this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
585 points (98.7% liked)

Atheism

4045 readers
46 users here now

Community Guide


Archive Today will help you look at paywalled content the way search engines see it.


Statement of Purpose

Acceptable

Unacceptable

Depending on severity, you might be warned before adverse action is taken.

Inadvisable


Application of warnings or bans will be subject to moderator discretion. Feel free to appeal. If changes to the guidelines are necessary, they will be adjusted.


If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathizer or a resemblant of a group that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of any other group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you you will be banned on sight.

Provable means able to provide proof to the moderation, and, if necessary, to the community.

 ~ /c/nostupidquestions

If you want your space listed in this sidebar and it is especially relevant to the atheist or skeptic communities, PM DancingPickle and we'll have a look!


Connect with Atheists

Help and Support Links

Streaming Media

This is mostly YouTube at the moment. Podcasts and similar media - especially on federated platforms - may also feature here.

Orgs, Blogs, Zines

Mainstream

Bibliography

Start here...

...proceed here.

Proselytize Religion

From Reddit

As a community with an interest in providing the best resources to its members, the following wiki links are provided as historical reference until we can establish our own.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 147 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)

And this, folks, is why we should tax religious organizations…. ~~Like every other country I know of.~~ (edit, apparently I knew less than I thought I did. I think what I did was conflate a 'church tax' with churches paying income tax. apparently that's a thing where the state collects your tithe for you... if you attend or whatever.)

[–] Zippit@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Why don't they do it? There's no logical explanation for it.

[–] Tyfud@lemmy.one 57 points 1 year ago (2 children)

A long time ago, it was so that they could use the additional resources for helping the needy and less fortunate instead of the government. The idea being a Church was a community organization and would know better than the government what the community needed.

In order to get the tax credit, the church agreed to never get involved politically with anything.

Fast forward to now, and churches are violating that agreement in a big way

Now they deserve to be taxed.

[–] Zippit@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks, I forgot about the background completely. I agree, be it a mosque, synagogue, church, ... tax them all.

If they make money, they should pay, like everyone else.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

they can deduct actual charitable contributions, for things like running a soup kitchen, and stuff. but that's subject to auditing, and not at all allowed to go into 'charitable funds' that dish out to the board members.

[–] Thorry84@feddit.nl 12 points 1 year ago

There is actually more history behind it. Back in the days when the local king would collect taxes from his subjects, churches wouldn't have to pay. This was because taking money from the church was considered a sin. Whilst donating to the church was a way to absolve yourself from sins. The church would take care of your immortal soul, if you'd just continue to pay them. This lead to a well funded church and no taxes being paid by the church.

How anybody ever agreed to this I don't know. We've invented something called an immortal soul, which is what you actually are instead of your body. We've also invented something called hell, which is endless suffering for your immortal soul. If you don't follow the rules, which we've invented btw, your soul will end up in this hell. One of the rules is give us money.

But then people would just simply say, I've never followed your rules, guess I'm fucked, no point in following the rules now. But wait, we've got a special deal if you call within 30 minutes and give us money. We can fix your soul so it isn't fucked and you can try again to follow the rules. We would also like you to tell us what you did wrong, so we can use it to blackmail you, I mean so we know what part of the soul to fix.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)