Slashdot Mirror
Will the Pope Declare Google Evil?
theodp writes "In the next few days, Pope Benedict XVI plans to issue his second encyclical, in which he is expected to denounce the use of tax havens as socially unjust and immoral in that they cheat the greater well-being of society. He is also expected to argue that the globalized economic world needs to be regulated. Prime technology companies playing the offshore 'profit laundering' game include Dell, Google, Microsoft, and Sun, who set up subsidiaries in Ireland, where the corporate tax rate is a low 12.5% and no taxes are charged on royalties (e.g. from patents)."
Is the current pope rather stuck on ancient church history, at middle ages when church was actually a state ?
does god levy 'taxes' ? taxes are an earthly thing and have no place in religion. or is the pope trying to appease some circles that have done 'charity' for the church ?
Read radical news here
So will the church lead by example? Religion is the biggest tax haven in this country.
Just one more hypocrisy from the church, I am wagering.
As Jesus said, "Render unto Caeser what is Caeser's, and unto God what is God's"
I was with you up until the end. Please recall that it's the Roman Catholics who take the heat for NOT basing their teachings on the Bible, and instead trust in the "consensus" of the Roman church as an organization, and on the Pope himself in particular. In short, the Pope's authority isn't based on the Bible as much as it's based on his own infallibility.
A large part of Google operations are in Europe, so is a big part of their R&D. Why should they tax all their income in the US?
im from ireland, and practically every corporation has an office here
the corporate tax is low (12.5%) and income tax is ok as well (20%) tho EU slaps 20% VAT on everything
a lot of countries look enviously lately it seems at ireland and the low-ish taxes here (the country is doing fairly for last decade)
still i wouldnt call this a tax heaven, compared to Dubai lets say
As Mark Shea once said, "Deduct 50 IQ points when the media discusses religion. Deduct 75 points when discussing Catholicism." It is surprising (or not) that people are making judgments on a document that even isn't released. Wait until the document is released and read what it actually says before commenting.
"does god levy 'taxes' ? taxes are an earthly thing and have no place in religion. or is the pope trying to appease some circles that have done 'charity' for the church ?"
I suspect you're not interested in knowing, but in fact the God of the Bible has a long history of taxation.
Citizens were required to pay a flat tax of 10% of all earnings.
Citizens were also assessed additional fixed taxes as civic needs arose, and were required to turn over some numbers of livestock on a regular schedule.
These taxes went to the religious state, whose responsibility it was to provide judicial, executive, and legislative services, as well as to provide for the common needs of society, including various primitive safety nets for those who had fallen on hard times.
Further on, according to the Bible, in Christian communities this developed into an entirely socialist system, where resources were jointly held and distributed by a central authority. Failure to comply was punishable by death.
Attempting to stay on topic: since you agree that they've strayed from the Bible, you can't conclude that his statements today about taxation are biblical.
Straying further off topic: Once you've "gone quite a far way" from the Bible, it's not your basis anymore; you regard something else as foundational. Also, it was the early, and truly catholic, church which collected and distributed the New Testament and developed the Creeds. Note that the canon was not dogmatized by Rome until the Council of Trent, after the Reformation.
Yes, apparently the diety of a bunch of goat-herding nomads from thousands of years ago doesn't like it, so it's got to be stopped.
so Bill Gates converts to become a Roman Catholic - they do everything nowadays to get followers since their sex rules are so unattractive - well, except in the US, that is...
(a) should the Internet move to IPv6 or stick with IPv4? Which one is the lesser evil?
(b) Blue-Ray vs HD-DVD: what would Jesus watch?
Then I am in full support of revoking the all churches' 501(c)(3) status within the USA. Christ said to pay taxes? Then people shouldn't be allowed to use the church as a tax break, and the church itself can pay taxes on its income too.
The Scientologists will be screwed especially hard over that one. Couldn't happen to a more deserving lot, honestly.
=Smidge=
So your assertion is that it is hypocritical for anyone with access to money or power to ever make a statement supporting charity or paying one's taxes?
Well I'll run over and tell the pope that he needs to edict all of the church's remaining savings to some non-profit (maybe a religious organization of some sort...) before he can issue any more moral edicts to his followers.
brb.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
No, really. This is funny: Evil and good are subjective adjectives given by opinionated pricks..
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
Frankly, I've never seen any passage in the Bible describing the position or, or need for a pope.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
No, that was pretty solidly troll/flamebait... and I'm definitely agnostic, not religious at all. Not only was it nothing more than a rant against the pope and religion, there was a good dose of profanity thrown in for good measure. Just because you may agree with those sentiments, doesn't mean that the post wasn't written in an extremely flameish and abrasive manner.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
The point being made is that rich individuals and corporations are setting up a minimal presence in a foreign tax country (tax haven) in order to avoid paying taxes in the countries where they actually live or work. This is "bad" because by not paying local taxes, they're not supporting their local government and social programs. If you live in the [insert your country here] and use the Netherlands as a tax haven, then you're not paying your fair share for your country's universal health care, or 911 services, or military that keeps your democracy free, or whatever.
If you're going to benefit from your local country's laws and services, is it really too much to ask that you pay your fair share? If local taxes are too burdensome or wasteful, then work to improve them instead of hiding from the problem(s). We all complain that money influences politics. If people are allowed to hide money overseas, then they have no motivation to reform existing local laws. If they were forced to resolve the issues locally, they would be subject to local laws and publicity, thus making it difficult to corrupt the reformed laws. By hiding money overseas, there is little legal or public oversight to prevent abuse (such as laundering drug money.)
Thus tax havens create at least two problems: local services, laws, and legal protections are not being paid for, and local laws, morals, mores, and publicity are being evaded. The latter is probably the greater of the two sins.
A third problem that the Pope appears to be concerned about is that local taxes pay for social programs. You know, homeless shelters, health care for the poor, etc.. By turning to a tax haven, you are implicitly turning your back on your fellow man. Do you really think that anyone using a foreign tax shelter is actually using the money they saved back to build up their local community? Granted, the Catholic Church shouldn't be throwing stones, but a Christian who hides tax money isn't much of a Christian. Belittle the Pope all you want, but he is probably the only individual who has the ability to bring worldwide attention to global morality. You don't have to like the guy shining the light on the cockroaches, but do be glad that someone is doing it. (But we do keep a mirror handy to throw some of that light back.)
Of course the Pope is concerned about money.
The Roman Catholic Church has been funding schools, hospitals, charitable institutions and enterprises of every sort for 2,000 years.
In 1952 Mother Teresa opened the first Home for the Dying in space made available by the City of Calcutta. With the help of Indian officials she converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the Kalighat Home for the Dying, a free hospice for the poor. She renamed it Kalighat, the Home of the Pure Heart (Nirmal Hriday). Those brought to the home received medical attention and were afforded the opportunity to die with dignity, according to the rituals of their faith; Muslims were read the Quran, Hindus received water from the Ganges, and Catholics received the Last Rites. "A beautiful death," she said, "is for people who lived like animals to die like angels -- loved and wanted." Mother Teresa soon opened a home for those suffering from Hansen's disease, commonly known as leprosy, and called the hospice Shanti Nagar (City of Peace). The Missionaries of Charity also established several leprosy outreach clinics throughout Calcutta, providing medication, bandages and food. Mother Teresa
Humm, come to think of this, I think the Pope's own book has some advice for situations like this. I think it goes something like "He that is without sin...first cast a stone".
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Agreed. Most certainly reaching for a flame ware with his verbiage. I would say a more subtle way to put it would be to ask, "Has the Pope looked into the Catholic Church's collective mirror lately?" ;-)
It doesn't. The Bishops exist as successors to the Apostles, although there are a lot more than 12 of them nowadays. Bishops are described in the New Testament, along with Priests, Deacons, and the Laity.Frankly, I've never seen any passage in the Bible describing the position or, or need for a pope.
Historically disputes between Bishops were resolved by Metropolitan Bishops, a term that I believe is still used by the Orthodox Churches. These are merely Bishops of large cities which were influential, but have no position of spiritual superiority. Rome was one of these, and was the only Metropolitan Bishopric to never fall to a Heresy. (FYI see http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07256b.htm for way too much information about Heresy.) Of course Matthew 13 shows Peter being elevated above the other Apostles when it comes to running the Church (You are Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.) Remember Peter==Rock, so it is a play on words.
The result is that the Bishop of Rome is just a "first among equals" who handles disputes. Mostly the Pope is juse the permanent tie-breaker if you will, and can only override the rulings of local Bishops in very rare circumstances. There are plenty of topics where US Bishops do things that Rome doesn't like, and there is nothing that the Pope can do about it. The whole infallibility thing only deals with specific points of doctrine, and almost never applies. It is certainly less useful than popular media makes it out to be. Remember that when the church does big shifts (Council of Trent, Vatican II), it is a coming together of large parts of the Church to form consensus, not the Pope making a decree.
And yes, this mechanism of Rome being the arbiter of disputes between Bishops is not Biblical. The Church is an artifact of Mankind, and as such is imperfect. Attempts are made to keep it working well, and somethings change over time. Remember that Bishops were installed due to popular decree (democratically, if you will) until corruption ended that process about a thousand years ago. Likewise the College of Cardinals is an attempt to shield the Papacy from local Roman politics. That hasn't been an issue for several centuries, but it is still the mechanism in use. A bit vestigial, somewhat like the US Electoral College.
Who lives in his own special country that his church set up as a tax dodge.
Actually, its mild compared to what a lot of us feel.
"denounce the use of tax havens as socially unjust and immoral"
Says the Pope sitting in his tax haven called Vatican City. "Fucking hypocrite" is mild ...
Says the Pope who signed up with the nazis because "he could get in trouble otherwise, and it didn't mean anything." Sig heil my arse! The only reason we can't call him a dirty nazi is because he (probably) takes a bath once in a while, when not figuring out ways to try to maintain respectability while continuing to demand that his priests remain celibate, thus perpetuating holy buggery and child sexual abuse.
We tolerate religion - that doesn't mean we have to accept pronouncements from somebody who's so busy pointing fingers at everyone else in an effort to keep them from looking at the huge pile of wrongs he continues to promote. Hey, how about that "no birth control" policy? Nice way to doom another generation to overpopulation and starvation. And the "no condoms" bit. The Pope is promoting AIDS, herpes, clamydia, etc. How about the whole "virgins are better, they're pure" so its not so bad to rape a woman who's had sex, because she's a slut anyway, since she's not a virgin. Or the "divorce is wrong" so stay with hubby as he beats the shit out of you and the kids.
The pope is a fucktard.
Its all about money and power, same as always. Look up Banco Ambrosio Pope Murder
Thus began the least-successful marketing campaign in history, which we'll be examining over the next semester...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
I guess this makes sense if you presuppose a great deal of freewill, but not even the Church does that (if people had all the freewill they could, it would be possible to never fall into sin). By the Church and by reality, people are flawed and vulnerable to temptation. Not having sex is hard--that's why marriage is sanctioned in the first place, as an acceptable outlet for those urges. (1 Corinthians 7: 1 Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. 2 Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.)
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199