Jesus hates teabaggers

[kid communist]

memegenerator.net

[Franz Fanonipants]

it's true, he told me

[Bardo]

http://s3-ak.buzzfed.com/static/imagebuzz/web02/2010/5/8/23/wwjd-10020-1273375207-53.jpg

[kid communist]

Uhhh,well this is embarrasing,but anyway here's the picture I was trying to postimages.memegenerator.net/instances/280x280/9679556.jpg

[kid communist]

Fuck!I look stupid.But anyway,it was a picture of Jesus flipping the viewer off,and there's text saying:"Guess what?I was a communist".I feel like a total idiot right now.

[Vendetta]

"Guess what?I was a communist".

No, he wasn't.

[Azraella]

It's...debatable what kind of political views Jesus had. He was certainly a radical if he existed. With very few exceptions, any attempts to ascertain Jesus' political views in the modern world is an exercise in madness and futility. I cringe whenever I hear someone of a conservative political bent claim Jesus is all for us exacting justice on those durn Muslims, or that this or that natural disaster is punishment for how we all wear funny hats that are clearly sinful based off X, Y, and Z very specific Bible quotes probably taken well out of context... but I also cringe when I hear people say Jesus came to teach love and not violence, because that's horribly inaccurate too. To transliterate C.S. Lewis, Jesus is not a tame lion. The answer is not peace, nor is it violence, but rather it is Many Things. Jesus and his message are complicated, and it is the worst kind of duplicity to simplify either.

But, you know, it's easier and to demonize evangelicals as irrational hypocrites. Demagoguery is "in" though, so fuck basic facts, tolerance and understanding. So, here ya go... Jesus didn't come to found a government. He came for individuals. Governments don't have their souls saved. Individuals do. Jesus' direction is to the individual, not to governments. The individual has a spiritual pursuit and spiritual obligations while the state is purely temporal. Individual and state have separate obligations and duties.

I don't want to get into a scriptural pissing contest over this, but I will say there's no Sermon About The Need for Gift Economies, nor was there the Parable of Why the Death Penalty is Wrong. The Bible is not a political treatise. Hell, Jesus makes a point of flouting the expectation the Jews of the time had about the Messiah (they thought his big thing would be freeing Israel from the Romans, which obviously wasn't on his to-do list). "Give unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar's, and give unto God that which is God's" is about all the advice he offers on the subject.

The Bible is many things (the word itself means "books"), but the one thing it isn't is clear. There is great danger in simplification, and simplifying it to the merely political does the text a grave injustice. Another example: Leo Tolstoy, for instance saw the Sermon on the Mount (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sermon_on_the_Mount) as being justifications (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_anarchism#Ministry_and_example_of_Jesus) for Christian anarchism.

So please for the love of my gods and for intellectual honesty: Don't try to pin political ideology on the Bible or on Jesus.

[ZeroNowhere]

Trust me, your consistent failure to post the image probably saved you embarrassment, if anything.

[ComradeMan]

I don't want to get into a scriptural pissing contest over this, but I will say there's no Sermon About The Need for Gift Economies, nor was there the Parable of Why the Death Penalty is Wrong.

Deutoronomy? Exodus? Leviticus?

Deuteronomy 15:7-11: talks about helping the poor. Matthew 5:38-39:talks about turning the other cheek. On the "adulteress" who was about to face the death penalty...John 8:7 give us the famous "casting" the first stone whereas Matthew 6:15 admonishes forgiveness or judgement according to how we have judged.


The Bible is not a political treatise. Hell, Jesus makes a point of flouting the expectation the Jews of the time had about the Messiah (they thought his big thing would be freeing Israel from the Romans, which obviously wasn't on his to-do list). "Give unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar's, and give unto God that which is God's" is about all the advice he offers on the subject.

Matthew 5: 17-18: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." (KJV)

[Azraella]

Do you understand theology especially evangelical and Catholic theology? Edit: they have specific arguments that describe what the bible is.

[Zostrianos]

There's a funny video about that:
pkKPtUywY-8

[ComradeMan]

Do you understand theology especially evangelical and Catholic theology? Edit: they have specific arguments that describe what the bible is.

What do you mean?

The Bible, Old Testament/Tanakh and New Testament, covers:


environmental protection;
health;
welfare;
economic ethics;
taxation;
power dynamics;

foreign policy;
money;
crime and punishment.

All of these are "political" issues in that they relate to the dynamics of social relations and authority within the "πόλις".

[Zostrianos]

Matthew 5: 17-18: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled"

It's important to note that while Jesus was a better humanist than all his predecessors, and preferred mercy and goodness over severity and savagery, he never contradicted the old Law, as the above quote indicates.

[ComradeMan]

It's important to note that while Jesus was a better humanist than all his predecessors, and preferred mercy and goodness over severity and savagery, he never contradicted the old Law, as the above quote indicates.

It's complicated but he was referring to the "Moral Law" not the ceremonial and judicial laws and the moral law fundamentally bases itself on two precepts, monotheism and the golden rule.
(Matthew 22:36)

[Azraella]

What do you mean?


The Bible has a way of contradicting itself. For example: The third book of the Bible, Leviticus, has some wonderful passages. The Jubilee laws outlined in chapter 25 (http://www.biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?passage=Leviticus+25&NIV_version=yes&language=english), for example, provide an inspiring vision of liberty and justice for all. The 10th verse of this chapter even supplied the inscription for the Liberty Bell: "proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."

The Jubilee laws and the ideals they embody, unfortunately, are nearly wholly neglected and forgotten. Most of the book of Leviticus is similarly neglected.

Yet some passages live on, their teachings still regarded as unwavering and binding.

One such passage is Lev. 20:13, which says (in the King James Version), "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination."

That passage is frequently cited by the spokesmen of the religious right to explain why they're so adamantly opposed to allowing homosexuals to enjoy full civil rights here in America.

The thing is, though, that the book of Leviticus condemns a lot of things as "abominations." The 11th chapter is overflowing with abominations. For example, from verses 10-12:

And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you: They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination. Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.

The folks over on the religious right cite Leviticus as evidence that homosexuals are an unclean "abomination," yet they have no problem eating at Red Lobster. What gives?

Since many observers have noted this apparent inconsistency (see, for example, godhatesshrimp.com (http://godhatesshrimp.com/)) I figured I would wade in to try to explain why it is that so many contemporary Christians reject gays while embracing shellfish.

To understand why God is no longer considered a hater of shrimp you have to flip ahead to the Acts of the Apostles, the good doctor's account of the early days of the Christian church.

Acts chapter 10 (http://www.biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?passage=Acts+10&NIV_version=yes&language=english) finds the apostle Peter on a rooftop in Joppa, praying at noon before heading down to lunch.

The impulsive former fisherman has grown into a genuine leader in the early church. At Pentecost, he preached the gospel to people from every corner of the Roman Empire and he is slowly appreciating that this new community is supposed to transcend any ethnic or cultural boundaries. But the goyim still seem to bug him a bit. Especially the Romans.

So God gives him a vision. Peter falls into a trance and sees a vision of a giant tablecloth descending from heaven. The tablecloth is covered with honeybaked hams, cheesesteaks, crab cakes, calamari and lobster.

"Eat up, Peter," a voice tells him

"Surely not, Lord!" Peter says. "I have never eaten anything impure or unclean."

"Don't call anything unclean that God has made clean," the voice says.

"And try the angels on horseback, they're like butter."
This happens three times.

This is generally regarded as an instance in which a New Testament passage seems to set aside a prohibition from the Old Testament. And that's why our friends on the religious right do not feel compelled to eat kosher and do not consider shellfish to be "an abomination."

Fair enough, but there's something else going on in this story. The main point of Peter's rooftop epiphany has nothing to do with diet. The main point of this vision had to do with the people who were about to knock on Peter's door.

Peter is about to meet Cornelius. Cornelius is a gentile. Worse than that, he is a Roman. Worse than that, he is a Roman centurion. Cornelius is about as kosher as a bacon double cheeseburger.

But give Peter credit -- he understood the vision. "Don't call anything unclean that God has made clean." Don't call anyone unclean that God has made clean.

Peter does not treat Cornelius as an unclean outsider. He travels to the centurion's house, where he says, "You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean."

Peter gets it. In this new community that God is building, this church, there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free. No one is excluded as unclean.

This is the unsubtle point that Luke is hammering home for his gentile friend Theophilus. The surrounding chapters of Acts read like a hyper-P.C. after-school special on celebrating diversity. The church embraces Jews and gentiles, Roman soldiers and slaves, men and women, Africans, Greeks and even a token white European.

In our fondness for Easter ham, Christians have fervently clung to the surface-level meaning of Peter's vision. But the haven't been as enthusiastic about embracing the larger, more important lesson God was teaching him there on the rooftop. When the "unclean" outsiders knock on our doors, we don't like inviting them in.

That, in a nutshell, is why some Christians happily dismiss one "abomination" while still behaving abominably out of allegiance to another.
(Oh, and what about Leviticus' Jubilee laws? Those were never set aside by anything in the New Testament, but Christians no longer treat them as authoritative because, um ... well, because money is pretty and shiny and let's us buy nice things.)

------

The tl;dr version: theologically speaking for Christians, the New Testament is their moral basis(with some apsects of Leviticus), it is also filled with nuances of understanding that we simply cannot attribute political meanings to. I can take any passage in the Bible and make it mean whatever I want it to mean.

[ComradeMan]

I can take any passage in the Bible and make it mean whatever I want it to mean.

Matthew 22:36-40: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (KJV)

How do you make that mean what you want it to mean?

[Revolution starts with U]

Matthew 22:36-40: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (KJV)

How do you make that mean what you want it to mean?

I love myself by beating myself when I do something I percieve as wrong.

[The Insurrection]

What's a teabagger?

[alegab]

What's a teabagger?

A participant/believer in the Tea Party Movement,a conservative/"right libertarian" group within the Republican Party, It has a few nationwide leaders, such as Ron Paul and Palin

[NormalG]

Jesus was a revolutionary idea until coopted. He preached the rich will never inherit heaven and organized ppl from all walks of life including lumpen

[eyeheartlenin]

Jesus was a revolutionary idea until coopted. He preached the rich will never inherit heaven and organized ppl from all walks of life including lumpen

I write to second what cde NormalG said. As depicted in parts of the gospels, Jesus had some revolutionary ideas: He paid attention to women in a way that was unusual for a man of his time and place. And,

He is quoted in the gospel tradition as saying, in effect, that it is easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle, than it is to sneak a rich man into heaven, which is, I think, a marvelous sentiment.

Concerning the poor, if one reads the Psalms, those writers repeatedly state that the Deity has a special concern for the downtrodden, oppressed and impoverished, so that there actually is a lot of compassion in places in the Bible. Not all of that book is congenial to reactionaries and the wealthy.

And Jesus was very much a pacifist, as in his the Sermon on the Mount, which prohibits verbally degrading or even clearing one's thread derisively in the direction of another person. I take that to mean that if you cannot insult anyone, you certainly cannot bomb another person from 40,000 feet, so imperialist war and violence are already condemned by heaven, as far as the Bible is concerned.

It took an entire century (133 CE) before the early Christian movement reconciled itself to the Empire, by allowing believers to serve in the imperial army. The final book of the Christian Bible utterly condemns the Empire, in language that I cannot quote here.

[Iron Felix]

I don't see much sense in arguing about the teachings of a fictional character in an ancient work of literature. It has as much merit as arguing which of Homer's Ajaxes was the more virtuous.

[NormalG]

It's important to note that while Jesus was a better humanist than all his predecessors, and preferred mercy and goodness over severity and savagery, he never contradicted the old Law, as the above quote indicates.
"I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword" (Matthew 10:34)

[NormalG]

"But now the one who has a purse must take it, and likewise a bag; and the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one." (Luke 22:36)

[Revolution starts with U]

Ah Jesus in his "nobody is listening and we're just going to have to arm ourselves" phase. :rolleyes:

[Judicator]

http://s3-ak.buzzfed.com/static/imagebuzz/web02/2010/5/8/23/wwjd-10020-1273375207-53.jpg

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

Also, camel through the eye of a needle and all that.

[Zostrianos]

A participant/believer in the Tea Party Movement,a conservative/"right libertarian" group within the Republican Party, It has a few nationwide leaders, such as Ron Paul and Palin

Teabaggers believe that if you can't work you should starve, that the rich should have tax exemptions and privileges (since they are viewed as the driving force of the economy), that there should be no free social programs, free healthcare, or help for the needy whatsoever - essentially, if you need help, you gotta pay - and no one really needs help in their view: according to most Teabaggers, if you can't work you're just lazy. You're too poor to pay for health insurance? Too bad, you die. Many of them (if not the majority) also hold dearly to the perverse notion that the more guns are made available to the public, the safer society becomes. Oh, and most of them are homophobes, warmongers, and they usually adhere to a fundamentalist Christian denomination, also holding to the false notion that America's founders were Christian theocrats; a good portion of them also believe that society should be governed by Biblical laws, and some go as far as demanding a higher and more privileged status for Christians in society (I saw a couple of videos a while back where Tea party supporters claimed that the freedoms of the Constitution only apply to Christians.)

I think that sums it up :glare:

[Revolution starts with U]

You forgot the fact that 57% of them hold a favorable view of the presidency of GWBush; until a black liberal was elected they were mostly just your basic neocon.

[Zostrianos]

You forgot the fact that 57% of them hold a favorable view of the presidency of GWBush; until a black liberal was elected they were mostly just your basic neocon.

Only 57%? I thought they pretty much worshipped any past president, provided he was a republican, especially Reagan and the Bushes.