Don't you only tax profits? If a church isn't making any, then there'd be nothing to tax?

I have been on a budget committee for a Methodist church. There is no profit, no money left over the next year, the largest expense is the pastor who is an employee (50k per yr in this case).

Mega-churches might have money left over but by law they are supposed to spend their money as their nonprofit charter says or they could get audited by the State and fined or have their charter terminated.

I'll just leave this here as one sample of many:

https://images.cdn.circlesix.co/image/1/1366/0/uploads/posts...

Let's just say that not every church is the same as your Methodist church.

What are we supposed to be looking at here?

Russian Orthodox priests in Romania and Bulgaria are absolutely terrible. They prey on a gullible and very poor population while living in opulence and flaunting their wealth. In Bucharest, Romania, they are currently building a church to the tune of 100 million euros.

https://balkaninsight.com/2018/11/23/heavy-price-tag-oversha...

70% or more of that came from public funding, essentially tax payer money rerouted to build this monstrosity, something the country really can not afford.

And all of that for a pissing match about who has the tallest church.

Meh.. I find it difficult to care too much on a site whose population regularly fawn over a billionaire who stands to make billions more, largely due to booking sale of taxpayer-funded carbon credits to his company's most recent quarterly earnings as profit.

People around the world have different value systems and tolerances. For me it's impossible to consider state-funded excesses of the church without drawing comparisons to the likes of Musk. As for their relative social benefit, that's another topic entirely..

Those have pretty clearly stated profit aims. Churches, not so much.

Your complaint was about use of public money:

> they are currently building a church to the tune of 100 million euros.

> 70% or more of that came from public funding, essentially tax payer money rerouted to build this monstrosity, something the country really can not afford.

In Tesla's case, $428m of public money contributed almost one third of all profits made by the company in a single /quarter/, at a time when the dollar's future as a reserve currency is being called into question due to panic spending to support a system on the brink of collapse.

The trick will likely qualify it for inclusion in the S&P 500, making it further eligible for more of that sweet public money over winter, as the current administration discusses that index's performance as an explicit target on an almost weekly basis.

No, my complaint is about churches and their lack of transparency with regards to how they process their income and the fact that they don't pay taxes. The should never receive taxpayer funds.

Thank you for commenting, I had no idea there was that much public money going into Tesla.

How is that any different than America where preachers tell their poorest congregants that they should give 10% of their income before they pay their bills? If they come up short on their bills are short, “God will provide”?

Some are even willing to use credit cards to pay their tithes if they come up short.

It is quite similar.

This is the same in Poland.

The recent elections confirmed the conservative direction of the country, fueled along others by the catholic church.

The good thing is that religion is not compulsory anymore. There used to be a time where not bring part of the church meant beung a real outcast.

This included the communist rulers who were quick to chistianise their children because otherwise they wild have hell in the family.

That was acually not bad as the church balanced the state.

Now they are omnipotent, and this is also the reason more people can be outside of church - because church is not unanimously seen as a savior anymore. Quite the opposite in the ranks of 30-50 yo people.

I lived there for a few years in total, I'm well aware of all this and it is a sad thing to see this raise its ugly head again. The church was instrumental in getting rid of the communists but they are a huge problem by themselves as well.

>>Don't you only tax profits? If a church isn't making any, then there'd be nothing to tax?

Land and buildings for one could be taxed. Churches bought or were given land ages ago, before there was a Manhattan or Boston, as we today know it. Go ahead and pay property tax on land worth $250 Million when you barely make income to keep the lights on.

A solution to this is to give back the land to the local city and have it handled as cultural heritage, with an authorization to practice religious activities at specific times, but it’s governed by local administration overall.

That’s how some cathedrals are managed in europe for instance.

What a perfect way for the state to exercise control over religious organizations! You’d quickly end up with every such state sponsored “church” as disruptive to state interests as the Church of England, the Lutheran State Churches of Scandinavia or the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.

China aside given that it's an authoritarian state I much prefer the control the state has over the church here in Germany, because it eliminates virtually all religious sectarianism and has led to the church having adopted teaching and a curriculum that is largely in line with the basic constitutional law and secular values rather than existing outside of it. Same in the UK or Scandinavia.

One of the reasons Islamic extremism is so hard to combat is because Islam exists largely outside of the control of the state, as backyard mosques can basically preach anything regardless how extremist it is, often deliberately recruiting people out of organizations that try to integrate with the state and society at large. I assume this is similar to radical Evangelicalism in the US.

Parallel societies are bad, they're a breeding ground for extremism.

> China aside given that it's an authoritarian state I much prefer the control the state has over the church here in Germany, because it eliminates virtually all religious sectarianism and has led to the church having adopted teaching and a curriculum that is largely in line with the basic constitutional law and secular values rather than existing outside of it.

The picture you paint of government control over religion sounds very authoritarian to me. As far as “parallel societies are bad”, what happened to “diversity is our strength”?

Diversity is a good thing, that's not changed. But diversity doesn't mean 'anything goes'. There's boundaries in a civil society for a reason.

Religious practice is fine but withholding a secular education from children or ditching modern medicine, or attacking the rights of women or exercising corporal punishment isn't.

I don't see how having the ability to put a stop to it is authoritarian, at least not any more than religious extremism itself is. The alternative to government exercising control over religion is having religion exercise control over government. The problem doesn't go away.

> Religious practice is fine but withholding a secular education from children or ditching modern medicine, or attacking the rights of women or exercising corporal punishment isn't.

Fair enough. That’s not what I thought you meant by “keeping religious orgs in line with state secular views” or whatever. Even still, you don’t need state control over religion to achieve those ends, and indeed in the US where the state is constitutionally prohibited from interfering with religion, these things aren’t problems (at least not to any reasonable interpretations).

The First Amendment strongly prevents something like this in the US. There is no way the state can control a religious organization here and that’s a good thing. Americans secularism >> European “secularism”.

Islamic extremism in your country is not due to lack of state control of their mosques. It’s how you have treated generations of Islamic immigrants (Turks on work visas, no citizenships, open borders with lots of “refugees”, etc). Of course they will make parallel societies. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Most Turks in Germany are citizens (requirements are if anything laxer than in the US), and there's practically no religious extremism among Turks, so that's just a wrong claim.

And actually extremism among Turks is absent for the very reason I outlined above. In Turkey there's a long tradition of either religious integration in the state in the Ottoman era which had a strong scholastic tradition, or laicism under Atatürk, so there was very little room for sectarianism.

And yes, a lot of extremism is present among refugees, but that just proves the point, where do refugees originate from? Countries with failing state authority.

> Americans secularism >> European “secularism”.

You conveniently forget that the church has no qualms about controlling the state in the US

Which church?

Mostly Southern Baptists and Evangelicals.

Have you been blind to politics in the past few years? From forcing intelligent design into schools to full assault against planned parenthood etc.

I don’t live in, or generally care about the deep south where the Southern Baptist and Evangelical churches apparently share control of the state, so in a sense yes.

I thought you were talking about the USA as a whole, my mistake.

I could not have hoped for a more perfect illustration of my point. We are in perfect agreement on the outcomes, we just disagree on whether the state being in charge of determining public morality is good or not. You, a product of a state indoctrination system, agree with its values. The same thing happens in other countries where the state has different values.

Religious orgs can still do what they want, they just don’t get to use historical buildings willy-nilly.

Then if we’re talking about the UK, it feels weird to argue about religious buildings ownership in a kingdom, where the Queen has a religious role.

Thankfully the First Amendment prevents America from doing that here. I prefer American secularism over the weird European theocratic states that you describe.

Cool, and all the people have to do this with any property held corporately? Or only groups of people who identify as Christians?

The upkeep of a Cathedral is hella expensive, St.Paul's in London claims its building's upkeep cost is > £5.2M ('more than £10 per minute').

A building ownership tax seems sensible, but I'd be amazed if any Capitalist government considered it.

> A building ownership tax seems sensible, but I'd be amazed if any Capitalist government considered it.

I'm not sure I understand your meaning. Are you referring to something different from property tax?

A better solution is to keep it as it is. It has survived millennia. It's their land and states can renege their promises.

American Indians know that state and federal govt is honest to a fault!

> It has survived millennia.

By "millennia" you mean "at most 300 years, maybe"?

Here in USA. Oldest churches are from the 4th century elsewhere.

For the record: I don't think that priests should be able to buy $50M jets or keep 40% of total land of x country tax free, but they should not be forced to sell buildings because property tax is too high.

Yes. My comment was about "here in the USA" because the grandparent comment talked about churches existing "before Boston".

Churches are routinely handed over to the state or to commercial entities in order to preserve them because church membership is in rapid decline and its very expensive to take care of the church building especially if it has "survived millennia".

edit: got it wrong as per below comment

I assume they meant "here in USA" with regard to the comment about 300 years, but are pointing out that outside the US there exist churches as old as 4th century.

What has survived millennia “as it is”? The United States? It was founded scarcely three centuries ago. The Christian church? Ever hear of the reformation, of Calvin, of Protestantism? I.e. one of the main reasons the United States exists?

It absolutely has not survived millennia. What you call your Christian church today would be unrecognisable to the faithful of a century ago, never mind two, or five, or ten, or twenty. Or are you acknowledging that Christianity is the cult of Mithras, and that it’s still a death cult?

In the UK our local church is physically about 850 years old, But there was a church on the site back in 1086 and presumably before, as it was mentioned in the domesday book. It’s Anglican now, before then it was catholic, maybe it used to be a pagan worship site, maybe in future it will be for the cult of Cummings.

It has severe financial issues at the moment - maintaining the courtyard alone costs £1k a month. I’m waiting for more detailed finances on that.

Maintaining finances for any organisation is a basic bread and butter protection against corruption. I don’t see what harm there is in taxing religious organisations the same way as any other charity.

Or you could just build a huge multi-apartment building instead having a church on the first floor (maybe several floors) and actually resolve some of the housing issues in the area at the same time.

Churches in the UK own property that they lease, such as expensive business high steet stores.

> the people giving money to churches to attend that church, should pick up the cost of going to that church. which includes property taxes. if they are not willing to pay for that, it's their problem. excusing churches from these taxes puts the burden for the church not on its members, but on everyone.

Your whole premise here is that property taxes should be considered part of the cost of attending church (your first and second sentences from the quoted section above), but that’s exactly what is up for debate. You need to support that premise if you want to say something more persuasive than “I think churches should pay taxes because I think churches should pay taxes”.

umm, no I don't. everyone pays taxes by default. it is you who needs to say something more persuasive than churches should not pay taxes because they are churches.

No, you (not I) made a claim: churches should pay taxes. I didn’t make any claim, at least not here. I only pointed out that you didn’t support your point. Secondly, I don’t see why the “separation of church and state” position needs further defense. It’s an established precedent and status quo for hundreds of years. To that end, your “everyone pays taxes by default” claim is obviously wrong because churches don’t pay taxes by default. Moreover, proponents of separation of church and state don’t need you to find their arguments compelling; their will is law—your position is the challenger and it needs persuasive support if you would like the status quo changed.

> ah yes. the tax exception for a church means churches don't pay taxes by default. i like that circular logic. just like women not being able to vote for hundreds of years - they shouldn't vote now.

That's not the argument I'm making. I'm arguing that the onus is on you to persuade, not that the status quo is inherently superior by virtue of being the status quo. I was very clear about this.

> your claim was that I needed to prove my point that churches should not pay taxes. i said the claim is invalid, because taxes are paid by default, by everyone, unless an exception is granted.

The exception has been granted and is well-entrenched in precedent. You can disagree all you want and demand that someone needs to make an argument that persuades you; nevertheless, the law protects churches and you don't agree with it, so you must be mistaken about the burden of persuasion.

> my position is not a "challenger." rules and laws are not written in stone as the word of god you pretend the bible is. they need to be reexamined frequently, and someone granted a tax exemption needs to prove again why that exception is still valid.

The law prohibits taxation of churches, and your position is that we should change the law, ergo it's (by definition) the challenger (the status quo being the incumbent). No one here is claiming laws are written in stone; our disagreement appears to be whether or not changing the laws requires a persuasive argument, and here you are mistaken. Specifically you're mistaken that churches are legally obligated to reprove the validity of their tax exemption--you may wish that churches were so obligated, but they aren't, and if you insist there is such a legal obligation, it's incumbent upon you to furnish evidence to support your claim.

Anyway, this conversation has diverged from an interesting subject to litigating burden of persuasion which is well established and obvious. I'm not interested in debating the obvious unless there's some evidence that can call into question its obviousness. If we can't agree on obvious matters, I don't think this conversation is likely to enlighten, so I bid you adieu.

> the onus is on you to persuade and I am saying this is false. but it is expected you believe this. the status quo was people believing in a god. now we don't. it is not on us to prove there is not one. it is still on you to prove there is one. just like it is on you to prove an exemption should still be given, or you don't get one anymore.

yes, that is my opinion. this is what we do in comments on a subject matter. state our opinions on it. there is no need to prove to the irs churches should not be taxed. they take tax rules all the time and reexamine them, and drop ones that are no longer appropriate, which is soon coming for churches. as can literally be seen in this article being discussed.

Yeah, same with that useless ymca and that donated community garden.

correct.

This seems like a flaw in property taxes not churches.

yes, churches not being taxes is a flaw in the tax system, not churches. churches and everyone else can be and do whatever they want to. welcome to the discussion.

I don't know about the US tax system, but at least in my experience here in Australia, not every expense incurred by a business or partially-taxed non-profit is necessarily deductible. For example, I formed a company with some friends for the purpose of work on a single contract, and the expenses we incurred in incorporating the company were only deductible at a rate of 20% per year over 5 years, so we ended up having to pay tax without being able to deduct most of that particular set of expenses during the 1 year we were in operation.

Thats for items which depreciate in value over a multi year period right? I know that you were only in business one year but the tax system isn't really designed around 1 job incorporated companies.

That’s depreciation on capitalised assets. Churches would like have very few assets that depreciate apart from buildings.

Capital expenses, not depreciating assets.

In any case, my broader point is that tax law for businesses and other taxable organisations is not as simple as "we didn't make a profit and therefore pay no tax this year", and therefore as someone who isn't a qualified tax accountant, I can't really say with much accuracy what impact particular changes to tax law are going to have on the overall financial position of an organisation like a church.

One of the companies I used to work for - the joke was they are a land acquiring company under the guise of technology. They did tech too and made a lot of money, but they made decent sum from land too.

Same may be going on for churches too.

The tax being referred to in the case of churches is usually property taxes, which are based on property value, not profit or operations.

It's not just about the amounts, but the time tax, and the effort tax. Maintaining tax records is not zero-effort.

It's not exactly high effort either. If a business can afford to build a megachurch and run TV campaigns to fill it, it shouldn't have a problem finding the time/money to file a fucking tax return.

I'll happily to make an exception for any church that is truly run as a genuine non-profit charity, and most income really is spent on good work in the community - not on investments and buying really nice things for the pastors.

But that's going to exclude most of these businesses. Unless that changes they won't get any sympathy here.

I remember watching the collection round at a church once. Pensioners who literally had breadline incomes were all putting significant amounts of cash onto a plate - for the Catholic Church, which is literally one of the richest and longest established businesses on the planet.

I will never, ever forgive that organisation for leeching off its poor devotees quite so shamelessly. Likewise for any other church with significant wealth.

The Catholic church has also claimed over $1.4bn in PPP loans too.

I would find that especially galling.

Why should the non-religious non profit organisations have to maintain tax recods then?

That is a great question!

>It's going to go against the grain at hackernews

I really wish people didn't do this. I agree with your post, but it's preemptively combative to make the first thing you say, "you're going to disagree with me." It makes you sound like you're trying to present yourself as an underdog in the face of a monolithic enemy.

I agree. I'm here because I like being part of a community where folks are balanced and measured and without outrage culture.

What he's saying is true though, there is no reason to sweep it under the rug because it hurts a few feelings.

Should a non profit foodbank not get the same treatment as a church?

Churches can be opposed to abortion or same sex marriage. At the same time care for the needy. However also sometimes be biased at only serving the needy that they think need to be served.

I think that’s the main issue here. If churches are non-profits, treat them like other non-profits.

earthscienceman says>"It's going to go against the grain at hackernews, but taxing churches in the US is a terrible idea.<

I fail to see why.

All financial dealings of churches go unaudited. They should be subject to annual open public audit, at the least. I think they should be taxed as any other corporate entity. They frequently compete with normal corporations and should be given no preference. As it is they pay neither federal nor local taxes in most jurisdictions, if not all.

BTW I'm very conservative. My inclination would be to do what the British and the French did centuries ago - confiscate all the properties of the churches.

Well why is a countries system so broken that you need these churches to do charities.

Why is a country's moral system so broken that instead of charitable giving you take from people under threat of force instead?

I think the fact that you consider taxes to be such a nightmare scenario shows that your moral system is broken. Society cannot exist without cooperation, and refusal to participate in society (at everyone’s expense) is an immoral position imo. We can certainly argue about the specifics of what that participation should look like (ie taxes and conscription and whatnot) but when your position is that the government should never ever be allowed to force you to do things, then we’re on completely different planets, and I think your moral code is flat out broken.

Oh, worry not, I firmly believe that sometimes the government absolutely should take your money under threat of violence, but we should always remember that's exactly what taxes are.

Every time we propose the government spend money on something we must remember where that money comes from and seriously consider if it's justified.

Well, that's good, and in that case, I agree with you. However, I guess I'm also just much more pragmatic than you, because from a purely utilitarian perspective, the government running various "charity" programs is much more efficient than private charities running them. https://nonprofitquarterly.org/republicans-give-more-to-char... The general attitude here in Europe also is a much more favorable outlook on taxes as well, and while it is true that people give less, overall, society is better, and people know and don't mind that their taxes are going to help those less fortunate. It's just that generally speaking, government run programs (when not being constantly tried to shut down) are able to provide an overall better service.

That's not to say we can't have differing opinions on where precisely to draw that line, I think debate on that is good and healthy, and it's important to strike a good balance between too much and too little social welfare. But it's also better to have a more efficient and effective solution than to have one that "feels" better.

Maybe you could earmark the collected taxes for creating secular alternatives? Or maybe create a system where people don't have to rely on churches and rich people for charity.

Churches provide much more than just money. Solace, peace, love, community etc... I'd say this is more important than money.

I used to be a Christian. There are a lot of bad sides of Christianity and that is why I left. But it does help many people and after studying Buddhism I understand how the right approach to Christianity can bring a lot of peace to believers:

Unconditional love. Many people grew up made to feel they had to earn their parents' love.

Letting go of control. You can't control everything in life. Whatever is going to happen is up to God now.

Forgiveness. When people ask for God's forgiveness, it helps them to forgive themselves.

Gratitude.

I feel these things should exist without God. That is, they can be helpful to non-believers too. But I am having a hard time creating secular versions of these.

I think the root of the problem lies in the fact that God here is an abstract entity with whom the believer communicates but no such abstract entity exists for non-believers (duh!).

May be some form of general artificial intelligence can fulfil this role in the future?

Real people can fulfil this role too but they are probably not abstract enough. edit: And hence not "powerful" enough (to forgive, to protect etc.).

Just spit-balling here. Also not trying to offend anyone here.

The purpose of being a Christian is to love God and to love your neighbour as yourself. In if you wonder how far the love of your neighbour stretches, the goalpost has ben set at the very end: Love your enemies.[See: Mark 12:30-31 and Matthew 5:44] And this follows and is natural because God is LOVE [1 John 4:7-21].

I have a hard time believing AI will fulfil this role. For would it be optimized for gains here and now, or actions of sacrifice now that will be payed back fully in an everlasting life and that is built on faith? :-)

And I must admit that love is hard and I mess up a lot! But i try to do the same as is written here:

"Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."[Philippians 3.13-14]

What about all the people who are considered "sinners" ? There's no love for them in the Bible

If that was the case, I would be the last in line! ;-)

But God's whole purpose was to save sinners like me and you through Jesus Christ: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us". [1 John 1, 8-10 NKJV]

So hell is not a thing ? i'm confused ?

I feel like you must have never read the bible, or even interacted much with a christian, to say this.

EVERYONE is a sinner. That sin is then forgiven.

But who ends up in hell then ?

Churches provide love? As long as you are one of “them”. Go into your typical small southern church if you and your spouse are different races - many church goers still believe that “miscegenation” is a sin - including Bob Jones University.

I wonder how many churches would be as “loving” if “Adam and Steve” walked in?

https://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/deja-vu-all-over...

Not only that, but the idea that we should have some sense of mercy, grace, forgiveness, etc that even permeates secular society. It’s an important value, and we’re seeing it break down as mobs of allegedly grown adults harass strangers for decades-old off-color remarks made as children, or for remarks made by family or acquaintances, or etc. I think Hitchens said that he didn’t like Christianity, but it may have been a bulwark against worse things. I think he was speaking about extreme Islam, but I think there are other pseudo-religious toxic philosophies (and thus toxic behaviors) that Christian ethics defend against as well.

I'm sure Hitchens was against all dogmatic religions and ideologies.

The point of his quote is that he realized they weren’t uniformly bad. I’d go further and suggest that it’s not even possible to have a successful secular society without a religious cultural substrate, at least not for very long. I don’t mean this as a slight against atheists or agnostics; only that religion is eminently functional to the extent that we don’t find significant societies that exist without a significant religious substrate in any place or time. Maybe I’m wrong, but it’s certainly an interesting question in my mind.

I really hope you are wrong. Science is relatively new, it's just a matter of time until we figure out how to solve it all without faith, god and dogmatic religion. One thing's for sure, the most developed countries in the world are running away from religion.

Science isn't incompatible with faith, but moreover, I think you're making a mistake by assuming that perfect rationalism is optimal. Many atheists believe religion serves an evolutionary function by motivating people to irrationally put the good of the group over the good of the individual, and the mechanism in question is the belief in a deity or karma system that punishes injustice and rewards justice. Note that this doesn't mean that a perfectly rational individual would never work for the good of the group, but he would only do so to the extent that the good of the group benefited him (as is often the case); however, he wouldn't put the good of the group above his own good--he wouldn't die for the group, for example (and of course there are many less extreme examples, especially under the rubric of "tragedy of the commons"--cheating, stealing, etc when the odds are good that one can go unpunished). Of course, many non-believers have died for things they believe in, but in doing so they were acting irrationally. So perfect rationality is actually less optimal than certain kinds of dogma, but not all of those "positive dogmas" are religious.

One interesting question is whether those "positive dogmas" have "staying power"--will they be around as the moral potency of religion fades from a culture (especially by decades and centuries)? Maybe an indicator would be a comparison of aggregate generosity between religious and a-religious people?

“I don’t like the design of your pacemaker; mind if I take it out and use the parts to build you one I approve of” is not a sales pitch that works often.

Makes me sad that anyone would compare religion to a pacemaker, if this is true then your country surely is lost

I’m pretty fiercely atheist, but the churches around me are where the local homeless get food and a reprieve from the cold. If you closed that today and diverted the money to a secular replacement, there would be a pile of bodies by the time it was operating.

No there wouldn’t. Not if it’s government driven (as it should be)

> Those in favor of lower taxes have argued that individuals are more capable than the government of allocating money to important causes, including people in need of assistance. But the study found that was not true. Donations do not match government assistance, and without tax money, social services are not funded as robustly.

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/republicans-give-more-to-char...

You don't find it strange that so many people are homeless ?

We already have secular alternatives, state welfare in many countries. A worse value for money system would be hard to imagine, populated with clock watching, work-to-rule types who actively use bureaucracy to avoid work.

So your telling me that churches are value for money? Could you give an example of one of these state welfare alternatives?

St Vincent de Paul is the one I'm most familiar with. Time and again you hear accounts from people who were refused welfare for one reason or another and turned in despair to the SVP. They're not an alternative but they are invaluable to the people who fall through the cracks in society. They rely on donations from churchgoers and all are unpaid volunteers.

> So your telling me that churches are value for money?

Incredible value for money - 90% of the services provided by our local church are staffed by unpaid volunteers who go above and beyond.

If it becomes a government service, it will instantly become a political target for budget cuts and regulations that will exclude people from getting help.

As an example, I have someone in my extended family that works for one of the state governments for employment services, and from the stories they've told me about how the department has been slashed and burned and forced to work with a skeleton staff, I'm not surprised at all that when the pandemic hit that everyone was having a hell of a time signing up for unemployment or getting the money they're supposed to be getting, and desperately need right now, or even just reaching a live person to talk to.

And of course that just makes the department look badly run, in people's eyes, which makes the average citizen even more likely to allow more money to be cut from them, because they just assume it's well funded already and "they suck at their jobs, what are we even paying their salaries with our tax dollars for? They should be fired!"

Whereas churches have a bit of a shield from that, at least, especially from the GOP in the US, who aggressively and consistently fight against social programs and non-defense government services otherwise, but their voter-base tends to be very religious, so they have an incentive not to hurt churches in any way.

You can’t create secular alternatives to religious organizations, it’s like creating an alternative to a bar with no alcohol. You get something vastly more different than that would suggest. Churches and other religious organizations are based on a belief in something higher or transcendent that is lacking in secular organizations. All attempts to provide them have been miserable failures. Sunday Assembly was the last major attempt in the US, failed, humanist associations have a long history of being for comically tiny minorities compared to even extremely marginal religious communities. Communities require people to show up, regularly, whether they feel like it or not, with family.

There was a wonderful article I read ages ago and can no longer find on the history of communes in the US over the 20th century. Not one secular commune managed to perpetuate itself across generations without turning into something vastly less communal. Most religious communes failed too but the Amish and Hutterites are practically ethnic groups based on religion and there are lots of smaller groups.

> it’s like creating an alternative to a bar with no alcohol

In many muslim countries in the world there are plenty of places like this because alcohol just isn't a thing.

Yeah, let's just give up on making the world a better place. We might never reach Utopia, but we can for damn sure get closer especially if we free ourselves from dogmatic thinking. Do you really want to settle for better than nothing?

Communism is what you are looking for... where all people are putting in all of their effort to the common goodwill with government guiding the effort.

That system that failed everywhere and people found the excuse that it was not applied right, but the idea is sound. I lost my younger years living in such a regime, thanks but no thanks.

Ah yes, clearly the only two options here are all-in capitalism or communism. Definitely no room in between those two points for anything more nuanced.

Aside from being plain condescending or outright rude, you've shut down discussion about any approach that may be different. A better response would have been to ask them to suggest something, or show a case (another country, say) where this was already done.

Define "works".

> Or maybe create a system where people don't have to rely on churches and rich people for charity.

Being handed everything by a welfare state is de facto charity for the recipient. The biggest difference is that charity is morally superior because it's voluntary.

Besides, the US has a very large welfare state. I get a big kick out of people pretending the US doesn't have an epic scale, highly dysfunctional, poorly operated, welfare state, that doesn't spend trillions of dollars per year. I just can't figure out what they're spending $8.1 trillion on every year. Must be roads and military. Where'd all that magic trillions of dollars in stimulus spending come from? That laissez-faire Capitalist US system surely. Those free market $1,200 checks raining from the sky.

Without exception every welfare state - including the US, which has one of the most progressive tax systems - heavily relies on rich people to pay an extremely outsized share of taxes.

How many trillions are churches spending, in dollars and hours, to provide basic services? And that with a dose of magical thinking, confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance, and appeals to authority.

IME even the most progressive churches can do a lot of 'soft' damage to already hurting people. Secular services certainly have their own faults, but at least they don't have so many invisible strings attached.

Please also keep in mind that secular services compete for resources and mindshare against religious institutions. It becomes a self reinforcing argument on the right that we need to keep the latter because the former is so bad.