John Allman

It occurred to me that people interested in this thread, might also be blessed by this teaching: Fat cows of Bashan

. . . show me in the U.S. Constitution where Income tax is constitutional. I am not familiar with the U.S. Constitution, but I don't imagine that the constitution explicitly states that Income Tax is constitutational, or that any of the diverse and novel ways in which tax gets spent nowadays, such as "The War on Drugs", or "The War on Terror", or "welfare", are constitutional, for that matter. I do not believe that that the U.S. Constitution expressly says that it's not murder to kill unborn children either, but I believe that the US's Supreme Court has ruled that that astonishing conclusion is implicit in the Constitution. I expect the Constitution, which I have never read, provides for the existence of an elected legislature, and that people in the past have voted for legislatures that have passed Acts that enable the raising of taxes, including Income Tax. Your remedies, if your don't like this, are to start a political party committed to the repeal of Income Tax enabling legislation, or to challenge that legislation in the Supreme Court. I think that if you pursue either remedy, you could find yourself kicking against the pricks of what God has ordained in providence. But please feel free to try. In the mean time, I hope you will pay your taxes like a good Christian.

You have to take Wikipedia with a grain of salt. Anyone can write or change anything with in there, and there is nothing to keep truth monitored. Hence my unanswered question. What you regard as a weakness of Wikipedia, I regard as a strength. I trust many internet sources like Wikipedia far more than I trust, say, the BBC, or major newspapers.

I hadn't heard of this case. I have now read the entry about it on Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_Anthony_trial I gather the case was widely reported. At least one person in this forum has expressed disappointment with the verdict. Normally, I wouldn't form an opinion from press coverage of a trial. I'd wait to hear what the jury thought of the evidence, before becoming emotionally invested. Do those who had heard of the case through press coverage, find that the Wikipedia entry corresponds with the press coverage?

The bible is clear that civil government is ordained. Somebody has to pay for civil government. Every civil government there has ever been has raised taxes to cover its costs. In the Old Testament theocracy of Israel, there were rules in the Mosaic law commanding payments to the Lord's work. In the New Testament, we are commanded to pay taxes to the civil government. Jesus paid his temple tax, despite raising the question as to whether He should have to The idea that taxation is a modern development, a departure from some only-recently-past golden age when government wasn't financed by taxation as it is nowadays everywhere in the world, isn't supported by scripture or history. When Israel clamoured for a king, the warning was that departing from theocracy would lead to an enlarged public sector, and additional taxation, paying for the royal governance, on top of supporting the priestly tribe of Levi in their work. However, the anarchy of the time of Judges was the down side of the small to non-existent government of that chaotic era, during which there was genocidal civil war, started over a rape and murder committed by Benjamite sodomites. Theocracy isn't really literally government by God. It is government by a priesthood. The priesthood was already partially corrupt in the time of Samuel. Eli's sons did not walk in Eli's ways. Later, Samuel's sons did not walk in Samuel's ways either.

How very right wing, economically speaking! The rich giving to the destitute is godly. Taxation is ordained by God. Arguably, a government that taxes all the rich to support the destitute, instead of leaving charity to the cheerful giver, is a godly government, in this one small respect.