We would pay less taxes if we observed God's commandments

[Baron von Lotsov]

I see no real relevance in your post to what I had to say. Your analogy is inappropriate and in no way clarifies what you think you are trying to say. I have no real idea what you are trying to say.



I was using appropriate examples to illustrate a general point, not to prove a quantitative proposition. In any event as I made clear, I find the whole concept to be of little value, since the original premise is a figment of imagination.

I'm trying to make a point about genralisms. If you were into maths you would understand this in a formal way, where general relations are powerful concepts because they apply in every case. They are only good though if that is what they do. When you generalise belief into the group "religion" and then you start to make statements using the general term religion, you run into great difficulty, because the kind of belief it is makes it a diverse group. Like I could say all houses with cavity insulation are better insulated than the same houses without it, because there is a physical reason why this is true in all cases, but do not mistake this power of reasoning with its bogus counterpart, which is to be found in every popular newspaper in the UK and the TV. With maths you can have a complicated equation which is true. You can reduce that equation by simplifying it whilst maintaining its meaning, i.e. not losing information. You get to a point though that any further simplification corrupts the validity of it, like dropping terms and so forth. This is why News debate is worthless and meaningless. It's simplified to the point of gross error.

[Major Sinic]

I see no real relevance in your post to what I had to say. Your analogy is inappropriate and in no way clarifies what you think you are trying to say. I have no real idea what you are trying to say.



I was using appropriate examples to illustrate a general point, not to prove a quantitative proposition. In any event as I made clear, I find the whole concept to be of little value, since the original premise is a figment of imagination.

[Baron von Lotsov]

 These aspects include religion and ideology. Without any real thought one has to only think of the Crusades in the Middle Ages, Hitlers National Socialist Party, Stalins Communist Party, the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot. Mao Tse Tung in China to realise how many tens of millions of people have died as a result of religion and ideology.

You take a lot of individual examples, then your group them under a general term, and then you switch to make statements about the whole group. The trouble is that this is a flawed process, where you lose information. The more generalised the term the more information you lose in the translation from individual cases to the general.



You could say 50 cases of fatal accidents with cars, then say cars kill people, then say it is perfectly reasonable to ban all cars because they kill people. The statement is of course wrong, but through gross reductionism it can be made to look right. You could apply greater finesse if you grouped under name of religion rather than use the courser term religion. As we know though, the BBC and most of the News in general default to the group religion before making statements. To me this looks pretty stupid, and is one reason I don't click on people's links most of the time.

[Major Sinic]

The basic premise of the OP is that if every one obeyed the Christian religions ten commandments the tax take by government would be reduced.



If you are a Christian you will be aware that 'God' gave man freedom of choice which of course includes the options to do both good and evil. If you are not of a faith or of any other faith the 'ten commandments' are probably not relevant to you anyway. The basic premise therefore flies in the face of reality.



Mankind as a species is in my opinion a pretty disappointing collection to currently inhabit the top of the food chain. Being more intelligent than all other species has enabled mankind to be more inventive and dare I say it, inhumane, in finding ways and means to benefit at the expense of his/her fellow man. Sadly more wars have been caused and prolonged by the very aspects which should have raised us above other species but have often reduced us to a lower level. These aspects include religion and ideology. Without any real thought one has to only think of the Crusades in the Middle Ages, Hitlers National Socialist Party, Stalins Communist Party, the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot. Mao Tse Tung in China to realise how many tens of millions of people have died as a result of religion and ideology.



This is one of those 'what if' posts. The benefit of these is that the advocate sets the rules to fulfill his criteria. It is therefore a meaningless pseudo intellectual exercise. Perhaps if 'God' had not given us freedom of choice and the power of reason we might never have invented income tax which would save many of us a fortune and never have invented religion and ideology and prevented all those wars! Mind you we wouldn't have the NHS, welfare and education  to spend all those taxes on.

[papasmurf]

Love your neighbour but not his wife.

[Nalaar]

Lets take the 7th commandment "Do not commit adultery". If we all observed this accurately the first positive effect coming to my mind is that the family as a social unit would be much stronger. So, the kids will live with their own parents and there will be less kids in orphanage homes left by their parents and this kids would grow up much happier and healthy(mentally). Moreover, there would be less divorces which means we cut more of the taxes for courts and judges.

Okay, so running with that

1) How are you defining adultery?

2) Why do people commit adultery?

[aboutt]

Let's hope all of our international enemies have the same attitude aswell, eh?

I'm not lying on someone's good intentions. Neither am i saying that all people observe God's commandments voluntarily. Otherwise we would live in a whole different world. World is what is it. With his imperfcetions, deceptions and sins. All i want to do is to bring out your imagination and ask yourself wether those 10 commandments are something good and how would they affect life. Only in imagination, nothing more. Because imagination and believe is maybe the last thing, last area completely free for use.



Lets take the 7th commandment "Do not commit adultery". If we all observed this accurately the first positive effect coming to my mind is that the family as a social unit would be much stronger. So, the kids will live with their own parents and there will be less kids in orphanage homes left by their parents and this kids would grow up much happier and healthy(mentally). Moreover, there would be less divorces which means we cut more of the taxes for courts and judges.



My intention is to think deeply whether those commandments are not something useful and good coming for the salvation of our kind from a place and Lawmaker beyond human understandings. It's not a chance in my opinion, that the jews used to carry the ark with the commandments with them as something sacred and it was forbidden to even touch the ark if you are not appointed for this.

[Baron von Lotsov]

True - which was kinda my point about the 'let's apply gods commandment to international policy' as was presented in the OP. It doesn't work.

In the modern sense we could make it a lot better. Our biggest trouble is being allied to Uncle Sam who picks fights with sovereign nations for bogus reasons, just as it is at the moment. The people who live in those nations do not think much of Britain supporting any such initiative, even if it is just their leaders supporting it verbally. Also we should give up trying to manufacture arms. We need to shift to consumer manufacturing. Making arms makes enemies by their enemies using them to murder them, like we are an accessory to murder.

[Nalaar]

It's no good simply taking one quote and not having the wider knowledge of the whole book.

True - which was kinda my point about the 'let's apply gods commandment to international policy' as was presented in the OP. It doesn't work.

[Baron von Lotsov]

Fighting with the 'thou shall not murder' god?

Yes but it is like with witches. God sends specific instructions. You have to read the whole thing to understand it properly. It's no good simply taking one quote and not having the wider knowledge of the whole book. It just ends up as one of those inane conversations much like we normally get on the internet.

[Nalaar]

The believed they were fighting with god against evil. We can only observe the results.

Fighting with the 'thou shall not murder' god?

[Baron von Lotsov]

Partially true, people in the Middle East also hate people in the Middle East - No one in the Western World has suffered under Islamic terrorists like those in the Middle East have.



But forget them - you can look at the countless conflicts there have been in Western Europe over the centuries and be able to have a pretty good idea of what would of happened to the 'never commit murder' side of any given conflict.

Yes well there was one example where they had to get the sword out. That was about 500 years ago where the Islamic invasion swept across the globe and ended up threatening Europe. It had murdered everything in its path and was not likely to stop by being asked politely.



You might like to read up on the Knight's Templar sometime as they were an interesting bunch. They were very strict regarding their religion and individually they were poor, as their emblem depicts two knights sharing a horse. However in battle they were unbelievable. They could, and often did, take on an army ten times their size and win outright. The believed they were fighting with god against evil. We can only observe the results.

[Nalaar]

Don't you realise that the people in the Middle East hate us so much because of what we have done to them. Our country has made the machines which have murdered people they know. Perhaps you need some history lessons on it.

Partially true, people in the Middle East also hate people in the Middle East - No one in the Western World has suffered under Islamic terrorists like those in the Middle East have.



But forget them - you can look at the countless conflicts there have been in Western Europe over the centuries and be able to have a pretty good idea of what would of happened to the 'never commit murder' side of any given conflict.

[Baron von Lotsov]

Let's hope all of our international enemies have the same attitude aswell, eh?

Don't you realise that the people in the Middle East hate us so much because of what we have done to them. Our country has made the machines which have murdered people they know. Perhaps you need some history lessons on it.

[Nalaar]

Moreover, if we transfer "you shalt not murder" into international affairs we would see how we cut the taxes for army, weapons and scouting.

Let's hope all of our international enemies have the same attitude aswell, eh?