@the Encogitater
That was very kind of you indeed. Very passive aggressive. Well done. I often admire futile gestures . 
Boomer47,
Maybe my gesture with the books was futile, but then again, maybe someone inside the Salvation Army who is disgruntled would like it too. Kidney patients did benefit from my purchase for sure, so there is one mark for making life on Earth better without God or religion.
And, of course, Passive-Aggressive is always better than Agressive-Aggressive. It makes a much-needed point in cases where reason most likely will fail and it saves lives to boot. Win-win! 
Waht? How does that work? Salvos here donât provide such support. Did you donate a kidney? Would I? At my age, only for a first degree blood relative.
As a rule of thumb, I find honesty and assertion superior to any kind of aggression.
I still donât understand. Still seems like a pretty oblique way to help others.
For all of your money, time, and effort, why didnât you just directly donate a few bucks to a charitable kidney foundation?
You put in a lot of time and money to achieve your goal. The Value Village Thrift Store did not make more than one dollarâs profit from your book donations.
So please, do not posture as if you did any of this for a worthy charitable cause.
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Boomer47 and David Killens,
The Value Village Thrift Store is the one whose proceeds benefit kidney patients, not the âSalvosâ (I presume that means Salvation Army.) Value Village also accepts donations of lightly used clothes and household goods, which they sell in their stores. I both buy from and donate to Value Village.
The drop-off books to the Salvation Army may benefit them too, but theyâll also get the benefit of another viewpoint too if they use the enclosed bookmark.
Considering the bully-boy stuff the Salvation Army has in itâs past, a heretical bookmark is very tame.
David Killens,
Another point about thrift stores: Charitable organizations wouldnât bother running them if they didnât benefit their cause. I, for one, would love to see a Freedom From Religion Foundation or another Secularist/Atheist thrift store. Why should Saint Vincent de Paul and every other religious thrift store have all the market share?
Boomer? Really? Passive aggressive people are shithead assholes without the guts to stand up for what they believe in. A bunch of piss ants that the world would be better off without. Better than aggressive? Not in a million years.
Perhaps you are meaning to say âBetter than violent.â Aggression is not violence. Passive aggression is underhanded bullshit while being in complete denial, often to self and to others, that you are engaging in it.
Passive aggressiveness may as well be touted as âThe Way of the Coward.â Always sabotaging, never taking responsibility, and living life in denial.
If you are referencing, writing in the books and donating them as passive aggressive, I would disagree. You just admitted that you did it. The deed itself was an action, not passive at all, and yet not necessarily overt. A passive act might be to buy the books, or collect the books, take them home and bury them in the garden and then just deny that you ever saw them.
There is just a tinge of aggression to pointing out all the errors and contradictions and then donating the books to charity. I like it. Perhaps, well planned sly aggression.
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I do not contest that. But despite our mutual distaste of religion, we need to understand that they do some good. Because of their very nature, they are well organized and can reach out to communities others find difficult to access.
Cognostic,
So that we are clear, Boomer didnât make the quote âPassive-Aggressive Beats Aggressive-Agressiveâ I did that.
Itâs not an ideal strategy, of course, but when dealing with people who make death threats in the name of God, sometimes followed by real Hell-on-Earth, sometimes it is a bitter necessity.
For more details on the Salvation Armyâs Theocratic, Authoritarian worldview and itâs social and political agenda, this article reveals a lot:
Why You Shouldnât Donate to the Salvation ArmyâEver by James Peron
Actually, according to Jim Peron, I was too generous dropping the bookmarked Bibles in the Salvation Army drop-box, but at least they know someone disagrees and that they donât hold 100% market share on ideasI
Come to think of it, a few years ago, I got copies of Sam Harrisâ The End of Faith and Christopher Hitchensâ God Is Not Great and some Victorian Era porn from a Salvation Army store. Maybe there are allies on the inside already!
Maybe this isnât Passive-Aggressive at all, but reinforcement of an Unbeliever âsleeper cellâ in the Salvation Army waiting to a chance to get out. HmmmâŚ
David Killens,
There are many good things done by charities, including religious ones. But charity too often is taken as synonymous with religion. I was listening to Dennis Prager once and he was going on about some survey claiming Believers are more generous than Unbelievers. I wonder if he or the survey thought about philanthropic efforts by Unbelievers Andrew Carnegie and Bill Gates?
Anywho, an Unbelieving thrift store would be one possibility for refuting preconceptions. More medical thrift stores would be a plus too, since those efforts explicitly support the efforts of scientific research, development, and rational medical practice.
Iâve heard this unevidenced claim from theists many times, and several things occur to me.
Firstly I donât think the motivation behind charity is philanthropic if itâs considered a duty as part of a religion, or to get your "eternal reward. Whereas since atheism has no dogma or doctrine, itâs axiomatic that all charitable donations and efforts can only be motivated by a desire to help others who need it.
Secondly monotheistic religions like Catholicism have amassed vast fortunes that could probably go a very long way to eradicating global poverty, but yet sits in Vatican bank accounts and vaults. How much money is wasted on the saccharine worship and glorification of their imaginary deity, while people live in deprivation and poverty?
Thirdly, beyond the sale of a few books, and theyâd need to be an established author first, Iâm not aware of anyone who has amassed massive fortunes by pedaling atheism, in the way mega rich churches and televangelists pedal their archaic superstion. So how many billions are conned out of gullible theists every year, that could be used to eradicate poverty?
Fourthly, letâs for the sake of argument say this nauseating and arrogant boast from theists was in fact true, it tells us nothing about the validity of superstitious theistic beliefs, but it is a sad indictment that people are basically saying it takes the delusion of an extant deity, the threat of everlasting torture or promise of everlasting paradise, for theists to help others, the obvious inference being they would not do so if they were atheists. Otherwise their argument defeats itself of course.
Lastly, being charitable doesnât expunge the culpability of the centuries of vile crimes religious beliefs have motivated, from the crusades to the Holocaust, and the endemic and systematic rape of children by the catholic priesthood, or the vile complicity before, during, and after the fact by all levels of that churchâs organisation. Thus this nauseating boast, used to imply that theists are more moral than atheists is an utterly transparent lie in cases too numerous to count.
Thank you for your timeâŚ
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Somewhat on topic, but further to the whole âcharityâ thing.
You know when you grocery shop and you are asked if you want to donate to âname charity store is supportingâ âŚ
Say $1⌠âyou thinkâ sure, why not? Plus itâs embarrassing to say no to $1 donation for some dying kids when youâve loaded up on groceries and thereâs a person behind you and the cashier has a big smile on her face.
I always say ânopeâ.
Why!!! BECAUSE your dollar donation is the grocery stories âtaxable write-offâ. It reduces their âincomeâ (without giving a penny).
Drop off food in the local food bank bin. Itâs real, itâs local.
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Figures. I thought Boomer had more sense. I thought he just made a slip of the tongue. I would expect such nonsense from you. (Sorry Brother Boomer â I should have known.)
No⌠passive aggressiveness is not a good idea. 1. There is no identifiable reason for the act and so the victim can blame anyone or justify any retaliatory behavior he or she may engage in, in his or her own mind. 2. There is absolutely no predicting the outcome of a passive aggressive act on the victim or the response to the act by the victim.
Passive aggressiveness is never a necessity. âResearchers believe people who exhibit passive-aggressive behaviors begin doing so in childhood. Parenting style, family dynamics, and other childhood influences may be contributing factors. Child abuse, neglect, and harsh punishment can also cause a person to develop passive-aggressive behaviors. Substance abuse and low self-esteem are also thought to lead to this type of behavior.â
âIf you suspect that you may be exhibiting passive-aggressive behavior, you should schedule an appointment with a psychologist. The psychologist will ask you to complete several questionnaires about your symptoms, thoughts, and personal history. The psychologist will also ask you questions about your childhood and the experiences that evoke symptoms. Once they identify possible environmental triggers for your passive-aggressive behaviors, they can help you work through them.â
âŚ
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Not only that, later on they get to claim that their company donates to the needy. Free public relations bonanza.
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I took an âAssertiveness Trainingâ course and it teaches one how to communicate your position without being too aggressive or too passive. IMO it was one of the best courses I ever took, and benefited me tremendously.
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Me too. Still remember the definition of aggression they used. Something like when one ignores or dismisses the feelings and rights of other. I remember being taught to avoid sentences which begin with "You----
Some months later I went to a negotiation course. It didnât go well. Being in the Australian Public service is zero sum game.
Whitefire13,
There are legitinate charities supported by the donations asked for in the grocery line. Childrenâs Miracle Network and Toys 4 Tots are two examples and I know a beneficiary of the first. One can always verify the legitimacy of a charity via the Attorney Generalâs office of your State as well.
And yes, direct in-kind benefits such as food are good too. Itâs not either/or but one/another or both/and.
Thatâs not the point.
I didnât say the charities werenât legit. Iâll give to charity and decide if I want the tax deduction (or not, in the case of food bank, etc).
My point was- the grocery store or other Corp. that requests MY money, takes that âdonationâ and claims it to offset their âincomeâ (tax deduction).
10,000 customers give $1 (as an example). They claim the $10,000 tax deduction.
This was my point.
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Absolutely.
However, I do not give to such charities nor to people knocking on my door.
I worked out which charities I would support rationally.
First rejected all religious charities because at least some of the money goes to their religious activities. Also sports clubs of all kinds; their need is not direâŚ
No charity uses 100% of donations for the stated purpose. Admin cost can be as much as 70%. Plus some charities pay collectors.
After a lot of research I chose two secular charities to support with regular donations: The Fred Hollows Foundation and Doctors Without Borders. That means in the long term, I canât afford ad hoc contributions.
I donât pay tax because of my age and low income, so there is no tax advantage for me.
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The Fred Hollowâs Foundation is an Australian Charity. It was founded by Fred Hollows, who was an eye surgeon and atheist. It has restored the sight of thousands of people who have lost their sight due to cataracts. Itâs a simple procedure. Iâve had it to remove cataracts in both eyes. My procedure cost $1500. Because itâs run by volunteers, The Fred Hollowâs foundation can restore a personâs sight for $25.
Cognostic,
Hereâs a thought: If people werenât shamed, insulted, slandered, deplatformed, fired, censored, fined, tortured, imprisoned, or murdered for expressing ever-so-politely and gingerly their honest thoughts, perhaps Passive-Aggressive behavior would not be a thing. Couldnât it be that all of those responses to expression of thought are the real problem?
Also, if someone A lashes out at some third party C for another person Bâs words or acts, isnât it A that has a serious problem?
Finally, even if Passive-Aggressive behavior never existed, canât people still be assholes by hurling insults at people theyâve never even met?