RE: Christian "purpose" and "meaning" in life.
June 1, 2014 at 2:54 pm
(This post was last modified: June 1, 2014 at 3:12 pm by Geoguy.)
Somewhere back there, I believe Lek (forgive me if I'm wrong) said that Jesus said that government taxation to support programs for the poor is theft. That's one bible quote I'd like to see.
The trouble is that Christians don't take Jesus's command to help the poor as a command. For them, it appears to be more of a public relations ploy, a chance to claim superiority because of their charity efforts (which atheists are assumed never to do).
I do support, strongly, public taxation for charitable purposes, because unlike many Christians, I think it is something that, as a society, we ought to be doing. before Social Security, under the church model, the poverty rate for the elderly was 50%. Afterwards, with the government program, it became 10%. The Great Society cut the poverty rate in half. This alone makes the effort worth it.
And for the record, I would be, in Romney's terms, a maker. I pay a considerable amount of my income in Federal taxes, and while I don't agree with all the spending our Congress does, I don't whine when I pay it.
The trouble is that Christians don't take Jesus's command to help the poor as a command. For them, it appears to be more of a public relations ploy, a chance to claim superiority because of their charity efforts (which atheists are assumed never to do).
I do support, strongly, public taxation for charitable purposes, because unlike many Christians, I think it is something that, as a society, we ought to be doing. before Social Security, under the church model, the poverty rate for the elderly was 50%. Afterwards, with the government program, it became 10%. The Great Society cut the poverty rate in half. This alone makes the effort worth it.
And for the record, I would be, in Romney's terms, a maker. I pay a considerable amount of my income in Federal taxes, and while I don't agree with all the spending our Congress does, I don't whine when I pay it.
