Druid? Funny, you don't look druish...

[Mirrorglass]

Awesome - Satan, pumpkins, Carrie, chainsaw. There's a movie in there somewhere.

A Jack Chick slasher film would be kind of unsatisfying, as the climax would be the guy you most wanted to see die praying to Jesus and the bad guy fleeing, throwing curses. Cut to a shot of all the other characters burning in hell and the last survivor high-fiving Jesus.

 

[Fnord]

Why isn't Jedi accepted as a religion?

Because Jedi-ism is based on a known and admittedly fictional work of science fiction/fantasy which ascribes to its adherents supreme telekinetic and prophetic powers that are demonstrably fictive creations...

<* COUGH *> _Scientology <* COUGH *>

 

[Vortigern99]

Ah, you're helping too. Good work!

Vague derogatory comment. Followed by a sarcastic exclamation!

 

[Vortigern99]

Believing what Caesar wrote about the Celts is like believing what Hitler wrote about the Jews.

Please see post #30 in which I explain, in brief, the military and political agenda Caesar and other classical authors had with regard to the Druids.

I've also pointed out the possibility that none of the surviving accounts of human sacrifice were first-hand, since both Caesar and Strabo might have derived their accounts of the "wicker men" burnings from an earlier, now-lost writer named Posidonius.

Your personal incredulity notwithstanding, there also remains the possibility that the burnings were an actual event, and that criminals and the terminally ill were indeed executed by this extremely vivid method, which seems, on the face of it, unlikely to have been invented out of whole cloth.

In closing, I commend you for having Godwined this thread on the very first page.

 

[The Fallen Serpent]

So,

Could I apply for tax exempt status in the UK and US if I were to revive the old Greek traditions?

It depends. The tax exempt status only applies to religious activities done in the name of an organized entity. I use the term organized lightly, think along the lines of registering a coproration. However a number of people have run afoul of tax fraud for claiming their organization was a religion when it was just a tax shelter. That guy who flew a plane into an Austin, TX building earlier this year got in trouble for that sort of tax fraud. I could see Greek Neo-Pagain or Greek Pagan Reconstructionism organizations already existing in the US that receive tax exempt status.

That Homeric stuff always appealed more to me than Christianity.

I have always enjoyed the mythology of both.

Do all religions get tax exempt status in the US?

I cannot think of off hand which organizations have been denied in recent decades that most would could consider an actual religion. Scientology gets investigated fairly steadily, but mostly for specific practices that smell of tax fraud. They were denied for something like 25 years in the beginning.

Does that include Satanism?

The Church of Satan (The LeVay one) disagrees with the notion of any religions being tax exempt and has not tried to apply, as far as I know.

Are the Freemasons legally a religion?

Freemasons demand members be theists, but beyond that do not make religious claims. I doubt that the main Freemasonry or related/offshoot organizations have attempted.

I'd been pondering these questions, sorry to fire them off all at once.

Keep in mind that income earned as an official of a church or organization is still taxed. What the exemption generally applies to is revenue gained (donations, charges for certain services), property tax, sales tax (I think this depends on the specific sales tax in question), and others I likely missed. Tax exempt religiouns are also not allowed to have profits or shares with the tax exampt portion of their funds. In other words, an individual cannot be an investor in a church and collect dividends and such. Businesses done in the name of religious services take are where the tricky bits come in I think. I have not looked into it that much. For instance a book store as a legitimate business would not normally qualify for tax exempt status on its receipts but an adoption service most likely would. Basically the types of services that could qualify as a tax exempt charitable institution regardless of a religious affiliation.

Btw, here is a link explaining a bit more about church tax exempt status:

http://www.irs.gov/charities/churches/index.html

More specific information:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1828.pdf

As I have no professional experience or training in any of this, I very well could have gotten something grossly wrong.

 

[Tormac]

Silly? Yeah. But the Druid they interviewed for that piece was "Senior Druid King Arthur Pendragon, Battle Chieftain of the Council of British Druid Orders". Compare it to "Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury" and tell me which one of them deserves a tax break for introducing cool titles.

I wonder if he is the same druid that was on the "Fastest Faith" segment in the first season of Top Gear

Fastest Faith, Part 2: The search for the "fastest faith" continued with a Muslim Imam, a Rastafarian, a Seventh-day Adventist, and the Druid Arthur Uther Pendragon . The Adventist pastor was unable to fit in the car, giving him fourth place. The Rastafarian, who was jokingly warned to "keep off the grass", turned in the top time, beating the druid and the imam, who got 3rd and 2nd respectively. The Rastafarian also beat the Anglican priest from the earlier challenge, earning the title of "fastest faith" decisively.