That implication is not clear. By most accounts the economy was headed towards recession before Bush was sworn in. The tax cuts are generally credited as one of the factors that helped avoid a possible recession. If we had entered a real recession, the higher taxes probably would not have lead to as high a revenue as earnings would have been lower.

Now, I don't mean to imply that I'm all for ever growing revenues and budgets but if they happen to come as a result of lower taxes and greater individual prosperity then I don't mind. Right now we do have a budgetary situation that is out of control and a tax scheme that seems more designed to influence behaviour and incite class warfare with raising revenue almost a secondary concern.

The rules on how to treat others aren't really religious though. Just because some obvious ideas about how society works were jotted down in a religious book, it doesn't mean that those ideas become religious by association.

It's been working since 33 AD.

You're right that it's not entirely clear, and this is a much better argument in favor of those specific tax cuts. It's difficult for me to account for economic cycles (especially hypothetical ones) in this argument without having any actual data.

I can concede that in situations where tax cuts avert a genuine recession, they can bring in more revenue than you'd get by maintaining tax levels. My argument was mainly that tax cuts will always result in lower revenues assuming a consistent rate of economic growth, and that pointing to an increase in raw revenue isn't enough to justify them.



Similarly, I don't mean to suggest that I'm opposed to lower taxes. I think we both want the same thing, I'm just worried that by cutting taxes and letting spending continue to increase we're drifting into the realm of faith-based economic policy.

The economy is in the toilet because way too many Americans have way too much debt.

Indeed. And then factor in the inflation we have right now. And now with the tax cuts, and the "fiscal stimulus", the dollar will be inflated even more. I don't know how exactly they see how the stimulus will help. It's throwing more dollars into an economy where the dollar is already grossly inflated. People with contracts will now be earning even less due to the inflation, prices of other things will RISE because of inflation. NOT GOOD

Actually, the national economy is pretty good. Personal and government "economy" (the financial state, if you will) is generally bad with record debt all the way around. When we start to see record levels of foreclosure and bankruptcy, then the economy will tank. On the government side, I don't think the problem will ever be sufficiently addressed.

The basis of our legal system is English common law and seventeenth-century Enlightenment philosophy. Illustrate for me, if you will, how our legal system is based on religion.

Perhaps not completely based in religion, but several of the commandments in the bible pertain to current law.

By "several" you mean 2, which are also the 2 most prevalent and obvious philosophies for a successful society, before and after Christ. It doesn't take divine influence in order to realize the ethical/societal/economic pros to not killing or stealing from eachother.

I like how most of the people I've come across who honestly believe our justice system is based on the commandments can't list all of them in front of me, and can't tell me which religion's take of the commandments. But obviously they're right, I mean, those laws about not working yourself or your slaves on the sabbath, and honoring your parents, well, damn, how could they not be based on a very specific set of rules?!

That's funny. But you've gotta admit, sunday school is boring as hell and it's really heard to actually learn anything from it, sort of like the bible.

Even I could name the commandments and I'm a heathen.

No other gods before me*
No graven images
Love they neighbor
Honor they parents
Don't Kill Anyone*
Don't lie
Don't covet
Don't commit adultery
Keep the sabbath day holy
And uh... tithing?*
Don't steal*

Okay I have 11 but one of them is wrong. I starred the ones that are laws.

No other gods before me is a law?
And by tithing I assume you mean taxes?

Well, don't we have to be loyal to the US and not be devoted to other countries? Maybe that's not a law, I could be wrong.

And yeah, tithing is comparable to taxes.

But either way, these are parallels, not derivations.

Precisely right. It is pretty much impossible to separate 'religion' from 'culture'. What we percieve as 'religious belief' were just the cultural norms of the time, and the desire to to return to some religious norms is just harking back to a distant and mostly imaginary past. Things we associate with being inherently faith-based had nothing at all to do with religion at their inception, like the burqa was originally introduced by women to preserve modesty and the men of the time were (understandably!) outraged and hated it.

Also, more importantly,


COULDN'T. it's COULDN'T care less. COULD NOT CARE LESS. It's pretty ****ing obvious that 'could care less' is utterly meaningless, and it isn't 'irony' either (not even in American terms). It's painful to see, as you have educated and well-written posts and you just ****ing ruin the ****ing thing with a ****ing retarded idiocy like that. i hate you.

"I" is capitalized.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Seriously. That's one of my biggest pet peeves (and I have a lot).

Mine too. I try to hide it, but I want to explode and kill everyone around me when I hear it.

As you all know, irony is my other.

yeah but irregardless

har

I shouldn't say that our legal system specifically is based on religion. More that legal systems in general are quite obviously based on the values derived from the prominent religion of that culture. Of course as societies continue to mordenize you see how modern laws begin to conflict with contemporary religious values which inflames debates such as some in this thread.



I could care less about your opinion. Not much. Well, maybe I couldn't. Irregardless and in and of itself maybe. I'm not sure.

Cry us a ****ing river.

"could care less" is appropriate, and certainly not meaningless, in the right context, though.

No. Religious laws and government laws are based on the same thing. Human ideas. However the religious laws are set up to never change, and as such are pretty dumb to follow. Things that made sense(or not) 2000 years ago don't all apply now.

Oh, and just because its still a good idea not to kill people doesn't mean every religious law is correct.

....what?

Thank you.

I'm not talking about religious laws. I'm talking about the values various religions tend to instill in various societies which, in turn, are the basis of laws as they were originally established.

Your still wrong. Christian values were not the basis of this countries laws and people proved that earlier. I'm not gonna bother arguing with you though, because if you still think that at this point you're just rather thick.

^ Explain please. I'm assuming you're not trying to generalize here because this would just be historically incorrect.

I explained it quite clearly but you don't seem to be grasping the concept. That's okay. I could care less.

Um, yes they were. A predominantly Christian culture begets Christian values. It doesn't not matter a particular person believed about God himself, he would have certainly taken many of his values from the culture around him, and those values would have been derived from Christan roots. That of course does not imply religious values, but at least values that had their roots in some form of Christianity. Many of your values are Christianized.

Also, you're generalizing. Proving that several founding fathers were deists, does not mean every founding father hated religion and did not want any ideals or values that came from a Christan world view being a part of government.

Thirdly, does it really matter? I think we can all agree that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…" does not mean the government can only hold atheistic values and laws. Beyond that who cares?

Couldn't.

/detty

And what values would those be? What laws are so inspirited by Christianity?

You people keep touting this and have yet to actually show it.

silly christians
morals are for everybody

K. Do keep in mind that there are several of you that continuously claim that the founding fathers were mostly deist but have yet to actually show that.

There were many people that attended the convention (and all of them are founding fathers). It seems that folks have taken a liking to picking out some of the attendees who were mostly (and apparently quite "conveniently") deists. Well over 75% of that convention was not diest and followed a variety of denominations (methodist, presbyterian, episcopalian, etc.)

Furthermore, several deists DO hold the belief that they will be either punished or rewarded by God in the afterlife based on their actions.

It's not usually expected to cite common knowledge.

Then you'll have no problem explaining why the majority of the founding fathers were, in fact, not deists.

Out of 55-56 founding fathers, 30+ fall into the denominations I mentioned above.

It is evident that you do not know what "legal system" entails. The legal system - the system of law - of the United States is common law, a court-based system derived from British common law which depends on judicial decisions and stare decisis for authority and precedent.

There are only four countries that utilize religiously-based systems of law: Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan. Every other nation on the planet uses either common law (British Commonwealth nations mainly) or civil law (European civil law, usually derived from the French or German systems).

Additionally, while the codified laws of most nations tend to have areas of overlap with religious codes like the Ten Commandments (although killing and theft are really the only examples therein, or the only biblical examples for that matter), laws themselves in non-theocratic nations have always been more progressive than religious law.

Finally, if American law were more heavily influenced by Christianity, we'd be a little more liberal with the pardons, commutations, and paroles, wouldn't we? Instead of a three-strike law, we'd have a seventy-times-seven-strike law. Rather than issue the death sentence, the jury might turn the other cheek, and judges would abandon their robes lest they be judged in turn.

Personally, I don't believe religion should play a crucial role in our govt. (other than allowing citizens to celebrate them freely) but I do believe it has its influence in the origins of the country. But I don't know if you can really examine its influence from a 21st century perspective. We have all varieties of individuals living in the country today and the ones that get elected to political positions have their own bit to add.

Additionally, things get corrupted. The government has its corruptions as do organized religions. It's not unheard of for things to be defined in such a way that they are inconsistent with the original views/teachings/whatever.