Montreal is taxing churches (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: Montreal is taxing churches (2017)

#331

Post by LadyCailin » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 11:14 AM UTC

danielheath wrote: post #125

Galaxeblaffer wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me sad that anyone would compare religion to a pacemaker, if this is true then your country surely is lost

I’m pretty fiercely atheist, but the churches around me are where the local homeless get food and a reprieve from the cold. If you closed that today and diverted the money to a secular replacement, there would be a pile of bodies by the time it was operating.

No there wouldn’t. Not if it’s government driven (as it should be)

> Those in favor of lower taxes have argued that individuals are more capable than the government of allocating money to important causes, including people in need of assistance. But the study found that was not true. Donations do not match government assistance, and without tax money, social services are not funded as robustly.

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/republicans-give-more-to-char...

Re: Montreal is taxing churches (2017)

#332

Post by dungdongdang » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 8:35 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #321

dungdongdang wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ah yes. the tax exception for a church means churches don't pay taxes by default. i like that circular logic. just like women not being able to vote for hundreds of years - they shouldn't vote now. your claim was that I needed to prove my point that churches should not pay taxes. i said the claim is invalid, because taxes are paid by default, by everyone, unless an exception is granted. so what needs to be proven is…

> ah yes. the tax exception for a church means churches don't pay taxes by default. i like that circular logic. just like women not being able to vote for hundreds of years - they shouldn't vote now. That's not the argument I'm making. I'm arguing that the onus is on you to persuade, not that the status quo is inherently superior by virtue of being the status quo. I was very clear about this. > your claim was that I…

> the onus is on you to persuade and I am saying this is false. but it is expected you believe this. the status quo was people believing in a god. now we don't. it is not on us to prove there is not one. it is still on you to prove there is one. just like it is on you to prove an exemption should still be given, or you don't get one anymore.

yes, that is my opinion. this is what we do in comments on a subject matter. state our opinions on it. there is no need to prove to the irs churches should not be taxed. they take tax rules all the time and reexamine them, and drop ones that are no longer appropriate, which is soon coming for churches. as can literally be seen in this article being discussed.

Re: Montreal is taxing churches (2017)

#333

Post by throwaway894345 » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 11:51 PM UTC

Galaxeblaffer wrote: post #329

throwaway894345 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of his quote is that he realized they weren’t uniformly bad. I’d go further and suggest that it’s not even possible to have a successful secular society without a religious cultural substrate, at least not for very long. I don’t mean this as a slight against atheists or agnostics; only that religion is eminently functional to the extent that we don’t find significant societies that exist without a significa…

I really hope you are wrong. Science is relatively new, it's just a matter of time until we figure out how to solve it all without faith, god and dogmatic religion. One thing's for sure, the most developed countries in the world are running away from religion.

Science isn't incompatible with faith, but moreover, I think you're making a mistake by assuming that perfect rationalism is optimal. Many atheists believe religion serves an evolutionary function by motivating people to irrationally put the good of the group over the good of the individual, and the mechanism in question is the belief in a deity or karma system that punishes injustice and rewards justice. Note that this doesn't mean that a perfectly rational individual would never work for the good of the group, but he would only do so to the extent that the good of the group benefited him (as is often the case); however, he wouldn't put the good of the group above his own good--he wouldn't die for the group, for example (and of course there are many less extreme examples, especially under the rubric of "tragedy of the commons"--cheating, stealing, etc when the odds are good that one can go unpunished). Of course, many non-believers have died for things they believe in, but in doing so they were acting irrationally. So perfect rationality is actually less optimal than certain kinds of dogma, but not all of those "positive dogmas" are religious.

One interesting question is whether those "positive dogmas" have "staying power"--will they be around as the moral potency of religion fades from a culture (especially by decades and centuries)? Maybe an indicator would be a comparison of aggregate generosity between religious and a-religious people?

Re: Montreal is taxing churches (2017)

#334

Post by Tyrannosaur » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 10:04 PM UTC

LadyCailin wrote: post #330

Tyrannosaur wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is a country's moral system so broken that instead of charitable giving you take from people under threat of force instead?

I think the fact that you consider taxes to be such a nightmare scenario shows that your moral system is broken. Society cannot exist without cooperation, and refusal to participate in society (at everyone’s expense) is an immoral position imo. We can certainly argue about the specifics of what that participation should look like (ie taxes and conscription and whatnot) but when your position is that the government sh…

Oh, worry not, I firmly believe that sometimes the government absolutely should take your money under threat of violence, but we should always remember that's exactly what taxes are.

Every time we propose the government spend money on something we must remember where that money comes from and seriously consider if it's justified.

Re: Montreal is taxing churches (2017)

#335

Post by LadyCailin » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 2:01 PM UTC

Tyrannosaur wrote: post #334

LadyCailin wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the fact that you consider taxes to be such a nightmare scenario shows that your moral system is broken. Society cannot exist without cooperation, and refusal to participate in society (at everyone’s expense) is an immoral position imo. We can certainly argue about the specifics of what that participation should look like (ie taxes and conscription and whatnot) but when your position is that the government sh…

Oh, worry not, I firmly believe that sometimes the government absolutely should take your money under threat of violence, but we should always remember that's exactly what taxes are. Every time we propose the government spend money on something we must remember where that money comes from and seriously consider if it's justified.

Well, that's good, and in that case, I agree with you. However, I guess I'm also just much more pragmatic than you, because from a purely utilitarian perspective, the government running various "charity" programs is much more efficient than private charities running them. https://nonprofitquarterly.org/republicans-give-more-to-char... The general attitude here in Europe also is a much more favorable outlook on taxes as well, and while it is true that people give less, overall, society is better, and people know and don't mind that their taxes are going to help those less fortunate. It's just that generally speaking, government run programs (when not being constantly tried to shut down) are able to provide an overall better service.

That's not to say we can't have differing opinions on where precisely to draw that line, I think debate on that is good and healthy, and it's important to strike a good balance between too much and too little social welfare. But it's also better to have a more efficient and effective solution than to have one that "feels" better.