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Goodbye Jesus

True Christians Should Be Rich Or Poor?


Lucy

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Some well off people think god made them rich because they are his chosen people and god curses the bad people with poverty. Basically poor people are poor because they were too sinful and/or undeserving of God's blessings. This seems to be becoing more common with prosperity gospel preachers becoming more popular lately.

 

Rich Christian thinking: "True Christians should be well off. I'm well off because God is blessing me and my good Christian ways. The poor are poor because of giving in to Satan's temptations and God is turning his back on them unless they repent."

 

 

And then there are poor people who believe that they are God's chosen people and the rich are rich because they are sinful. Satan is rewarding bad people with worldly riches now but they will suffer for it later.

 

Poor Christian thinking: "True Christians should be poor. I'm poor now but I'll be rich in heaven. Those rich people are sinful and got rich from some evil means. Some day God will give me mansions in heaven and those rich people will go burn in hell."

 

 

The Bible can be cherry picked to support either viewpoint.

 

Just curious. In your former Christian belief which way did you see it? Or was it a non-issue?

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Some well off people think god made them rich because they are his chosen people and god curses the bad people with poverty. Basically poor people are poor because they were too sinful and/or undeserving of God's blessings. This seems to be becoing more common with prosperity gospel preachers becoming more popular lately.

 

 

That kind of thinking is also very popular in the republican party these days, especially when blended with a winner-take-all/dog-eat-dog economic philosophy. Folks who buy into that mentality think they're better than everyone else just because they were born into a wealthy family or they had better opportunities than other people.  Quite often, such folks  believe being rich gives them license to treat everyone else like shit. After all, they're the elite, the chosen and the rest of us are just pissants taking up space in their world. I think that's why the repubs tend to be so spiteful and cruel-- they see it as their duty to punish everyone else. Since they can't actually kill us with impunity (yet) they go out of their way to make life as hard as possible for those down on their luck.

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for poor point of view: job, abaraham, isaac, jacob, david, solomon are rich

for rich point of view:  john the babtist was poor, jesus and the apostles were not rich, at most they are middle class

 

I do not understand why chrisitian have to generalize good christian equal wealthy or poor

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Some well off people think god made them rich because they are his chosen people and god curses the bad people with poverty. Basically poor people are poor because they were too sinful and/or undeserving of God's blessings. This seems to be becoing more common with prosperity gospel preachers becoming more popular lately.

 

Rich Christian thinking: "True Christians should be well off. I'm well off because God is blessing me and my good Christian ways. The poor are poor because of giving in to Satan's temptations and God is turning his back on them unless they repent."

 

 

And then there are poor people who believe that they are God's chosen people and the rich are rich because they are sinful. Satan is rewarding bad people with worldly riches now but they will suffer for it later.

 

Poor Christian thinking: "True Christians should be poor. I'm poor now but I'll be rich in heaven. Those rich people are sinful for not giving more of their money to those in need and got rich from some evil means. Some day God will give me mansions in heaven and those rich people will go burn in hell."

 

 

The Bible can be cherry picked to support either viewpoint.

 

Just curious. In your former Christian belief which way did you see it? Or was it a non-issue?

I saw it the latter way, with some alterations.

 

I wasn't bitter towards rich people for being rich, I just felt they were being selfish and uncaring by not using their money to help those in need.

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For several years, my dad worked for a religious printing company. The owner believed that "true Christians" should be poor, and paid his employees off that principal, many of which included his own children and grandchildren. Many times over the years, I've looked back and wondered how on earth my parents made it, with mom not working and having us three boys. 

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True Christian believers are the poor folks who make con artists rich.

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Well I was told that rich Christians got that way by giving so god blessed them even more sort of like £10 donation returns £20 back.

 

Though when you think of capitalism the fact they are rich means there playing a part at exploiting someone in the big machine called the economy

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Guest Furball

As a former christian i struggled with both sides. But i did go through the ocd type process of well, things are going good for me so god must be happy with me and my christianity. If things went bad, i would think god was not happy with me and that i did something wrong in my christian walk to offend him. I too struggled with the whole, well god is testing my faith etc. etc nonsense as well. -oh well

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there are verses in the bible supporting both sides, which is pretty funny.

 

I think religion has much more ability to control society than we realize. and people use that ability, either consciously or unconsciously a lot more

than we would think.

 

Napoleon, who for the most part did not believe in christianity, kept religion around because it was good for keeping the poor people

under control:  “Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.”

 

at the end of the day, religion is most useful for justifying ones actions. you can justify being a rich asshole who treats others as beneath him and pays workers like shit, you can justify to your self "well I am poor but god supports me, my suffering is only because of my faith in god, you can justify nations living in peace with each other like the league of nations and the UN, you can justify and nation committing genocide against another like the amalakites/isralites. you can justify having multiple wives is cool, justify treating women like you own them. you can even justify making people wear magic underwear.

 

no matter what the circumstance, people will find a way to say "what we are doing is cool, because God wants us to do it."

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Free Thinker: I have read that the richer people get, the less generous they become. Once one begins to get a higher income, he/she views more money as less valuable than before. Therefore, the more you think you need. In other words, your need for wealth goes up. So you think you can't afford to make generous donations.   I think it was Mark Twain who said, "We turn luxuries into necessities which satisfy--nothing."   Rip

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As far what I believed while a xian:  I thought the amount of money people had was irrelevant, since people's true characters are what counts.  Rich people can be cruel and tacky and have no class, or they can be wonderful philanthropists.  

 

Anyway, I was listening to a xian apologetic on the radio the other day and someone called in and asked, "When Jesus said to sell everything and give it to the poor, is that what we're supposed to do?"  This wealthy person replied, "That's not what Jesus meant at all.  If you read the bible and the story of Ruth and Naomi, it was ok for them to glean what was left in the fields after the farmers harvested their yield.  God wanted the farmers not to take everything, but to leave gleanings for the poor.  So it's ok if you have money, as long as you contribute something, your gleanings."

 

I thought, "That wealthy man is cruel and tacky and has no class."

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Some Bible passages indicate that one can prosper from being obedient to god, but the central character, the Jesus character, would have believers give away their earthly possessions and build their treasures in Heaven; after all, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle (impossible) than for a rich man to enter Heaven. Modern churches don't emphasize the teachings of the Jesus character and even ignore them frequently.  http://biblehub.com/matthew/19-24.htm

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Guest Furball

As always, with the bible, it's a game of 'which is it.' The bible is double minded and speaks out of both sides of its mouth. As soon as i thought i had a beat with one thing it says, i would find another scripture that would refute it and say the opposite. Glad i am not a christian anymore and have to drive myself insane trying to figure all this nonsense out.

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Some Bible passages indicate that one can prosper from being obedient to god, but the central character, the Jesus character, would have believers give away their earthly possessions and build their treasures in Heaven; after all, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle (impossible) than for a rich man to enter Heaven. Modern churches don't emphasize the teachings of the Jesus character and even ignore them frequently.  http://biblehub.com/matthew/19-24.htm

In my experience I have known some people take this concept as "I am prospering, therefore I am obviously obeying god."

 

I went to 3 churches in my lifetime, and the jesus character was hardly ever looked upon, except at Christmas time (as a baby) and Easter. the rest of the round he was never explored or examined, instead they avoided him. he had a bit of a different tone from the old testament, and the new testament was trying to fix, ignore or construct impressive logic loops to work-around the issue.

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The Old Testament (the first "covenant") strongly promoted the idea that the righteous would be rewarded with wealth and long life and war victories, but then the New Testament had Jesus presenting meekness and servanthood as the righteous path. Just another example of how the NT was quite incompatible with the OT it was carelessly tacked onto.

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after all, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle (impossible) http://biblehub.com/matthew/19-24.htm

Not if you made soup.

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If the church didn't have rich people it would not exist think of all those fellowship meetings and church dinners paid by the rich for the rich. I have never once heard a pastor condemn the rich in my church. Generally the rich are those who sit on the management board of the church e.g they set the line.

 

And there was me for Years wondering why I was not in a leadership position until people told me I don't contribute enough

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As always, with the bible, it's a game of 'which is it.' The bible is double minded and speaks out of both sides of its mouth. As soon as i thought i had a beat with one thing it says, i would find another scripture that would refute it and say the opposite. Glad i am not a christian anymore and have to drive myself insane trying to figure all this nonsense out.

And don't forget all the descriptions of heaven with the streets paved in gold, and walls made of layers of gemstones, etc.  Someone had dreams of living the high life when he wrote that!  No hovels in heaven!

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Some well off people think god made them rich because they are his chosen people...

 

Lucy, it's OK, really it is to say or type 'Jew' in this or any other forum.  You'll get banned on Huffington Post, and most media webpages as it's run by them.

 

As to your topic, one only has to consult godisimaginary.com to find the answer from their bible:

http://godisimaginary.com/i20.htm

 

From the quoted bible passages, you'll see that the ONLY humans qualified to be "disciples of christ" are the homeless people starving, living in a box under a bridge, which is why "conservative christians" are not interested in sharing America's great wealth with our own people, instead of sending it to foreign countries to fund wars and other atrocities against innocent people.

 

They, of course, never read these passages to the flock they're trying to fleece for 10% of their $150K incomes.  Technically, any church full of real christians would have no money as 10% of the income of the homeless disciples in the boxes have no money.  Peter Popoff and the other billionaire preachers would disagree...of course.

 

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"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man go to heaven."  Have you ever heard a Xtian say that this scripture causes anyone an impediment to a rich man going to heaven? I haven't. Everyone I have heard comment on it immediately says, "but the very next verse says that with god nothing is impossible." It is as though the first verse were entirely unnecessary. And that has always been the end of the Xtian's response. If you assume the bible is the inspired word of god, the verse must mean something.

At least to current day Xtians I think they simply don't want to believe being rich matters. But if you read the NT it is clear that it does, if it is the inspired word of god. Exactly what it means is not clear, however. But the Book of James is really clear that the poor was the reason Jesus was sent to earth. Another inconvenient  verse? Rip

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