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this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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The Satanic Temple
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I noticed there wasn't a TST Lemmy community. The Satanic Temple is a modern satanic religion that aims to promote human rights and compassion. Check out their about page on their official website at https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/about-us. Note that this community is not an official affiliation. TST is also separate and not affiliated with the Church of Satan, who have a slightly different viewpoint of what satanism truly is. Dunno what to post in here, but maybe some will search for this and take part. Hello!
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They meet all the requirements to be a religious organization in the USA (it's easy enough that John Oliver created one ex nohilo just to prove a point on his show), they explicitly do not seek tax exempt status at all because they expressly believe religious organizations should be taxed. From The Devil's Notebook, an essay titled Pentagonal Revisionism:
"2) Strict taxation of all churches -- If churches were taxed for all their income and property, they'd crumble overnight of their own obsolescence, and the National Debt would be wiped out as quickly. The productive, the creative, the resourceful should be subsidized. So long as the useless and incompetent are getting paid, they should be heavily taxed. "
Weird take, but interesting. You'd think they'd want to keep as much of that $300 membership fee as they can, I'm not sure how much they make off those - especially these days.
In any case, a big part of what TST is doing is bringing the he hypocrisy of the Christian hegemony to light. By taking tax exemption, they can continue to not just do this, but use their money for good instead of personal jets and ridiculous buildings.