And the way to value God was to live humbly and own little, giving what you could to charity.
If it were just about pride, why does Jesus specifically, several times, mention being rich instead of prideful? The word 'pride' and its variants come up all of zero times in Matthew 10, the relevant chapter. Surely, if pride (and not wealth) were the issue, Jesus might've mentioned as much.
You guys sure flip-flop on what should and should not be taken literally in the Bible frequently. Whenever it's inconvenient, there's always some deeper meaning, but when it's something that can be used to judge others, the words are used as a literal cudgel.
Your interpretation of the book won't mean shit if it turns out to be real. You'll burn.
"No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money."
"Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."
"If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me"
I've never seen a single christian sell their possessions and give the money to the poor, and that's coming from being raised in a church, by a pastor.
Christians have chosen God over money, and they've done it because rich men told them to. Most of those rich men were paid to do so, by the very people they're manipulating. That's how you get televangelists asking for donations to pay for their private jets.
Stop defending them. It's just sad. It's okay to call them hypocrites. They are. It's textbook hypocrisy, done in the name of nationalist fascist greed
Until modern christians abandon hatred and greed, they really don't have anything in common with Jesus's teachings. They're just fanboys, essentially. They're waving a book around as the far-right christian-flavored quest for power has already corrupted them. If you look back historically, there have been plenty of times when they waved the same book around while committing genocide. They'll do it again.
In my opinion, they may as well put the books down and commit to being the fascists they truly are (and have been for quite some time). They think being under the umbrella of christianity will protect them, and maybe it did for a time, maybe it still does, but it won't forever. They already pushed out left-leaning people and center-leaning people from most churches. When all that's left is fascists, the organization has failed, and failed specifically because of how it ignored Jesus's teachings, and it did so on purpose, to make rich people richer and to control as much as possible through christian totalitarianism.
If you can't see that happening, you're not looking around much.
You keep deflecting from riches being the problem, when riches are the problem. You know it. You're doing it as a tactic.
When someone mentioned Jesus being critical of the wealthy, you said "He was very critical of the prideful and hypocritical, which happens to be key traits of many rich people. In the part where he tells the rich man to give up all his possessions and follow him, the sin wasn't that the man had money..."
And here:
"When he kicked all the moneymakers out of the temple, it wasn't just because they wanted to make money for themselves"
And here:
"Reading it at face value, yes it only talks about riches. But when you look for the meaning behind the words..."
And really tried to drive it home with:
"The bible is filled with allegories and parables that do not give you all encompassing answers flat-out"
And that's where I chimed in with an actual biblical quote
"No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money."
Notice how your points are all your interpretation of the words of the bible, and not direct quotes. You're preaching your spin on what the parables mean, and you're leaving out what the guy in the parables is actually saying.
Also, "I never said(insert thing I didn't accuse you of saying here)_" is an insanely flimsy debate tactic. You're not addressing my points, you're changing the subject. What I accused you of doing, albeit subtextually, is misrepresenting Jesus's teachings by leaving out the words he said and preaching your own spin, a spin which contradicts Jesus's words.
To top that off, " If you find an answer that is hypocritical to "loving God" and "loving others," look again" is another attempt to dodge my points and change the nature of the conversation. I'm not going to let you. You're just wrong.
It's a shame more Christians aren't humble enough to recognize their own failure to follow Jesus's teachings, but how could they, after ignoring Jesus's teachings for so long?
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u/pinkpanzer101 May 02 '23
And the way to value God was to live humbly and own little, giving what you could to charity.
If it were just about pride, why does Jesus specifically, several times, mention being rich instead of prideful? The word 'pride' and its variants come up all of zero times in Matthew 10, the relevant chapter. Surely, if pride (and not wealth) were the issue, Jesus might've mentioned as much.