Obama's team whines too muchFollow

That dude is Gbaji's soul-twin or something. He basically says outright in the first couple of pages "I'm just going to start making shit up now, but stay with me and I'll reference it as evidence later..."

Christians have been doing this with biblical passages for centuries, no big surprise.

Name ONE vague passage in the Bible, I bet you can't do it.

Revelations

What vague? Horses appear in the sky, and Jesus pulls a sword out of his mouth. It's pretty clear.

That and the fact that it spends over a million words trying to get the point across yet never succeeds.

Edited, Aug 13th 2008 3:54am by Timelordwho

For the record, I've never read that site, nor heard of it until just now.


Once again, we see the argument being turned around. I'm arguing that Jesus did not favor "higher taxes". That's entirely different then paying taxes. Yes. Of course Jesus obeyed the law. But that misses the point. There is *zero* evidence to suggest that Jesus wanted the government to increase the taxes on the people.

Zip. Zero. Nada.

That's the argument I'm disagreeing with. When you attack Republican positions against raising taxes by saying that Jesus was ok with paying them, you're using a bogus argument. Since that's *exactly* the argument that was made back on page 2 of this thread, it's relevant for me to point this out.


And yeah. Even "Christian Republican's" are not obligated to support increases in taxes because Jesus was ok with paying them. That's an absurd argument. I'm not aware of a major Republican movement to get people to refuse to pay the taxes that have been passed by Congress. They want Congress not to pass those new taxes in the first place. You all do see the difference, right?

Holy fuck, are we going to go through another one of these when you say something concrete, you're called on it and then you go through any number of contortions to avoid having to answer for what you said? How long before you start crying over semantics and missing the majesty of the forest on account of closely examining the native flora?

I don't get a wet rat fuck about your opinions on whether raising taxes is a Christian thing to do. You said, and I'll quote here...Can you support this statement or not? That's all I care about. If so, please do so. If not, then just say "No, I can't". It's that simple and doesn't require paragraph upon paragraph about how it's not really the issue.

Edited, Aug 13th 2008 6:18pm by Jophiel

And, as I responded in the first post on this subject, he was for charity, not a government forcing said redistribution. To argue that Christian Republicans must accept the idea of tax increases to pay for social programs because Jesus wanted people to give to the poor is massively fallacious.

In order to be charitable, you kinda have to have something to give. If the government takes it all away it's not the same thing. That's the part you keep missing.



You keep using the term "redistribution of wealth". That's *not* what Jesus was for. The modern use of that idea isn't remotely similar to the sort of "give to the needy" ideas that Jesus was talking about. There is *nothing* in Jesus's teachings to suggest that he supported or would have supported the sorts of socialist economic structures that are meant by the phrase "redistribution of wealth" as used today. It's certainly absurd to argue that Christians are somehow violating their own teachings by not supporting that socio-economic mechanism.

/sigh


So you suspect Jesus would be all about hording riches, further enrichment of the wealthy, and further neglect of the poor?

That's what Pubbies are all about.


Personally, I don't think the Jew would have given a damn about taxes. He wasn't a political man, he believed in obeying laws sure, but he was a spiritual leader. He has made it abundantly clear, on several occasions that the only real valid use for wealth, was to (I won't use redistribute, god forbid) sell all of your sh*t, and give it to the fucking poor. That was his message, how that wealth was given to the poor probably mattered very little to him.

Edited, Aug 13th 2008 6:00pm by NaughtyWord

Massive strawman. Thanks for playing though.




No. We're not. We're about ensuring that individuals have the freedom to make their own choices. And part of that is *not* taxing away all of their wealth.

More significantly to this topic, you'll have a hard time convincing me that the politicians who are pushing to collect that wealth are doing so out of any honest desire to help the poor and not their own greed and desire for power. If in your mind it's wrong for an individual to be wealthy, isn't it much much more wrong for a government to be so? Aren't you just taking the wealth from the individuals and handing it to the government? So you're just further enriching the government. How does that help?

Do you really believe that a government can make a more moral choice in terms of using it's wealth to help the poor than an individual can? I doubt it greatly.





I challenge you to find any passage in which he says that the "only valid use for wealth". Um... But even granting that, if you tax all wealth away, then no one has any to give. I've stated this several times, but you keep ignoring it. The socialist system just sidesteps the question of morality. A moral man will choose to give to the poor and be judged to be "good". But if you take anything he might have been able to give, you've denied him that opportunity. Worse, you've abrogated the responsibility of the people to provide for the poor. Having a government program do your charity for you just isn't the same thing. What's actually happening is that we're taking away that choice.


Freedom is about having the power to choose. When you take it away, what are you doing? Look. It's one thing to say that in a perfect world, "the people" would all choose to provide for the poor. But you'll never reach that perfect world by having the state take that choice away and provide for the poor regardless of what people would choose. I'd argue that by removing the responsibility and power of that choice, you actually teach people that morality isn't a personal choice, but a collectively imposed condition. And that's going to breed generations of people who *don't* care about their neighbors at all. Why would they? They've never had to choose to help someone...


I could likely write 10 pages on all of the reasons why socialism is a really really bad idea. This is just one of them. It's not that it's moral or immoral, but that it removes morality from the equation entirely. That's not a good thing. Humans don't tend to make good choices if the responsibility for those choices is taken from them. We have to be taught to do good things, and we have to practice doing them. And that can't happen if you take away the ability to make the choice in the first place.

So, you're saying we shouldn't help the poor at all, and that we should only rely on people giving out of the goodness of their heart?

I'm not for a socialist system either, I don't think welfare should be unlimited or even easy to get on, but you have to have a resource to help those TRULY less fortunate, and it's unfortunate that unless you tax people, they're more than likely not going to help those people.

What needs to be changed is where the money goes, not really how much is taken. If the money that was taken for welfare and other "socialist" things, was applied more properly, like educating these people on how to succeed and build a stable home life instead of just giving it away and letting them pay for haircuts, manicures and clubbing. Maybe only let them collect welfare after they've attended X number of classes, and to continue staying on welfare they have to show that they're working towards bettering their situation, not just sitting around waiting for the check. Hey maybe they're already doing this in a way, my mom got off welfare when I was 8.

If you try to educate poor people and improve their chances at success instead of just throwing money at them, not only will they be better off but the whole country will be better off because instead of locking people into the "welfare mindset", they're being taught life skills, and then everything snowballs into a better situation for everyone.

So then what we're saying is that Gbaji can't support his declaration that Jesus was "well known" for telling people not to pay taxes and engage in civil disobedience

Edited, Aug 13th 2008 9:24pm by Jophiel

But Gbaji, who's really talking about taking ALL the wealth away and giving it to the poor?

That's not gonna happen..remember, politicians and their best friends the lobbyists don't make 30k/yr. Even the most liberal congress ever wouldn't pass a law or laws that would take ALL wealth away and give it to social programs.

And honestly, are you arguing that the wealthy are taxed so much that they're left with very little, or that anyone is gonna try to make it that way?

Edited, Aug 14th 2008 3:56pm by DaimenKain





Edited, Aug 14th 2008 3:58pm by DaimenKain