The Church of Freedom
Table of Contents
The (hypothetical) Church of Freedom:
are you free to believe it?
I know that churches have substantial tax exemptions
in France, the US, Japan, and various other countries.
In the name of freedom of thought,
couldn't there be a Church of Tax Evasion?
A Church that would allow those who believe that taxation is evil
to be exempt from any tax?
A Church that anyone could join,
and that would spread the godsend miracle of prosperity to its members,
should they religiously abide by the following divine rules of the Church:
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Adult individuals may become members by selflessly donating to the Church
part or totality of their wealth and income.
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The Church, in exchange, will name each donator Minister of the Church,
and confide him by a solemn act of eternal validity of
the totality of the riches that he donated to the Church.
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With the riches thus entrusted to him by the Church, every minister may do,
in the name of the Church, whatever God inspires him to do with,
as the holy Minister of the Church that he is.
This includes giving it back to the miserably poor member of the Church
that he has become by donating so much riches to the Church.
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Whenever a member officially expresses the sinful wish to leave the Church,
the Church excommunicates him from being a member and a minister.
The Church then considers as defiled by his touch any object or money
that has been donated by him and of which he has been in charge.
Thus, the Church repudiates all these unholy things and,
by a solemn act, gives them back to him so he may well go to Hell with them.
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Until his possible spiritual demise, the member does not have
to pay taxes on the riches of which he is no more the legal owner,
but only the God-choosen trustee, as known to the Church.
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Actually, if he donated everything he had to the Church,
the member may become so poor as to receive relief from the Government.
Of course, the Church considers it a sin to accept such relief;
but it leaves to God Almighty the exclusive privilege
to pardon or chastise the sinner.
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Indeed, no Minister is acknowledged any religious authority
on any other Minister, member, or non-member.
(This doesn't affect parental authority, or any other kind of authority
that may exist independently from ministerhood.)
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The Church has no religious hierarchy whatsoever,
no centrally appointed Pope or Holy Scriptures, or whatever.
Members are to follow the persons and scriptures
that they consider the wisest and holiest,
according to their own personal judgement
- they may each follow a pope or mome or whatever authority of their choice
within or outside the Church, if it so pleases them,
without this authority having to apply to anyone else in the Church.
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Reciprocally, no member or non-member may question anything
that any Minister of the Church does with the faculties and riches
entrusted to him by God and the Church.
A Minister may adore God in anyway he deems fit,
even to the point of naming God by different names (if at all),
and of associating the word "God" to unholy things
(for instance, french ministers will, like all french speakers,
utter the word pronounced "God" only to designate a dildo).
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The Church does not require exclusivity from its members,
and does not oppose a member being simultaneously member
of one or several other churches.
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100% voluntary Church charities will do anything they can
to relieve members and non-members from need and poverty,
by means of blessing voluntary mutual donations of services, goods and money
with the holy tax-exempting seal of the Church.
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Whatever taxes the Church may have to pay are distributed among members
in a way proportional to what each member would pay
to the IRS and other governmental bodies
for the riches he contributed to the Church,
should he have selfishly chosen to keep them
instead of selflessly donating them.
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Should governments try to prevent the Church from waging its Holy activities,
the Church may well revise its policy
on the sin of receiving relief from government,
and organize the use of governmental funds on a national scale.
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The Church, through its voluntary member activities,
may also try to enforce its views on education within the legislation,
that are that teachers should be free to teach what they want,
and parents free to choose what teachers to entrust their children to,
and that state schools should be privatized.
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The Church may similarly use its Holy Influence
to lobby the legislatures about other topics of importance.
Does such Church already exist? Is it possible at all?
If it isn't, what prevents its creation?
If it is, why don't we create it, join it,
and selflessly donate all our riches to it?
Optionally, the Church would go by another name, and it will begin
its activities with the kind of things that governments won't suspect,
so as to receive the official seal of recognition (and tax-exemption).
Possible names: Church of the Holy (Property) Right,
Church of (Economic) Freedom, Church of the Anti-Leviathan, etc.
Possible saints: J. Locke, D. Hume, F. Bastiat, F.A. Hayek, A. Rand, etc.
Conclusion of the above gedankenexperiment:
Is Church really separated from State?
I've been told that the IRS and other national equivalents would
take measures against people who "abuse their right"
of being exempted from tax.
Similarly, governments will gladly sue you, retroactively tax you, etc.,
without much recourse,
whenever they think that there is a "hole" in the letter of the law.
Now, what does this mean?
It means that government and its minions
are both judge and party in such matters.
They are the ones who judge if they have to abide by the law,
or whether after all, they will ignore it.
Of course, the ultimate sanction should they abuse this situation
is for them to be overthrown.
But then, this is no different with any despotic regime,
and the same tricks of slowly accustomizing people to more tyranny
will drive people to forget all their liberties.
All in all, through this administrative decision of tax exemption or not,
government is deciding which acts of cult are legit, and which are not;
it is effectively favoring some religions as opposed to others,
some gurus as opposed to others (or lack thereof),
some approaches of life as opposed to others, etc.
In other words, differential tax exemption is but
a subtle means by which church is kept in non-separation from State.
In practice, we see that the State is using it
to favor superstition over reason,
just because traditional religions are very superstitious,
and it has come to identify religions with this worst aspect of them
(instead of the better aspects).
Thus, government is effectively promoting ignorance and superstition
through a subtle mechanism of state-funding of particular churches.
Pointers to other pages about
Churches, Freedom, Religion, Spirituality, etc.
Liberty, as it is
Faré Rideau —
François-René Rideau
— Đặng-Vũ Bân