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there are wealthy people and educated people and affluent people and people living in pleasant conditions who are believers
True, yet I would say it is more of a choice for them over it being more necessary for the poor. Also, they interface/interact and operate the practices of a religion from a completely different avenue in many instances. Example: The affluent believers would be the contributors/volunteers of a charity, the poor believers the consumers of the charity.
An affluent individual would be in a better position to switch faiths to "Pagnosticism" if they chose to.
If nothing else, shared religion has historically been used to unify the masses; a group of rival tribes are more likely to stop fighting against one another if they have an unifying identity (in this case, a shared god)... and more malleable in being used to fight together against a common enemy (one who does not share the same god). An example of this would be Christopaganism: particularly in the middle ages, the Church was low-key fine with pagan tribes and peoples incorporating elements and traditions of their cultural religions with Christianity... so long as they adopted Christian god, too. For those who were a harder sell, like the Saxons, much harsher tactics were employed, but the end result was a unified empire.
It has been only to painfully evident that shared religion and even shared nationality only makes the conflict more bitter when they happen.
The ones that require 10% as far as I know are the Mormons. Many Catholics give NOTHING to the local parish.
Require? Not exactly. I know many, many Mormons who do not pay a 10% tithe, but yes, that is what is asked of us. And none of it goes to the local congregation or to support the local leadership.
10% is a suggestion, never a requirement - otherwise how could anyone just put cash in the collection plate with no identification?
There are countries that impose a church tax. Out of those, some have an opt out system, others an option to redirect the money toward a welfare agency, and so on - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax
Protestant Christian churches do, also, or did when I was young.
The Biblical requirement to give 10% of your wealth, which back then was mostly cattle and grain, was to support the Levites so they could perform priestly duties and not have to worry about working. Some Bible-literalist churches do use that to "suggest", sometimes very strongly, that this is what members of the congregation should make their goal, but there's no hard and fast requirement. A church that adhered to such a policy would have very few members.
10% is a suggestion, never a requirement - otherwise how could anyone just put cash in the collection plate with no identification?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Itzpapalotl
There are countries that impose a church tax. Out of those, some have an opt out system, others an option to redirect the money toward a welfare agency, and so on - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax
KZ made the statement and I believe she resides in the U.S. - that guided my response...also my reference to the collection plate and not a tax form.
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