Rhrosty,
I'm not a Christian but I sympathise with much of the "philosophy" of Christ's teachings, which even from Mark's gospel (some 40 years posthumous) are "radically" different from the corrupt theological line adopted thereafter. Mark records Jesus as a perfectly ordinary, though charismatic man, though even there the historical Jesus is soteriologically retouched. What ACL promotes is nothing less than an abomination that Christ would surely have washed his hands and feet of.

Lyle Shelton has written a poor explanation as to why churches should be exempt from taxation. His example of taxing the local junior AFL football club is easy to rebuff. While no one argues that donations or contributions from cake sales to junior football clubs should be taxed, if his local junior football club financed the construction of a large block of modern retirement homes, no one could argue that the club should not be taxed on the profits. It is only a historical quirk that the extensive business interests of religions in western societies are not taxed.

Multinational companies make tax deductable donations to charity, but that does not exempt them from taxation. Religions are fundamentally multinational organisations who do business in our country yet pay no tax. This is unacceptable. These religious multinational organisations not only have the effrontery to piously lecture to our taxpayers on our supposedly uncharitable ways, they have been known to actively use their influence to set up political parties that promote their interests, and shamelessly meddle in the politics of the countries that they pay no tax in.

If Conzinc Rio Tinto set up a political party to promote its interests (as the Catholic Church did with the DLP), or if the directors of Conzinc Rio Tinto had the gall to lecture Australian politicians on asylum seekers or abortion (while simultaneously paying no tax), there would be an uproar. Yet religious businesses can do all these things without contributing to the society in which it inhabits.

The most alarming aspect of religious exemption from taxation, is the fact that these tax exempt organisations are increasing in numbers exponentially as ever more organisations claiming religious affiliations get in on the gravy train. The time has come to stop this nonsense and say to every religious organisation, that if they want to do business in Australia, they have to pay their fair share of tax. One presumes that religious organisations will be less inclined to lecture Australians on our perceived lack of charity when they are paying their fair share of it.

Asclepius, L Ron Hubbard was a science fiction writer who *created* Scientology, hence his comment.

Great to see that this thread has consensus, with no dissenting voices. I'm delighted that Shelton's attempt at fostering support has found none, though there are many OLO notables who are conspicuous in their silence here. What the ACL is attempting at the State and Federal level in Australia is a democratic scandal (think about Maddox's title!), nothing short of heresy, and the usual defenders of the faith have nothing to say, though they're always quick to attack the left, before it even exhales! It seems they don't mind democracy being compromised so long as it's from their own contemptible side.

The last sentence of the article says it all.

There is a small minority of people, many of whom have been bamboozled by tracts of atheist propaganda produced by Dawkins and his ilk, who are militantly anti religious and who can’t see past the end of their own noses. Then there's the greens and their supporters. They are pretty much the only people for whom this is an issue, and not quite coincidentally, both groups are equally immune from logic when it comes to any issue around religion.

Michael Bird wrote an interesting article about this a couple of months ago:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2014/01/the-australian-greens-have-a-problem-with-religion/