Can You Be Rich and Be a Christian?

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Kimmio Laughterlove said:
This. It's a societal problem too.
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If it is there it rubs off? Such is the miasma ... sometimes said to be the surroundings or the environment in which your genes are fertilized!

In some traditions the miasma is a swamp! Murphy's Law requires review ...

Then there is UNSAFE's perspective on the one-book rule. I wonder how she feels about that scripture that states that if all the books of light (christ) were here there wouldn't be room for them on earth? @ unsafe!

Does generate considerable quandary and complex conflict.

Some will not wander into the understanding of why the complexity is there in their confined world ... thus stress and extension ... denied ankh?
 
unsafe said:
The only problem with this story is that it is not true! There is absolutely no archaeological or historical evidence for the existence of such a gate.
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The interesting thing, though, unsafe, is that it makes little difference to the meaning of the story.

The parable means that you have give up your attachment to your treasure in order to gain spiritual rewards.

Maybe it matters a little bit.

If it's an actual "eye of a needle", then it's clearly impossible for a rich person to "enter the kingdom of heaven" (and I don't think you and I understand that phrase the same way, but that's fine for now). Which means, flatly, that no rich person goes to heaven, taken literally.

If it's a narrow gate, in order to enter through which the camel must be unburdened and unridden, then it's difficult but not impossible for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.

I think the latter is my belief, because I think we have evidence of rich persons, like the Buddha, unattaching themselves of their wealth, and becoming enlightened. Also, I don't dislike every rich person I've ever met; some are quite decent people, I'm sure.
 
Well, we're never going to get a clear answer to the divide between rich and poor with all poor and one side, and all rich on the other.
However, we do live in a world in which the very, very rich have built fortunes by exploiting the poor. And that has been true as far back a one can go in history.
The very rich, at best, will make some offerings to the poor - but usually only a small part of their wealth. You have only to walk through a street of mansions and then a street of slums to see that. The rich commonly use their power to keep down the wages of the poor - and the two groups, for the most part, live in quite different worlds. As well, almost all wars are caised by the rich - but paid for in money and lives by the not-rich. And yes, that is true of every war in history - including all the wars in our life times. (yes, including WW2.) And the poor serve as cheap labour for the rich.

I think we need to pay more attention to the evil that is built into us humans. Studies suggest that as humans developed bigger brains, we became more vicious than other creatures, more murderous, more exploitive. And certainly we are far, far more vicious than any other creatures. Lions are sweethearts compared to us.

That's not the fault of Christianity. But Christianity has so far refused to deal with it or even to recognize it. Our Adam and Eve sin is really pretty pale stuff against what we are.
 
But Graeme, the problem with your theorem is that you almost make your own self complicit in this, by claiming that it is ALL human behaviour.

I think it is not. I think every damned one of us, Jesus included, has been harsh or unkind or unthinking or unfeeling in word or deed. Usually on many occasions. But that means that probably only 1% of us are actually even capable of murder.

But I'm not sure that it's human nature, at core, as much as it's human systems. The ways we organize ourselves, and the values around which we build these organizing systems, are often very flawed.
 
Kimmio Laughterlove said:
Some things are unique to our time and place and how commerce is done. If I have 20 shirts I bought for next to nothing second hand is that the same as 1 designer shirt someone spent the same to buy new? If they have 15 expensive new shirts, which one is more greedy? If I show off good taste without spending the money - in part to promote reusing/ not wasting - is that the same as showing off new clothes that cost a fortune? It's promoting different values, is it not? Why do people need new expensive things when there's bountiful available for a fraction of the cost?
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I knew a man who had (his wife counted them in dismay) 219 pairs of black pants that he seemed addicted to buying at second hand outlets and using them to clutter up their home. My view was that he was in doing a wrong thing.
He claimed to be Christian and was an Elder at their church.
His purchases were creating great difficulty for his wife, who couldn't get her clothing in any drawer, closet or cupboard in their shared bedroom.
He refused to address the problem.
There were people who actually NEEDED a pair of black pants and he was hoarding them.
 
Mendalla said:
Nice alternative spin. So not impossible as the traditional understanding suggests, but very difficult. Would be nice to see a source for that but it intrigues me.
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I was told at Sunday School that there was a gateway in the city wall that everyone had to lead their camel through. If the camel was carrying too much product to fit through the gap they couldn't enter the city to sell their wares. Only rich people could load their camel with vast amounts of 'stuff'.
 
I wish we weren't all alike. But killing by humans has a long history in all the history of mankind Our increasing intelligence mades it possible ot organize and act on a scale unknown to other creatures. It also makes it possible for all of us to share a taste for evil. I don't know how we can counter that -but we must.

Americans, almost all of them, feel no guilt at the horrible abuse of Latin America, at the plundering and murder of the middle east. Many British still take pride in the mass murder and plundering of people all over the world. The Korean war was one of pure greed. But I never met anyone who felt guilty for being there. The U.S. pours money into military spending - but does not a thing for the millions who have lost or are about to lose their homes, however slummy they may be. I taught children who had no food. Indeed, I was sometimes a child who had no food

I think rresearchers on this are right. We are the inheitors of brains that make us evil.

All the killing we have done is destroying wild life - and it really is happening every day. Species are dying because of us. Indeed, we are now dangerously close to destrying the human species.

We have very little time to counter that. But it has to be done. Planet earth simply cannot survive, our greed.
 
Graeme Decarie said:
I wish we weren't all alike. But killing by humans has a long history in all the history of mankind Our increasing intelligence mades it possible ot organize and act on a scale unknown to other creatures. It also makes it possible for all of us to share a taste for evil. I don't know how we can counter that -but we must.

Americans, almost all of them, feel no guilt at the horrible abuse of Latin America, at the plundering and murder of the middle east. Many British still take pride in the mass murder and plundering of people all over the world. The Korean war was one of pure greed. But I never met anyone who felt guilty for being there. The U.S. pours money into military spending - but does not a thing for the millions who have lost or are about to lose their homes, however slummy they may be. I taught children who had no food. Indeed, I was sometimes a child who had no food

I think rresearchers on this are right. We are the inheitors of brains that make us evil.

All the killing we have done is destroying wild life - and it really is happening every day. Species are dying because of us. Indeed, we are now dangerously close to destrying the human species.

We have very little time to counter that. But it has to be done. Planet earth simply cannot survive, our greed.
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Will it take money to save it as well as a change of heart?
 
KayTheCurler said:
I knew a man who had (his wife counted them in dismay) 219 pairs of black pants that he seemed addicted to buying at second hand outlets and using them to clutter up their home. My view was that he was in doing a wrong thing.
He claimed to be Christian and was an Elder at their church.
His purchases were creating great difficulty for his wife, who couldn't get her clothing in any drawer, closet or cupboard in their shared bedroom.
He refused to address the problem.
There were people who actually NEEDED a pair of black pants and he was hoarding them.
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219 is excessive. That sounds like a pathological/ psychiatric problem.
 
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The cross of worrying about the other, and actively doing things that make their life easier. I have a youngest sister who spends endless hours trying to make stuff to i) protect my skin and ii) make this mask requirement easier.
 
KayTheCurler said:
I was told at Sunday School that there was a gateway in the city wall that everyone had to lead their camel through. If the camel was carrying too much product to fit through the gap they couldn't enter the city to sell their wares. Only rich people could load their camel with vast amounts of 'stuff'.
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That's the "Eye of the Needle" theory we were discussing a few posts up.
 
Capitalism is a passing phase. I think it's a question of being ready to adapt. I'm ready. It will be much easier to adapt for people already not used to having excess material wealth. We can still thrive abundantly, everyone,without filling our lives with material status symbols and money that can never buy real joy or love.

Why do people need big houses in nice suburbs when a less austentatious one would not cause anyone to go without for example? Scaling down won't hurt anyone.

(For some reason I'm reminded of Jim Carrey doing a video interview recently, sitting in a very basic kitchen. He didn't seem less happy for it. Though I'm sure it was only a small corner of one of his many properties. He could live more simply and be happy though. He's done that in recent years. Escaped the trappings of fame to an extent and lived in a rough warehouse studio in industrial part of LA, just painting and getting to know the locals.)

sojo.net

When American Christians Were Socialists

Shall Christ or Cain reign in our American civilization?
sojo.net sojo.net
 
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Kimmio Laughterlove said:
The powers that be could change the way we do commerce.
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"They" are.
Its called the Great Reset.

Using your Belief Systems lens, shouldn't we be concentrating on ordinary people making the change and break the systemic oppression instead of trying to use the system of Empire to make the change? Stop looking for other, powerful people to make the Change for us?

#MutualAid
#BeNotAfraid
#SystemicWhimsey
#JoyPrivilege
 
Inannawhimsey said:
"They" are.
Its called the Great Reset.

Using your Belief Systems lens, shouldn't we be concentrating on ordinary people making the change and break the systemic oppression instead of trying to use the system of Empire to make the change? Stop looking for other, powerful people to make the Change for us?

#MutualAid
#BeNotAfraid
#SystemicWhimsey
#JoyPrivilege
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..changes made at the behest of the people - people will need to drive the change and be the change, though. Including some of the powers that be stepping back and becoming the powers that were.
 
Inannawhimsey said:
Are there any parts of capitalism that you like?

#MutualAid
#BeNotAfraid
#SystemicWhimsey
#JoyPrivilege
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Can’t think of anything. There’s nothing that exists now that couldnt exist without it - except maybe the ridiculousness of corporate branding and lucrative advertising - the excesses - the prices of nearly everything artifially inflated to keep costs to the consumer high, and labour costs low, to bring the greatest amount of profit to the corporate overlords. Everything is commodified. The very basics, food, shelter, necessary clothing, air, clean water, medicine... should not be part of any commodification. That’s evil. Just as evil is the arms industry. I think we can have better lives for more people with a system - perhaps one Jesus would find acceptable, without Christians having to make weak excuses - that more closely resembles democratic socialism.
 
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