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[lordcooper]

Graknorke must be right.  How else would s/he have a picture?

But it's a dictionary argument. I should clearly use links to the OED, not a picture. I apologise.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/agnostic?q=agnostic
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/atheist?q=atheist

"I don't know" is as different to "No" as it is to "Yes".

[Graknorke]

"I don't know" is as different to "No" as it is to "Yes".

Correct you are. I don't see how that's relevant to what I posted though.

[shadenight123]

A government is nothing more than an ensemble of laws.
We give 'faces' and 'people' to it, but in the end the people are there only to put up more laws to form the Government.
BY itself, a Government DOES NOT NEED PEOPLE!
The laws set, any nation can survive with those.
The 'people' are needed to put laws in effect to solve problems created by circumstance and diplomacy.

A government should be by itself devoid of any religious inclination.
Hence it should tax all religious places.
It should remove all laws favoring religions and funding to religious institutions should be nil and void.
If anything, religion is a luxury and a plus. It does not give anything, it does not produce anything, hence it's a pastime for those who have the time.
Tax religion.
Solve money problems of the state.

[10ebbor10]

Truly, you seem to think that there's much money to be made there. (In fact, there isn't, but you can probably guess that.) Italy might be the only difference, with Vatican city and such being there.

On a side note, the idea of subsidizing various religious instances is that it's something cultural, and that while it doesn't do anything meaningful, neither does theater, Opera and most other forms of entertainment. Additionally, a majority of what profits they make (usually none) goes to associated charities.

[Leafsnail]

Hard to have one of those without a constitution.

The UK's laws and parliamentary norms are regarded as the constitution, even if they aren't explicitly written down.

[Owlbread]

Though I am making my way through Sheb's excellent article, I think I should drop in here for a minute and concur with Leafsnail, though I do consider the UK's laws and parliamentary norms to be an abomination. I should also say that as far as I know Hector13 there is no law prohibiting the PM from being Catholic, it was just Tony Blair's personal choice.

[Max White]

It seems to be a hallmark of the westminster system that a lot of the rules are more about traditions developed to keep everything running on track than actual hard written laws. The entire system shouldn't exactly work in the way it does, but it does to some degree work.

[scriver]

Today the Swedish government voted through another law that compromises our democratic tradition to accommodate other European countries that want to keep official state(-organ) information from their populace. Huzzah, Progress.

[Helgoland]

Graknorke must be right.  How else would s/he have a picture?

But it's a dictionary argument. I should clearly use links to the OED, not a picture. I apologise.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/agnostic?q=agnostic
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/atheist?q=atheist

Huh, the way I learned it was agnostic as both your agnostics and atheist as your gnostic atheist, which is kinda more useful in general discussion - you only rarely need to differentiate between your two types of agnostics, and 'gnostic atheist' just sounds... weird.

Truly, you seem to think that there's much money to be made there.

Another point is that large parts of the current payments stem from agreements between the Vatican and the states, being restitutions for the disownments during Napoleonic times - you can't just stop paying these.

[Frumple]

... why not?

[Helgoland]

'Cause law. You don't break law.

Or law breaks you.

[Lagslayer]

'Cause law. You don't break law.

Or law breaks you.

Can't just ignore the law on a whim. Down that path lies only madness.

But you can change the law.

[Frumple]

Honestly, it was more the "during Napoleonic times" thing more than anything. S'like... look, whoever these people are. It's been a couple hundred years, now. Whatever you were paying them for... I think you're done, alright? You'd be fine stopping. Whoever was involved back then is dead a couple times over, and "unto the second and third generation" type stuff only counts as acceptable action when you're an abrahamic god (which, given that the vatican is apparently involved...). There's no one left to give restitution to. They're all mostly (at best) decomposed. So. Why the blazes are you still doing this?

[LordSlowpoke]

Honestly, it was more the "during Napoleonic times" thing more than anything. S'like... look, whoever these people are. It's been a couple hundred years, now. Whatever you were paying them for... I think you're done, alright? You'd be fine stopping. Whoever was involved back then is dead a couple times over, and "unto the second and third generation" type stuff only counts as acceptable action when you're an abrahamic god (which, given that the vatican is apparently involved...). There's no one left to give restitution to. They're all mostly (at best) decomposed. So. Why the blazes are you still doing this?

Except you know, this is not about the Napoleonic wars. Seriously, the treaty governing said reparations was signed in the 1920s, and the territories of the Papal States were annexed half a century earlier.

[Frumple]

Hrm. Yeah, reading over that, it looks like the payment bit (which did apparently originate in the late 1800s) doesn't even exist anymore. Appears to have been replaced by a general fund available to multiple religious groups in Italy. Odd. Helgo, were you talking about something else?

... point of most everyone they were (conceptually anyway, since they appear to not be doing so anymore?) paying restitution to being dead still stands, though. Just not... as dead. M'of the general opinion that if you try to stick someone with a bill their great grand pappy racked up, you deserve to be told to bugger off, and maybe kicked a few times for good measure. Same for... most everything of that nature, really. If the folks you had issue with are dead, it's time to perform a cranial-rectal removal procedure and move on with life.