Anonymous discotheque 4w

The issue with this is that Jesus was never a leader in the traditional sense, as would be required by your hypothetical. It’s why a lot of the conservative Jews were upset, as they imagined the messiah as a great conqueror who would free them from Rome and rule over Israel. Assuming an “accurate biblical representation”, Jesus would not allocate resources or tell people what to do. The whole point of his ministry was getting people to believe in him and follow him through their own free will.

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Anonymous #1 4w

Seeing as he was against greed, hate, and corruption, wouldn’t he be against capitalism? As a system, it incentivizes capitalists to do all three: greed in the form of capital accumulation, hate in the form of propaganda to divide the working class, and corruption in the form of lobbying/using the government to ensure the steady flow of capital

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Anonymous #5 4w

Something something sigh of an oppressed people, opiate of the masses, something something

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Anonymous #5 4w

My purpose for posing this question is I’ve found in my personal perspective Christians more often lean into conservative and capitalist values while roping this back into Christian fundamentals. However, in my interpretation of the bible and the illustration of Jesus I would think he would lean towards a more equitable society that promotes the needs of the many over material possessions and wealth which is why I find it antithetical to hold Biblical values and still align with the right

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Anonymous #5 4w

Oh no here comes the fun police

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Anonymous #3 4w

That’s a really good question. The thing is, that type of corruption exists in every system. Take communism. Collectivization and planned economies breed greed, both for money and power, as the government centralizes. This also leads to corruption. It calls any non-revolutionaries enemies and creates hate through propaganda and an “us vs them” mentality. Once again, it’s not about one system or the other. The real enemy is our flawed human nature.

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Anonymous OP 4w

I think it’s important to note that the Bible and Jesus don’t accuse wealth itself as evil. After all, Jesus hung out with tax collectors (the greediest) and was supported by wealthy and powerful patrons like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. We are called to pay our taxes and it is said that the love of money, not money itself, is the root of evil. It’s what we do with our possessions that matters, and we should use it to help each other.

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Anonymous #1 4w

Yes, I would entirely agree with this sentiment that the Bible does not explicitly state wealth is evil or sinful in nature, my confusion/confliction is more on the foundations that the system of capitalism as we see in modern society has this love of wealth at it’s core base of what to strive for. This is why I hold that a socialist/communist society would be held in a more favorable view in the eyes of the biblical depictions of Jesus

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Anonymous #1 4w

In addition, I understand that historical presentations and examples of communist/socialist countries in practice have succumb to the influence of greed and corruption which led to contributions in their failures however I base my standpoint from a theoretical perspective on the principles of each system and proper implementation of both which has led me to the aforementioned conclusion

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Anonymous #1 4w

I’d say it’s reductive to blame our ills on human nature. Doing this detracts from the very real issues of capitalism, namely its promotion of greed and capital accumulation and the consequences thereof. In addition, you don’t provide reasons that centralization necessarily leads to greed. In fact, in some cases it is the opposite: when Cuba nationalized the estates of the wealthy, Fidel Castro’s family estate was also nationalized, even though he would have inherited it for himself in future

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Anonymous #3 4w

I don’t object to critiques of socialism; many socialist countries are deserving of critique. But reducing our problems to human nature keeps us from recognizing the flaws of our system and looking for solutions

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Anonymous #1 4w

Yeah I know. Serious answer would probably be a socdem or something

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Anonymous #3 4w

Central planning is bad because it’s really hard to allocate resources and set quotas for things

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Anonymous #3 4w

Our systems are flawed because the people who make and run them are flawed. Capitalistic greed wouldn’t be an issue if people weren’t greedy in the first place. A system might look good on paper, but because theory fails to account for human flaws, our systems are imperfect. For example, take the Uzbek cotton scandal. Soviet officials used their authority to forge cotton harvest numbers to make money. This was done within a planned economy, illustrating that corruption exist in other systems.

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Anonymous #3 4w

Monetary greed isn’t the only problem though. Castro’s government was very restrictive, limiting the right to roam, freedom of expression, religion, and persecuting the homosexual community. This was under the guise of a socialist government. These actions go against what Jesus taught us about loving and respecting each other.

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Anonymous #3 4w

I think many of Jesus’ teachings better align with socialism. However, Jesus never vocalized support for any of our political ideologies (since they didn’t exist), so to claim he would have supported capitalism or socialism or feudalism is to put words in his mouth. Like I said earlier, I believe the most important thing he taught us was to love each other and overcome our flaws, regardless of how we choose to govern ourselves.

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Anonymous #1 4w

That’s an interesting perspective #1. However, I’d like to argue the opposite: that is, our systems & social structures encourage patterns of behavior, and are then reinforced by that behavior. Capitalistic greed wouldn’t be an issue if people weren’t greedy, true. However, capitalism encourages this greed. Capitalists who are not greedy are at a disadvantage. If you don’t accumulate capital fast enough, that translates to being weaker in comparison to your competitors…

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Anonymous #3 4w

…seeing as you have less capital at your disposal to wield. So yes, it wouldn’t be an issue if humans weren’t greedy, but capitalism itself reinforces this greed, which in turn reinforces capitalism. I do agree that we can’t know for sure what system Jesus would have supported, but I would argue that the current one IS in contradiction with the principles he taught

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Anonymous #3 4w

But what distinguishes capitalism from any other system that reinforces certain behaviors? Communism grants power through party loyalty, political manipulation, and resource control even if it’s at the expense of the citizenry. Jesus may not have supported American Capitalism. But I doubt he would have supported any of our alternatives. Each system falls short of Jesus’ teachings because they are all created, implemented, and operated by flawed people.

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Anonymous #1 4w

People are imperfect, and because we are imperfect everything we make will be flawed. Christianity believes that the only way to overcome this is through Jesus, who was perfect in every sense. To definitively tie him to any of our systems of government is to attribute an imperfect human creation to someone that has transcended beyond them.

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Anonymous #1 4w

I’ll say first that your critiques of communism can be easily applied to capitalism also: political manipulation and resource extraction is the name of the game. Second, you appear to be painting all of leftism with the brush of Stalinism/Maoism; there are particularities present only in Soviet and Chinese styles of governance that you are generalizing to all of the left. This is like saying that the US is a constitutional monarchy because both the US and UK are liberal governments…

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Anonymous #3 4w

…and they both have a constitution, therefore the particularities of the UK (having a constitutional monarch) must also apply to the US. This is simply not the case. Similarly, leftism is a wide and varied set of ideologies rooted in anti-capitalism rather than one articulation of these ideologies. Meanwhile, there are very valid critiques of past regimes that you could point out instead (the USSR’s Socialism in One Country; China’s One Country, two systems; etc). Once again, these are…

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Anonymous #3 4w

…particular to each regime. It is important to recognize the flaws of capitalism and work toward a solution rather than saying “well everyone’s flawed, so this is the best we’re gonna get”. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but a better system is possible

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Anonymous #3 4w

I’m not sure where you’re getting all of this. The point I have been arguing is that we can’t know what modern political system Jesus would have supported (which you’ve acknowledged) and that we shouldn’t tie him to any of them because he’s overcome the flaws that are inherent in our systems. I never claimed capitalism was the “best” system, nor did my argument ever take this stance. I think you’ve gone off in your own direction.

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Anonymous #1 4w

I realize this. Sorry if it seems like I’m ranting for no reason. I’m just pointing out some places where it looks like you’ve over-generalized socialism. We can’t say for sure if he’d support one system or another, but it can’t hurt to have an accurate look at the systems we’re discussing

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