Submitted 3 weeks ago by gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
For all their “christianity”, republicans in the US are pretty hypocritical.
Jesus actually teached that everybody deserves to get fed and housed. That everybody deserves healthcare. That people should care for other people in their community. That is essentially the core principles of socialism.
And Jesus did reach down to the leper, but the leper was not cured, because his monthly deductables did not cover it.
“Get a job, hippy”, proclaimed Peter.
More than that, giving food and drink to the hungry and thirsty, welcoming a stranger, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, and giving comfort to the imprisoned, is literally the same as doing those things for Jesus Christ, himself, from his perspective. And, moreover, those who do those things will earn their place in heaven, and those who fail to do those things will be eternally damned to hell. It’s not subtextual. It’s not ambiguous and up for interpretation. It says very clearly that Jesus separated those who are going to heaven and hell to either side and the distinction between the groups was how they treated “the least” of his brothers and sisters. Matthew 25:31-46.
So, bad news Christian Republicans. Might want to correct yourself now before it’s too late.
They aren’t. In fact, many of the MAGA Republicans have been pushing their pastors to stop being so “woke” and to teach “real” Christian values, i.e. oppressing people.
The sad thing is that these pastors are giving up their values and acquiescing.
It’s also just invented stories, and the maga crowd knows that, they are not like in fear of damnation or anything.
All of that is charity from latin caritas.
From my purely anecdotal experience, the people who actually want to follow Jesus’s teachings don’t go to church. Says a lot.
go to church
And how many have read at least one testament? Reading is not rare anymore
Didn’t go into so much detail woth most people of faith I’ve met, but I know for a fact mum read both the Old and New Testaments and decided she doesn’t want to have anything to do with the Church’s interpretations, because they focused on essentially anything other than empathy and being human.
You’d be surprised. I read the Bible cover to cover in high school (one of the reasons I no longer have faith), and it amazed me how many people in my life that were also Christian that were entirely unfamiliar with entire books or lessons…
You are absolutely right. It isn’t complicated. A fundamental principle from the teachings of Jesus is that everyone should share their “wealth” (i.e. food, housing, medical care, etc.) with those in need. No one should ever be hungry, homeless, or sick without treatment. It follows naturally from the idea of loving everyone, without exception.
I’m not going to argue the questions about whether Jesus was divine or even existed. I am simply talking about the philosophy that is presented as his by the Gospels. That is the core of Christianity, but it is ignored by a majority of those who call themselves Christians. The fact that it is difficult and calls for personal sacrifices is not an excuse. He never said that it would be easy.
I accept that Christian principles can be viewed as aspirational goals and not an absolute code of conduct, but that is not what we see in the would-be Christians. They have no interest in working toward those goals.
Roman historians wrote about Jesus (Tacitus), also the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. We can argue about his divinity (I am a believer) but I don’t think we can argue about his existence.
I also think the evidence that Jesus existed is compelling, but my point is that it doesn’t matter when you’re talking about the philosophy that is credited to him. Reading the Gospels makes it quite clear that a disturbingly large part of modern Christianity is in opposition to everything he stood for.
Matthew 25:35-40
35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
It’s also worth noting that parable of the sheep and the goats was a judgement of nations.
Ephesians 6:5-9
5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. 6 Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. 7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, 8 because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.
9 And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.
what I’m amazed by is that those who would benefit most from socialism are the ones who call it “handouts” and vote against it
Ironically, western culture today suffers from one of the same falsehoods that Jesus himself preached against: the idea that poverty is a moral failing. They believe that the rich are wealthy because they’ve “earned it” in some way, and therefore must be morally superior for their work ethic. Conveniently, this also allows the wealthy to keep a clean conscience–if everyone was as “good” as they are, they could all be enjoying this life too.
So with this mindset, all “good” people who are poor are just temporarily embarrassed millionaires–they identify with the rich, who actively abuse and suppress them, because they believe themselves to be part of the same “moral party.”
The Prosperity Gospel folks go a step further and equate wealth and health with the will of god. That being well-off is the direct result of being in god’s good graces. It side-steps observations of financial inequality in the face of moral equality, by hand-waving exceptional wealth as deserved by truly rare and exceptional people. And that conveniently plays off of confusing causation for correlation, so we arrive at “money = godly.”
For the record: I hate that this has a name and it’s a real thing.
yhea, because making a society liveable and comfortable for everyone would also include “them”, you don’t want them to be ok.
so better suffer under a system that lets you make “their” world even worse
The Christian ways. Exactly what Christ taught.
The early church was actually kinda communist, having all things in common.
And democratic, one man one vote.
But the man was the priest (or later the pope) and there was only one vote/voice at all.
/s joke
From a theological point of view, Jesus was indeed a socialist. However, he wasn’t a socialist in a Marxist sense, he was a different kind of socialist. Christian socialism was actually has a very interesting history that goes back quite back in time.
Exactly. There is a rich tradition of Christian socialism and Christian communism. Even the communist group that Marx and Engels joined up with practiced christian communism and utopian socialism before moving away to a more secular and materialist version. The Communist Manifesto marks this turning point well.
Of course, M&E argue that Christianity is a tool used to blunt the edge of revolutionary socialism and keep it back in line where it can’t do any harm. Like the other forms of socialism (including that dreaded one) that are explicitly designed to recuperate the more radical ideas to a place where they can be more comfortably controlled by the ruling class.
Jesus was middle eastern. Don’t need to look further than that to find the hypocrisy.
Socrates, Plato and Diogenes where all opposed to the greek state while being great minds of their time. A culture does not define everyone’s humane aspects of thinking, just most.
Pretty unlikely he was real. www.atheists.org/activism/…/did-jesus-exist/
Why would you use atheists.org as a source for this? They clearly aren’t historians and would have a biased take.
The current consensus is there had to be a guy likely named Yeshua who lived in or around Galilee who was looking to reform Judaism. Reformers of Judaism were incredibly common after Rome conquered Israel. In fact the rabbinical Jewish movement, which is what “modern Judaism” is part of, was started by the Pharisees who are mentioned throughout the New Testament in negative terms (believed to be because they competed with Yeshua’s followers).
The guy you think of as Jesus never existed but the consensus seems to be that it would be difficult for multiple groups all sharing the same views to pop up around the mediterranean if Yeshua never existed. That doesn’t mean Christianity is the correct interpretation of those views only that a guy named Yeshua had a bunch of followers
The fact is we don’t have any reason to think he never existed. We have reason to doubt claims that are religious in nature but it is unlikely that the entire faith was fabricated by Paul/Saul.
I agree, but that’s not very relevant to the comment you’re replying to.
LOL at your downvotes. I went to Catholic school and was taught BY PRIESTS AND NUNS that Jesus probably wasn’t one person but a composite of numerous roving preachers (a fad at the time). Oh, and early Christianity probably started as a mushroom cult. If the Catholics (Catholics!) could learn to apply reason to religion anyone can.
No no no. I see where you went wrong, you were thinking about Jesus from the bible, people dont really believe in him anymore. The Jesus followed today is Supply-Side Jesus, I know it gets confusing since they are both named Jesus. Image
The early Church is recorded as living that way:
44And all that believed were together, and had all things common; 45And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. 46¶And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart ( Acts 2:44-46 KJV).
However, tearing a political philosophy away from its associated worldview leads to trouble.
This is one of the things I find strange about the political parties in the U.S. the Republican party, which seems to claim the majority of members who claim to be Christians, largely espouse a capitalist economic system. Capitalism is much more congruent with an Darwinist world view than a Christian one.
Meanwhile, the Democrat party, at least the more progressive wing, espouse more of a socialist system but seemingly oppose Christianity and claim a world view more congruent with a capitalist system.
Yeah that’s interesting. Though I do think the Bible is big enough and vague enough for either tribe to exploit. I’m convinced the Left could have sided with Jesus’s ways of life and been the Christian nation, while the right rejected it.
seemingly oppose Christianity
Christianity doesn’t even believe in Christianity. Behind the scenes in Churches, it’s bitter old people, angry at each other, shaking down patrons for cash, and selling peace to grieving people. Most Democrats want universal healthcare. They want, but are afraid of UBI, and would like it if they could keep their current advantage in the playing field, not becoming poorer while spreading change.
Wait until the suckers learn that he doesn’t want people to eat animals in the apocryphal writings. But that’s just how Christianity works… Take what fits the bill (Emperor Constantine, Jerome of Stridon, anyone?).
Um, He fed people fish. Apocryphal writings are not in the cannon for a reason.
Also, don’t forget the story where he told his disciples to go fish again, and they returned with a boat so gull of fish that it almost sank.
It’s safe to say that Jesus was not opposed to eating at least fish.
As I said… Cherry picking. Somebody chose those writings for a purpose.
Jesus literally REFUSED to be dragged into ideological politics of his time (John 6:10-15)
He even defied those who tried to put him to test and force a political statement come from him against the current political leader, the Caesar, by trying to have him a forced position on taxes (Mark 12:13-17)
All this makes sense, as he himself said about himself and his followers that they are not part of this world (John 15:19)
He LITERALLY made his teaching revolve around god’s kingdom, not any human ideology (Matthew 6:9, 10)
I mean FUCK, even Satan himself offered him to be the ruler of the whole FUCKING world and he rejected it flat out (John 14:30)
He did care about people, and alleviated the physical suffering of many, but he made clear his and his followers priority should be preaching and teaching God’s word (Mark 1:32-38)
And why wouldn’t he, after all, part of his teachings are that all the world governments and ideologies are to be destroyed. (Revelation 16:14) Every. Single. one.
Yes, including socialism.
So anyone using his teachings to attack whoever and linking him to your ideology, calling him a representative of brand “X” collectivism, should get down from any high horse they think they are, it’s not doing you or them any favor and they clearly don’t know what they are talking about.
Case in point, people talking in here about a hell existing in the bible when there is none. That’s basically all it takes
I think the main point here is not to actually claim that Jesus inspired Marx or something like that, but to counter all the fascists and turbocapitalists using Jesus’s name to justify the horrific things they are doing.
Pretty hard to argue against Jesus not influencing literally everyone in the European continent.
It sounds like you’re using “pay your taxes” to argue that it’s ok by Jesus if you vote for the Republican party, which I think is messed up because he said so much about caring for others.
But did Jesus proscribe government welfare programs? It seems to be that the basis for “Jesus was a socialist”, is based on his teachings on charity. But this can be done by personal charity, and infact those are the examples he gave. Nowhere in the Bible does it say “you should vote for needs-based welfare programs”.
100%. I’ve been reading about early christianity for the last 20 months and a major characteristic was shared meals. They were absolutely following a socialist model. But we do capitalism. Woohoo.
But we do capitalism. Woohoo.
yeah, but who will all that wealth go to if not the billionaires?
I wish there were more Christianity comms (I’ve got some Bible shitposts too) but pretty much all of them get brigaded / downvoted by people who don’t even follow the subs and by all appearances don’t know what a block button is.
No, because socialism is when bad thing! /s obviously
Lot of people during history fought for socialism but they always ignore that part somehow.
Yea, but The Church (or, since you’re specifically talking about Gringoland, rather, churchES) are capitalist enterprises - hence you can’t expect them to criticise capitalism (even less, capitalists).
I can and I do. If they go so heavily against the teachings of the person they’re named after, they’re nothing but the worst kinds of hypocrite.
I’m no longer a Christian but when people tried to get jesus to weigh in on hot button political issues of his day (probably to entrap him into saying something that would piss off either the zealots or the romans) he told them “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s; render unto god what is God’s”. The meaning, I take it, is that he was there with a spiritual message, not a political one
I think part of that sentiment is also I’m not a threat to the government please don’t kill me
He was not scared in any way whatsoever about any earth government, so that meek “pwease don’t kill me” bit is totally an unnecessary lie.
Case in point, when they came to arrest him, he actively encouraged his disciples to NOT fight, reminding them that any army from earth sent against him was a rounding number against the whole disproportionate force he and his father by extension had available (Matthew 26:47, 52, 53)
For reference and perspective, that’s like 100 dudes sent to arrest him vs an army of 72k Angels, which is mentioned before that only one angel was able to obliterate an army of 185k dudes in one night , so at his command he had an army which could have easily wiped twice the current world population in one night
So he wasn’t scared at all during his stay on earth, at least not of a measley mob force
Christianity is incredibly easy to fake. Anyone can call themselves a Christian with little, if any, blowback. It’s the whole ‘sinner saved by grace’ schtick - which is, essentially, “Yup, I’m a Christian but I don’t really have to act like one.”
People care about helping people.
Its had a billion different names throughout history and each of them has been or will be subverted into something bad by people who seek control.
Do we really know what the real Jesus was like, what his teachings were, and that they are not just fairy tales created by someone? I don't think there is/was much socialistic in his teachings.
No sense imagining a hypothetical Jesus, but if you go by what the bible says, Jesus said “it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom is heaven.” He said sell all of your possessions and then follow me. The bible talks about how people in the church shared what they had in common. If someone had a need someone would sell their property and distribute it to those who needed it.
Of course they also thought Jesus was going to return soon, within their lifetimes, and bring a perfect world. Not wait over 2,000 years
The best records we have of Jesus’ teachings are the gospel books that are typically referenced. And there are enough references to Jesus of Nazareth in other texts to suggest this is what he was like and taught.
Jesus’ teachings on government and social structures are nuanced and difficult to apply to our human structures, because he proposed a government ruled by a perfectly good, benevolent monarch (which, in theory, is a great system if you can guarantee the monarch is really perfectly good). He preached a lot about “the kingdom of God” and contrasted it to how we do things on earth. So the point was never to provide a blueprint of how we should do government, but that there was something above all earthly governments that superceded it all.
Unfortunately, people have used those teachings in very bad ways (the same reasoning that the religious leaders used to kill Jesus). All of that to say–there are a lot of congregations that have more in common with the Pharisees than the early church.
Jesus also teached to devote live to a fictional character and to respect judaism traditions. And in the apostols carts there’s homophobic rants.
That’s not socialist in my book.
And in the apostols carts there’s homophobic rants.
Saulus/Paulus. Yeah it all went downhill pretty quickly.
It is not really socialism, but read literally, it is definitely closer to socialism than whatever basically all of the existing Christian denominations got out of it (with a few notable but not very popular exceptions).
The New Testament has been around for a couple of thousand years. The concept of socialism has only been around for less than 200.
I wonder, if religion survives for another thousand years, what will people then say Jesus taught regarding various other isms that have yet to be constructed.
No. Socialism is a form of government that relies on forced redistribution, which is not something Jesus ever advocated for or practiced. He DID encourage people to share their wealth and take care of the poor, yes, but he never took anything by force in order to give it to them, and he never told people to do so either.
Wha wha WHAAAAAAAAT??!
NOOOOOOOOOO!!!
BroBot9000@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Religion isn’t about actually helping people. It’s used to control the masses with shame, guilt and the threat of eternal damnation. It’s used to abuse and fleece the weak and the poor.
People holding onto “that’s not what Jesus would do” are just in denial about the cult they participate in.
Jesus is just a tool used to dupe rubes. If you need a fictional character to tell you to act like a decent human being then you’re not a good person.
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Harsh but true.
But a little besides the point OP is trying to make - as far as we can deduce what Jesus actually did and said of course.
graycube@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Which is why he had to be made an example of and executed. It took a few hundred years for his brand to be perverted into funding a gilded palace in Rome.
INeedMana@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
IMO it made sense in the times when enforcing the law was harder to do. But a lot of time has passed since then, religions (as in whole communities, priests and followers) somehow made it their point to not change much
Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
“Enforcing the law” a.k.a. “opressing people”
Green_Mouse@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
There are a lot of different religions and beliefs in the world, right? Christianity and similar religions are not the only ones that exist, and many religions originated from ancient human primitive tribes.
BroBot9000@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yes and we don’t practice any of those anymore because we know we don’t have to sacrifice people to make sure the sun rises. These primitive ceremonies and practices go away with education and science.
What’s left are grifters, pedos and people abusing those that are desperate and superstitious.
alcibiades@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
You can’t call every christian a rube and then make such a simplistic accusation about organized religion. Yes there are (major) flaws with organized religion, but surely you realize your statement is at best hyperbole and at worst moronic
BroBot9000@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
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Arkouda@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
What happens when you need a real person to tell you to act like a “decent human being” like every human in existence today? Are we all by nature “evil” because we require third parties to dictate what “good” is?
moriquende@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Nobody needs third parties to dictate what good is, it’s embedded in our genes.
starman@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
And that’s what a lot of people get wrong about christianity. Jesus literally said “everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die”
BroBot9000@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
And what happens with those that don’t? Those that doubt for even a second? Burn in hell for all eternity!
Believe in us or you are forever doomed.
It’s an ultimatum designed to terrify and control people.