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.
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.
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.
Yeah good stuff. All about equality and egalitarianism.
You can’t claim to be socialist while condoning literal slavery. Sorry.
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.
There were others but they are further in time so they may be quoting those two.
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.
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 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.
The early Church is recorded as living that way:
"44 And all that believed were together, and had all things common; 45 And 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 a 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.
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. https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/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.
That’s odd as historians think it alost certainly was a single guy as multiple groups pop up all talking about the sane guy in different parts of the world. We have no idea what he preached but he likely existed.
Lot of people during history fought for socialism but they always ignore that part somehow.
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.
Is it really? Because some dudes decided what’s canon and what isn’t? Cherry picking is cherry picking, no matter how you describe it.
If your argument is that the whole bible is unreliable due to canon selection that’s a totally viable argument to make. But that then goes both ways and means that you can’t make an argument about anything Christ did or did not teach or do. It means, you can neither make the argument that Jesus was for eating animals or against it, because any scripture supporting any of these points was subject to canon selection and thus is unreliable.
Of course the whole thing is unreliable, due to selection. Still there was a selection done. You are almost there.
As I said… Cherry picking. Somebody chose those writings for a purpose.
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.
I wanna see them bible shitposts
Also I’m specifically a gnostic / esoteric Christian at this point so the obligatory:
If I’m gonna believe some wildass shit I might as well really go for it you know?
I enjoyed that a lot. Thanks
Feel free to add more
If I’m gonna believe some wildass shit I might as well really go for it you know?
Yeah, I mean if you can’t demonstrate that what you believe is true, then why not just make that belief the most absurd thing you can possibly find?
What a weird take… Maybe people don’t meme about Christianity, because the subjugation of populations using fairy tales is not really a funny thing.
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One of Marx’s biggest inspirations was the teachings of Jesus.
No, because socialism is when bad thing! /s obviously
And then Jesus said:
“Thou hast nothing to lose but thy chains! Take all the tools from those that dare to enslave thee and build thy own communities where all of you equally decide what to do!”
I’ve never heard this one before but it’s on the internet so Jesus must have said it. I will live my life by it.
It is not really socialism since it is still based on a religious supernatural hierarchy and revelation and not any actual political theories as to how to achieve this without magic, 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).
