God supports the flat tax

Seriously it is in the torah:

The LORD said to Moses, "When you take the census of the people of Israel, then each shall give a ransom for himself to the LORD when you number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them. Each who is numbered in the census shall give this: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary, half a shekel as an offering to the LORD. Every one who is numbered in the census, from twenty years old and upward shall give the LORD's offering. The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel, when you give the LORD's offering to make atonement for yourselves. And you shall take the atonement money from the people of Israel, and shall appoint it for the service of the tent of meeting; that it may bring the people of Israel to remembrance before the LORD, so as to make atonement for yourselves."

I bet the IRS wishes it could threaten to give the plague to people who don't pay their taxes.

I would have expected God to be more on the side of a progressive tax, although maybe that's just his hippie son.

So people often make fun of sports players who attribute their success to God (or Jesus) by saying there's no way God is worrying about who wins a sports game. But let's face it God can go on for pages about how to make the curtains for an altar. That seems like the obsessive, detailed oriented characteristics of someone with extensive knowledge of baseball stats. And since he hasn't done much writing recently he probably has some time on his hands. I bet God isn't just swaying who wins the super bowl, but is adjusting ERAs of minor league players.

From what I understand the rules of keeping kosher were very roughly given in the Torah and then heavily expanded upon in other texts. The rules of animal sacrifice were clearly detailed in the Torah. Some people follow the largely man made Kosher rules to the letter of the law. No one performs animal sacrifices anymore. Discuss.

Actually, talk about reasons why God would be making final four brackets - he wants a bunch of animals killed for him on fancy alters, now he has a bunch of people who get together for an hour a week and say the exact same thing every time. He must be bored out of his mind.

Ok - now for a more serious question. Did God give Moses the torah? If not, when is it that God gave people the Torah (assuming it wasn't written by people...)? If so, what do you think Moses did when he was writing everything God said and they got to the part about Moses not getting into Israel as a punishment? And wouldn't he have been prepared for that whole rock thing? And when they got to the part about him needing to write the whole thing a second time do you think he kept writing or just faked the rest since he knew he'd have to do it again? Ok, I tried to be serious. But really - I want to know, because it didn't seem very clear - did God give the Torah to Moses, or was it given later, or is the orthodox view that sections came from God, but the overall compilation and some of the stories were put together by people later?

And what's with the whole section on how to handle owning Hebrew slaves just after the story of leaving Egypt? I thought the whole point of that story was don't have slaves. If you want to be a pain at a passover seder, at some point slip in Exodus 21. My favorite part:

When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be punished for the slave is his money.