🔥 I see Korean mercenaries talking to the same restaurant in Utah! Should I go eat 💩?!
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Sure, but there were property taxes, and the same argument applied:
From the Feds? Hmm...I guess maybe that was true in territories? Do you have a link for any of this?
Good, you killed him. One less straw man to worry about.
Call the loophole
! Seriously, though, I stand by my statement as a non-strawman statement.
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I've heard that Mormons were very big on exploiting such tax loopholes.
Flat tax system would fix that.
But oh noes, the richest 1% would only pay 75% of the taxes instead of 80%
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So you fault them for creating a more successful socialist paradise?
Call the loophole
! Seriously, though, I stand by my statement as a non-strawman statement.Naw, exploiting taxation loopholes like that is a good way to get politicians to change the laws to make sure that everyone's feeling the pain.
I never said it was horrible, but I imagine the politicians probably thought it was.
From the Feds? Hmm...I guess maybe that was true in territories? Do you have a link for any of this?
Not necessarily federal, but taxes were paid to state and local (county and city) governments as well. If there was a government at some level below the federal government, then it's pretty likely that it levied some type of property tax.
During the period from 1796 until the Civil War, a unifying principle developed: "the taxation of all property, movable and immovable, visible and invisible, or real and personal, as we say in America, at one uniform rate." During this period, property taxes came to be assessed based on value. This was introduced as a requirement in many state constitutions.
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@anotherusername said:
I've heard that Mormons were very big on exploiting such tax loopholes.
Flat tax system would fix that.
But oh noes, the richest 1% would only pay 75% of the taxes instead of 80%
You still have to specify what you're taxing. Are you taxing income - money that people are getting? Wealth - money that people are accumulating? Or purchases - money that people are spending?
Wealth tax is a progressive tax because it only taxes the people who are rich enough to actually own property and have savings and investments; sales tax is a regressive tax because the poor spend, and would pay taxes on, a much larger fraction of their income than the wealthy do.
Generally when someone talks about "flat tax" they mean income tax, because flat implies that it's neither progressive nor regressive. However, historically, income taxes are usually structured progressively: higher income brackets pay higher tax rates.
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Really? You like the idea of this:
Church members in Germany are required by law to pay tax to fund church activities, which is collected by the government.
church schools and day care facilities that are funded by the state
those who decide to leave [the church] ... can legally be denied certain rites, from a religious burial to access to the best state-funded schools
Now, quite frankly, I don't care if the church doesn't want to bury non-members, but the school thing is very concerning, and one that fortunately would be very unlikely here in the US because of separation of church and state.
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Wealth tax is a progressive tax because it only taxes the people who are rich enough to actually own property and have savings and investments;
It's terrible when people have to liquidate their beloved property because the vast majority of their wealth is used assets and not disposable income.
This is where income tax is better.
sales tax is a regressive tax because the poor spend, and would pay taxes on, a much larger fraction of their income than the wealthy do.
I don't mind reduced taxes on necessary goods and utilities.
A progressive sales tax would hit businesses that own things that their employees "use", like a personal jet plane.
Sales tax has the disadvantage of slowing down the economy, which inevitably means reduced opportunities for the poor.
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Really? You like the idea of this:
No, I liked the fact that a hell of a lot of people would rather renounce their religion than to pay a tax.
The rest of that is utter shit.
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There's a difference between trolling for the lulz and just being a prick for the sake of being annoying.
Well, I agree, although it would be great if this other guy, @tufty, did too.
Nonetheless, I'd like it much more for @Lucas to be a cunt than a moron.
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would rather renounce their religion than to pay a tax.
There isn't a command to polygamy, so that comparison is not accurate.
If the government taxed people's incomes extra if they volunteered for a soup kitchen, and the church stopped working in the soup kitchen, you'd have a point.
EDIT: Forgot this moved onto the Germany thing.
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No, I liked the fact that a hell of a lot of people would rather renounce their religion than to pay a tax.
*shrug* well, they were only "religious" in that they were baptized as infants and had never renounced it, so whatever.
It said that Germans have to pay a fee to file the papers that say you're renouncing the state religion, so that probably was a disincentive for a lot of them. That and the fact that you have to take time out of your busy day to head over to a government building and wait around in line, which I only do when I absolutely have to. Which reminds me, my wife needs to get her personal property registration done to-day. Damn it...
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There isn't a command to polygamy, so that comparison is not accurate.
If the government taxed people's incomes extra if they volunteered for a soup kitchen, and the church stopped working in the soup kitchen, you'd have a point.
German church tax
Compulsory income tax on Christians drives Germans away from Protestant and Catholic churches
Up to 400,000 Germans officially filed declarations to leave the Protestant and Catholic Church after a decision to extend the 8 or 9 per cent charge to capital gains income
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Oh, yeah.
Well, > 70% of Americans identify as Christian, the majority of which come to church twice a year.
In my experience in Church ministry, < 20% of weekly attendees participate. And, I'm sorry, if you go throughout your whole life without doing anything within the church, I have reason to doubt your sincerity.
So, it's no surprise that people drop out when they get taxed.
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It bothers me more that a government is collecting money and then handing it out to churches.
It doesn't matter than only Christians are taxed.
They shouldn't be involved in that process.
Do they do the same for other religions?
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It doesn't mean you don't make the rules, it means that you wished for a different outcome.
So you're positing an eternal, timeless, omniscient being who wishes* that some of His rules would yield outcomes other than those He completely foresaw when He made them? I can't see how that works.
*In what sense an eternal, timeless being can be said to do things - wishing included - is an argument for another day.
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it would be great if this other guy, @tufty, did too.
I've never actually seen @tufty get his fucking cunt on for anybody who didn't richly deserve a serve.
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I've never actually seen @tufty get his fucking cunt on for anybody who didn't richly deserve a serve.
Good for you!
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I've never actually seen @tufty get his fucking cunt on for anybody who didn't richly deserve a serve.
Then you didn't see this post?
https://what.thedailywtf.com/t/fire-something-something-hitler-something/54518/93
Yes, you did, you replied to it.
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You know @xaade just loves it, the little tease.
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Hey man! That was entirely justified! Because… well… yeah! Sure! It was! Because!
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So you're positing an eternal, timeless, omniscient being who wishes* that some of His rules would yield outcomes other than those He completely foresaw when He made them? I can't see how that works.
I've made rules that benefit my daughter.
I reluctantly punish her when she breaks them.
I do not like punishing her.
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The best part is that it wasn't a single one of my arguments that triggered him.
It was simply 3 letters.
By mentioning those 3 letters, he chose to paint all my arguments into a group that I have no association with, and selected the worst action of that group, and attributed it to me silently.
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Now this sounds more like a state established religion, and violation of separation of church and state,
Violation of separation of church and state cannot occur — indeed, the concept of violation is meaningless — in countries that do not have something like the US First Amendment. I don't know about Germany, specifically, but there are many, many countries that do not enforce separation of church and state.
In fact, that is the reason for the existence of the First Amendment; both England and the some of American Colonies had a long history of enforcing and/or prohibiting specific religions. The Establishment Clause was intended to prevent the establishment of a state church, and the Free Exercise Clause was intended to prevent the prohibition of other churches. Both were intended to protect churches from government interference, not, as has so often been the case recently, to exclude religion from the government.
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Violation of separation of church and state cannot occur — indeed, the concept of violation is meaningless — in countries that do not have something like the US First Amendment. I don't know about Germany, specifically, but there are many, many countries that do not enforce separation of church and state.
I understand.
But I'm using this as an example to show Americans what would be a violation of that amendment.
In fact, that is the reason for the existence of the First Amendment; both England and the some of American Colonies had a long history of enforcing and/or prohibiting specific religions. The Establishment Clause was intended to prevent the establishment of a state church, and the Free Exercise Clause was intended to prevent the prohibition of other churches. Both were intended to protect churches from government interference, not, as has so often been the case recently, to exclude religion from the government.
It's both actually.
The church was a government, a government that competed with the King.
This not only corrupted government, but corrupted the church as well.
What you want to protect in spite of the amendment, is that people who are religious can still practice their beliefs publicly and can use their beliefs to inform their opinion, public behavior, expectations, and political decisions.
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The more I look back at it, the more I realize that the constitution, I don't want to say didn't anticipate atheism, but was written assuming atheism is not relevant.
This means they didn't account for atheists interpreting their amendment in the ways they do today.
Which means that the language needs to become stronger to protect the religious and the atheist in the public arena.
I would add to the amendment that public displays and public exercise of religion is not to be infringed, and then clarify that no group will be excluded based on their religion or lack of one.
In my interpretation, if a secular group wanted to display a fake religion on public grounds, that's just as ok as having a display of the 10 commandments. As long as it is possible to reasonably maintain both.
So, yes, Muslims can build their mosque right there, they paid for the land and its not zoned to prevent a religious institution.
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I've made rules that benefit my daughter.
I reluctantly punish her when she breaks them.
I do not like punishing her.
Then why do it? What do you expect the punishment to achieve?
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Ok, then another example.
I can reluctantly kill someone while defending myself.
I can reluctantly pull the switch on a capital punishment.
How close do I have to get to the case of throwing someone in hell because they hate me, can't stand to be around me, want to destroy what I've created (destroying yourself is destroying creation too)...
On the flip side, I'm not 100% convinced that hell is eternal punishment. (EDIT: as we understand eternal)
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Most of the Scriptural references to Hell have it pretty unambiguously as everlasting torment. Which ones are you cherry-picking to cast doubt on that?
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the constitution ... was written assuming atheism is not relevant.
I'd say this is true. By most accounts, Benjamin Franklin was, perhaps, the single least religious of any of the founding fathers; ushistory.org calls him a skeptic. Nevertheless, he was an outspoken deist (and considered himself to be a Christian, despite rejecting most Christian dogma), and believed organized religion was "necessary to keep men good to their fellow men." During the Constitutional Convention, when the delegates were at an impasse, he moved that every session should be opened with prayers "imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations." If even the most skeptical of those writing the Constitution was that supportive of religious beliefs and practices, even within the halls of government, it seems unlikely that they would consider the possibility of virulent hostility toward any form of religion becoming an important factor in public policy.
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Most of the Scriptural references to Hell have it pretty unambiguously as everlasting torment. Which ones are you cherry-picking to cast doubt on that?
The opposite is true.
Most of the verses refer to being burned up, or being in darkness, or sleeping "but the dead know nothing"
In fact, the eternal hell takes place after the judgement after the resurrection.
But most of the other verses give no permanence to hell.
My doubt comes from the fact that there are some mentions of punishments that are not permanent. Burning up and becoming ash, corporeal death, and so on.
I'm willing to leave room that we truly don't understand what time is like in the afterlife.
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Could one not then argue that all the references to God is actually to the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
Shared delusions, virtual reality, etc.
So is that something like the Matrix?
separation of church and state.
I thought it was more symbolic than practical?
P.S.
Uh, what happened to the thread title?
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The point is that Mormonism is far as I am concerned the same as Scientology and is a cult. Revelations seem to come conveniently e.g. a revelation happened via prayer when the tax man wishes to collect.
At least with the other main steam western faiths they have been around along enough so nobody really knows their origins (except maybe for Islam).
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Yeah, man. That totally explains why you're acting as a stupid fuck when confronted by those people.
I'm not talking about your views on Mormons. What bothers me is the fact that all of your arguments were stupid as fucking fuck.
People like you are those that make the view that atheism is a faith. Moron.
(And judging by what you said, I'm not sure if you know what agnosticism even is, actually.)
Fucking morons fucking fucking up my day. Fuck you.
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I was on a "hilarious drunk" level, I had 8 pints of lager and 6 Westerns (and if you know that if you are in the UK that is a end of night).
And tbh I don't give a fuck whether you like me.
These guys believe in crap and they have to be challenged on it. I am a fucking cunt if that makes you feel better. I don't feel bad about calling someone's stupid shit stupid.
Now there is an "anti trolling" thing going on in the UK because people suddenly wasn't allow to be upset by other people and not it can be law FFS ... Theresa May must be loving it as she hates fucking free speech.
That is what happens when people don't have enough balls to say "this is stupid"
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I don't feel bad about calling someone's stupid shit stupid.
That's not what you should be ashamed about. You should be ashamed that you're doing this in a fucking moronic way that makes believers double down. You were spouting nonsense and that's what's fucking outrages. If that was a result of your being drunk, then fuck your drunk rages.
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No I wasn't.
As for my drunk rages, I think I did okay when I was drunk as I was.
EDIT: I don't apologize for any of it.
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You got any other ways you might say I am a dick?
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I don't have to, others did.
And I don't mean you're a dick, I don't fucking know. I know you acted like a dick and you should own up to it.
End of story.
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@PJH said in 🔥 I see Korean mercenaries talking to the same restaurant in Utah! Should I go eat 💩?!:
After sundown or all day?
Sabbat ends when three stars can be seen in the evening.
I am encouraged that it was defined with such precision.
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@tharpa I'd be more surprised if it wasn't.
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@tharpa Do planets count as "stars" for Shabbat purposes? What if it's cloudy and you can't see any stars?
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@HardwareGeek said in 🔥 I see Korean mercenaries talking to the same restaurant in Utah! Should I go eat 💩?!:
@tharpa Do planets count as "stars" for Shabbat purposes? What if it's cloudy and you can't see any stars?
Does this mean that a jew with a very good telescope could end shabbat early?
What if you go to a planetarium? Does a fake sky count?
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@ben_lubar knowing how much of Judaism involves rules lawyering, I wouldn't be surprised if both of those applied
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@HardwareGeek said in 🔥 I see Korean mercenaries talking to the same restaurant in Utah! Should I go eat 💩?!:
Do planets count as "stars" for Shabbat purposes? What if it's cloudy and you can't see any stars?
What about other kinds of stars? Movie stars? Rock stars? Porn stars?
Property tax in the United States - Wikipedia
. Maybe try a bigger stick?
Matthew 25 - NIV - “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like t...
