Picayune Gods & Those Who Market Them

Well it's clear that you do but the question was what what would Jesus want - in fact, command - to be done about the gross inequalities in the world?And why you think it ok to think he's wrong about it?

Actually I dont think He is wrong.

It's easy being a Christian if you you don't actually have to behave like a Christian.

But you *do* think Jesus is wrong. For some misbegotten reason, you think Jesus is just as cruel as yourself. In Message 81 you said: Yes, that's exactly what Jesus would want, but you're denying that Jesus would want you to help the poor and unfortunate. How dare you attribute to Jesus cruelty as vile and hateful as your own. I'm not even a Christian and I'm shocked. I'm sure you're familiar with this passage:

quote:

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⁴¹Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. ⁴²But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.

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⁴³Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. ⁴⁴They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”
  —Mark 12:41-44

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You are the living embodiment of the opposite of what Jesus would do. Shame on you!--Percy

This is bugging me. Is it really what you think or is it just another shoot-from-hip thoughtless comment? I'm finding it difficult to understand how you can claim to be Christian and not at least understand his core teachings and what he stands for.You tell us that god speaks to you, yet he never seems to tell you to do the things that seem to matter to him in your book. It's all a comfortable self-centred delusion isn't it?

You would think these self-centered people would also be self-aware wouldn't you? But that never seems to be the case.

They worship at the alter of YouTube. If Lord YouTube says it it must be so.--Percy

Coincidentally came across this just now from The Atlantic: The World Will Never Know the Truth About YouTube’s Rabbit Holes. The opening two paragraphs seem to explain exactly what happened to Phat (and to my nephew, whom I've mentioned a couple times):

The Atlantic:

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Very, Very Few People Are Falling Down the YouTube Rabbit Hole

The site’s crackdown on radicalization seems to have worked. But the world will never know what was happening before that.

Around the time of the 2016 election, YouTube became known as a home to the rising alt-right and to massively popular conspiracy theorists. The Google-owned site had more than 1 billion users and was playing host to charismatic personalities who had developed intimate relationships with their audiences, potentially making it a powerful vector for political influence. At the time, Alex Jones’s channel, Infowars, had more than 2 million subscribers. And YouTube’s recommendation algorithm, which accounted for the majority of what people watched on the platform, looked to be pulling people deeper and deeper into dangerous delusions.

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The process of “falling down the rabbit hole” was memorably illustrated by personal accounts of people who had ended up on strange paths into the dark heart of the platform, where they were intrigued and then convinced by extremist rhetoric—an interest in critiques of feminism could lead to men’s rights and then white supremacy and then calls for violence. Most troubling is that a person who was not necessarily looking for extreme content could end up watching it because the algorithm noticed a whisper of something in their previous choices. It could exacerbate a person’s worst impulses and take them to a place they wouldn’t have chosen, but would have trouble getting out of.

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--Percy

Thats a fair question. I believe that Jesus not only exists as what some humanists may say is an altruistic concept and role model but as our moral and spiritual leader. I was shooting from the hip that day into my own echo chamber which is EvC. I *knew* that it would provoke a reaction, yet what many of you did not seem to infer from my suggestion was my fear of authority which is NOT Jesus. In other words, lets look at it from your angle. You believe Jesus to be a myth and are somehow attempting to connect my real feelings with that "fact" as you see it. If ever the world was on fire and millions of people needed help, I would honestly have no problem giving all that I had if necessary. What bugs me about you is that you dont believe in Jesus and yet would be perfectly content to submit to a global authority and/or consensus to mandate cooperation from all of us. Honestly, I do get irritated because I myself am getting older and fear counting on the government in order to survive. It would indeed be a comfortable delusion to have to count on a global secular humanist coalition in order for me and my old ass to go quietly into that good night without spending my latter years under a bridge begging wealthier people such as yourself for food. Yes, I WOULD be pissed.When I engage in these conversations with you and others, I honestly feel Jesus in the middle of them. Getting scolded by a bunch of atheists is in fact noble, because if God can speak from the heart of atheists, God cannot be far from any of us who so desire not only His presence but His authority.Again, the authority I fear is from a secular government mandating that I MUST give all that I have up for the common good. To me, that is terror on earth.

I will take your rebuke with grace. You are right. And as you say, you are not even a Christian. And yet you know the right scriptures. You are a heartfelt individual.My point is that I would not submit to a mandate from a secular humanist government to give up all that I had into some giant account set up with the intention of helping everyone.I love Jesus and strive to listen to Him daily. You guys don't even know what I do on a daily basis. Many a time I buy someone a meal to help them and because they show the grace to approach me for help rather than stealing the meal and walking out the door.I wont claim any privileged status simply by being a Christian for I know that many of you who don't believe in Jesus would do the same thing and likely often have.

Is it such a crime to be self centered? Or do you trust Uncle Sam to take care of you and Mrs. Damselfly in your declining years?My guess is that you trust your people. The blues. And you despise the reds as that other aberration seeking to destroy the soul of America. What would you say to a guy who "worships at the altar" of The Washington Post? Does he get a complete picture of what is happening and what needs to happen?Just saying.

If you have that much fear of authority, then become a hermit and live out it the wilderness.Yes, that's a tough life. But you don't have to be concerned with authority.This is what bothers me about libertarians. They want the benefits from living in a society but they don't want to pay their share of the cost of that society.

All you're saying is that it would take millions of people needing help before you'd listen to Jesus. Mere thousands of desperate people, like those on the border, isn't enough for you. It would have to be millions before you'd listen to Jesus's message. You have some preconceptions about world government that I doubt are shared by many others and don't even make sense. Why do you assume a world government would "mandate cooperation" and require its citizens "to submit?" A wide variety of governments can be observed all around the world from beneficent to malevolent, from enlightened to benighted, from representative to dictatorial. A hypothetical world government could take any form, yet you assume it could only have certain very specific negative qualities. Where are you getting these nonsensical ideas? Have you been watching YouTube again?A world government seems very unlikely at this point, but there's no reason to believe it won't have all the same characteristics as the local, state and national governments you're already familiar with. There will be elections and laws and taxes and policies to maintain healthy economies and communities.--Percy

No one is suggesting you should, or even that that is a realistic possibility.We're only pointing out your contradictory professions, one of following Jesus, the other the very antithesis of following Jesus. If that were true then you'd at least occasionally express his ideas, but you don't. For you Jesus is a habit of expression, not a guiding light.--Percy

Of course not, don't be absurd, but your response makes my point. I would expect you to be more self-aware. Of course not, but I do expect my government to live up to its obligation to serve the people and to provide services that the government collected from me and other citizens taxes to pay for. My wife and I worked past retirement age and were careful savers and investors so we provided for ourselves. My wife turned out to be an astute stock market investor she has made profits on all the stocks she has sold since 2008 and has increased our saving substantially. You should never gamble because you are a horrible guesser. I have never encountered someone who "worships at the altar" of The Washington Post and I don't know what that means. I know some people who read parts of the WP, but they all fact check and use multiple sources of news, so I guess you could say that they worship supported evidence rather than bullshit. Yeah, we know this is your motto, you remind us often. Can you provide evidence or an example of this policy being promoted by any individuals or organizations?You do realize that taxes are never all anyone has, don't you?You do realize that taxes are written into laws in the United States by representatives elected by the people or by laws directly voted on by the people, don't you?You do realize that no one in your income bracket has ever been proposed to have to pay more than a handful of dollars to help those less privileged than you, don't you?I suspect it's far more likely that you will receive far more help from the government than you have paid in taxes.