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This Holiday Season, Support Your Community!
Hey, everyone, it’s the holiday giving season. So I’m asking: please consider making a tax-deductible gift to The Atheopagan Society (TAPS) this year. The nonprofit Society is our community’s religious organization. TAPS produces events, creates learning opportunities and manages many of the details of coordinating a community so large and far-flung. The Society is entirely volunteer operated. Funds raised go to expenses–we have no paid staff. Your gift of $25, $50 or even more is fully tax-deductible (in the United States). Thanks for considering a donation to TAPS!
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Atheopagan Community Priorities Survey
Hi, folks of the Atheopagan community! The Atheopagan Society is gathering data to inform our prioritization of various proposed activities. Please take a moment and fill out this survey–thanks! https://forms.gle/cfmU56QjN17MdJQt6
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The Atheopagan Community at Ten Years
(See also The Community Speaks on Atheopaganism, also to be published August 5) Although I researched and wrote my initial essay describing the rationale, worldview, values and approach of Atheopaganism between 2005 and 2009, the path didn’t really start to take off as a movement until the Facebook group was created in 2012. Today is the ten-year anniversary of that launch, and I thought an update to the community about what we have achieved and what is happening now would be appropriate. So here goes! The state of Atheopaganism is exciting and growing! We have so many things happening, and coming off the invigorating success of the Suntree Retreat in…
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From the Atheopagan Society: A Statement of Policy Values
Ours is an engaged spirituality: engaged in society, engaged in the world. Atheopagans care not only about our own growth, joy in living, discovery and wonder, but the well-being of our fellow humans and the biosphere of which we are each a part. Our Atheopagan values, enshrined in the Four Sacred Pillars and the 13 Principles, are modern, progressive, inclusive, and in some cases have radical implications for improving conditions in our world. We understand the destructive and unsustainably rapacious nature of industrial capitalism, and know the values that dominate the world must change for justice, biodiversity, kindness and happiness to prevail. This is not just abstract. Activism is a…
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Building Community, Core Values and Leadership
Recently, the Atheopagan Society launched a new program for the community: affinity groups. These are small groups organized around topics of common interest or geographical areas, where Atheopagans can interact, learn, support and get to know one another better. They meet on whatever platforms they choose (or in real life, when safe), and are not moderated by the Society or by the community’s Facebook or Discord moderators. While we have provided forums for asking questions and seeking support, the groups are generally self-managed. I have been careful since the time that Atheopaganism started to catch on with other people to stipulate that I may be the originator of this path…
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Announcing the Atheopagan Library
A new feature launched today at the Atheopagan Society website: a set of pages providing links to articles, videos, books, websites and other resources that may be useful to Atheopagans in developing their practices, homeschooling, research or simple reading interest. We are calling this collection, which will continue to grow over time, The Library. The Library is an important step forward for our community because it offers a central repository for useful information that Atheopagans can draw on for years to come on subjects ranging from rituals to parenting to relationships to science and critical thinking curricula. It will offer creative opportunities to parents and teachers, serious works for study…
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Meet the Atheopagan Society Council!
This year, terrible as it has been in so many ways, has seen Atheopaganism evolve to a new level. We have created a legal entity which can carry on the work of the path beyond the life span of any individual: The Atheopagan Society. This nonprofit corporation is as remarkable for what it isn’t as for what it is. It isn’t a membership organization: no one is going to make you pay just to be an Atheopagan. Instead, it is simply an organization designed to create resources, provide education and training, and organize support for Atheopagans and for the promulgation of Atheopagan values in the world. The Atheopagan Society has…
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So, um…Wanna Get Ordained?
Today, I learned something amazing: In the U.S., if your religious organization’s income is ordinarily expected to be $5,000 per year or less, YOU DON’T HAVE TO FILE FOR TAX EXEMPT STATUS! What this means is that The Atheopagan Society is ALREADY a tax-exempt nonprofit. We have some steps we have to take, like formally convening the Society Council and filing some documents with the state, but we don’t have to mess with convincing IRS that we are a “real” religion until we have much higher income than is projected to be needed for the first year or two, at least. And so–like any religious nonprofit, anywhere–we can ordain people.…
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Funding the Startup of The Atheopagan Society (with updates)
UPDATE MAY 31: WE HAVE REACHED OUR GOAL! Thanks to all our generous donors! Here it is, folks! We’re getting close to being ready to file for legal and nonprofit status for The Atheopagan Society, and need to raise the money to pay the fees. All donors (except those who wish to be anonymous) will be listed on the Society website as Patrons. The books of The Society will always be open to the community, showing where money has been spent. To be transparent: this money will flow through me, as we can’t get a bank account for it until it is legally recognized. But I will retain thorough records…
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UPDATE: The Atheopagan Society. Also, Please Stay Home.
Well, the new nonprofit has a name! The Working Group selected The Atheopagan Society (TAPS) as our monicker. We hope to move relatively quickly in developing the documents we need to file for incorporation in California and federal tax exemption, but there are a lot of policies and details to be worked out. The Working Group is meeting by Zoom on Saturdays, though we may move around so members who haven’t been able to participate can attend. Meanwhile, I have been working on stuff for the new Society. TAPS will need a website, so I am building one; I have bought the domain “TheAPSociety.org” to ensure we have a good…
