M
member 3289
Guest
MASS
GRAVES
GRAVES
General Remains of 215 children found at former Catholic residential school for natives in Canada
- Thread starter nuraknu
- Start date
M
member 1013
Guest
All the many Dutch people here are Protestant. I just learned Catholicism was still present there. Fanks bruv.I'm not the person you're directing the question to, but I grew up in the Catholic church in Australia and there's a similar situation there, except it's just the standard molestation and not hundreds and hundreds of dead kids.
I was only ever there because of family /cultural obligation, and I pretty much checked out at about age 10, when I did my confirmation and the 140 year old priest sat me down and tried to talk me out of being lefthanded because God doesn't like people being lefthanded.
Since then, as far as I'm concerned the Catholic Church is an obsolete replicable and criminal organization that needs to be mocked, exposed and shamed out of society. It preaches its own moral authority while engaging in a generations-long, international effort to protect and shelter pedophiles within its organisation and allow them to continue molesting kids rather than be exposed and reflect poorly on the church. For that alone, there is no excuse, no justification. It needs to be treated as what it is - as any organisation with its record of abuse and cover up should be.
??
I was thinking more along the lines of the monies going to cultural preservation efforts, but I understand your feelings.
People are asked to renounce their religions and embrace different ones pretty often actually. (but you're right in that I personally don't go around doing that; I am not asking you to do that, I was really just asking about your feelings, thanks for sharing)
Yeah I don't know why the hell we are affiliated with the other mob. Oh well. Both equally full of shit to me.
??
and I'd like to clarify I was kind of using "you" in a general sense. We've had enough interactions here that I believe you to be a reasonably kind, understanding person so I apologize if it seemed like I seemed like I was accusing you of something.
M
member 1013
Guest
Maybe the church should pay some money, but stripping them of their tax free status is not a fair or legally viable option. All religions are tax free or none are.
also
@nuraknu there were Protestant run residential schools as well.
M
member 1013
Guest
It’s funny you say that, we call the Dutch reformed churches here the Dutch mafia.Yeah I don't know why the hell we are affiliated with the other mob. Oh well. Both equally full of shit to me.
??
M
member 1013
Guest
That’s just like, your opinion man
do you tax individual churches or the organization? Or both? What other nonprofits are getting taxed, or is it just the ones you don’t like?
Both.
M
member 1013
Guest
With how the churches have grown they should be taxed like a business imo. So not new taxes per say, just using the existing mechanisms to tax them.
#taxesfortheebutnotforme
M
member 1013
Guest
Religious membership and church funds are plummeting everywhere except the southern US
The Roman Catholic Church is the biggest landowner on the planet. Its land holdings cover more area than France does. I think it can afford to pay tax.
??
M
member 1013
Guest
I never said the Vatican couldn’t
I don't see why any organization should be tax-exempt just because they peddle fairytales.
??
M
member 1013
Guest
I agree, but many will not. Their views are as important as ours.
I think an important piece of the puzzle is that some churches are not just Wednesday and Sunday services plus maybe a school. There are communities that grow to rely on their churches for other kinds of community contributions, like food pantries, cyo sports, respite care, things like that. Those are not things we would want to be for-profit enterprises.
Not sure where it fits into any kind of solution though.
Unfortunately the cool atheist crowd hasn't made a lot of headway into local level community services around these parts.
That could be said about literally anything, though. I mean, there are people who think that the age of consent should be 9, and that there's nothing wrong with a 50-something year old man getting married to a 12 year old girl. Should their groups and organisations be tax-exempt?
Oh, wait........ that's not a made-up example, and their organisations are already tax exempt. Brilliant, eh.
??
M
member 1013
Guest
All religions should be tax exempt or they all shouldn’t be. They have to be treated equally under the law. While I personally have no problem taxing religious organizations at an administrative level if they are hoarding profits, many, especially the members who DONATE their
Money, will point to examples like given by
@nuraknu as to why they shouldn’t be, especially on a local and individual level. All religions teach silly things and most teach abhorrent things to the modern secular sensibilities. Those are simply your sensibilities. In Canada, religions are not allowed to contravene the law. They are allowed to have weird thoughts like marrying nine year olds, it’s acting on those backwards beliefs that is legally punishable. I’m not going to punish someone for thought crime.
I hear what you're saying, but religious groups don't have a monopoly on that sort of thing.
I'm anti-religion, but I'm closing in on 50 blood/plasma donations. Nobody pays me for that, I don't need to be guilt tripped or threatened with eternal damnation.
I've lived through multiple serious earthquakes that caused everyday life for everybody in the city to stop dead in its tracks. Couldn't drink the water without boiling it. Had to shit in the garden, or in a bucket. Couldn't take a shower for a week. Food supply chains destroyed, as well as access roads to entire neighbourhoods. Entire suburbs written off and left abandoned.
People came out for each other, and they didn't need religion to do it. They checked on their elderly neighbours and helped each other. In the days and weeks following the earthquake, the major humanitarian /aid organisation wasn't a religious group. It was the Student Volunteer Army, and it sprang into existence within hours of the quake. Thousands of university students and recent graduates went door to door checking on people and cleaning thousands and thousands and thousands of tonnes of wet, stinking silt out of people's living rooms and off the streets.
They organised food drives and fresh water stations with clean, safe water sourced from wells. All of this appeared to fill a desperate need. Nobody got paid, nobody passed a collection bucket, nobody got guilt-tripped with threats of hellfire. These people aren't religious, there was no spiritual component to this. My girlfriend at the time had Celiacs, so as soon as the power came back on she spent a day baking gluten-free bread, biscuits and cakes, and then we dropped them off at a SVA centre.
You don't need fairy tales to have charity. In fact, in many ways traditional Abrahamaic religion gets in the way of charity, because of how morally backwards and tribal it tends to be.
??
