It is, I regret I cannot click the heart-shaped button because subject matter, but it’s good that people remember this shit.
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Thank you for your reply. If I understand your post correctly, liberal political philosophy had to work with very old and entrenched political interests since the beginning, and concepts like separation of church and state have been slower to peacefully bring about because of this.
I’m going to push back on the idea that creating a separation of church and state might be viewed as anti religious or a hostile act. Empowering a person to choose when, and how much, they give to the church of their choosing is neither of the two negatives given as a concern? I can see how how the entrenched interests / churches will have a problem having to get off the public funding tit though. I can see how there will be a lot of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth to their audiences.
Also, is there any type of transparent public audit in regards to how the parish fees are dispersed from what is taken in, and are independent researchers able to verify the audit?
I don’t see how this forced tithing of citizens, cannot be done away with in 10 - 15 years with an organized campaign effort.
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I would assume that Ancient Sumerian gods would have a rather strict pro-religious tax platform.
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I wasn’t aware of that, but it now makes sense.
On the other hand, so does this. There is an argument that the religions of the various Mesopotamian city states were there to provide a belief system for state management of food supplies.
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In fact, they wanted to get away from all those liberal Brits and their soggy Anglican church that couldn’t even be bothered to execute dissenters.
The original colonies seem to have had an above average number of psychopathic leaders. The parallels with ISIS and the Taliban are obvious; the desire to establish a “pure” religious state in which women were suppressed by the fear that if they spoke out they would be killed on trumped up charges of witchcraft is happening in Syria right now. You could even make a case that American progress is actually the story of the (slow) loss of power and influence of the original settler ideologies.
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I have to agree with @boundegar; the Baptists have a long history of promoting religious freedom (for themselves), and this dates to before the Mayflower. In 1612 John Smyth wrote, “the magistrate is not by virtue of his office to meddle with religion, or matters of conscience”. The Establishment Clause may well have had a lot to do with concerns by the Virginia Baptists about the lack of protection for religious freedom in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
I think there’s a fairly similar biblical principle that the non-conformists were drawing from, which shows the differences between their and our understanding of separation: religious and political powers were separated within a theocratic monarchy, and there were serious consequences for kings who tried to take on religious duties like burnt offerings (removal of the kingdom) and burning incense (struck with leprosy). Meanwhile Levites had limited civil powers that were mainly related to the religious law. You also get this idea in Martin Luther’s concept of the two kingdoms where both spiritual and political powers are subject to God, but are separate and should not control each other (and particularly that the state should not control the conscience).
It’s a long way from true pluralism, and this idea means that modern Baptists can say both that they believe the USA is a Christian country and that they believe in the separation of church and state. I guess it’s not all that surprising that many call for their beliefs to be enshrined in law too, since the focus has often been on pushing back against state involvement in their own church rather than that they shouldn’t interfere in politics. A bit of a drift towards the old papal doctrine that there are two swords, but the church holds the more important one?
ETA: In contrast to the Confessing Church and people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Baptists in Germany were very reluctant to oppose the Nazis, as long as they were allowed to preach the gospel in their own churches. Their concerns were often much more related to their ability to stay out of the state church and to escape the religious persecution that had been more common up to that point. They supported Nazi policies such as the ban on pornography. For their part, the Nazis were happy to allow their independence from the state church while giving them financial and police support and the opportunity to extend their work in Poland and Russia (or to take over the work of less cooperative churches). The 1934 Baptist World Alliance Congress in Berlin shows some of the effects of this:
Despite objections to Hitler’s anti-Jewish policies by the Baptist Unions in Scotland and Australia, a BWA committee concluded that any official action criticizing the Nazis might “prejudice” the German government against the nation’s Baptists and should be avoided. When a Northern Baptist from America suggested that a leading Jewish rabbi be invited to greet the Berlin Congress, the BWA general secretary dismissed the idea as “inexpedient.”
But the 1937 report of the German Baptist Union’s secretary generally summed up the sentiments of German Baptists: “The relations with the government offices, especially to the Church Ministry and to the Secret Police were uninterruptedly friendly.”
(This is from a Baptist summary of the events, so any bias is not against that church)
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A different version of the same happened to me in Budapest. Where I was told that Jews(led by a Mr G Soros) are invading Hungary because there is not enough water in the Holy Land.
Humans, eh?
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Reading Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is an artful reminder of that religiously infused psychopathic mindset. It’s a darn good book and the fact that Hawthorne could publish it while the religious madness was still full blown is a credit to the young American nation of the time. Not sure the Caliphate would tolerate that kind of writing.
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In Ontario, Canada the public is forced to fund an entire Catholic school system running parallel to the public system.
Sadly there is no option to avoid billions in taxes paying to brainwash children and undermine the factual reality of their world.
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Partly, I believe, because it was the only way they could get the Seven Provinces to pull more or less in the same direction.
From what I’ve read about the place at the moment, the obvious question is “why would they want to?”
Thank God for the 1st Amendment!
Oh. Wait.
Nevermind.
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Yeah, the “option” would be to elect politicians who would make sensible policies instead of pandering to a perceived Catholic voting block that may not even actually exist. Now which part is running on that platform… oh right, none of them.
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While non-Abrahamic religions tend to be a bit more cyclical with their concept of time, I think the end of an epoch in various religions can be reasonably termed an “armageddon,” as an ending of some kind — in flames and destruction and war — is pretty common.
If John the Revelator had actually seen Kalki appeared on his white horse with his army defeating the forces of evil, wouldn’t he have described it as Armageddon? (Though he might wonder why Jesus had turned blue…)
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Adding to my post, I would like to change my answer to 20 to 30 years to bring about a peaceful change to state coerced tithe paying. I see that Iceland has a population of about 330,000 people. (The Portland - Metro Area, where I live, has a population of about 2.3 million) The age demographics shows that the bulk of Icelandic people able to vote in political change are 40 years old and up. Although there may be a nice chunk of voters 40 and up that would like to see an end to state enforced tithe paying, it’s still an uphill battle to change the mindsets of those in that upper age demographic who have it engraved in their minds as it being a social norm. Resources would be better spent looking at convincing the 35 and under (to about 15 years old) crowd for the next 20 or so years.
So, how do we fix it?
My suggestion would be
*Find local and international organizations one could appeal to for funding
*Have a multi directional campaign approach that allows the organization to reason with the people as they are in their age group. A 15 year old doesn’t reason like a 23 year old, and a 23 year old doesn’t reason like a 35 year old might. Within these age groups are still multiple sub groups that exist, so different campaign approaches have to be designed for these people as well to garner appeal.
- Is there a possible way to investigate and see if church leaders have it monetarily better than average citizens? Here in the states, it’s not hard to discover how disgustingly better off pastors of “Mega-Churches” live. If so, it would be a good thing to make the public aware of.
*Investigate what churches do with the parish fees. Does it stay in Iceland? Does some of it find its way back into the pockets of public representatives?
*Is it possible to find out what the administrative costs are to collect and distribute these parish fees? Why should the public take on this extra cost of collecting tithes for churches when they can easily do so themselves.
*Design other options Icelanders’ government can put that saved administrative expenditure towards. This helps people’s imagination not run wild as they think about what might fill the void of this state function. Maybe have the funds go towards helping fill potholes in the roads. Iceland’s government may not collect tithes on behalf of churches any more, but they’re working to see your drive to church is a smooth and comfortable one.
*Provide information to systems available for churches to utilize (if by chance their organization doesn’t have one already) in order to collect tithes on their own from their congregation. Doing so will also help curb the fear that churches will just be left vulnerable, and helpless, if forced tithing is removed.
What are some better ideas for Iceland to change this government practice? (That’s right, I don’t think my way is necessarily what should be done, but I hope it helps smarter people come up with better ideas to move forward with.)
On one hand, I’m tempted to be outraged by this system. But on the other hand, if this “religion” is actually an option and the government isn’t trying to crack down on it (they don’t appear to be, saying, “Okay, but you’ll have to pay income tax on that money, then” is either unjust or isn’t [double taxing?] but they aren’t denying the practice) then this seems like just a point along the process of eliminating the system altogether. Without knowing anything, I will flatly speculate that at some point the taxes went to a particular religion, then they said, “That’s not okay” and let people choose which religion, and now people are saying “That’s not okay either” and opening up a system by which people can avoid the whole thing, which will lead to someone eventually saying, “This seems like unnecessary administrative work, why not just let people who want to donate do so on their own?”
Today, it seems hard to get outraged about people fumbling towards the right result. I guess that means I’m having a good day.
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Despite their opposition to birth control, I don’t think they are all that numerous
Considering the views on science by the last Canadian government I think a Catholic education might be the more progressive choice.
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While I definitely appreciate the jab at Harper, and I realize that Catholic school boards are surely going to vary greatly from place to place, I have really had it up to here (please realize I am quite tall) with Catholic school boards. They seem to exist purely to harass gay students.
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