Why Do People Steal?

I have declined to do so; I can't put my hand on my heart and say that I always would (I might behave differently if I was really strapped for cash).

If it is illegal it would likely be tax evasion.Tax evasion is no more moral than theft or fraud or assault or any other crime.

I can't agree with that as it is too broad.Perhaps 'scroupulously honest' is the wrong phrase but there can be no crime without a victim. If I deprive 33 million Canadians out of $13 worth of sales tax is there a real victim or just a theoretical victim? This is not the same as the Royal Bank of Canada legally avoiding taxes on $billions worth of economic activity. Illegality and immorality are not synonymous.

Sorry but that seems to be simply a cop out, a sophomoric attempt to say that "My crime is not a bad as it could have been".It is also just plain silly to say that any illegal act is comparable to a legal act.Yes, illegality and morality do not go hand in hand, but in your example one act is clearly illegal.

No, I am not saying that my crime could have been worse. I am saying that, although it is illegal, it is not a crime. And even though the accounting prowess of the Royal Bank of Canada is, most likely, perfectly legal, it may not be moral.

Biblical fundamentalist Christian creationists have a fear of God who's book says things like "whom he loves he chastens; vengeance is mine says Jehovah; do to others what you would have them to do to you; and Be sure, your sins will find you out."Evolutionists, who have little difficulty convincing themselves that a tiny chaotic hot speck they call the zero event, over enough time, emerged naturally into all of the observable orderly wonders of the Universe, may be more likely to convince themselves that there is no consequence for stealing.They observe in the observable world at hand, chaotic disorder does not tend toward order outside of a planner designer.Evolutionists wouldn't tend to factor in an operative god to reckon with in their naturalistic mind-set.

If it is illegal it is a crime.Yes, the behavior of the Bank of Canada may not be moral, but it is legal.

I disagree. I think that you have to hurt someone to have committed a crime and I think that if you have hurt someone then you have committed a crime regardless of the legality of your actions.

Amazing how you can make up your own definitions to justify behavior.

The trouble is that they also believe that God forgives them all their sins as a reward for believing that God forgives them all their sins as a reward for believing that God forgives them all their sins as a reward for ... wait, this sentence is becoming infinitely recursive.Which at least some of them seem to regard as a moral carte blanche.

"Steal a little and they throw you in jail
Steal a lot and they make you king"

Slavery was legal.The Holocaust was legal.

Yes, I realize that I am against the grain. Tell me though, when you hear the word crime do not imagine a victim?I have one rule and that is to treat others as I would be treated. If you have a tree and choose to cut it down and sell it to your neighbour I honestly do not feel that I have any right to any portion of the deal. If you are a bank earning billions off of the day to day economy of the nation I think that you owe something to the nation.You are absolutely right that if I do something illegal then I am labelled a criminal but it is not me who has usurped the definition.

Yes. And both were eventually change to be illegal, well the former is kinda illegal and something like the Holocaust is illegal if you lose.

When you don't pay taxes due there is a victim. It was also YOU that said we should assume that the act was illegal.It does not matter what you consider right or wrong, if it is illegal then it is a crime.It really is that simple.