I hear this false argument frequently. "Taxation is not theft. The Bible allows taxes."
The pro-State troll usually cites "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's."
Citing the Bible doesn't convince me. I'm not Christian.
"The Bible allows taxes." doesn't convince me that taxation is not theft. Christianity is an evil religion filled with lies. Christianity is a slave religion. Most mainstream religious have this defect.
Christianity says "Accept abuse while you're alive, and you'll be rewarded after you die." That's encouraging someone to be an obedient slave. By definition, nobody can know what really happens after you die.
Is Christianity the One True Religion? Is it a massive brainwashing campaign? Christianity is popular, because it tells people "It's OK that you're a slave."
As another example, Christianity tells "Turn the other cheek!" That means you should not resist when someone robs you, especially when someone with State authority robs you. That is a somewhat convincing approximation to the truth, because it's half correct.
Christianity correctly says "You should not rob other people." However, it is morally desirable to resist when someone robs you. The Non-Aggression Principle is more accurate than "Turn the other cheek!"
If everyone who gets robbed resists, then the criminals will rapidly find their crime unprofitable. That applies to common criminals. That also applies to State-licensed crime and tax collectors.
It is risky to resist, when someone with superior weapons or numbers tries to rob you. That's a separate issue compared to the morality of resistance.
For example, if the police come to kidnap/arrest you, it's probably better tactics to surrender peacefully than resist. It's morally acceptable to resist. However, if you do resist, then the police may execute you right there.
Some hardcore Christians object to taxes, because taxes are used for war. At one time, Quakers strongly objected to taxes. However, "Taxes are evil because they support war." is less accurate than "All taxation is theft, no matter how they're collected and no matter how taxes are spent."
"Taxation is not theft because the Bible says so." makes as much sense as "Taxation is not theft because a group of insider lawyers more than 200 years ago wrote some magic words on a piece of paper." The Bible is a defective 2000 year old document. The Constitution is a defective 200+ year old document.
In State media, the Constitution is worshipped with holy reverence. The correct answer is that the Constitution is not a valid contract. I don't have the option to accept or reject it. My consent is implied based on where I was born.
I have limited freedom to move to another country and pick different owners. No matter where I live, there's a government criminal conspiracy that claims the right to steal my labor and my property.
The Bible doesn't justify taxes. The Constitution doesn't justify taxes. The correct answer is "All taxation is theft! It makes no difference how it's collected or what it's used for."
Even if you could magically recreate a sharply limited government, it would grow back in size to the current monster. Government has a monopoly. If politicians and insiders claim more power, the slaves are SOL.
The natural tendency is for government to grow over time. Eventually, there's a crash and collapse. People start over with a copy of the old system, or a new system. The "new system" this time will hopefully be market anarchism.
Voting doesn't prevent high taxes. Politicians will usually vote for more taxes, because taxes are the source of a politician's power. Without taxes, politicians are obviously a group of crazy people telling everyone else what to do. Without taxes, a judge would be a crazy guy wearing a robe. It's not reasonable to expect insiders to voluntarily restrict their own power.
Lloyd Blankfein claims that he's "doing God's work". Does that mean I'm doing Lucifer's work? "Lucifer" means "bringer of light" or "bringer of truth". I'm pointing out that Christianity teaches people to be obedient slaves. The Federal Reserve and IRS are dangerous terrorist organizations. All taxation is theft. The State is one huge extortion racket.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Christianity And Taxes
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23 comments:
For a Bible to serve as a beacon of morality we shall forget crusades, and executions by the church. As such, I think there can be no doubt that the church can never claim the morality judge title.
Secondly, yeah, we shall render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. Where does it say that Caesar owns what he attempts to collect as taxes? That is my property, and Caesar shall render it unto me.
So, by the very same rule of the Bible, the government is immoral and should be punished for the theft. Eye for an eye. For each dollar that the government stole, it must return one. Simply stopping taxation tomorrow doesn't fix anything. Government employees must be put to slave labor until they pay back everything to those who did not offer it explicitly as a gift or donation.
Even for the Christians it's an absurd argument. It's not like they are living under a government that observes Christian principles.
The bible was written by a group of men over a long period of time. It may be inaccurate in places or show bias towards the prevailing attitudes of the time.
It is not directly the word of God as men had to write it down. It has no doubt been translated from language to language and in the process meaning has been lost and altered.
But I have thought the same as you. It encourages man to seek heaven after death and not on Earth. It might stop people seeking to have a better Earth.
>"Render unto Caesar that which is
>Caesar's."
Maybe Jesus thought his message might be lost if he led the Jews into a violent uprising. He was on Earth to spread his message and not to confuse the issue with violence.
Maybe he thought taxes might be valid in exchange of Roman technology.
Maybe taxes were far less in those times. Certainly they would not have had hidden taxes or as so many taxes. Certainly they would not throw people out of their houses due to 40% inheritance tax.
>"Turn the other cheek!"
If a man hits you and you hit back, the man won't think at all. If you don't hit back he will pause and think (apologies to Gandhi). Not hitting back may be equivalent to telling a judge (= thug backed to the violence of others) that his authority is illegitimate.
As judges are not directly elected by the working man or woman, judges do not have legitimate authority.
>Christianity is an evil religion
>filled with lies
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Love one another as I have loved you.
Christianity is a philosophy that has not been tried and found wanting, but it has been found very difficult to try (apologies to Oscar Wilde).
Does the bible say anything about self-defense?
>Christianity teaches people to be
>obedient slaves.
Thy shall not kill.
A Christian army would refuse to torture prisoners or operate as they do in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The bible teaches us to love our enemy. Certainly the United States has not learned from this teaching.
The only time Jesus got angry in the Bible is when he threw the money changers out of the temple.
Today bankers are the money changers. For that is all they do. They change pieces of paper (mortgages) for money.
Taxes today are not for services. Taxes today are the movement of money from the working man to the banks via the government.
This movement of money from one group to another is clearly theft and not what taxes should be for.
Gandhi got the thuggish British out of India. How did he do that?
Gandhi said the trouble with Christianity is that Christians aren't very Christ like.
>Lloyd Blankfein claims that he's
>"doing God's work".
Yeah right. Goldman Sacs are scumbags.
The love of money is the root of all evil.
Their money is not the money of surplus production or of savings, but stolen money and money printed out of thin air.
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than it is for a rich man to get into heaven.
Jesus was a leader of a violent group called themselves "Essenes", his main business was nightly assaults and pogroms, contrary to what he said to write about him in the scripture. They called themselves "the poor", which is why you are prompted to give to the poor, - it never meant for you to donate to actual needy, just the party called "the poor".
Focusing intensely on attaining a ruling power and conquest, Jesus proceeded with tricking the people into believing that he is sort of a harmless gentle flower, speaking of love.
Anyone thinking of Christianity as of peaceful and loving religion, is blatantly ignoring:
1) early porgroms by Essenes and murders of roman soldiers
2) bloody crusades
3) persecution and burning by the church
4) cover-up of underage sexual scandals
5) Vatican as it is, being top secret power and political player
IS ANY OF THIS A LIE?
If you prefer to remain blind, then you are going to have an excuses for all of the above. But, if Christianity was really about love and peace, this would never had happen.
Please, stop the propaganda.
God crucified a son to forgive sins... instead of simply forgiving them period. I certainly don't believe that for a moment. Then again it's not so much that I don't think any argument whatsoever could support Christianity, rather it is that I really do not care.
But as much as I find organized religion to be intellectually deficient, I cannot endorse such a superficial reading of the bible to try and say that it implicates unlibertarian ideals. A quick google search gives some pretty good counterweight to what you've said FSK.
http://www.historycarper.com/articles/notlibertarian.html
http://libertarianchristians.com/
http://www.lewrockwell.com/yates/yates87.html
And here is an article that convinced me that religion may not always be an enemy to our cause after all:
http://www.anti-state.com/redford/redford4.html
I don't want my first comment on a world-class blog such as this to be taken as a total dismissal of everything you're saying, but I think instead of saying that the Bible "allowing" taxes is no good argument in favor of government you should highlight why this isn't the case at all (the bible being unlibertarian) instead of alienating millions of potential agorist sympathizers.
The Church and religion are man and as such suffer the failings of man.
The Church and God are not the same.
David Cameron (UK Prime Minister), George Osborne and the Evil Greedy Tax Collectors:
David Cameron has a big house in the countryside. Despite his family being millionaires, he has the mortgage interest payments paid for on his MP's expenses (taxpayer money).
Only 1 in 5 of the UK population actually voted for Cameron's party.
Consider the case of two elderly sisters living together in a house in the United Kingdom.
When one of the two sisters dies, 40% inheritance tax will be liable on the house.
This is vast amount of money and cannot be afforded. The house will have to be sold to pay the government.
So the one remaining sister will be thrown out into the street and left to die from the cold.
The sister can't go into hospital since the government is throwing people out of hospital now under trespassing laws.
In order that the 40% tax be paid on the house (which was already paid for out of taxed money) the sister will be effectively killed off by the cold.
What is meant by taxes now is not what was meant by taxes in the times of the Roman Emperor.
No decent Roman solider would demean himself by killing an old woman to collect a 40% tax on a house already paid for with taxed money.
But David Cameron and George Osborne would throw an old woman out into the street to get their 40% tax to pay for David's mortgage interest payments.
In the United Kingdom today, rents and taxes are so high many people find it unaffordable to work. They find they are better off financially not working and claiming government welfare benefits.
If you work all your life and pay for a house, the government will steal it from you.
In Roman times this madness would not have gone on.
In the UK the government will destroy your business and throw you out of your own house. The fact that if they weren't such money grabbing thugs you could get more work done is beside the point.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%2023:19-20&version=NASB
QUOTE
=====
You shall not charge interest to your countrymen: interest on money, food, or anything that may be loaned at interest.
Jesus said to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.
But the thing is the money supply today is a private money supply. The money system is run by the banks, not the government.
When you buy something today with your debit or credit card, it is money created by a private banking system.
A lot of money comes from bank loans and debt.
FSK, do you think Jesus' saying is relevant today? The US money supply is a private banking money system. The Federal Reserve is not part of government = Caesar.
Jesus on the money changers = modern banking system.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+21:11-13&version=NIV
Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’[a] but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’
Thanks R J Miller for your comment. I am reading one of your references now.
http://www.anti-state.com/redford/redford4.html
seems rather good.
"Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's" does not actually say what belongs to Caesar.
The web page says that Jesus had to answer in an obscure way as the people asking him the question were being cheeky and were trying to get him arrested.
QUOTE
=====
Keeping a close watch on him, they sent spies, who pretended to be sincere. They hoped to catch Jesus in something he said, so that they might hand him over to the power and authority of the governor. 21 So the spies questioned him:
....
They were unable to trap him in what he had said there in public. And astonished by his answer, they became silent.
Thanks RJ Miller.
http://www.anti-state.com/redford/redford4.html
is excellent. FSK should read this one.
Just to be more explicit, when Jesus said "Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's" may mean that Caesar is owed nothing and therefore it is correct to give Caesar nothing.
Jesus looked at the Roman coin and saw Caesar's portrait on it. Does this mean if you put your name on a coin, it would belong to you and not Caesar?
Jesus was being intentionally obscure to avoid getting arrested. You may decide what Caesar is owed nothing.
It all makes sense.
When Jesus said "The meek shall inherit the Earth" he was talking about the non initiation of violence and coercion.
Governments get their taxes by the threat of violence. Doctors treat the sick not out of charity but always in return for taxpayers' money.
Could he have been saying that tax by threat of violence is wrong?
Should we all just co-operate for the good of it without force being used?
Everything government does is by force.
It is significant that people attack Christianity based on what they observe in those who claim the title - NOT on Christ, himself. Would it not be logical to consider Christ's example rather than the behavior of others on Him?
Perhaps Christ's followers are hypocritical, but that does not condemn Him. People often condemn others to justify themselves, but that is immoral and corrupt, too.
What if the Christian doctrine turns out to be absolute truth, and you have chosen to believe whatever else you decided was "truth" and ultimately found that you were in error?
If there were two possibilities in either accepting or rejecting a position, and you chose the first to accept and the other to reject, but at the end of your life, you then find the one you rejected was the truth, what possible loss can you incur? But, suppose you accepted the second to accept and it turned out to be false, what have you lost by following the virtuous living postulated by the first option? You lost NOTHING, and would likely be revered as a noble person. And if you chose the option to follow Christian principles and when you get to the end of your life, and IT TURNS OUT THAT IT IS TRUE, you have rewards to look forward to, that would, under any other choice be lost.
A man is no fool to trade that which he cannot keep, for that which he can never lose.
To the incessant christian above:
First of all, you could have said the same about Joseph Stalin. Personally, he did not kill anyone. It was all kinds of followers of him, who did not act according to his teachings.
According to you, christians could have tortured and slayed the whole earth population in crusades, and yet, it would reflect not a dark spot on the Jesus himself. How convenient!
Secondly, your wager is pretty primitive and goes back to Pascal's time. It's a very primitive way to convince people to join the sect. "If you join, you lose nothing if there is no god, but you gain everything if there is!". This is no different than the state defrauding the workers into paying for social security, expounding it's benefits while not even mentioning that that worker could grow his savings way faster if he did not pool them into social security blackhole!
So, the christians, not surprisingly, chose to defraud us in a similar way. Let me ask you a question:
What happens to me if it turns out that the god is Allah, and Mohamed is his prophet, and I trusted you and your fraudulent ways and join christian sect?
What if Buddhists are right? What if it turns out that the satanists were correct? Where does that live me, after I join your sect out of precaution you have fraudulently proposed?
You can't claim everything good the religion members do in favor of religion, while blaim everything bad they do on their own imperfections. This just exposes you as a member of manipulationists, the parasites we are so often mention around here.
Whether I'm wrong, Buddhists are right, or Islam is right is an irrelevant and insignificant point in your self-defense. The crucial consequential question for you to ask yourself is: "What if I'm wrong?"
What I believe has no eternal consequence for anyone else, even you...only for me. It is absolutely individual - not collective, and your own rejection or acceptance confers no reward nor punishment for me. I merely know what responsibility is mine based on the following question: "What will I do when God confronts me...What will I say when called to give account of my life?"
Only you can discern that answer.
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