“...a Christian society would be what we now call Leftist.”- C.S. Lewis

I don't recall Jesus suggesting we should coerce our neighbors into helping the poor for us. We're sposed to do it ourselves.

That is free market. Not socialism.

What is being proposed here is the enforcement of religious morality by the state. Otherwise known as Theocracy.

 

It's interesting you should say that.
Daniel spoke of Rome as the nation that destroyed the temple, the Messiah and Jerusalem.
And Jacob spoke of a Jewish nation that would end with the Messiah - 1500 years earlier.
And Jesus warned his followers of the wrath to come upon the Jews and what would happen.
This saved their lives.
He also said that the Jews would return to Jerusalem in the end times when the Gentiles are
finished.
Most of the peoples of Jesus' time are gone. There are no more Edomites, Ammonites, Moabites,
Egyptians, Romans etc.. Most small nations vanish after about half a dozen generations. To think
the Jews, hated as they are, and driven out of over 120 counties, are still here. And amazing, in
our day, they came back to Israel, began speaking their ancient language, rebuilt their ruined
nation etc.. Just as the bible said. Tell me how ancient people made that up.

 

Where did you read this?
Certainly there was a Christian ministry. At the end of the New Testament there would have
been about 180 people going out in pairs all over the Roman empire. They moved from "house
to house" and held services in homes. The sacrifice was theirs - they gave up their homes, family,
marriage, careers - for the duration of their lives. And that's what Jesus did.

 

And what they called "Leftist" at the time would now pass as conservative.

 

If the ancient ethnocentric Middle Eastern Jewish religious fairy tale is true I will gladly jump into the lake of fire.

 

You are living through one of these tales right now - the return of the Jewish people
to their homeland "a second time."
This was strange to Jewish ears - they hadn't been exiled a 'first time.'

"In that day the LORD will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the surviving
remnant of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush,
from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the Mediterranean"

When would God call the Jews out of nations that were their "graves" ??? Jesus said
it would be when the "Gentiles time is fulfilled." I take that to mean when the Gentiles
treat the Messiah as the Jews once treated him.

 

I assume he's referring to this passage (source):

1Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, the hometown of Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead. 2So they hosted a dinner for Jesus there. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with Him. 3Then Mary took about a pint of expensive perfume, made of pure nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.4But one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was going to betray Him, asked, 5“Why wasn’t this perfume sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” 6Judas did not say this because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. As keeper of the money bag, he used to take from what was put into it.7“Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “She was intended to keep this perfume to prepare for the day of My burial. 8The poor you will always have with you,c but you will not always have Me.”​

 

That perfume was worth about $75,000 in today's value. It was carried from the
Himalayan region. However this says nothing about Jesus being a "sponger"
but it says an awful lot about people who gave to the one who gave His life for
them.

 

In a wrestling match between Jesus and Roy Cohn, Jesus will lose every time!

Like the objective existence of a god, the idolatrous free market god (that is currently begging for trillions of dollars from Uncle Sam) does not exist. Call me an atheist in that sense. One cannot have a capitalist "free market" without exploitation, greed, and violence on a mass scale--the opposite of what the Christian Pattern requires.

Hey, thanks for using the term "theocracy," from θεός (theos), meaning "god", and κρατέω (krateo), meaning "to rule," because I was confusing it with the term "theonomy," from theos (god) and nomos (law) which is a hypothetical Christian form of government in which society is ruled by divine law. I reject both forms of government. However, both of these terms are different from "theonomous ethics" proposed by Paul Tillich.

For Tillich, forced authoritarian religion is “heteronomy,”(another law) as believing in an absolute religion, and unbelieving secular culture is “autonomy” (self-rule) which can also be authoritarian. Tillich defines theonomous as the synthesis of heteronomous, and autonomous historical social-cultural forms. Tillich interprets these two antithetical cultural tendencies as oscillating between heterogeneous faith and autonomous unfaith that devolves into authoritarian law.

Tillich's definition of ethical theonomy is an idealistic autonomy that “is aware of its divine ground,” and “acknowledging the mystery of being, but not believing that this mystery is an authoritarian transcendent element which is imposed upon us and against us, which breaks our reason to pieces” (Tillich, What is Religion?, p. 74)(pdf). “What is Religion?” is the most complex book on religion I ever read.

 

If you believe that...

...there's no meaningful sense in which you are not an atheist.

 

Just remember Zephaniah 1:2-3. Maybe it will happen tomorrow morning.

 

What does that verse say? Can you copy it here so people won't have to go searching.

 

Why are you overlooking all of the passages where the Jesus character imposed himself on his rich buddies? He would tell them that he was moving in for a spell. He never asked.

 

Google it.

 

“Not he who rejects the gods of the crowd is impious, but he who embraces the crowd’s opinion of the gods.” (From Epicurcus’s letter (341–270 BC) to Menokeus on the tenth book of Diogenses Laertitus)​

There are a number of distinctions: theism, atheism, non-theism, pantheism, theistic dualism, and “panentheism.” Tillich understands all theism as anthropomorphic symbolism. I accept non-theistic "pan-en-theism."

The entire existence/non-existence debate about a theistic deity is missing the history of the "God" and "existence" debate (italic is in original text):

“The scholastics were right when they asserted that in God there is no difference between essence and existence. But they perverted their insight when in spite of this assertion they spoke of the existence of God and tried to argue if favor of it. Actually they did not mean “existence.” They meant the reality, the validity, the truth of the idea of God, an idea which did not carry the connotation of something or someone who might or might not exist. Yet, this is the way in which the idea of God is understood today in scholarly as well as in popular discussions about the “existence of God” (Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, p. 205)(pdf).

So in this sense the real atheists are the theists. Ernst Bloch wrote that only a good Christian could be a good atheist. Theologian Paul Tillich rejected this kind of debate as on the same plain as the fundamentalist atheist thinking—both are arguing an absurdity.

“It would be a great victory for Christian apologetics if the words “God” and “existence” were very definitely separated except in the paradox of God becoming manifest under the conditions of existence, that is, in the christology paradox. God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore, to argue that God exists is to deny him” (Ibid., p. 205).

There are other types of theism. Among the non-theists Cambridge Platonists, Cudworth (1678 AD, p. 165) identifies four schools of atheistic philosophy, each of which is a type of materialism: Hylopathian atheism or materialism, ‘Atomical or Democritical’ atheism, Cosmo-plastic atheism (which makes the world-soul the highest numen), and Hylozoic atheism (which attributes life to matter). Each of these ancient brands of atheism has its latter-day manifestations in philosophers such as Hobbes (an example of a Hylopathian atheist) and Spinoza (a latter-day Hylozoist).

 

I can bet that most people, when you post references and links to things,
mostly don't go there.

 

Sure. And there's that strange story where Jesus told his disciples to go and
just take a colt - not asking but explaining why it was needed.
If Jesus was just a man this cannot be explained. But if indeed he was the
Son of God then all things belonged to him - and he gave of himself to all.

 

Thanks for nothing.

 

It also says that Jesus didn't mind it. If "you'll always have the poor" was a good argument against using the perfume to feed the poor, then the same is true for almost any charity.

 

LOL!!! A very good... nihilistic response.

Are you arguing the materialist's circular tautology? "Everything is material; therefore, everything is material." M; therefore, M.

Since I can't define "God," how about you define physical?

 

Not at all.

No.

 

Good move.

 

If only you had a wisp of a clue as to how truly you speak.

 

It's strange how we have reduced religion to supporting the "poor"
and have redefined Jesus as one "helping the poor."
Jesus did nothing of the sort. If you read the accounts many of the
people who supported him were quite rich. Those that come to mind
include Mary and Martha, Zacchaeus, Matthew, the Centurion and
Nicodemus. Some of the disciples had their own businesses - Peter
and Andrew, James and John.

What Jesus DID do was come for the "poor in spirit." Those who
felt there had to be more than the things of this life.

And the whole purpose of this Ministry "sponging" off others was that it was
given freely, without wage/salary/remuneration/profit. And it was supposed to
stay that way.

 

Peter killed people who didn't fork over their money to him. He was just like Moses in that regard, an extortionist.