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Christian Evangelism isn't a Political Party

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  • #16
    Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
    Jesus' message was distinctly apolitical.
    Jesus's message is a direct challenge to many types of governments. Progressivism and Christianity cannot coexist, for example. Neither can Christianity coexist with any other atheist totalitarian regime.
    "As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths." Isaiah 3:12

    There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.

    Comment


    • #17
      Originally posted by Starlight View Post
      There's a lot of anti-rich pro-poor themes in Jesus' message. He seems to be to the left of Marx in the sense that he doesn't merely think the rich are terrible, he literally thinks they are going to hell.
      Yes, Jesus had a dim view of the rich. I'm not sure how that makes him "to the left of Marx" given that rhetoric against the rich on the far right is equally acidic. Jesus is far more like the religious factions of the alt right than the usually explicitly atheist antifas or commies.

      I think it's very difficult to judge Jesus' political views on moral issues. He hung out with prostitutes, and social outcasts. Yes there are verses that imply that they and others should change their lives, but those are not strongly emphasized.
      Jesus explicitly says He hung out with sinners because they need help. It's as much an explicit condemnation of their behavior as you can get.

      It's hard to say, I think, how Jesus would rule today on 'moral issues' if you teleported him into the present.
      It's not hard at all, He would oppose gay marriage and abortion for sure given that they were opposed by virtually all Jews at the time.

      Economic issues are easy. Jesus would be all for programs to help the poor, sick, needy, downtrodden etc. He'd be as lefty-left as they come.
      Jesus doesn't support a single government program in scripture, with the exception of paying your taxes to the militaristic, expansionist Roman Empire. Don't quote me on it but AFAIK the Romans were not big on welfare, social justice, women's rights, etc. He does however seem to be a huge fan of economic inequality, believing it is only natural that a business owner pay his workers whatever he wishes. Which modern political policy combines strong free market ideals with a muscular military and foreign interventions around the globe? Why the neo-cons of course and if we stick to the "easy" issues Jesus supports it's far easier to come up with a Neocon Jesus than a progressive one, for whom there isn't a shred of support, economic or otherwise.

      It's actually pretty amazing that even though Jesus condemns the outcast as sinners, Starlight can't quite figure out what Jesus's stance on moral issues would be, but he knows Jesus would support leftist government programs, despite not a single one of those existing or being brought up in his time at all.
      "As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths." Isaiah 3:12

      There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.

      Comment


      • #18
        Originally posted by Meh Gerbil View Post
        I don't want to have to explain why I voted against interests in which they are totally invested.
        And this is why your attitude fails. I guarantee not a single one of them is willing to return the favor. This is why I don't support anti-racist movements and the like. The people screaming at me to get behind various causes rarely even bother to hide the fact that they're pure power grabs that are intended to end with me as a second class citizen.
        "As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths." Isaiah 3:12

        There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.

        Comment


        • #19
          Originally posted by Starlight View Post
          I agree that Jesus only specified the goal (help the less fortunate) and not the method (precisely how it should be done).
          Not true, He told people to voluntarily give them their wealth.

          Edit: A brief search of the NT has Judas asking people to help the poor about as often as Jesus (IE: hardly ever), although Judas wasn't being honest. In both (yes, two) cases, Jesus is quite explicit about the method:

          "But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you."

          Obviously giving someone else's money is not being generous.

          "But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,"

          In this case He's not even asking you to put giving to the poor first. He's saying that IF you throw a banquet, you should invite the poor, and not for any altruistic reason, but rather that the poor can't throw a banquet and invite you to one like your rich friends can, so God will instead repay you on their behalf.

          There is a third instance repeated several times, where Jesus asks a particular man (not everybody) to sell all his possessions and give to the poor (again, not something that can even reasonably be interpreted as forced charity at the behest of the state), but that was just one person, and Jesus's point was that nobody can earn their way into heaven, making an example of the rich man who was unwilling to part with his wealth. It was not a social teaching but a spiritual one, and the wealth giving was just incidental to the actual message.
          Last edited by Darth Executor; 03-18-2017, 06:47 PM.
          "As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths." Isaiah 3:12

          There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by Starlight View Post
            There's a lot of anti-rich pro-poor themes in Jesus' message. He seems to be to the left of Marx in the sense that he doesn't merely think the rich are terrible, he literally thinks they are going to hell.
            No he doesn't. We've been over this. Jesus taught that those who chose their wealth over him would not receive eternal life. There is plenty of evidence throughout the Gospels, though, that show that Jesus not only thought highly of certain rich individuals, but that he often relied upon them to help his ministry and spread his message.

            Comment


            • #21
              Originally posted by Starlight View Post
              There's a lot of anti-rich pro-poor themes in Jesus' message.
              This is true unless of course you read what He actually said rather than what you want Him to have said.

              And as has been pointed out government programs are the polar opposite of what Jesus taught. You are responsible for what you do, don't try to push your responsibilities off onto some impersonal government program.
              Micah 6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by Meh Gerbil View Post
                As much as I detest the mixing of religion and politics I find myself in agreement with your analysis.
                The liberal antagonism for normalcy of any sort - the exaltation they offer for anything deviant and broken - puzzles me to no end.
                So yeah, if he only got 80% of the evangelical vote then he failed hard.
                I personally wrote in Mike Pence for president. I knew my state (New Jersey) was going for Hillary Rodham, so my vote was being wasted anyway. If it was going to be close, I would have bit the bullet and voted for Trump as the lesser of two very bad evils.

                I remember back in 1992. I voted for Jack Kemp because I read George Bush's lips.
                When I Survey....

                Comment


                • #23
                  Originally posted by Jedidiah View Post
                  This is true unless of course you read what He actually said rather than what you want Him to have said.
                  I read and studied what he actually said. I analyzed passages, I read commentaries, I made notes. I made pie charts of the different themes in Jesus' teaching. I wrote a book about his teachings. He taught about the poor, and rich, and money, a lot. By volume it is one of the two largest themes in his teachings as recorded in the gospels (the other being perseverance / faithfulness).

                  In total, the bible has approximately 300 passages about helping the poor. By contrast it has a scant few that to touch on homosexuality, and zero that are against abortion. But because the US evangelicals are bereft of both intelligence and actual biblical knowledge, which of those subjects do they obsess about?

                  And as has been pointed out government programs are the polar opposite of what Jesus taught.
                  That is totally not true, at all, in any way. It's really sad that you claim to be a "Christian" and yet don't even acknowledge some of the most basic and central teachings of Jesus. Sad! The "Christianity" of US evangelicals is so fake that it's amusing.
                  "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                  "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                  "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                    zero that are against abortion.
                    It has plenty against abortion, because abortion is just a subset of murder. It's only considered separate by liberals today, and modern ideologies really have no bearing on what people thought 2000 years ago. The modern pro choice position would be completely alien even to people who ritually sacrificed children.
                    "As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths." Isaiah 3:12

                    There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by Starlight View Post



                      Economic issues are easy. Jesus would be all for programs to help the poor, sick, needy, downtrodden etc. He'd be as lefty-left as they come.
                      I missed the verse were Jesus told us to seize others money and give it away so we can feel smug and self-righteous.

                      I'm always still in trouble again

                      "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                      "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                      "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        I suspect Jesus would be against regressive taxation schemes because the Old Testament prophets came down on excessive taxation of the poor. In practical terms, this means tax schemes that promote heavy reliance on sales taxes and excise taxes to allow for low income taxes.
                        "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Al Franken's Supply Side Jesus comic is a nice depiction of how US evangelicals' ideas of economics are completely backwards compared to the bible.
                          "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                          "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                          "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            You are quite right about the heavy focus of Jesus teaching on the topic of money. A pity you seem to have missed the point of it. His emphasis was on our responsibilities and the wickedness of self righteousness as exemplified by the Pharisees.
                            Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                            I read and studied what he actually said. I analyzed passages, I read commentaries, I made notes. I made pie charts of the different themes in Jesus' teaching. I wrote a book about his teachings. He taught about the poor, and rich, and money, a lot. By volume it is one of the two largest themes in his teachings as recorded in the gospels (the other being perseverance / faithfulness).

                            In total, the bible has approximately 300 passages about helping the poor. By contrast it has a scant few that to touch on homosexuality, and zero that are against abortion. But because the US evangelicals are bereft of both intelligence and actual biblical knowledge, which of those subjects do they obsess about?

                            That is totally not true, at all, in any way. It's really sad that you claim to be a "Christian" and yet don't even acknowledge some of the most basic and central teachings of Jesus. Sad! The "Christianity" of US evangelicals is so fake that it's amusing.
                            Micah 6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                              I read and studied what he actually said. I analyzed passages, I read commentaries, I made notes. I made pie charts of the different themes in Jesus' teaching. I wrote a book about his teachings. He taught about the poor, and rich, and money, a lot. By volume it is one of the two largest themes in his teachings as recorded in the gospels (the other being perseverance / faithfulness).
                              Hey Starlight, how many times does this have to be repeated? NO ONE on this forum is impressed with all the research you claim to have done, or the book that you wrote, or were going to write, or whatever. First of all, you show close to zero sign of having done any research, never mind the romanticized notion you keep trying to paint of yourself as some sort of super genius surrounded by heavy tomes, and compiling all of your graphs and pie charts. I mean, you're so far off on most topics that you might as well be discussing the Koran. And secondly, Most people on this forum have also spent hours and hours, decade upon decade studying the Bible, the early church writers, commentaries, peer reviewed papers, academic books, have degrees in related fields, etc. You are on a THEOLOGY forum. You're not impressing your fellow skeptics at whatever hole in the wall you visit other than here. You're talking to people who have far more experience in the subject than whatever poor ignorant sods you're usually bullying over on Facebook or wherever. So just knock off the theatrics. NO ONE is impressed.


                              As far as Jesus speaking more on money than any other theme, that doesn't sound accurate to me. I certainly wouldn't take your word on it. You'd have to cite a NT scholar on the subject. It's one of those things we see a lot of prosperity gospel type folks say, but from my reading, Jesus speaks far more about the Kingdom of Heaven than about finances or of perseverance, and he also talked a lot about Hell.

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Originally posted by Jedidiah View Post
                                This is true unless of course you read what He actually said rather than what you want Him to have said.

                                And as has been pointed out government programs are the polar opposite of what Jesus taught. You are responsible for what you do, don't try to push your responsibilities off onto some impersonal government program.
                                The thing is, the truly needy don't care where the money comes from. While we debate whether or not the government should provide for those who have true need, or whether only Christians out of Christ commanded charity should provide that need, the truly needy are hurting, and surely that isn't what Jesus desired either. As far as evangelism is concerned, people are typically going to be less responsive to the Gospel message when they're more concerned about whether their kids will eat, or if they have a roof over their heads. If the government can help Christians provide that need in order so that Christians can spend more time ministering to people spiritually, I'm all for it.

                                Comment

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