TAXES - & Utopias

The Eastern Half of the Roman Empire, which was the most Christain,
Lasted a Thousand Years after the fall of the west before it
ultimately collapsed from its own internal rot. Part of which was
over taxation.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Lucio de Souza Coelho
wrote:
>
> On 11/24/05, terrierkeeper wrote:
> (...)
> > Still If we wish to keep this line of chat going, History speaks
for
> > itself. Societies that abandon their moral codes in exchange for a
> > zero, whether it be Epicurianism or Social Relativism, are
ultimately
> > pulled down by their own imoral flab. Whether it be barbarians
> > rushing in to exploit their weaknesses and eat them alive like the
> > Roman Empire or China or they simply fall apart from within and
are
> > gobbled up.
> (...)
>
> As far as I remember, Christian morality was the one on the rise
among
> Romans when the Empire started to crumble, and in fact there are
> classic historians like Gibbons that think Christian religion as
> ultimately one of the main causes of the fall of the Empire. And I
> hardly would call Christian moral "epicurean", though many aspects
of