That literally isn't true. There's an entire separate sin for that called greed.
this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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Very true but in the end it's all just marketing religion to the poor. Look at those sinners over there eating fantastic meals and living in lavish estates. If you get a little extra money instead of living in nicer houses or eating better food, you should really be donating that.
That's kind of a strawman considering that's not at all what Christianity says. Jesus was in favour of taxing the wealthy and talked shit about the rich all the time. You ever hear the story where he trashed a temple because people had set up a gift shop in it? Or the time he said "it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven".
Christianity caught on because it was popular with the poor.
Christianity says whatever the people in charge say it says. That's how the Catholic leaders have tons of wealth, Protestant leaders have tons of wealth, Anglican leaders have tons of wealth...really, every sect has money funneling up from the poor to the leaders. But it's still marketed to the poor the exact same way.
That's not a problem unique to Christianity. For example: "The Constitution says whatever the SCOTUS justices say it says." or perhaps you prefer "The news says whatever Rupert Murdoch says it says" or even "Lemmy says whatever the admins say it says."
Point is, any institution suffers the risk that its leaders could dictate its message or pervert its original intent for their own benefit. But Christianity--like the news, the law, and federated communities--is not a monolith. The Lakewood Church might adopt doctrines that are specially tailored to enriching Joel Osteen and his entourage, but that instance of corruption isn't an indicator that Christianity--which existed for 1900 years before it--is inherently corrupt or somehow uniquely predisposed to manipulation by conmen.
By all reputable historic accounts, early Christian communities were socialistic, and its popularity among poor and marginalized Jews, Hellenistic Jews, and pagans is largely responsible for its spread during the first two centuries of its existence. The Christian texts we have today still resonate with the poor because their authors wrote them for the poor of their day, and it turns out poverty isn't terribly different in the 21st Century from the 1st.
The Catholic Church used Christianity to make boatloads of cash. So did the Greek Orthodox Church, the Reformed Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and most other large institutions. So did other institutional religions (and non-religions). That's not a problem with Christianity. It's a problem with people. The overwhelming majority of church pastors I've known personally had to maintain a separate full-time job, because running churches is not a money-making enterprise unless you're a corporation, an especially gifted and morally bankrupt businessman, or you inherited it.
All of that is to say that the problem with Christian institutions is the same problem with all institutions: greed. For the love of money is the root of all evil.
It's not about religion. It's about class. No war but the class war.
No war but the class war.
Based
Keep in mind that the US constitution, Rupert Murdock, or Lemmy are not designed to target the poor and encourage them to tithe so that money can be funneled upwards to the leader. Well, maybe Rupert Murdock, but not the US constitution and definitely not Lemmy. There's a difference between telling the poor that everyone is equal under the law, and telling the poor that if they believe hard enough and give the church 10% of their earnings regardless of their financial status that they will be rewarded in the afterlife or even rewarded maybe possibly while they are still alive.
How about telling the poor that if they work hard eventually they'll be millionaires? Or telling them that a lower capital gains tax will improve their spending power? What about telling them that cheap drugs are penalized 100:1 to more expensive drugs?
The law enriches the rich, and politics convinces people to vote against their own interests. Call it a tithe or a tax, and enforce it with the threat of state violence or social opprobrium, but the result is the same.
Jesus of Nazareth said you should take care of your neighbors, because the religious institutions and government won't, and those religious institutions and governments killed Him for it. That the American church is hard to distinguish from the First Century Jewish priesthood is no accident.
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Jeasus was not "in favor of taxing the wealthy" he was a full on socialist, if they had the term at the time. He through capitalists out of the temple, he hated the exploiting classes, his solution would have been far beyond "tax the wealty"
Jeasus was not "in favor of taxing the wealthy" he was a full on socialist, if they had the term at the time
I'm confused, are you disagreeing with me? I said the same thing. Jesus was in favour of many of the things we now associate with socialism. They just didn't call it that at the time.
his solution would have been far beyond "tax the wealty"
Not sure what you mean by this. Jesus was a pacifist. He literally just played along while the ruling classes murdered him. He wasn't about to start a violent revolution.
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Well, every sin is just about selfishness if you think about it long enough.
not really, every sin is about pride. It's a fine but significant distinction. I.e. a purely selfish person has no reason to be envious in a distinct sense from being greedy.
Wanting more vs having more. Not the same.
I don't think that's true, unless someone wants to find a better source. But the bible passages listed on Wikipedia are pretty clearly about food.
Wow there are some silly reasons for gluttony:
Eating at the wrong time
Wanting a particular food
Enhancing taste of food
Enjoying taste of food
Having opinions about food preparation
Liking Eating food
Making bad trades for food
Although some of these feel made up. Someone doing one of these and then eventually dying doesn't mean it was caused by gluttony, but there are examples in the wiki where that's the case. Others feel like cases of 'committing other sins while interacting with food or while it is around' and someone tried to make it about the food
Yeah, these are made up. The Bible is a higher authority than the opinions of saints.
- Eating before the time of meals.
This is specifically for eating before a meal. But 1 Corinthians 11:34 says that if you're hungry, you should eat at home before a group meal so that you're not hogging food at the meal. - Seeking better quality foods.
The example given was the Israelites complaining about the food they were given. That doesn't mean you can't take food you have access to. - Preparing food better.
Matthew 5:13 - "But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor?" Jesus clearly saw the value in seasoning. - Eating more than you need.
It is true that you should eat in moderation. I don't know if it's a sin, but Proverbs has a few things to say about it. But the example given here was Sodom, whose sins included gluttony. Or rather, gluttony while there were poor people. Overeating at the expense of others is different from just overeating. - Taking food too eagerly.
If it's to the point of idolizing food (prioritizing it over God and His causes,) then yes. But if you're at a friend's house and they bring out mac & cheese and you cheer, there's nothing wrong with that. Y'know, as long as you're not being crazy like snatching it out of their hands.
My god Gordon Ramsey will be furious with that list.
Those are all careful designed to control people in one way or another. Tired of people so concerned by food that it's all they talk about while you keep it all? Say the magic man in the sky made it illegal
or maybe when you live in a society without great surplus and supermarkets managing food stores (espacilly during the winter) is a matter of life and death
Deadly sins are not in bible, but a later invention in catholic church
Same thing with naming the wise men. The Catholic Church made up a ton of stuff.
Whate are their names?
Balthasar, Melchior, and Caspar.
Where they got those names, nobody knows. All the biblical record says is that there were multiple, so it could've been 2, 3, 10, whatever.
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Yeah, they written multiple books about it
I think the closest thing is Proverbs 6:16-19,(went with... NIV I guess?) Haughty eyes A false/lying tongue Hands that shed innocent blood A heart that devises wicked schemes Feet that are quick to rush to evil False witness who pours out lies And... a person who sturs up conflict in the community.
I grew up JW so NWT had different wording, but most of those are lies, attitude, and people who start shit. The most specific one would be the innocent murder and lying ones.
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Gotta remember that back when the things that make up the Bible were written, fat people were pretty synonymous with wealth. Hard to get fat when you barely have any food.
Fat ladies were prized possessions as they were a sign of nobility.
That's still the case in many poorer countries.
depends on how poor, there are also a lot of poor countries with obesity problems, because people there can only afford trash like fast food
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This is unfortunately not true, but like the Bible the deadly sins were made up. An omnipresent being with no concept of humanity and life wouldn’t give two sharts if you had some ice cream twice in a day
An omnipresent being with no concept of humanity and life
Whose Bible were you reading?
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A bit of a tangent but the year of jubilee is an interesting concept in the Torah. The idea is every 49 years they did an economic reset. Slaves were freed, debts forgiven, and land returned.
Unsurprisingly the concept was very appealing to enslaved people. During the US Civil War, many enslaved folks used it as a justification and rallying cry to escape to the north. In Defense of Looting argues that this was one of the most effective instances of mass political theft in history. This also had the effect of hollowing out the South's economy, swelling the North's military ranks, and scaring the shit out of racists everywhere.
I don't think reconstruction would have gone as far as it did without this mass political action and the power it gave formerly enslaved people.
Moses originally had 3 tablets with the divine Commandments, but broke one in anger. A disciple would later recover a fragment, containing the start of the 13th Commandment: XIII THOU SHALT LIGMA...
Ligma?
It's similar to updog
But what's updog?
...I had to fight with autocorrect for like 3 minutes for this post
Nothing much you?
Valiant
Thou shalt ligma what?
It’s so sad that Steve Jobs died of divine retribution
Who the hell is Steve Jobs?
There really is a story about him breaking the old laws in anger at the worship of a golden calf and bringing new laws.
Such a coincidence that story happened to parallel the alleged reforms of Josiah who got rid of the golden calf worship in Bethel and Dan while instituting new laws he 'discovered' excavating the temple.
God (or at least his editors) truly do work in mysterious ways
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