this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2025
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Sure and I'm glad that those organizations have worked well for you, but I've also seen these type of charities abuse the fact that they're the only help in town and use it as an excuse to proselytize to people.
And they're not the only charities in towns. A lot of the time there are other organizations that are secular that they also help. I prefer these because to me there is less of a chance of abuse
As far as church is being tax-exempt, I don't want to get into it, but it's extraordinarily abused. All you need to do is look at Scientology and Mormonism. On top of that, the Catholic Church also gets a huge amount of money from parishioners, and not all of it flows back into the community.
If they operate cleanly as a 501 3c non-profit, then I think that's fine.
Firstly, the world needs to go to rehab for the opium of the masses.
Secondly, this is a story from a Canadian source about a Canadian city, so we would be likely talking about the Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act, unless of course it was incorporated under the equivalent Quebec Act.
The church likely is in complete compliance with the act, it's very easy to be.
The Faith-based defence clauses in s.224(2), s.251(3), and 253(2) of the act are a problem, and should be removed though.
Yeah, the religious defenses are specifically what I'm talking about. There should be no reason for any sort of religious defense at all in these type of charities. If they're going to operate, they need to operate under a secular framework.
I don't care if they do it in the name of their god or for whatever reason they're doing it, but it needs to be done in full compliance with secular raas with no religious exemptions.
Edit:
When Marx was talking about the opium of the masses, he didn't mean it as a drug that we are addicted to, he meant it as a salve for humanity, so we can get through the absolute worst things. I don't have a problem with people being religious as long as they use a material reasoning for their decisions, they cannot justify any decisions solely based off metaphysical religion.
You need to do waaay more reading on morality because it is so clear you are just shooting off the top of your cuff using common Christian apologist arguments against atheism that are super easily debunked.
Atheism isn't a belief in anything, it is a lack of belief in gods, specifically. A lack of belief is not the same thing as a belief.
"Morality", as you define it here, is always based on opinion, even in religious texts, that's why we have to interpret religious texts in order to figure out what is and isn't moral. You know, or when a priest says they're gonna go into deep prayer to figure something out, that is interpretation.
As well as, you will find atheists that believe in objective morality, the belief that we all are born with a certain set of morals, along with atheists that believe in moral relativity, which claims that morality is an evolutionary trait designed to enhance cooperation and survival. Personally, I think we do have a very, very, very small set of base morals, such as killing is wrong without a real, and then most of our morality is based on the specifics of each situation.
I don't think, like a good number of atheists, that religion is the bane of all evil, but I do think that religion is a tool that is utilized and abused by many who seek power and that our governments do nothing to curb that abuse of power. See televangelists, see Scientology, see the Mormon Church, see Jehovah's Witness, see gay conversion therapy camps. These are all modern problems caused by the way in which we allow modern religion institutions to exempt itself from the laws of the governing state.
Imagine having such a a weak grasp on human interaction that you can't determine right and wrong without listening to someone else for guidance. Even then, if you aren't questioning your spiritual leader on moral teachings then you don't really hold those moral values. You are just doing as your told. This is why it's common for religious folks to do awful shit when they think they have anonymity or privacy.
What you're describing is called dogmatic thinking and it's not solely the purview of religious thinkers.
I know a number of people who are pushing dogmatic view points as atheists, as democrats, as republicans, as just standard people.
I mean, even what you're asserting here is a dogmatic viewpoint of the many new gen atheists. There's no study or proof that shows that religious thinkers don't think about morality the same way that secular thinkers think about morality or that religious thinkers are any more dogmatic than their secular counterparts.
People have a tendency to do awful shit when they think they're not being watched. You're just describing the average person.
I'm more trying to drill down that when you pass judgement off to a deity or religious leader you tend to do less introspection. When your moral judge is yourself you are never really alone.
I don't necessarily think what you're describing here is people passing off judgment more than it is just your average tribalism.
People tend to encircle the wagons when a leader of their community is attacked, whether fairly or not. And that's just sort of a natural human tendency. I mean, we're seeing this with Trump, but we also see this with AOC and Bernie Sanders as well.
I think it applies here, and I think it's why the reasoning is so bad because it's post-adhoc reasoning as most people simply just get defensive when their leader is "attacked".
I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying that the phenomenon you're describing is much bigger of a problem than just religion. It tends to be with any groups that people form.
I do agree with you though, that I do wish people would drill down into their own morality more often to discover what they are comfortable with and what they are not comfortable with and to really ask questions on why they have the believe what they believe.
I'm not saying that religious institutions don't bring some good into their community, but I am saying that major religious institutions overall seem to be a net harm to humanity than they are a net benefit. As far as Catholicism comes to mind, there's quite a few people that have quite a lot to say about how the priest treated them when they were minors that the church covered up and continues to cover up. In my opinion, you can't have an organization go legitimate while it's trying to cover up child abuse such as this.
I also completely disagree with the proselytizing, and think that it's not necessary there are plenty of homeless people that are homeless due to religious trauma and don't need to be re-victimized every time they try to go eat because the place they want to go to insists on proselytizing every time they're in there. I also may just have a personal bias against being proselytized too.
Look, I'm not saying it's all bad, I'm just saying that there is propensity for religious institutions to abuse their power, which is true of any large corporation that gets big enough, but religious institutions are made particularly heinous by the religious exemptions they get to utilize, which secular organizations don't have.
I'm sure it's just because the community you're in is really small, and in America, or Canada at least, people are not exactly friendly to the muslim community. I do hope that things are going well for you in that regard and that you are finding peace and safety.