WHEN GOVERNMENT SOCIALISM IS CHRISTIAN CHARITY: PART 2
From the comment section of the post: "PETER PACE AND WILLIAM FALLON VERSUS DAVID PETRAEUS AND THE NEOCONS VERSUS JESUS CHRIST."
Hello Brian,
No, I didn't misunderstand about your saying you "have no problem with voluntary socialism, only socialism enforced by a government gun." Do you also believe that capitalism shouldn't be enforced by a government gun? I hope so for the sake of your soul. If you do believe that, you're in a rare minority amongst self-described capitalists.
I have read about capitalism from the objectivist, libertarian, and anarcho slants. I've read about it from Smith's and Ricardo's perspective and the perspective of yet others. As for assuming "a strange selfish motive on the part of capitalists," most of the people who have come here in defense of capitalism have had no problem with admitting that it is based upon selfishness. Most defend selfishness. Here you are claiming capitalism isn't based upon selfishness.
Capitalism isn't the spirit of Christian giving. It isn't something Jesus called his followers to either teach or do with their souls. Capitalism is trade. Capitalist traders hold out for recompense and private profit. It isn't good, unlike the voluntary giving-and-sharing economy envisioned and practiced by Jesus and his closest followers. If you claim to be a Christian while arguing that so-called free-market capitalism is better than what the first disciples actually did or that we should follow laissez faire capitalism rather than what the first Apostles and Christ did between and among each other, you're not being a true believer.
Oh, capitalism is spiritual and so is socialism whether or not capitalists or socialists know it. The question is which spirit and concerning which version of socialism. Capitalism is no doubt from Satan. Capitalism is lording it over others. It is not washing their feet. The capitalist is not the last who shall be first. He is the first who shall not remain so.
Christians are to be family. Family is not to charge members to come to the table. All are to help the family without charge to the best of his or her gifts and abilities. That's basic. Capitalism, per se, doesn't do that or advocate that at all.
Capitalism, being based upon getting for self first and foremost, leads in the direction of raping the land and other people. It is acquisitive. It accumulates and often hoards. It promotes excess and harm. That's its spirit. It also arms and equips and pays armies to coerce others into opening up to that system. There is no freedom in it.
Capitalists have done all manner of evils for the sake of devouring for self that is apart from God — astray.
As for socialism, you are still using it as synonymous with Marxism, which it is not. There is real socialism that is synonymous with Christianity. There is no way to be non-violent and non-coercive and believe in the kind and degree of giving and sharing desired by Jesus and not be a Christian. It takes the love and peace of Jesus to achieve that kind and degree of sharing he shares with God and his friends (real friends) who love what he taught and did that was not capitalism in the least. He cleans the Temple of capitalists.
As for preconceived ideas, the ideas are Jesus's. I used to fall for the serpent somewhat about capitalism. I outgrew that. I couldn't fall back into that error if I tried. I don't need to see which is true. I already know. I know what Jesus said and I know he was and remains right.
Let me ask you, before you left your comments here, how much reading did you do on this site? Did you read "ABOUT OUR NAME: REAL LIBERAL CHRISTIAN CHURCH" and "ARTICLE ON: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A CONSERVATIVE-REPUBLICAN CHRISTIAN: JESUS IS A SMALL-C COMMUNIST" and at least "EXCERPTS ON SMALL-C COMMUNISM"? I don't think you have. Yet you're asking me to read even more redundant capitalist dogma from Hell. You won't find the above articles anywhere else on the Internet unless they are cited duplicates or un-cited plagiarisms. Before you continue debating with me, I suggest you stack up your position against what I've already written that you have never seen before in any version. You can also look at the category: Libertarian Capitalism: False Shepherds. It's not up to date, but it covers plenty.
Some of my more recent posts ought to enlighten you as to whether or not your arguments will stand up. They won't. Your first premise is wrong.
WHY DO CAPITALISTS USE ECONOMIC SANCTIONS, IF ALL SOCIALIST STATES INHERENTLY FAIL?
WHAT LAISSEZ FAIRE CAPITALISTS HAVE DONE TO THE U.S. ECONOMY JUST FOR STARTERS
Be sure to read the comments on that last one.
After that, if you think you have something to add that hasn't already been refuted, I'll engage you.
Capitalism is not, never has been, and never will be part of the revelation of Jesus Christ. If you think it is, you're deceiving yourself and any who believe you about it.
You say you're not a Mormon. Why are you part of a Mormon Blog ring? That's very misleading.
You said, "You might call me a Liberal Christian." No, I wouldn't. You don't fit the definition of a real liberal Christian. You line up with the capitalists and all they bring forth that is always a net loss both materially and spiritually. It leads to death of the soul. Satan is a capitalist. He's also a coercive socialists (false socialist). Those who are "best" at capitalism fund the wars. They do the most to addict others to drugs. They do the most illegal weapons deals. They do the most to traffic in human and child sex slavery. They do the most money laundering for the largest other crooks in the world. They have monopolized the currency. They are the ones to whom much of the interest on the national debt is paid. They are the ones whose private central bank accounts are never audited by the U.S. government or IRS. They own the military-industrial complex and send their war machine out into the world to take what they want and the locals be damned. They are the ones who pay for the CIA and others to undermine democracies, even as they claim to be for the people choosing in what they call free and fair elections.
That's the spirit of capitalism regardless of what Ayn Rand or others including you say to try to claim the tree doesn't bring forth such fruit by which we know the tree. Argue against that if you can! It's straight from Jesus. I suggest you rather turn away from defending that tree and its wicked fruit and turn to real Christianity that is of, by, and for the people giving and sharing and not for holding out for recompense in the form of money, their contrived (wholly manmade) medium of exchange.
You wrote, "There are some comments on my blog, but I usually delete comments that are negative and seem closed-minded." You don't let your readers and visitors be the judge of those things. You give them only what you want them to see, and you conceal points-of-view that differ from yours, such as mine. I'm not calling for you to allow anyone to say just anything he wants to on your blog. Spammers (who are evil) would render sites un-usable regardless of the quality of the site's message.
There are many other things I could say here about capitalism to show how it is not and can never be Christian. I'd just be repeating most of what I've already written. It is wiser simply to steer others to what's already there than it is to spend huge numbers of hours rewriting it all for each commentator.
Again, may God bless you, Brian, with the truth.
Tom Usher
Tom Usher
Standing Comment, all posts and pages:
To all homosexuals and their supporters, condoners, promoters, accepters, confirmers, and the like:
Unless you have something completely new that hasn't already been refuted, don't bother. It won't show up.
Rehashing what has already been refuted is a waste of everyone's time.
I'm not interested in casting pearls before swine, giving the children's bread to the dogs, or rebuking a forever scorner.
Learn or go away: There is zero wisdom in homosexuality. Homosexuality is wrong. Nothing any homosexual or anyone else can say or do will alter it. No one needs the Bible to know it either. It's prima facie. There's no such thing as an unrepentant-homosexual Christian. There never has been and never will be. That's the way of it. If you don't like it, change.
Do site searches on the various topics concerning homosexuality to determine if your "point" has already been handled. Currently, I provide three different search methods. The "WordPress" search is still the most thorough.
The same can be done regarding militarism, capitalism, coercion, and many other main issues and themes.
TREATMENT, RUDENESS, POLITENESS, OFFENSE, TRUTH
Many times over the course of this website's existence, I've had commentators complain about how I've treated them and/or others. Much less frequently has anyone taken exception to those commentator's comments. I assume that's because for one, I appear to be holding my own.
Often, I have raised the fact that Jesus called certain people "serpents." I've often also mentioned how he cleaned the temple with whip in hand, not that he used it on anyone. It certainly doesn't say that he did, and neither was he charged with it in the kangaroo court of the serpents who ended up murdering him by proxy just for, among other wonderful things, speaking out and speaking truth.
If I say that those who are engaged in serpentine behavior are the New Testament "serpents," then why take offense at my saying it rather than standing with Jesus and me about it?
If others don't like it that I treat others or them the way I have in this regard, why don't they take it up with the serpents and/or their own consciences and God?
If I wanted to catch flies, I'd use honey. I don't want flies on this level. Human beings aren't to be on the level of flies. If the truth is bitter as vinegar, then ask yourself why and learn to taste it as sweet but not sickeningly so. Why attack the message and messenger, as the serpents did, and become a serpent by so doing?
The issue is not "name calling" on some bratty, childish level. When Jesus said "serpents," he was not being as a brat. His level was completely adult to adults and children. He dared say that the children understood the clear and plain truth before the adults who, afterall, had been abused and socialized by the serpents. He still calls adults back. Those who hear him and know his voice (truth) turn around and do the other required things together as well.
What is it for a human being to be more serpentine or reptilian than what God initially gave? What was and remains Jesus's point? What is the reptilian brain versus the vastly higher human brain with its cerebral cortex and frontal and temporal lobes and specific areas of altruistic sentiments and abilities? What are those higher areas before they are damaged, before the communication pathways to them and between them are diminished by evil that is always some form of abuse? How are those pathways reestablished or created where they never were in this fleshly life?
The snake lays its eggs. The eggs hatch. The snake parent doesn't nurture or raise the offspring. It's every snake for itself. Human parents and family are not designed to be that way. Humans hand down the learning of nurturing. Many people get better training than do others, and many people have a greater aptitude for learning and predisposition for the higher and highest virtues. Many are less abused. People can change for the better and best though, no matter where the starting point. They only can't if they don't — if they reject it.
Snakes, of course, also come in venomous varieties and in strangling varieties, etc., such that they have been attackers and even devourers of humans for eons, guilty and innocent alike.
Now, Jesus knew that most people could relate to what were, and still are, largely considered "good" parenting skills and "good" "family" relations. He regularly used those concepts to get people to consider the wider implications for the whole of humanity. He did know that many would refuse. He let them go. He didn't demand secular or false-religion legislation to rein them in with threats of violence and imprisonment. He was not and is not coercive. Even his Church is a voluntary place to be.
What he still teaches (through the written words in the New Testament and as those connect with the Old and also teaches through the Holy Spirit he definitely sent as he said he would) is, among many other things, that "good" is vastly better than has been commonly accepted and that real "family" is everyone left after all the rest have rejected the higher and highest good. He raised the standards far above the Old Testament and far above the "modern" standard.
The American Empire and the American people in general aren't even touching the hem of his garment, let alone even attempting to stand upright and side-by-side with him.
I point out that Jesus was, and is, a Real Liberal Christian. He is the one who brought back this censored truth that is the light. After he had spoken it and lived it and was murdered for doing so, the censors set about to re-censor it and did. They couldn't put it out though — couldn't completely extinguish the truth. I wouldn't be saying it now again with all credit to God, just as Jesus, if they had been able to completely block it.
I point out that each of those terms ("real," "liberal," and "Christian," along with "Church") are actually redundant terms — synonyms that are so close that they become one. The term "liberal" here is not the common usage, which common usage is a deliberate corruption of the term. There is no harm in real liberalism. There is no vileness in it. There is only beneficence. "Real" may be understood as the opposite of false-hearted, dark side, and dead of the Holy Spirit. Christian is both real and liberal in those senses. To arrive at living, doing, being those full senses requires what Jesus lives, does, and is in the highest. Finally, the Church is the whole.
Who are they who want to drag it down, censor it, work against it, lessen it, ignore it, etc.? Well, who sides with Jesus and who sides against him? Did the serpents side with him then? Do they now?
We call war-mongers "hawks." We call "peacemakers" blessed and "doves." Why do the hawks not take offense at "hawks" but do take offense at "serpents"? "Hawks" is not yet as telling to the general public, but I must tell you that all hawks are serpents. Why do some say, "Greed is good" but take offense at "serpents"? I tell you there is no difference between the selfish and the serpents. Why do people take offense at serpents when they do not take offense at homosexuality? I tell you the homosexual spirit also comes out from the dark side. It is a choice. It is harmful. Many are abused with it. Many never overcome it. Their very brain matter is transformed by it. Then they claim it is good when it remains confusion and definitely wrong and harmful.
Many arguments were put forth in support of tolerance. I understood that Jesus "tolerated," as in he did not execute wrath but rather told the truth and let the blind follow the blind (blind to the truth) into the ditch of their own making. I have watched while the movement has been corrupted into condoning what was once only to be tolerated. I have watched further while it has moved from condoning to promoting even to the youngest children to get to them before the truth does. I have seen evil at work, and I sound the alarm. I face censorship and other negative reactions for it.
As the American Empire claims to be a light to the world, it murders innocent babies by Hellfire missiles fired from predator drones controlled by armchair, video-gaming serpents in uniform. It tortures those who are not even suspects. It spies on its own without even probable cause or reasonable suspicion. It lies its way into wars for spoils and control. It neglects its poor, whom it treads down for the sakes of the superrich — for the sake of the massive flow of mammon from the bottom up (no trickledown — trickledown is a farce and always has been). All is claimed to be okay in America though — that America is headed in the right direction — because soon, even "don't tell, don't ask" will be a thing of the quaint past and homosexuals may be able to sleep together and have sex in the barracks with the "blessing" of the Empire while they practice murdering the innocent for the sake of homosexual, greedy plutocrats who own them and who, in turn, are owned by the dark-side spirit named by God and Jesus as Satan.
Whose side are you on? I speak truth to warn. I don't tell the secular government what to do other than occasionally to say what at least would be less hypocritical within their fallen, unenlightened system. I do so for spiritual reasons. What I want is the Christian Commons.
Now, if you submit a comment:
What you write here against the Real Liberal Christian Church founded by Jesus Christ will mark you in the Biblical sense unless you show that you have turned and are repenting in time to escape the damnation of your own choosing. That's the way of it. Don't be tempted by the devil to stand opposed to the call of righteousness. Overcome such evil temptation. Help others to help yet others to come to righteous behavior through-and-through.
Check out how even after reading this, people will still take it out of context and twist it to an evil end.