Fundamentalist Abrahamic Religions

Another guest post to start:

The Christian Left

7 hrs · 

The biggest lie ever pulled over the eyes of the modern church is that “conservative values” equal Christian values. The “Christian” Right has a billion dollar messaging empire taken from the pages of a Madison Avenue Playbook.

The “Christian” Right has nationwide radio networks (Salem Communications and others), worldwide television networks (TBN, home of John Hagee, Hal Lindsey, and many others), publishers, mega-churches, political pundits, best-selling authors, media personalities, celebrity pastors, a vast number of wealthy donors, branded media empires (Focus on The Family, The 700 Club, etc.), Political Action Organizations (The Heritage Foundation, The Christian Coalition, etc.), on and on.

They have an agenda, a ton of money, and they want the power to impose their vision on the entire country via public policy. Some of us have watched the hijacking of our faith over the last 35 years with shock and horror. The agenda of the right has nothing to do with the teachings of Christ. Actually the two sets of values are opposite in nature.

8 years ago we decided to start speaking out against the twisted ideology of The “Christian” Right and its influence on society. If someone doesn’t expose what’s happening with a counter narrative, they will achieve their goals. Nothing stands in their way. A large percentage of Christians are already hoodwinked.

https://www.facebook.com/#  

My reply:

Unfortunately The Religious Right not only the "Christian" Right is firmly rooted in the Pentateuch whatever it is called by the fundamentalist, and ignores all commentary including the Gospels and the teachings of Jesus who was an apostate Jew not a Christian.

While I support their message I cannot support with anything but a token any organization that conflates Christ with Jesus.  Rational Christian and pariticualrly politically leftist Christians should follow and like their facebook wall and if possible supportt their ministry.

The Ministry and Passion of the Humanist Jesus

As you know my sources are strictly biblical.  I studied most of the religious and scholarly translations of bibles scholastically and philosophically since an early age. I never was a believer. Most of my studies were to poke at believers of all faiths.  

The Synoptic Passions were probably fable designed to remove Jesus but not his messages from the public eye. The post resurrection meet-up stories were probably only to let in group know the truth. Then Paul hijacked the passions to deify his Christ and the fables became TRUTH™.



The passion was not a cover up in the modern sense, simply a punctuation to the radical humanist ministry of Jesus.  Most popular preachers of his time ended up being executed by secular or religious authorities. John the Baptist and most of the others you have heard about.  Martyrdom was the capstone of their career.  

"I am finished." there was nothing more to add and continuing to preach would have got him killed eventually. His cults could carry the subversive message without him better than with him and seem to have done a pretty good job. His radical humanism "Love thy personal God with all thy heart... and love thy hated neighbor as thyself." was both social and religious heresy subject to sudden death.

It has nevertheless stayed alive underground through the dark ages, and blew wide open in the Enlightenment. Still heresy both civil and religious but even in America half the population is compliant with it civilly or religiously. In Europe the numbers are even higher.

Jesus was certainly a married man with children and as such had obligations to stay alive to provide for them. My personal theory is that Mary Magdalene was an integral part of the creation of his message.  It has to me a definitely feminine slant to it. Defiantly opposed to civil and religious patriarchy.

Pascal's Wager

A guest post from beliefnet

fler0002 1/15/2004 11:15 PM

And we also discover that only those who believed in God and gave their lives to Him will enter into heaven and those who didn't will go to the torment of hell... what then??

What is it that you find to love in a deity that threatens you with eternal torment if you make one wrong decision?

Does a perfect deity sound like one who feels that it is just to torment you forever because of a choice you made based on the limited knowledge, and some erroneous knowledge, that you had when you made the choice?

Or does it sound like a shell game designed to play upon your fears in order to persuade you to believe?

Does it sound like a policy that benefits the church more than it benefits the believer?

Does it sound like a plan to intimidate the uncertain by depicting their 'loving' deity as one that is bigger, stronger, and incomparably more vicious?

Does it sound like a plan that not only creates fears of what happens after death, but also creates in humanity fears of each other? Fears of any tolerance for anything other than what is sanctified by the church. Fears that turn into hatreds. Fears that turn into witch hunts. Fears that turn into jihads, crusades, and terrorism. Fears that turn into sexual abuse.

You are welcome to indulge yourself in all those fears. I for one have chosen to use reason to dispell them. I don't have to live with those fears, and consider Pascal to be a coward.

 If Pascal had a delete button he would have used it for this brain fart.  If I were guaranteed an eternity of bliss worshiping the glory of God, it is still a bad bet. Even if I bet on the right God. And spent the right amount of time learning how to worship the glory of God. What do I win? An eternity of more of the same. Talk about SSDD."

 The only life that counts is the one that begins with birth and ends with death. It is the only one we can be sure of, and Pascal's wager fails on the plethora of possible God bets each with different rules for living. So we live as if the only important contribution we can make is by living according to the best interests of our chosen society. The agnostics among us suggest that if God is the Maitre d' in the afterlife that is all Hesh would care about anyway.

Douchebag Tax

 Many years ago I proposed a tax with the unfortunate acronym of VAST.  Value Added by Status Tax.

 In concept it was very simple: For each category of consumption a basic level of value would be established:  An autonomous taxi trip for local transportation, a simple diner for a meal out, a street market for groceries, a basic Ford or Chevy for a car, a Boston Whaler for a boat, etc.  Any vendor charging more than the basic level value would be required to add a progressive tax based on the price paid minus the basic level.  If a family meal out were determined to have a basic value of $10 a restaurant charging $25 would be required to charge a small % tax on the extra $15.  A restaurant charging $100 would have to charge a larger % tax on the $90.  If well over the basic level the tax might be near 100% of the value added.  Each category would have its own rate to give politicians something to argue about, with luxury categories taxed at a much higher rate. 

UBI and Economic Systems

 UBI might be a way to save Capitalism from worker exploitation, one of its major failings.  Capitalism is based on using resources effectively to maximize return on investment of capital.  One important resource is labor.  There are few incentives in Capitalism to provide adequate compensation to laborers.  For most jobs in a free labor market recruiting and training costs are minimal making employee turnover a non-issue compared to pay scales driving pay and working conditions to minimum legal standards.  Even in higher skilled jobs where recruiting and training costs are significant immigrant labor can drive average compensation down if visas are easily acquired by the Capitalist. 

 With a UBI recruiting and training costs become significant even for entry level jobs, as enterprises must entice employees to accept time constraints and cooperative work in competition with unlimited free time and independence with subsistence living costs covered.  Wages, working conditions and benefits would be an important part of the exchange.   

 Enterprises must also compete on quality of products especially in service industries, as entry level entrepreneurship is essentially risk free.  Employed workers with a bit of extra disposable income might choose to become capitalists by backing an entrepreneur with capital rather than labor.  E.g. Leasing a taco truck for a latino family with traditional food preparation skills.  A risk free transactionon both sides. The capitalist still has his job and if the truck doesn't pay a competitive wage for the entrepreneurs plus a return on the lease, at the end of the lease everybody goes back to the status quo. 

At higher skill (and pay) levels working conditions, hours and time off, benefits and other intangibles, will be a competitive necessity to retain high skilled employees that can easily save enough FYM to become a competitor.  Employee spin-offs will be an important source of competition in most industries even ones with extremely high entry costs.  See Lucid Motors as a recent new entry in the automotive industry.  


 An alternative economic system to Capitalism (never before tried) that might work is based on a UBI with a slight surplus over subsistence (UBI+) where people buy goods and services direct from the producers via apps like Amazon or Lyft with the producers funding their means of production via loans from the local thrift institutions that float the UBI, surplus and accumulated savings for speculative productivity aids.  Neither the thrift institutions nor the government would invest in or subsidize productive facilities.  Government spending on infrastructure would be treated as a consumer good.  Government itself would be as usual a slush fund for politicians. 

 The money supply would be managed by the Government by regulating the amount of the surplus to balance supply and demand in the economy.  

The government providing the UBI+ would collect taxes using a progressive income tax on producers, or a VAST progressive VAT on consumption.  Links to both are below the fold.

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A thorough analysis of the tax effects of UBI based on income taxes.  
Hat tip to @miniver
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/why-we-should-all-have-a-basic-income/ 

VAST:  A progressive Value added tax on consumables. http://jcarlinsv.blogspot.com/2014/10/douchbag-tax.html 

UBI and VAST Stories

Jennifer and Kevin both of whom graduated in the middle of their class at the state college, without looking back quit their minimum wage jobs, all 4 of them, when UBI* was implemented and nostalgically bought the house Jen grew up in in the near suburb Jen's parents moved out of just before the neighborhood was redlined by the mortgage companies.  Her parents could see the transition coming and "took the money and ran" to a more desirable suburb.   Like many similar suburbs the expected influx from the Hispanic and black neighborhood never happened as the necessary infrastructure of clubs, stores, and restaurants was missing in the area and it was too far from the existing enclaves to be a desirable step up.    They had been living with Kevin's parents like most of their friends, but used the first of their UBI payments to move and unboard their new house.  Kevin's parents didn't charge them back room and board, and even loaned them the money for the down payment on the house. They were confident that they had brought the kids up right and they would find ways to supplement their UBI to pay them back. 

Jen and Kevin had chosen their neighborhood carefully: The houses were small but basically sound, an infrequent but reliable bus line ran through the area, and there was a defunct strip mall in walking distance with a large store suitable for a coop grocery/household goods store. There was some damage but Jenifer had some basic carpentry skills.  Her dad even gifted her his workshop tools which he hadn't touched since he moved to the country club suburb to indulge the passion for golf he shared with his family.  Several of their friends were artisans and aspiring restauranteurs.  Their local silo on Facebook had been hot since the UBI was announced.  As none were planning children in the near term the neighborhood school was targeted as a craft center.  

Kevin's subsistence job was a "manager" in a fast food franchise.  His chain like all the others found that the kiosks and robots could sell the loss leader dollar menu just fine, but that the profit making up-sale items were spoiling on the shelves.  Since Kevin was high functioning Down Syndrome his former boss was eager to get him back on the payroll at his former subsistence wage and working conditions but with Jen's social work degree to help with the negotiations, Kevin was able to argue that since the kiosks handled the VAST** calculations his up-sale personal skills were worth substantially more.  Sure enough, with Kevin roving the kiosks, helping as "needed" there were always long lines at his bank of kiosks, up-sales skyrocketed and the store became a notable VAST* contributor in the sea of basic meal stores.

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Ashley was successful among her peers. She had a responsible job with reasonable hours that enabled her to "have it all:" after school care, a home, a paid for adequate car, and family health care from her employer. What her peers didn't know was that those frequent lunches with her boss included a dessert of rape for Mr. Grey. It was part of the job for Ashley. After school care, etc. left her no choice but to "Relax and enjoy it." A few months after making sure that the UBI would cover everything but the after school care, and banking most of her paycheck, she was able to let Mr. Grey know one Friday at quitting time that the rape was over along with her job.  Ashley had used those few months of after school care to get her resume polished, the cover letters and recommendations lined up and in envelopes that went out Saturday to the head hunters in her field.  She wasn't too worried, she had frequently thought about tightening her belt and being a stay at home mom although that wasn't her first preference, and the after school care paid for with her fuck Mr. Grey reserve gave her plenty of time for interviews.

Hat tip to Nyah Wynne Nyah Wynne from Facebook for Ashley's story concept.

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Alexia aka Alex G. in the business world moved into an abandoned school as a rental housemate with a neighbor of Jen and Kevin and with a group of artisan friends lobbied for rights to the school.  She invested her entire savings in code compliance and renovation of the school library/stage.  She had always dreamed of becoming a promoter for her friends' bands, but neither she nor her friends had the time to develop the level of professionalism to support a local venue while working two or three jobs to support their art.  An older couple she knew who were employed at a downtown restaurant heard about her venture and asked if they could run a bistro and bar in her venue using the school kitchen for catering. They had their eye on the cafeteria as a restaurant, but the startup costs of the bistro were more in line with their resources. They had some savings that they could invest and Alex recognized the value of turning her venue into a nightclub to attract established entertainers to her little venue, using her friends as openers.  The city was happy to cooperate as nightclubs were good generators of VAST revenue.  The basic retail beverage category was a generic soda, and fancier drinks and called liquors were in a respectable VAST category. 

Mary and John adapted the kitchen to modern standards with untaxed pick, place and flip robots for the basic bistro foods. John was an excellent chef so made to order gourmet meals were added to the menu.  Each table had an electronic order pad for the basic items with a note that the servers had the day’s specials.  Servers were a relatively low cost employee as many people enjoyed the work and the basic untaxed floor was low so servers to the basic meal tables were a nominal expense.  Servers with up-sale skills shared the added value of the gourmet meals with John and both were subject to the VAST tax on services which was built into the price of the up-sale on which the VAST goods tax was paid by the consumer.  It is little wonder that communities liked nightclubs.  Mary chose not to charge for the added value to her hosting services and paid no VAST but took the added value as profit in the business.

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This group of stories (A work in progress. All are invited to create stories with or without VAST in the comment section) explores a society with a *Universal Basic Income (UBI) and a **Value Added by Status Tax (VAST) The basic assumption is that the evolving world standard of a right to medical care, education through whatever level you can get admitted to, including vocational education, basic transportation infrastructure, and UBI is funded by a progressive consumption tax.

**VAST For each category of goods and services that people and businesses use a basic level of subsistence is established that is untaxed. Home meals basic unprepared food at a local store is a home category. Simple restaurant meals as in licensed and inspected food trucks or push carts, and fixed shops selling basic take-out meals with or without indoor seating. For skilled work establishments space for a person and herm tools. For an office a cube with a computer and desk. For retail, self-selection kiosks and a central check out.

A basic wage, that is a wage necessary to induce an unskilled UBI recipient to commit to a standard work week job, is untaxed. Skilled services would be taxed on the percentage of the basic wage that is needed to attract the specific skill. The wage VAT is a cost of doing business, necessary to induce the worker to accept the job.  The worker is not subject to additional taxes on income until is spent on consumption.  Robotics could also fit into the VAST framework. The cost of a dumb pick and attach robot might be assigned as basic. More sophisticated robotics would be subject to a VAST schedule.

A community would establish a basic value for each category.  Any enhancements to these basic levels would be reflected in the cost of the goods or services. A downtown restaurant with tables, service staff, concierges, and fancy decor would cost many times the basic value. Up to 2X basic, a 1% VAT based on the increment over basic would be added to the bill. At 3X basic, the VAT would go to 2%.  At 4X basic the VAT would be e.g. 4%.  At 10X basic the VAT might be 20%. At some point the VAT would reach 100% that is, half the cost of the good or service would be VAT. Levels would be adjusted according to the values of UBI, medical, and government services needed giving politicians at all levels something to argue about. Localities might for example impose a VAST to fund operation and improvements to local infrastructure. Note that wages, capital gains, and net worth of a business or estate are not taxed at all until value is withdrawn and converted to consumption. 

**UBI is a stipend paid to all citizens and legal immigrants by direct deposit that is just adequate for all basic needs: housing, food, recreation, transportation, etc. A basic assumption is that in all modern countries single payer health care, education, and basic infrastructure is in place.  The UBI is unrestricted in use, the recipient may spend it as they please, trading off housing, food etc. without restrictions except that no other support is provided by the state.  Savings is not structured into the UBI which is intended to be basic needs only.  Any employment or self-employment income is supplemental to UBI and does not affect the basic stipend.  UBI is not subject to tax, as the assumption is that in a VAST system consumption supported only by UBI must be in the basic category to make ends meet.  Nicer goods and luxuries in higher VAST categories would be supported by employment of some variety. 

If an income tax is preferred a graduated tax would be imposed on all income in excess of UBI no matter how generated.  That is any income other than UBI must be reported and taxed accordingly.

Original post 1/5/17