Deist, which is about as close to atheism as you could get since atheism was not “founded” in its modern forms yet.
What kind of question is that? Churches are funded through donations rather than through taxes and they have no legal obligation to perform charity, so the difference is that they are not as reliable for people in need.
I agree with everything you’re saying. But I just wanted to mention that politicians are not actually required to swear in on a Bible. That’s just what most use because of everything else you said. But every once in a while a politician will choose something different to swear on. Two I can remember of the to of my head was swearing in on Dr seues green eggs and ham and another one that swore in on a Captain America comic. Of course the religious nut jobs always lose it when that happens though
What if the state is subsidizing the church through tax credits, grants, and subsidies?
The state has no control over the food at the pantries beyond basic health standards. The state cannot force me to give out bread when I run a soup kitchen. It can encourage me to continue with charitable acts with tax credits and subsidies, but it cannot force me to.
TIL “tend to” means “always”
Even if they tend to be run by churches, then they wouldn’t count as state run. Meaning you do not see state-run bread lines / food pantries.
People in the West absolutely can’t stand when you point out all the same instructions of poverty exist on their home turf.
It’s a sin to acknowledge poverty exists. Nevermind to suggest that westerners might be worse at alleviating it than their foreign peers.
The downvoted are cause they said “state run food pantries” and then talked about them being run by churches and not the state.
We fucking know there is poverty here. Hence talking about bread lines in the first place.
In the US? The church and the state are joined at the hip. Go look up the history of Mitt Romney. The man is an ordained Mormon Bishop while he lived in Boston.
We organize our charitable relief at the retail end through church fronts. But the money and the materials routinely come from state coffers.