Jesus was a Socialist

[Pengwinja]

The Bible mentions words like King and Kingdom multiple times. Clearly politically, it is a monarchy. It does say that there will be rewards in heaven, so there will not be full equality in possessions, so it isn’t a socialist society.

[dargorygel]

No, Christ was not a socialist. He wanted us to care for fellow man, not have the government to take our money and have the government care for those the government wants to care for.

Consider 2 Corinthians 9:7: “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the traveler is considered “good” because he personally helped the stricken man at the roadside with his own time and resources. He didn’t avoid the man and wait for a government check to arrive.

Government is merely an expression of the people's will. It's fascinating to me how ingrained the nonsensical retort disparaging 'government' has become every time somebody brings up socialism. Do we want to care for our fellow 'man'? If so, we should band together as a society and make it happen. Othering 'government' as something foreign (happening to us) severely limits the tools that we have at our disposal to make our society a better, fairer and more just place to live. Only a libertarian extremist would complain about how 'government only builds roads for those the government wants to build roads for'. A true Good Samaritan should want to make sure that nobody falls through the cracks of a society's generosity (rather than futilely trying to patch the cracks).

After all, what did the Romans ever do for us?

...the aqueducts...

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

No, Christ was not a socialist. He wanted us to care for fellow man, not have the government to take our money and have the government care for those the government wants to care for.

Consider 2 Corinthians 9:7: “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the traveler is considered “good” because he personally helped the stricken man at the roadside with his own time and resources. He didn’t avoid the man and wait for a government check to arrive.

Government is merely an expression of the people's will. It's fascinating to me how ingrained the nonsensical retort disparaging 'government' has become every time somebody brings up socialism. Do we want to care for our fellow 'man'? If so, we should band together as a society and make it happen. Othering 'government' as something foreign (happening to us) severely limits the tools that we have at our disposal to make our society a better, fairer and more just place to live. Only a libertarian extremist would complain about how 'government only builds roads for those the government wants to build roads for'. A true Good Samaritan should want to make sure that nobody falls through the cracks of a society's generosity (rather than futilely trying to patch the cracks).

This is an extremely optimistic view of what government is.

I think the reality is that politics is mostly about rewarding your friends and punishing your enemies, and government exists downstream of politics. In a democracy, that means the minimum viable winning coalition is given undue policy influence, regardless of whether those policies are genuinely in the overall public interest. In well functioning democracies this dynamic has limits (e.g., by constitutions or charters that establish protections for individuals and minorities), but it's definitely still there to see. I think posters from any western democracy could tell you which demographic groups, industries, and regions in their country are favoured by government and which are not and how that deranges the process of achieving the fairest and most welfare-improving outcomes.

[JECE]

Esquire Bertissimmo: No government, not even the worst dictatorship, can function without ample public support, even if this comes from a minority of the population. Power dynamics within the governing coalition are beside the point.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

Esquire Bertissimmo: No government, not even the worst dictatorship, can function without ample public support, even if this comes from a minority of the population. Power dynamics within the governing coalition are beside the point.

Every elected government serves its own coalition of voters/donors first to some degree. I'm surprised that's controversial.

In my country (Canada) it's not hard to see. Seniors over young folks. Home owners over renters. Provinces with more seats in the house and senate per person over those with fewer. Etc. It's not a tragically bad system, but we shouldn't expect it will reliably orient itself towards the maximum public good when the electoral incventives are not aligned with that goal.

[Napple]

I'm not directing this at one specific person, but just adding it to the discussion because I think of it whenever someone brings up socialism alongside Christianity. Here is an excerpt from C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, in the chapter titled Social Morality.

"All the same, the New Testament, without going into details, gives us a pretty clear hint of what a fully Christian society would be like. Perhaps it gives us more than we can take. It tells us that there are to be no passengers or parasites: if man does not work, he ought not to eat. Every one is to work with his own hands, and what is more, every one’s work is to produce something good: there will be no manufacture of silly luxuries and then of sillier advertisements to persuade us to buy them. And there is to be no ‘swank’ or ‘side’, no putting on airs. To that extent a Christian society would be what we now call Leftist. On the other hand, it is always insisting on obedience— obedience (and outward marks of respect) from all of us to properly appointed magistrates, from children to parents, and (I am afraid this is going to be very unpopular) from wives to husbands. Thirdly, it is to be a cheerful society: full of singing and rejoicing, and regarding worry or anxiety as wrong. Courtesy is one of the Christian virtues; and the New Testament hates what it calls ‘busybodies’.

If there were such a society in existence and you or I visited it, I think we should come away with a curious impression. We should feel that its economic life was very socialistic and, in that sense, ‘advanced’, but that its family life and its code of manners were rather old fashioned—perhaps even ceremonious and aristocratic. Each of us would like some bits of it, but I am afraid very few of us would like the whole thing. That is just what one would expect if Christianity is the total plan for the human machine. We have all departed from that total plan in different ways, and each of us wants to make out that his own modification of the original plan is the plan itself. You will find this again and again about anything that is really Christian: every one is attracted by bits of it and wants to pick out those bits and leave the rest. That is why we do not get much further: and that is why people who are fighting for quite opposite things can both say they are fighting for Christianity."

The original post is correct in the fact that certain aspects of socialism align with the Bible's teachings, but I fully agree with dargorygel's initial response and feel that calling Jesus a socialist puts Him into a limiting and unnecessary box.

[sweetandcool]

I'll follow the Bible and not man's word. C.S. Lewis is not the end all be all authority.

[Napple]

I'll follow the Bible and not man's word. C.S. Lewis is not the end all be all authority.

Who's saying Lewis is the end all be all authority? Anyone who's read his work would know that he makes it clear himself that isn't the case, and I made no indication that I'm putting his work on a scriptural level. It's an interesting and relevant quote I think about often, so I shared it.

[sweetandcool]

I'll follow the Bible and not man's word. C.S. Lewis is not the end all be all authority.

Who's saying Lewis is the end all be all authority? Anyone who's read his work would know that he makes it clear himself that isn't the case, and I made no indication that I'm putting his work on a scriptural level. It's an interesting and relevant quote I think about often, so I shared it.

You'd be surprised how many people put too much stock in him and other Men.

It actually became a huge problem at my church.

I wasn't saying what he wrote was bad, though I think if you are going to quote his works then you also have the responsibility to remind others that Lewis is not the great authority.

[Jamiet99uk]

Esquire Bertissimmo: No government, not even the worst dictatorship, can function without ample public support, even if this comes from a minority of the population. Power dynamics within the governing coalition are beside the point.

Every elected government serves its own coalition of voters/donors first to some degree. I'm surprised that's controversial.

In my country (Canada) it's not hard to see. Seniors over young folks. Home owners over renters. Provinces with more seats in the house and senate per person over those with fewer. Etc. It's not a tragically bad system, but we shouldn't expect it will reliably orient itself towards the maximum public good when the electoral incventives are not aligned with that goal.

What do you propose instead, and how do you propose to achieve it?

[Jamiet99uk]

I'll follow the Bible and not man's word. C.S. Lewis is not the end all be all authority.

What do you think the Bible directs you to do?

How should the economy of your country be arranged?

Answer without quoting the Bible, please.

[Jamiet99uk]

Let me be clear:

I do not give a fucking shit about the Bible.

I would not wipe my arse on it; the paper is usually of too poor a quality.

If you want to converse with me, do it in your own words, persuade me with your own language. If you cannot do that, and insist on parroting the Bible, I am not interested in you in the slightest because you are barely even able to communicate as a human.

[Jamiet99uk]

For the record, I have muted "LearnedSloth" and will never read anything he posts, ever again, thankfully. I challenged him to address me without Bible quotes, and he did not. Several of you took up on his behalf, which puzzles me, given his own cowardice.

[kingofthepirates]

Since this is, in my eyes, a comedy/troll thread, I shall attempt to inject humor into something I see as having gone too far down the religious rabbit hole:

I would not wipe my arse on it; the paper is usually of too poor a quality.

Yeah, I find that very often. most books are like this. ngl though a copy of my kids bible had like the silkiest paper. I had at times legitimately contemplated how that would feel as tp (never did though)... I have no clue what everyone (everyone here generally being stereotypical old people in TV shows and books and what not) was meaning when they said the newspaper was a rag and only usable as toilet paper though; it's much to thick and rough on my poor buttocks ...

[kingofthepirates]

man I sure missed people yapping about issues in webdip forums, some of this truly is comedy gold! brainbomb, i don't know how you do it, but seeing these threads ignited then burning then dying is legitimately hilarious. truly, you are one of the people of all time.

[sweetandcool]

I'll follow the Bible and not man's word. C.S. Lewis is not the end all be all authority.

What do you think the Bible directs you to do?

How should the economy of your country be arranged?

Answer without quoting the Bible, please.

Mark 12:17

"Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s."

That is Jesus' command in regards to the economy.

[CaptainFritz28]

Uh oh, sweetandcool. Somebody might get offended that you quoted the Bible because he doesn't like it and he told you not to. How dare you express your views on what the Bible says about the economy by quoting the Bible about the economy!

[brainbomb]

The bible seems to be pro slavery as well as there is never mentions of denouncing slavery or even meth usage

[sweetandcool]

The bible seems to be pro slavery as well as there is never mentions of denouncing slavery or even meth usage

Yes, the Bible is pro a lot of things. Which is why I'm comfortable in my lifestyle as a high functioning speed user.

Genesis 1:3

"And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light."

[sweetandcool]

Uh oh, sweetandcool. Somebody might get offended that you quoted the Bible because he doesn't like it and he told you not to. How dare you express your views on what the Bible says about the economy by quoting the Bible about the economy!

I'm not sure why Jamiet is currently acting mildly unhinged, maybe he is upset about something IRL and venting online.

However, I can sympathize with his frustration with people who seem to not think for themselves. But requesting the Bible to not be quoted and while asking what the Bible says is quite the futile endeavor.

That all being said, I think the Bible verse I cited is the absolute best response to his question. I hope he appreciates it.