While the income tax is bullshit, it's too far established and too needed these days, since the government spends more than it can possibly bring in.
The great and all-powerful political thread!
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cookiecutter
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I think I slightly misrepresented him. He wants to lower taxes and cut government. Seeing as we are fighting a war and we need to improve our infrastructure I don't see how that is going to work.
AchrisK: A secular government is the best thing that can happen for religious freedom. I know it may seem like an attack on your religion when mandatory prayer is removed from schools, or the ten commandments are taken down, but really it is the only way to do it. Imagine if it said "In Allah we trust" on the money or they put Korans up at courthouses. That would seem really unfair to you. The only practical way to ensure religious freedom then is to have an absence of religion in the government. Absence of religion does not mean hostility towards it.
AchrisK: A secular government is the best thing that can happen for religious freedom. I know it may seem like an attack on your religion when mandatory prayer is removed from schools, or the ten commandments are taken down, but really it is the only way to do it. Imagine if it said "In Allah we trust" on the money or they put Korans up at courthouses. That would seem really unfair to you. The only practical way to ensure religious freedom then is to have an absence of religion in the government. Absence of religion does not mean hostility towards it.
AchrisK
Weakling
What you say makes sense when you're setting up a government. But the fact that faith in God was prevalent and many things were established around that belief have set up a situation where, as you say, it seems like at attack. I am not talking about manditory prayer being removed. I understand the problems with that type of thing. No religion should be forced on anyone. But just the complete removal of God from a society that was originally established around that God is going to offend people. Further, imagine that that God exists and has extended some level of favor to a society that has largly embraced him. What does all of this removal look like to him? What effect will it have? I know you don't believe in this God, but just suspend your disbelief for a minute and kinda realize how it looks to so many people.
cookiecutter
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It is not removal from society, it is removal from the government. You can embrace God all day long if you want, it just isn't fair and it isn't constitutional for the government to do do as well. By abstaining from religion, the Government allows people to worship or not worship at their heart's content, which is a right in a free society.
zabu of nΩd
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What are you saying, exactly? That we owe it to 'God' to keep Christian beliefs and traditions in the government?
Somehow I doubt we're going to see lightning bolts and plagues raining down on the U.S. if we take religion out of the government. Wouldn't that have happened to Japan by now anyway?
AchrisK
Weakling
I understand, but I think it's a pretty simple idea to grasp that it would really bother some people, especially because... no, only because, it had previously been embraced by such a large degree by society, including the government, for most of the history of the country.
What are you saying, exactly? That we owe it to 'God' to keep Christian beliefs and traditions in the government?
Somehow I doubt we're going to see lightning bolts and plagues raining down on the U.S. if we take religion out of the government. Wouldn't that have happened to Japan by now anyway?
I am not really making a statement about anything other then how it is perceived by people who believe in God. And then another statement about how God himself (remember, you're supposed to be suspending your disbelief?) might view such a thing. People who believe in God believe that he exists, and that he knows what is going on.
Japan may never have embraced God, and Japan also may never have been as great a country as the USA. You can probably take out the "may"s.
I am not talking about lightning bolts. But imagine if a country did enjoy some level of greatness based on a level of favor of a God their government embraced. Maybe he would stop doing the things he was doing to help that country if they kicked him out.
Again I am not making a statement about what I believe should or shouldn't be done. I am just giving potential points of view of people who are not you.
skeptik
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The US was not founded under any posturings of following the doctrines of any one god or many gods. Most of the founding fathers were either deists, agnostics, or atheists. Frankly, I don't think there's much of a case in the "precedent" argument regarding religion when it comes to the founding fathers, though it has certainly become incorporated into the revisionist history of America to the point where an elected official can't even get elected if he openly denies the existence of some deity. I don't think it's fair to have to have Abraham Lincoln's speech writers advise him to throw in a reference or two to God in his speeches in order for them to be accepted.
Aside from that, I'll just echo what cookiecutter said about a secular government being of benefit to religion.
Aside from that, I'll just echo what cookiecutter said about a secular government being of benefit to religion.
zabu of nΩd
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cookiecutter
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I am not denying that it will bother some people. Desegregation also bothered people but it was quite obviously something government had to do.
This is not really a very good argument for making religion closer to the state. It is similar to Pascal's Wager, which is terribly flawed. It may be perceived that God helped America be great, but that is a silly belief to be quite honest. America is great because of a great many things humans did and are doing. I understand that you are playing Devil's Advocate here, but if someone does believe that God will punish us if we retain the secularity written into the Constitution by the founding fathers, then that person is deluded.
The Ozzman
Melted by feels
AchrisK
Weakling
I don't know much about that whole cotroversy. There are websites supporting both sides of that argument, and I haven't read any of them. Just based on my silly little bit of knowledge I would say I do not think the USA was meant to be a Christian nation or that the US intended to have any religion embraced exclusively. But I do know that somehow God was all over the place back then. At some point, all of these places we have that mention God or the things of God were established. I know that much of the population had Christian beliefs of varying degrees. It may not have been meant to be a Christian nation, but it was a nation of Christians and that belief permeated society and government to varying degrees. How else do you explain In God We Trust and all the other mentions of God?
That is how it was, and that is changing. People don't take that lightly. Maybe God doesn't take that lightly. That's all I am saying.
cookiecutter
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In God We Trust was added in the 1950's at the height of McCarthyism. Same thing with "Under God" in the pledge.
AchrisK
Weakling
cookiecutter
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I apologize. "In God We Trust" was made an official motto of the US in 1956, but was on the money earlier. Either way, it certainly wasn't there from the beginning.
EDIT: After a quick scan though I did notice that it wasn't on the paper money until the 1960's
EDIT: After a quick scan though I did notice that it wasn't on the paper money until the 1960's
AchrisK
Weakling
zoidberg
Mallcore Kid
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