"I don't consider encouraging killing of people to be philanthropy."
Abortion is killing of people.
"Our charitable donations are as deductible as Bill Gates's. Or at least I hope they are; I would not want to be audited!"
Setting up a foundation is not just a "taxable deduction" like we peasants make. It's creating a self-perpetuating corporate entity, which can hire one's family and friends for generations.
My point was that churches don't pay taxes because they do not operate for profit. What does that have to do with the Gates Foundation?
I might also suggest you go into the average church (not some TV-evangelist's operation) and check out the salaries and office furniture compared to that in any billionaire's foundation. Check out how Salvation Army people live, compared to people at the Ford Foundation. Check out the medical missionaries in the jungle. There is no comparison. Case closed.
Sorry, I've studied value investing, and that school does like monopolistic companies, and those protected from fierce competition.
"Neither Gates nor Buffett advertize their beliefs, but they are usually numbered based on limited public statements as atheists or agnostics, as you will find if you do a little research. "
A "little research" won't tell you what their spiritual beliefs are, nor are they likely to say. They do seem to be liberal, yes. Beyond that, I don't know. If there is a simple answer to what their religion is, please let us all know.
"And, as I am sure you will recall, Hitler was not a militant atheist, or indeed an atheist of any kind."
I made that statement advisedly. Mao and Stalin make Hitler look like an amateur. In no way was Hitler a Christian, regardless of whether he was born into or raised in a Catholic home, or whatever. His beliefs were a crackpot amalgam of occultism, pagan Teutonic nostalgis, and (mainly) romanticism. Occasional orthodox-sounding language from Hitler can be dismissed as bombastic rhetoric served up to a population raised in a Christian culture. Everyone acknowledges that he was a demagogic orator with few peers.
Here's anexcellent reference on Hitler, the Nazis, and religion.
http://www.adherents.com/people/ph/Adolf_Hitler.html
Here's a sample quote:
From the start of the Nazi movement, "the destruction of Christianity was explicitly recognized as a purpose of the National Socialist movement," said Baldur von Schirach, leader of the group that would come to be known as Hitler youth. But "explicitly" only within party ranks: as the OSS stated, "considerations of expedience made it impossible" for the movement to make this public until it consolidated power... By 1937, Pope Pius XI denounced the Nazis for waging "a war of extermination" against the church... Catholic priests found police snatching sermons out of their hands, often in mid-reading
...the notion that the church either gave birth to Hitler or walked hand-in-hand with him as a partner is, simply, slander. Hitler himself knew better. "One is either a Christian or a German," he said. "You can't be both."