The Hazards of Belief

smacl

Odhinn wrote: »

My moneys on Frank - KO before round 6.

Given he's been shown to be a bit handy with the old slap of late, I'd tend to agree :P

ohnonotgmail

Odhinn wrote: »

My moneys on Frank - KO before round 6.

Frank is an ex nighclub bouncer. It will be no contest at all.

Odhinn

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

Frank is an ex nighclub bouncer. It will be no contest at all.

Benny has "unusual resources" though....
https://images.app.goo.gl/645WJ4sDQ9UKAmod7

Hotblack Desiato

Odhinn wrote: »

Jaysus forfend somebody try to protect against pregnancy....

Good jaysus tonight.....
https://www.rte.ie/news/education/2020/0110/1105663-jason-evert/

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/irish-talks-by-controversial-us-catholic-preacher-jason-evert-cancelled-1.4137466

According to the original schedule for his first visit to Ireland, Mr Evert was to speak to students at two Dublin schools - Blackrock College and Sandyford’s Rosemont secondary school - on Wednesday, and at the Tower Hotel in Waterford city on Thursday. These have been cancelled.

It was planned that he would speak at an ‘Incite 2020’ student retreat event in University College Dublin between Thursday and Saturday next but a spokeswoman for the university said it had been decided to cancel his talk there.

His talks at the Our Lady Queen of Peace church on Dublin’s Merrion Road will go ahead next Wednesday evening, as will his address at the Holy Family Mission in Waterford on Thursday. The latter was set up by the Catholic diocese of Waterford and Lismore in 2016 aimed at young Catholics between 18 and 35.

Our Lady Queen of Peace is the only Catholic parish in Dublin run by priests of the conservative Opus Dei congregation while Bishop of Waterford and Lismore Phonsie Cullinan is understood to be the only Irish bishop who is a member of Opus Dei.

The UCD LGBT Society had called on the university authorities to stop Mr Evert from speaking, saying in a statement that his proposed visit to the university was “putting the safety of UCD’s LGBTQ+ community at risk” and his words could have “lasting and damaging effects on the mental wellbeing of LGHBTQ+ students.”

In a statement posted on Twitter, the society said Mr Evert’s preaching has direct negative repercussions on all that our university stands for. His ideology and printed work continuously spread hate by insisting that “homosexuality is a disorder.”

After the event was cancelled, the group thanked “everyone for their support and solidarity in this matter”.

'Incite 2020' - 'Incite Hatred 1820' more like.

As for Opus Dei - 'nuff said.

....

Edit: Evangelist Jason Evert cancels remaining Ireland tour dates ‘due to illness’

The remaining speaking engagements in a short tour of Ireland by controversial Catholic preacher, Jason Evert, were cancelled on Tuesday “due to illness”.

The US evangelist had been scheduled to speak at a number of events over the next few days including one at the only Catholic parish in Dublin run by priests from the conservative Opus Dei congregation.

Odhinn

The end times are upon us.............

Pope Francis has made an Italian lawyer the first woman to hold a management position in the Vatican's most important office.
Francesca Di Giovanni, 66, will serve as undersecretary for multilateral affairs in the Secretariat of State.
She will be responsible for co-ordinating the Holy See's relations with groups including the UN.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51124478

Odhinn

The bodies of seven people have been found in a mass grave in an indigenous area of Panama where members of a religious sect were believed to be performing exorcisms, officials say.
The victims included a pregnant woman, 32, and five of her children, aged one to 11. The sixth was a neighbour, 17.

Inside the makeshift church, officers found a naked woman, machetes, knives and a ritually sacrificed goat, Mr Baloyes said. The site was controlled by a religious sect called the New Light of God, believed to have been operating in the region for about three months.
According to Mr Baloyes, the kidnapping and torture started last Saturday after one of the members claimed to have received "a message from God". The victims were then kidnapped from their homes, beaten and killed

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-51144629

Hotblack Desiato

Linked to that was a story I hadn't read before:

Children of God cult was 'hell on earth'

Verity Carter says growing up in a secretive cult that encouraged sexual contact between adults and children was "hell on earth".

The 38-year-old says she was abused from the age of four by members of the Children of God cult, including her own father.

Alexander Watt was convicted in February after admitting four charges of sexually abusing Verity and another child in Renfrewshire and on the east coast of Scotland in the 1980s.

Verity told BBC Scotland's Kaye Adams Programme: "He wasn't the only one who did things to me when I was growing up.

"I had much worse done to me by many others."

"There was a bit of closure in him getting a conviction but at the same time it felt like I wanted more."

She said she hoped her father's conviction would encourage others to come forward to expose the actions of the cult in Scotland.

The Children of God began in the United States in the late 1960s.

Its founder, David Berg, told members that God was love and love was sex, so there should be no limits, regardless of age or relationship.

"It actively encouraged sexual activities among minors as young as two or three years old," Verity says.

Berg's cult spread and claimed to have 10,000 full-time members in 130 communities around the world by the 1970s.

Hollywood stars Rose McGowan and Joaquin Phoenix were born into the cult.

In Scotland, it operated at sites in Renfrewshire, Lanarkshire, Ayrshire and Edinburgh.

Both Verity's parents were active members when she was born.

As well as sexual abuse, Verity says she was repeatedly beaten and whipped for the smallest of transgressions.

"It became hell on earth for anyone born into it," she says.

"It happened a step at a time and many of the adults did not see how extreme it had got until it was too late.

"A lot of parents did leave and take their kids out."

Her own father left the cult when she was about nine, but Verity and her siblings remained inside with their mother.

At first they were not living in a commune, but instead in a small flat in Paisley.

However, they lived a commune lifestyle

"We had no contact with the outside world," Verity says.

"We did not have music or television or culture. We had no idea how the world worked."

Although Verity and her siblings received no formal education, they were taught survival skills and how to keep secrets from the "systemites" in the outside world, especially social workers.

"There were heavy consequences if you failed to keep that smile and say the things you were meant to say," she says.

They were told that terrible things would happen to them and their siblings if there was bad publicity for the group.

Her mother and father claimed to be Christian missionaries as a cover for their activities, Verity says, and she was forced on to the streets to trick people into donating money.

"People did not question it because nobody wants to be accused of being prejudiced against someone who wants an alternative belief system," she says.

Verity says she had very little formal education but was very good at "reading" people and manipulating them.

She says her days with the cult were very regimented and "any signs of imagination" would be beaten out of her.

"There was sexual abuse for myself from the age of four, not just from my dad who got convicted, but from various other members of the cult, some related, some not.

"I wasn't comfortable with the things being done to me but if I asked a question I got beaten or put on silence restriction.

"I was punished a lot because I was never able to stop asking questions."

Verity says she was living in communes full-time from 11 or 12 until she "escaped" at the age of 15.

She says she had reached the stage where she no longer cared what happened to her and refused to submit to the cult's punishments.

"When I got out it was because it no longer mattered if death waited for me in the outside world because I already wanted to die, so how much worse could it be?" she says.

robindch

More international news, this time from Iceland. Though much of it reads as though it was from Ireland.

https://grapevine.is/news/2019/11/08/decline-of-icelandic-church-scandals-and-controversy-lead-to-mass-exodus/

Igotadose

robindch wrote: »

More international news, this time from Iceland. Though much of it reads as though it was from Ireland.

https://grapevine.is/news/2019/11/08/decline-of-icelandic-church-scandals-and-controversy-lead-to-mass-exodus/

It seems like the entrenched (Lutheran-based) church is losing adherents due to the scandals and bigotry in the article you linked to, but the Catholic church there is growing. Not sure this is a good thing overall for Iceland. https://grapevine.is/news/2019/10/24/catholic-congregation-in-iceland-growing-rapidly/

smacl

Igotadose wrote: »

It seems like the entrenched (Lutheran-based) church is losing adherents due to the scandals and bigotry in the article you linked to, but the Catholic church there is growing. Not sure this is a good thing overall for Iceland. https://grapevine.is/news/2019/10/24/catholic-congregation-in-iceland-growing-rapidly/

You're seeing something similar here with the Evangelists, quite a few of which are the right wing American variety, filling a gap left by the shrinking Catholic church. I don't think it will slow the decline of religion in Europe, just leave it more fragmented on the way down.

Hotblack Desiato

Igotadose wrote: »

It seems like the entrenched (Lutheran-based) church is losing adherents due to the scandals and bigotry in the article you linked to, but the Catholic church there is growing.

At least lutherans have the option of officially leaving their church!

Peregrinus

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

At least lutherans have the option of officially leaving their church!

So do Catholics, in Iceland.

Because Iceland has a church tax, taxpayers have to declare which church (if any) they belong to. So the way you leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland is by indicating on your income tax return either that you are a member of another church, or that you are not a member of any church. And of course Icelandic Catholics can do exactly the same.

Argument for introducing a church tax in Ireland?

(Not sure what you do if you want to leave a church, but aren't a taxpayer.)

Pawwed Rig

Peregrinus wrote: »

Argument for introducing a church tax in Ireland?

I would love if that happened. It would definitely separate the serious and occasional catholics. Although here they would be more likely to make it obligatory for everybody.

Huntergonzo

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

At least lutherans have the option of officially leaving their church!

In my opinion you can officially leave the catholic church, you just decide yourself that you're gone and that's it.

When I was 18/19 I thought about seeking formal recogonition of my leaving the RCC from the RCC. But then I thought about it further and found the following issues:

1. I don't view the RCC as a remotely legitimate organisition, they're a pernicious shower of charlatans with a vile record of human rights abuses all over the word. Such an organisation could never have any legitimate claims over anybody.

2. Given their bare-faced dishonesty and stubborness not to cooperate, you would be bashing your head against a wall trying to deal with them. It gives them more time than they're worth and will cause a lot of unnecessary headaches for the person trying to deal with them.

3. Even if they did give me formal recognition of 'leaving' the church, this is the RCC we're talking about here!! it would mean nothing and they would almost certainly still count me as a 'member'.

Conclusion:

The only records they're good at destroying is that of pedophile priests. Don't even give them your time in asking to leave, just leave.

smacl

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

I would love if that happened. It would definitely separate the serious and occasional catholics. Although here they would be more likely to make it obligatory for everybody.

With our politicians implementing it they'd probably piss away a few hundred million trying to install a God-o-meter in your driveway, get savaged by the an indignant mob led by the 'Prophets before People' brigade, abandon the whole thing as a bad idea and retire to the Dail bar to lick their wounds. :pac:

Huntergonzo

What tax if any does the church currently pay?

Hotblack Desiato

Huntergonzo wrote: »

In my opinion you can officially leave the catholic church, you just decide yourself that you're gone and that's it.

When I was 18/19 I thought about seeking formal recogonition of my leaving the RCC from the RCC. But then I thought about it further and found the following issues:

1. I don't view the RCC as a remotely legitimate organisition, they're a pernicious shower of charlatans with a vile record of human rights abuses all over the word. Such an organisation could never have any legitimate claims over anybody.

2. Given their bare-faced dishonesty and stubborness not to cooperate, you would be bashing your head against a wall trying to deal with them. It gives them more time than they're worth and will cause a lot of unnecessary headaches for the person trying to deal with them.

3. Even if they did give me formal recognition of 'leaving' the church, this is the RCC we're talking about here!! it would mean nothing and they would almost certainly still count me as a 'member'.

Conclusion:

The only records they're good at destroying is that of pedophile priests. Don't even give them your time in asking to leave, just leave.

When countmeout was a thing, I was thinking along similar lines, but since it's gone I do regret not having done it.

1. I know that, you know that. I want THEM to get an idea of how disgusted we are with them. Not just too lazy to go to mass, or whatever. They were getting quite a few applications to 'defect' here, and then they stopped it.

2. The countmeout process was very easy, cost them money/time/hassle to do, and didn't cost you anything.

3. They can't use baptismal rolls for membership figures anyway, as they're not correlated with death records.

Huntergonzo wrote: »

What tax if any does the church currently pay?

Why, none, of course. Merely promoting itself and perpetuating the money-grabbing charade is, for some reason, recognised by law as a 'charitable purpose'.

Bannasidhe

smacl wrote: »

With our politicians implementing it they'd probably piss away a few hundred million trying to install a God-o-meter in your driveway, get savaged by the an indignant mob led by the 'Prophets before People' brigade, abandon the whole thing as a bad idea and retire to the Dail bar to lick their wounds. :pac:

Or they would slap a 2% levy on all birth certs, marriage certs, and death certs to cover the cost of the big 3 churching occasions.

ohnonotgmail

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Or they would slap a 2% levy on all birth certs, marriage certs, and death certs to cover the cost of the big 3 churching occasions.

a tax on baptismal certs would probably make more sense.

Bannasidhe

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

a tax on baptismal certs would probably make more sense.

What on Earth has making sense got to go with government imposed levys? :P

smacl

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Or they would slap a 2% levy on all birth certs, marriage certs, and death certs to cover the cost of the big 3 churching occasions.

I'd be happy to simply see charitable tax exemption for the advancement of religion kicked into touch. Look what its done for the Scientologists over here; https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/troubled-scientology-church-in-ireland-is-now-1m-in-red-26381788.html

ohnonotgmail

Bannasidhe wrote: »

What on Earth has making sense got to go with government imposed levys? :P

fair point, well made.

Huntergonzo

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

When countmeout was a thing, I was thinking along similar lines, but since it's gone I do regret not having done it.

1. I know that, you know that. I want THEM to get an idea of how disgusted we are with them. Not just too lazy to go to mass, or whatever. They were getting quite a few applications to 'defect' here, and then they stopped it.

2. The countmeout process was very easy, cost them money/time/hassle to do, and didn't cost you anything.

3. They can't use baptismal rolls for membership figures anyway, as they're not correlated with death records.

Well look I can certainly understand your point of view, I want absolutely nothing to do with the RCC either, they're a horrendous organisation.

For me though, I decided I want no recognition from them good, bad or indifferent, I want nothing from them. I just decided that I was no longer a member and I'm content with that.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Why, none, of course. Merely promoting itself and perpetuating the money-grabbing charade is, for some reason, recognised by law as a 'charitable purpose'.

It's disgraceful really, so many people and legitimate businesses crucified paying tax and a hoard of devious charlatans known the RCC pays none. The world is a strange aul place!

robindch

Huntergonzo wrote: »

What tax if any does the church currently pay?

Very little, so far as I'm aware. Their employees pay income tax, but the institutional church? Do they pay PRSI on wages to their employees? Stamp duty on property purchases? CAT/CGT? No doubt they're VAT-registered, so they wouldn't pay VAT.

Given the limited institutional reporting requirements that most churches adhere to, it's hard to know whether they pay any tax at all.

robindch

Three years old, but still worth a facepalm.

Elderly Brazilian Woman Accidentally Prays to Elrond

https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2017/01/05/an-elderly-brazilian-woman-has-been-accidentally-praying-every-day-to-an-elf-from-lord-of-the-rings/

Friendly Atheist wrote:

An elderly Brazilian woman, who spends time every day praying to a statue of Saint Anthony, is about to get a big surprise. Because upon closer inspection of the statue, Gabriela Brandão discovered that her daughter’s great-grandmother was actually praying to Elrond, an elf from Lord of the Rings. The good news is that the prayers were equally as effective. For her sake, I hope she didn’t also confuse Yoda’s ears with the outstretched arms of a crucified Jesus.

Peregrinus

Huntergonzo wrote: »

What tax if any does the church currently pay?

You can't really ask this question about "the church" as though it were a single corporate entity; it isn't. It's a surprising decentralised collection of entities whose tax status varies. But, for the most part, looking at dioceses and religious congregations:

robindch wrote: »

Very little, so far as I'm aware. Their employees pay income tax, but the institutional church? Do they pay PRSI on wages to their employees?

Yes.

robindch wrote: »

Stamp duty on property purchases?

Yes, I think so. Open to correction.

robindch wrote: »

CAT/CGT?

Generally not; they get a charitable exemption.

robindch wrote: »

No doubt they're VAT-registered, so they wouldn't pay VAT.

You can only register for VAT if you're carrying on a business, which dioceses, religious orders, etc are generally not to be doing. There is a Charities VAT Compensation Scheme in which church-linked bodies which are registered charities can participate. Church-linked bodies which do carry on a business (e.g. Veritas Publications) can register for VAT, but they are not charities and don't get the various tax breaks that charities get.

robindch wrote: »

Given the limited institutional reporting requirements that most churches adhere to, it's hard to know whether they pay any tax at all.

Those that are charities and are claiming charitable tax breaks have to submit audited accounts to the Revenue. So they do have reporting requirements; just not public reporting requirements.

Bannasidhe

Peregrinus wrote: »

Those that are charities and are claiming charitable tax breaks have to submit audited accounts to the Revenue. So they do have reporting requirements; just not public reporting requirements.

Registered charities are obliged to file reports that can be accessed by the public AFAIK
https://www.charitiesregulator.ie/en/information-for-the-public/search-the-charities-register

Hotblack Desiato

robindch wrote: »

Do they pay PRSI on wages to their employees?

Somewhat bizarrely, there is a specific class of PRSI contributions exclusively for Church of Ireland ministers:

PRSI Class E

People within CLASS E:

Ministers of religion employed by the Church of Ireland Representative Body

Class E Benefits

Illness Benefit
Maternity Benefit *
Adoptive Benefit *
Health and Safety Benefit
Invalidity Pension
Widow/Widower's or Surviving Civil Partner's (Contributory) Pension *
Guardian's Payment (Contributory) *
State Pension (Contributory)
State Pension (Transition)
Treatment Benefit
Carer's Benefit *

https://www.welfare.ie/en/Pages/PRSI---Pay-Related-Social-Insurance---Contributions-and-Clas.aspx

No idea about the RCC but they wouldn't be needing these * ones, would they

ohnonotgmail

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Somewhat bizarrely, there is a specific class of PRSI contributions exclusively for Church of Ireland ministers:



https://www.welfare.ie/en/Pages/PRSI---Pay-Related-Social-Insurance---Contributions-and-Clas.aspx

No idea about the RCC but they wouldn't be needing these * ones, would they

They have female ministers in the CoI. Though it could still be minister singular. And I'm not sure what you mean in relation to adoption benefit.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.revenue.ie/en/companies-and-charities/charities-and-sports-bodies/charitable-tax-exemption/index.aspx

You can apply for charitable tax exemption if the Charities Regulatory Authority (CRA) has granted charitable status to your charity.

This means that you may be exempt from paying:

Income Tax (IT)
Corporation Tax (CT)
Capital Gains Tax (CGT)
Deposit Interest Retention Tax (DIRT)
Capital Acquisitions Tax (CAT)
Dividend Withholding Tax (DWT)
Professional Services Withholding TAX (PSWT)
Stamp Duty

If your charity has employees, you will have to pay Income Tax under the PAYE system. Please see the Guide to Pay As You Earn (PAYE) in the Employing people section of our website.

There is no general VAT exemption for charities. There are several specific reliefs from VAT which may relate to charitable activities. Further information is available in the guide VAT and Charities.

You may also avail of the Charities VAT Compensation Scheme.