Jesus was a Liberal Hippie

Your position about individuals and nations being regarded differently. I don't think there's anymore to add to that right now.

I pretty much agree with everything you wrote there, Arach, except possibly an implication buried in it about how the Christian Right should just shut up. Our government isn't a colony in an occupying empire. We are supposedly a government "of the people" and Christians are citizens like everyone else, with the privilege and even the obligation to be sure our views are represented.About tyranny, that didn't really enter into the picture until the Caesars started persecuting Christians (a Jewish sect at the time) for the "atheism" of refusing to worship Caesar himself and their other gods.Another tyranny that Christians argued should be overthrown (though there were also Christians on the other side) was the tyranny of King George against the American colonies. He was violating his own laws however. Parliament had no authority over the colonies. Anyway I suppose that one can still be argued.

yes. christians are citizens. but our government is rule by majority with protection for minority. if you don't have the votes to pass your pet laws, you lose. and you can't pass laws that violate the protections of the other. that's how a constitutional democracy works. if you want a popular rule, move to britain. constitutional democracy consists of rule by the people as empowered and restricted by a list of common goals. since the common goals of the constitution don't list the bible as a guide, christian-specific laws don't apply. (read: lemon test) how very selfish to consider christian persecution the mark of tyrany.

it's not that they should shut up, it's that you shouldn't mix politics and religion. right, but we shouldn't BE the oppressive regime either. i think that point is arguable at best. i don't think the persecution of christians happened until they split off from judaism. like i mentioned before, judaism was afforded special benefits -- new cults were not. the person who wrote the declaration of independence was not a christian. we've argued this point time and again on this board.and nobody argued that king george 3 should be overthrown in that document either. they just argued that they had the right to secede. under true social contract theory, they would have had the right to overthrown, but as a foreign colony, splitting off and declaring independence was enough.

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Doesn't that amount to the same thing? And we aren't. We are liberators and have always taken that role, whether we always do the wisest job of it or not. This is really a side point though, as you wondered where the tyranny came into the picture since the Romans were clearly very conciliatory with the Jewish religious requirements. But there wasn't a particular point when the Christians "split off" from Judaism that I'm aware of. It was a gradual process of accumulating Gentile converts over the first couple of centuries. They were already called Christians within decades of the crucifixion. And they were already being persecuted by Nero in the same time period. Even while still regarded as a Jewish sect I think. Actually, I've heard -- from Jewish sources -- that the Jews were also persecuted under the Caesars, but I haven't researched this. I didn't mention the Declaration of Independence. The rightness versus wrongness of declaring independence was argued from the Christian pulpits. Yes, so? Getting out from under the rule of a tyrant versus submitting to his laws is the basic subject here.This message has been edited by Faith, 02-04-2006 09:11 PM

if they're talking about politics, from a religious viewpoint, then yes. but forcing our rules and our beliefs on people in the form of legislation IS oppressive. well, i just meant at a point when they were no longer under the aegis of judaism. yes, nero certainly was a tyrant. he oppressed everyone, even romans. right, but so is "god hates fags." that doesn't mean that it's a representation of proper christianity, jesus, even mainstream belief. i was merely making the distinction between picking up your ball and going home, versus violent coup and destruction of the tyrant himself. they started the war with us, not vice versa. but either way, it was a nitpick, not essential to the debate -- it's not the position christ was talking about.

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So if someone is in an accident and is left with crippling medicals bills because - through no fault of their own - they simply can't afford health insurance, is it right that their already hard lives - scraping out a living at the lower end of society - should be made in-calculably harder by hitting them with debts they can’t hope to repay? Is it right that those on the poorer levels of society should be denied life saving treatment, because they cant afford it when the great-white-males complain about the price of viagra?Naturally roads, and such are important, because let’s face it if everyone didn’t contribute to the road system, the rich wouldn’t have anywhere to drive their Hummers. What to the rich care if some old dude laid-off by their corporate ”HR rationalisation policy’ cant afford heating in the winter and catches pneumonia, and then dies cause he cant afford the medical bills that getting it sorted would generate? Its not inconveniencing them, so why should they pay to fix it, right?No. The views you are putting forward are that of pure selfish greed. It’s that simple. The life style of the rich and super rich aren’t that drastically affected by taxation (save for when they get caught out when dodging as much of it as they can) and increasing it by a small fraction will have little or no true impact on their standard of living. Now increase the tax burden of a person on the lowest end of the tax scale by the same percentage and it can have real harsh implications on their standard of living. It can mean the difference of not being able to make rent, or not being able to afford to send little Timmy to the dentist . Does that sound equal, balanced and fair?And don’t come the voluntary donation thing with me either. Most people who are well-off to rich. Will on the whole give a far smaller percentage of their wealth to charity than poor people. While this will usually mean they actually give more in pure simple money terms, it costs them far less to do so than a poorer person.If a rich person donates $100 to a charity, he thinks nothing of it that amount barely means anything to him. Someone on the bread line may want to give $100 to charity, but doing so will have serious financial re-percussions for him. To the poor person a charitable gift of $100 is a HUGE deal. When the rich and super rich make a big deal out of their charitable works, when it really doesn’t affect them (they can afford to be that generous and not impede on their own standard of living) then that is un Christian.Taxation isn’t theft. It’s part of the agreement for living where you do, if you don’t like that, then go somewhere else (as many rich people do)

It's what the money is used for, not taxation itself, that is the problem. Some uses are theft, some are necessary.I believe workers should be well paid and well taken care of by employers, and this would be a lot easier if the government weren't taxing the stuffing out of businesses.This message has been edited by Faith, 02-04-2006 10:17 PM

in spite of being hit with two huricanes within a couple months (and big ones last year), having to pay for massive repairs, increased fuel prices, and your so-called 'horrid taxes', florida power and light (my power company) made record profits this year. i really doubt they've had the "stuffing" taxed out of them.and that is to say nothing of oil companies...businesses don't pay their employees well because they feel it's an appropriate and forgivable way to cut costs and increase profits, not because their taxes are so high that they are struggling to survive.

You honestly think if Govt taxed business less they would pay the workers more?? LOL. How naive. All it would mean is the shareholders would get bigger dividends and that’s ALL that matters . But your concepts of what is theft and what isn’t seem largely to be based on the idiom “But what do I get from this?”. You can use roads and other public services, thus you perceive you are getting something for your money. But to use YOUR money to save a poor person from death (for example) doesn’t directly benefit you and so you define it as theft.Ok we will talk hypothetical here. Now we are going to do the ”sliding doors’ thing here so pay attention.Lets assume the good ”ol USA decides to implement a well funded public health service where anyone could get essential medical help free or at a greatly reduced cost. The taxes go up all round to pay for this but it works: lives are saved that would have been lost.Now 6 years later you are on your way home from a very good party. You are quite drunk and so you walk home leaving your car in the car park. In you current state you don’t pay enough attention at the intersection in front of a 24/7 convenience store and fail to see the truck turning. You look up when caught in the headlamps and realise this is it . . At the last second however you feel an impact in your side. As the clerk from the store cannons into you, carrying you out of the path of the truck, thus saving your life. . .
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. .OK switch back and now imagine that the tax hike to pay for this new health service was shut down in congress putting an end to the dream of health care for all.5 years later Jason, a store clerk working at a local 24/7 convenience store called Jays, crashes his motor bike and bangs him self up quite bad. The hospital bills are horrendous and financially cripple the young chap who had inadequate insurance to cover the expence. He can’t afford to remain in the city and so moves back to his folks across state to help free up enough money to pay his mounting bills.A year later you are on your way home from a very good party. You are quite drunk and so you walk home leaving your car in the car park. In you current state you don’t pay enough attention at the intersection in front of Jay’s convenience store and fail to see the truck turning. You look up when caught in the headlamps and realise this is it . . The truck slams into you killing you instantly.Now if some of your money had been used to pay Jason’s medical bills there is a very good chance he would have still been working at Jay’s and if he was working at Jay’s then thee is a good chance he would have saved your life. Is that enough benefit for you?Ok we were talking hypothetical to the extreme, but can you see that not all benefits can be foretold or are immediate? You never know what is going to happen and so assuming that some particular action, event or end purpose of taxation has no value or benefit to you is incredibly short sighted.This message has been edited by ohnhai, 05-02-2006 02:48 PM

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I believe workers should be well paid and well taken care of by employers,

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Yes, you are right, they should.But if we look at the history of Capitalism, we see that the overriding tendency of business is to NOT pay their workers well and NOT take care of them unless there are laws in place that force them to do so.I should say that this amoral attitude about employees was born with the rise of the corporation and was somewhat less prevalent when business owners actually knew all of the people they employed and had a sort of paternal attitude towards them.

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and this would be a lot easier if the government weren't taxing the stuffing out of businesses.

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Businesses get tax breaks out the wazoo, especially large/ multinational businesses.Oil companies made obscene profits this year, even though gasoline prices have gone up quite a lot. This in turn makes commercial freight costs go up, which in turn raises the costs of retail business, which in turn makes the prices of consumer products go up.At my place of work, we've seen freight costs go up almost 20% in the last 3 years. We had to raise our prices because of these cost increases.So, while oil company CEO's and shareholders make tons of cash, the rest of the nation gets hit twice with higher prices: at the pump and again when they pay higher prices for consumer goods.This seems to be a clearcut case of the rich getting richer by sticking it to the middle and lower classes.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 02-05-2006 07:40 AM

Often the attempt to make Jesus Christ identify with one political ideology or the other is motivated by material covetousness. Luke records how someone asked Jesus to mediate in a dispute of wealth. His reaction was a word of warning about covetousness:"And someone out of the crowd said to Him, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.

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But He said to him, Man, who appointed Me a judge or a divider over you? And He said to them, Watch and guard yourself from all covetousness, for no one's life is in the abundance of his posessions" (Luke 12:13-15)What follows is a teaching about a rich man who accumulated much wealth but died suddenly being poor towards God - "So is he who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God" (v.21)We should remember that we need to live by Christ in order to be "rich toward God." It is easy to select passages to make Christ appear the champion of one economic system or the other. I think such teaching can easily miss the mark of making us rich toward God, which riches are of eternal worth.

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Would Jesus support a Government that opposes providing health-care to the poor?

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Straw man. I don't think anybody in the Bush administration opposes providing health care to the poor. What they oppose is the government providing it. There is a big difference.

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Would Jesus support a Government that supported discrimination against other religions (maybe he would, not sure)?

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Straw man. If anything, some of the comments Bush has made about Islam ("a great religion") would offend many conservative Christians, and possibly even Jesus himself.

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Would Jesus support a Government that launched aggresive wars of conquest?

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Possibly. It might depend on what the war was for. If it was to prevent leaders of other nations from persecuting Christians, or engaging in barbaric activities, against either their own citizens or against those of other countries. As far as I know, the U.S. has no interest in a "conquest" of Iraq or Afghanistan, so the question again poses something of a straw man.

What world are you living in?
i work for one of the largest retailers in the country if not the world - Walmart
they treat the workers like crap and they threaten other companies to lower prices or they don't buy from themif the goverment lowered taxes they wouldn't care they would just make more money

Some people really do think jesus want them to do things, like some of the CI groups who believe it is their christian duty to kill other people who are not white. If the person reads a passage they can think jesus argees with them because they think a group now is what jesus is talking about
i'm not sure what material covetousness has to do with ideology really