If you think anything said in this thread constitutes persecution, then you need to get a dictionary and a history book.  People saying mean things about religion is not persecution -_-;;

You refer to "no tax" making it easier for the poor to buy things. That is *somewhat* true. Specifically, sales tax has that effect. That's why we call sales taxes "regressive" - they hit the poor hardest. Most countries, including the US and Britain, have "progressive" income taxes, however - these are taxes that are designed to impact the rich most. And notably, in most countries, the poor pay *no* income tax (note that "payroll tax" is a different issue).

You also greatly overestimate how big an impact "no taxes" would have on the poor's ability to buy things. Even if there were no taxes, those living on $1.25 per day wouldn't be able to live a comfortable life on that amount. Maybe, maybe they'd be able to get 50% more total food (depending on location and associated taxes). And even if it made them able to afford nearly properly feeding themselves, it wouldn't address the fact that they're stuck in poverty. To do that, you need programs that help get people out of poverty, including education, health, etc. And for those, you need government (because there's no money to be had in educating the poor).

Regarding your claim about GDP/satisfaction and government spending, I think the problem is that you're confusing good spending with high spending as a concept. That is, you're assuming that a government that is spending more is doing so in an effort to do a better job. No, it's often the opposite. It's the ones that don't know what they're doing that spend the most. See America's spending as a prime example. America spends far more per capita on health than Australia does, despite having a private system, and gets worse outcomes, particularly for the poor. All Australians are covered by "health insurance" in Australia, whereas even with the patches Obama has managed to get put onto the American system, there are still many uninsured people over there. Australia's system could be called a "public-private system" - we have a public health system, supplemented by a private health system. It works pretty well.

You mention that you don't know anything about game theory. Seriously, learn about it. You don't need to learn the details, just the most well-known results from it. Prisoner's Dilemma is a famous game theory example that demonstrates that "rational behaviour" of individuals does not equal rational outcomes, if the individuals aren't permitted to collaborate and organise.

Actually, you can basically compare America to other developed nations to see why it's not *less* government that you need, but *better* government. In America, the police force is practically privatised. In Australia, Britain, etc, it's a public force. I was told a story recently by a friend, where they had travelled, when they were younger, to America, and a group of them had gotten drunk and had been told about a bar, or something like that, that they *had* to visit while they were there. So they decided to walk there, and when they weren't sure where to go, they saw a cop sitting in his car, and went to approach him, hoping to get directions. In Australia, the cop would happily help them out, and make sure they were safe. In America, the cop instead reached for his gun and warned them to back away from his car.

And taxes are necessary for good government. Not only that, but they're how society has grown so rapidly.

To make my point, consider science. You're probably connected to the internet via Wifi right now, right? Do you know how Wifi was invented? Australian tax money. It was invented by CSIRO, Australia's public scientific research organisation. Private corporations often can't risk research into things that might not be profitable.

Indeed, that's the general point I've been making - private companies are required to work to increase profits. If that means worse results for people, then so be it. The "free market" exploits people. The "free market" results in slave labour. It results in acid rain. It results in deforestation, climate change, and many other things. What is essential for a smooth-running society is a properly-regulated market. And to be clear, "properly-regulated" doesn't mean "heavily-regulated", it means that it has the right regulations to provide protections, and no unnecessarily burdensome regulations.

Let me give you examples - patents are a classic one. While the system as it stands for America is seriously faulty, the concept is a good one. Without a patent system, one company can spend large amounts of money, and spend a lot of time and effort, to develop something, only for another company to just copy their successful result, without having incurred the costs of development. The result is that innovation is discouraged. That's why the patent system exists - to encourage innovation. The private system would happily throw their waste into a river so long as it didn't impact them. Indeed, it happens all of the time even with regulation (but with regulation, they can be charged, or even jailed, for it).

You make mention of examples of ways that companies can make money without charging the consumer... and use the internet as evidence. Here's the thing - things that work on the internet don't work in real life. You mention that you don't pay a fee to walk into a shopping mall... it's true, but irrelevant. The mall makes its money off its customers - the stores. The stores makes their money off you. The stores benefit from having an organisation managing them, doing collective advertising of the location, etc. They are, in effect, little governments.

Of course, I know how you'll respond to that - the stores choose to be part of the mall. And you're right, they do. But what happens if every possible part of the world already consists of malls - could a store open in a mall and refuse to pay the mall? Of course not. It would just become part of the cost of participating in the mall-society. Just as, if you want to participate in society, you should be paying taxes. If you want, you could always farm the land, live off what you grow, and not participate in society in any way. You wouldn't end up paying any taxes, since there would be no income and no purchases.

To bring it to those three other points... roads only going "as far as they need to" is precisely the point - people living in poor communities would not get roads, because it wouldn't benefit any company to build those roads. Public transport wouldn't exist in its modern sense - it would be private transport all the way - there doesn't need to be "factual evidence" when you have logic and reason, and the claim of existence is the one that requires evidence - can you prove to me that public transport would be viable? As for safe public drinking water - the point is that government provides the water-cleaning facilities, the pipes to transport the water, and in most cases, also the water source. Without government regular clean water would cost about the same as bottled water.

Indeed.

Disagree. They need to be de-regulating, not regulating further.

Regulation is why ma and pa shops can't compete with Wal-mart, and why business is going overseas.

I don't think you understand what an opinion is.

There is a stark difference between something unprovable and an opinion. For instance, the big bang theory is unprovable to a degree due to fact that its impossible to observe anything before mass expansion.

Uncertainity Principle is a scientific principle that states that it is impossible to know both a particles position and velocity simultatneously, because the act of observing influences it. A proven scientific fact of unknownable information, is that information an opinion? No.

In the most simplistic view point belief or faith in religion can boil down to opinion, but even then your argument fails because speech and or opinion is a result of opinion or what a person believes.

What your arguing for is the expression of Religion to be illegal, why?

Because you're intollerant of it. 

Why are anti-religious belief systems fine, but not religious belief systems? How that any different from homophobia, or racism, or sexism, etc...

Why hate something just because you don't believe in it?

I fear you have missunderstood my post. Just because there would be no law specifically protecting freedom of religion doesn't mean there would be no freedom of religion. Anyone would be just as free to practice their religion as they see fit as they do now, as long as it doesn't violate any law. Just like two men can walk down hand in hand across the street, or dress up as a woman, or people who want to play ''violent'' videogames can do that because they choose to do so.

However what would dissappear are the privelliges of religious institutions and the some times larger amount of rights people can claim based on their beliefs. In the UK there where men who suit the government because they had multiple wifes and based on Sharia law all those wifes should get social benefits regardless if they share one household. Because of freedom of religion, they won. Anyone who doesn't share those beliefs, can't claim that right. Here the government tried to ban religious slaughter of animals because it was against the law, for many years this motion was dismissed because it might limit freedom of religion.

That's what i meant with religion losing it's special status in society. It would would be equal to everything else and people are free to practise those beliefs, but they wouldn't be able to claim any additional right based on those beliefs.