There’s this “thing” about all this “make the pope shut up” that has been bothering me, and I’ve figured out what it is.
We’ve got this group…
They’ve been jabbering about
• “values”
• “Christian nation”
• “put God in our schools”
• “put God in our laws”
• “teach ‘alternate’ science” – creationism, intelligent design, Jesus horses, etc.
Now this pope comes along hollering about what Jesus really said and really did
• Show mercy
• Care for the poor
• Protect the weak
• Mind your own business (the beam in the eye)
And these “Christians” absolutely hate it.
Why? Because of their own hypocrisy, that’s why. They don’t want any Christian values, they just want power and the ability to control others.
They kept cramming Gawd down our throats, and now they hate that someone – anyone – would do it to them (and be telling them the truth about themselves).
Or what. It usually requires more than the pope saying something a random jerkoff on the internet disagrees with for them to be considered the worst pope ever.
Urban VI had his Cardinals tortured, Leo X had cardinals killed, Sergius III had another pope murdered, John XII liked raping female pilgrims, Alexander VI was into orgies, Innocent IV authorized torture during the Inquisition.
BUT HOLD THE GODDAMN PHONE!! Pope Francis done pissed off Blinkyandpinky! WORST POPE EVER!!
Some Evangelicals consider Catholics to not be real Christians (consider your average Chick tract);
Plenty of conservatives aren’t Christians at all. Clothahump, for one, proclaims loudly and often that he’s a non-believer. I’d bet ol’ Blinky is of the same persuasion.
I wouldn’t consider myself to be a conservative and I have no religion. I am 100% non religious, though I do recognize that certain religions on this planet are absolutely worse than others.
True, for some of them, BUT!!! We’ve listened to their crap for decades now. Moral Majority, Dominionism, Religious Right, Family Values, Evangelicals, snake handlers, etc etc etc barf. Everyone is supposed to do what they say, “because Gawd”.
And yet when it comes down to it, they oppose the teachings of Christ every damn day of their lives.
Evangelical? Hypocrite and fraud is more like it, usually. Gawd this and Gawd that, but ONLY their brand huh. I reject the whole damn lot of them.
You are free to criticize whoever you like, but your theology there is basically flawed. The statement about the rich man was about giving voluntarily for heavenly reward. And the account of the early Christians living in shared communities (in Acts of the Apostles) is likewise one of people choosing to live in such a community, not getting 50%+1 votes to force everyone in a country to do so. People voluntarily live in sharing communities (Christian or otherwise) now, nobody has a problem with that per se AFAIK.
Original Christianity does not say anything about voting to make other people surrender their property backed by govt force to enforce majority will, ie democratic socialism, or non democratic either. The only statement by Jesus about taxes was to brush off a provocative question about his stand on the validity of Roman taxes by also famously saying ‘render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s’.
There’s no simple valid argument by which socialism is more Christian than capitalism, or vice versa actually. There are more sophisticated and complicated arguments that go part way in one direction or the other…those are what separate clergy like Francis from more conservative clergy, but not a matter of who is a Christian and who isn’t.
I think you face a common dilemma. You don’t feel Christianity is worthwhile enough to actually learn about and thus know what you’re talking about, but OTOH have the urge to make comments about it.
Because, obviously, anyone who disagrees with your interpretation doesn’t know anything about Christianity, which is totally united on what every Bible verse means.
Matthew 25: 35 I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
Compare that to the “christians” on the right who want to destroy every social program - gut health care, social security, unemployment benefits, and lock out refugees/immigrants.
:dubious: Try telling that to conservative Christians in the US, who seem totally on board with “getting 50%+1 votes to force everyone in a country” to live according to (what they consider to be) “Christian values”.
Right-wing Christians in general seem to be very adept at regarding “political Christianity” as a moral imperative when it comes to imposing on others their own theological notions about abortion, gay marriage, etc., while simultaneously treating it as completely inapplicable in the case of things that Jesus actually exhorted his followers to do. E.g., embracing poverty and nonviolence, caring for the needy, forgiveness rather than punishment, etc.
This. And where the hell did they find that “prosperity gospel” bullshit? Being rich is NOT an outward sign of God’s favor, or righteousness. All too often these days, wealth and power are a sign of the opposite.
God does not hand out dollar bills to the “favored few”.
Added on edit: Rest assured, they DO want to force everyone to bend to their will. It’s the “christian nation” dog whistle. It’s called Christian Reconstructionism, Dominionism. And it’s real.
Well obviously. So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. 29 For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.
For yay and verily and forsooth and other weird words I say unto you, they are losers and so shall ye take everything you can and rejoice in their suffering, for they deserve it. Turn thy overfed face from the loser and the weakling for the greedy shall inherit the earth
There are somewhere around a billion definitions of “Christian” (aside from the individuals who bear that name), so saying that this or that is or is not “Christian” is more than a little meaningless.
This is The BBQ Pit, correct? So, I am in complete agreement with your assessment of eschereal’s asinine, stupid, and utter horse manure post quoted just above.
And to eschereal: Nobody’s so stupid to believe what you posted. I don’t think even you believe it.
Not sure what your point is here, unless you are claiming that he is understating the case.
There are 2.2 billion christians in the world, and I have never seen any two exactly agree on what that means to them, each having their own little definition.
Even if you go more granular, and only allow definitions upon which some consensus has been built, you still have thousands of definitions.
If you want to go with the singular definition of Christian being “Christ-like”, then I don’t know that you have a single example of a true christian in this world.
