I thought your point was that atheists did not engage in philanthropy. Are you now trying to make a different point?
I would not call Buffett a monopolist. He is an investor.
Also, their foundations can be regarded cynically as a tax dodge and a jobs program for their offspring.
Churches do not pay taxes either. I think you are over-cynical. One does not donate 100% to avoid paying taxes on 50%, and I am sure Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffett could afford to find ways to pay far less than 50%.
Warren Buffett is hardly someone whom conservatives should admire; he backed Jean-Fraud Kerry in 2004.
That, it would appear, is a different issue. May I take it as a concession of the original point?
"I thought your point was that atheists did not engage in philanthropy. Are you now trying to make a different point?"
I don't consider encouraging killing of people to be philanthropy.
"I would not call Buffett a monopolist. He is an investor.
Buffett's school of investing (value investing) regards monopolies and company's protected by the govt. as "good bets" because they have low risk and privileged status. They like co's which are well-established "cash cows." You can find this in some value investing publications. Nothing wrong with that, but I admire him much less than someone who innovates and creates long-term growth and new jobs through technology.
Armand Hammer was an "investor" also, besides being a world-class fellow traveller.
"I am sure Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffett could afford to find ways to pay far less than 50%."
Indeed. Foundations are one of the ways to do this. Available to the super-rich, but not to most of us commoners.
Churches don't pay taxes, but they don't usually operate for profit, either. It used to be universally accepted that churches were a social good and should therefore be encouraged. The Founding Fathers certainly thought so. Of course, there are those extremists on this thread who would like to dismiss religion as a worthless fantasy. Are you one of those?
I don't see how Warren Buffett's bad politics support your arguments. He has been a bad influence in many ways.
I never said atheists did not engage in philanthropy. However, there record there is pretty weak overall. A couple of super-rich guys do not outnumber the thousands of Christian philanthropists. (Besides, can you state conclusively what the personal beliefs of Buffett and Gates are? Do they advertise them? Are they in fact atheists? Agnostics? I don't really know. I wouldn't be surprised if they keep that secret, for business reasons.) In comparison, all the totalitarian socialist mass murderers in human history were militant atheists.