re: The US govt has lost the right to forcibly tax us.

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We elect these people. They work for us. It’s not some kingship where we are peasants. We’re literally hiring them for a job. If they aren’t doing their job we have no obligation to give them anything.

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Why don’t you tell that to the IRS?

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Income taxes are a Ponzi scheme. America would be better without them.

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Could be, and yet we are still obligated by the laws put in place by our representatives to pay taxes.

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I think he's saying that ALL of the American Colonial Governors were appointed by God. All of them remained steadfastly loyal to the Crown, so, Foo, from whence did those subordinate to the Governor get the God-given right to start shooting at their fellow countrymen, the British soldiers?

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All authorities are from God, both greater and lesser.

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Fact is, Great Britain's Rule over the American Colonies wasn't all that oppressive, compared to say Imperial Rome or Nazi Germany.

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True. There are always levels of oppression, and some are worse than others. The colonials believed they were being oppressed for several reasons. Whether or not those reasons were as bad as the oppression under Rome or Nazi Germany is debatable, though I agree that the external impact was far greater in Rome and Germany.

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By your analytical model, I still lean towards the conclusion that the American Revolutionaries are all burning in Hell, to include Patrick Henry, George Washington and W. T. Sherman ( I know Sherman was ACW but I throw him in there just because).

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I wouldn’t go that far, unless they rejected Christ as their savior. Christ’s satisfaction for sin covers a lot, including possibly being wrong about raising arms in the Revolution. I believe Washington may have been a deist rather than a Christian, so he may be in Hell, but I don’t know about Henry or Sherman.

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Patrick Henry was a member of the Colonial Virginia Congress. His Governor told him to remain loyal to his Country, Great Britain. He did not.

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Yes, and since Henry held office, he, himself was considered a lesser magistrate, though I don’t believe he grounded the rebellion in his own authority, though he may have. He also has local magistrates and the militia supporting the rebellion, and each of those would be considered lesser magistrates.

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Both Patrick Henry and the Gov were appointed by God, as you say. What you aresaying is that the Governor disobeyed God's Will and failed as Gov, so Patrick Henry was authorized by God to wage armed revolution against the Va. Gov. I think that's what you're saying.

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Yes. If the governor was supporting the tyranny of the King and Parliament, then Henry would have viewed other lesser magistrates as having official authority to rebel.

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I think he's saying that ALL of the American Colonial Governors were appointed by God.

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I understand the claim.

Yet that claim serves as declaration of faith rather than a legal argument substantiating the legitimacy of government.

To engage meaningfully in this discussion, we need to distinguish between a spiritual belief in divine authority and the practical implications of governance, which require scrutiny based on real world moral and ethical considerations.

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Fact is, Great Britain's Rule over the American Colonies wasn't all that oppressive, compared to say Imperial Rome or Nazi Germany. By your analytical model, I still lean towards the conclusion that the American Revolutionaries are all burning in Hell, to include Patrick Henry, George Washington

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I’ll let you and Foo debate the eternal reward of Patrick Henry and George Washington.

Speculating on the eternal judgment of historical figures shifts the conversation into a realm that is both subjective and unprovable.

Rather than focus on speculative musings on the spiritual fates of the American Revolution’s leaders, my focus here is on the moral and legal legitimacy of the governing authorities.

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Rather than focus on speculative musings on the spiritual fates of the American Revolution’s leaders, my focus here is on the moral and legal legitimacy of the governing authorities.

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Your focus is correct.

This analysis is similar to the "Just War" analysis. The Just War analysis has just now taken center stage with the US activities in Venezuela. That's a topic for a separate thread.

Getting back to the focus on the issue of this thread - it's still a tough question and IMHO neither Foo's Theology nor the Roman Catholic Catechism have a great solution for the problem IMHO.

It remains that there is an academic argument to be made that under these rules that we have cited, the American Revolution was immoral and contrary to God's Laws and Will. Just my opinion of course.

Getting back to the OP statement - the US Govt may have lost the moral right to tax the citizens, since it permits such massive fraud to go on for decades, but, nobody wants to fight the Govt over it. My own opinion is that, until the USA solves that fraud problem, it has no moral right to tax the citizens.

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Rather than focus on speculative musings on the spiritual fates of the American Revolution’s leaders, my focus here is on the moral and legal legitimacy of the governing authorities.

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Moral legitimacy must be based on an objective moral standard or else the conversation is meaningless from the start.

How do you make sense of morality at all if it is completely subjective, based on the experiences and opinions of individuals? If morality is subjective, then the moral legitimacy of governments may be different from person to person, who may judge the requirements for legitimacy differently.

As I said, I’m speaking from the position of Christian morality, grounded in the standard of God’s unchanging Word, which is my standard for all moral reasoning. If you abide by a different moral standard (whatever seems right in your own eyes based on your own opinions of what morality is), then what is morally legitimate is going to look different to you.

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No organized religions pay taxes to begin with.

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The ability to tax is the ability to destroy. Religious organizations are rightly categorized as not for profit organizations, because the intent is not to make profits for owners or shareholders. The employees (like the pastor) still have to pay income taxes on whatever their salaries are. To tax churches would provide a mechanism to shut them down, as most churches are small and can barely afford to pay a pastor, much less an arbitrary tax on its existence.

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Amazing that "God" is all powerful, all wise, but he isn't good with money and he always needs it.

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God doesn’t need anything at all; He is wholly independent and self-sustaining.

The money is for paying a full-time pastor, the upkeep and maintenance of the property where Christians meet, and for ministry needs to help the needy and share the good news of Jesus Christ.

You are a sinner who has repeatedly broken God’s law and are therefore guilty before God. If you were to die right now without repenting of those sins and putting your trust in the perfect obedience and death on the cross of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, for the forgiveness of your sins, then you will be condemned to an eternity of God’s wrath against your sins.

The good news is that there is hope for you even today. If you turn away from your sinful rebellion against your creator and put your trust in Jesus to forgive you and save you from the penalty your sins deserve, you will be forgiven, and will get to spend eternity in God’s gracious presence forever, where there is no pain, suffering, or sadness. Repent now, before it is too late.

Yes, we abide by the law unless illegal, immoral, or unethical. I think one or two may be in play here.

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But, there remains no easy answer to the question - When is armed violent overthrow of your own Government the right thing to do in God's Eyes?

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I agree that it isn’t easy, because it depends on many circumstances. Just War Theory, itself, has several qualifications for judging whether any armed conflict is just and good in the eyes of God, and it may be difficult to parse out each one of them accurately. A big part of it is the heart-motivation: are you seeking to glorify God and be obedient to Him in the conflict, or are you seeking merely to justify a sinful and selfish motivation of revenge or discomfort?

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And the example that I like most to examine is the American Revolutionary War simply because the British Crown was not all that vicious, oppressive and murderous.

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I agree that by comparison, they were not. There were several reasons given for the rebellion that centered around tyranny, so the question to answer is whether or not there was real or perceived tyranny, or if the reasons given were mere excuses for independence.

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The example that Jesus gives to us would indicate that maybe the American Colonies were on the wrong side of the rule.

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They could very well be. I’m not a scholar on the American Revolution, so I could be working on faulty information. As I said previously, I’m open to having my mind changed on this particular issue of the legitimacy of that particular revolution and rebellion.

I suppose all I want to say definitively is that I believe the Scriptures provide a path for moral war and rebellion. Whether the American Revolution qualifies as such, I’m not as sure about.

You actually believe that crap about God? If there was one, the world wouldn't be as fricked up as it is now. I left the Catholic religion about 35 years ago and never looked back. Its all ridiculous if you asked me. But, to each of your own.