Right on, Mr. Keyes!

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I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that.

Come on ragtime, you can come up with a rational argument against Obama. This is pure snipe and zero substance.

I got the impression lately that you were struggling to come up with reason to hate Obama, given that the Republican Party aren't so hot at the moment. So in a way it doesn't surprise me that you would buy into this.

You don't have to agree with the man, but recognise party politics for what it is. Otherwise you are a duped.

There are a couple things I think I need to suggest here,

The camel through the eye of a needle analogy:
http://www.biblicalhebrew.com/nt/camelneedle.htm

In reading the MacArthur study bible they had a very interesting answer for this. Mainly that in the historical context of the times, 30 AD or so, the Jews had come to the conclusion that the rich were favored by God because life had blessed them and thus they took it upon themselves to think that the rich were going to heaven and the poor were going to Hell. Jesus in speaking about the rich man as being that unable to get into heaven (ie. you could get a camel through a 3' x 3' section of an Arabic doorway more easily than getting the rich man into heaven) - it means that Jerusalem's 'most blessed' couldn't get in either, that technically there was one way and one way only - through Jesus, acts couldn't get you into heaven (though yes, they're a positive) and of course riches can't either.

Also, when Jesus told the rich man to give up all of his possessions and follow him, he'd also told a man who had insisted that he had to bury his father to, rather than doing so (ie. take charge of his father's estate) to just drop it all and follow him. Mainly because, in the context that Jesus was God, he was that important.


Going from that though and back to your comments - what's your overall thought on it? Should it be 10% given? 20%? 30%? 60%? Should they just give everything to everyone until they have no more money than the next person? The answer in that differs quite a bit of course. As it is right now a great many of the rich do all kinds of philanthropic work around the world, donate to large charities, and while you can argue on so many levels that the giving is all a tax benefit - I still don't see where giving is not giving, the end result is the same. If you would suggest though that all wealth disparities should just be bulldozed flat or even that the rich should give till their living in a box under the highway and everyone else has more than they do; the world literally can't operate, it would mean that anyone taking on more responsibility, taking on a job where harder decisions had to be made or the person who started their own company and was able to make millions to also turn around and pay 20 or 30 people about $40k per year - if that person just gave everything they had away, would that be dismanteling the company as well? Giving away the jobs? All for the evil of their own hard work?

That's just it though - taken in a literal context that Jesus wants us to give up everything but a loincloth and a box with some newspaper to sleep on; its where a sense of the practical, as well as a sense of human nature and how rotten it gets when people are being made 'have's by being given rather than achieving. As a sensible human being you do what you can to help others, once your able to be in a firm enough position yourself, its common sense altruism. My own take on it though, and this is my own take - the bible doesn't necessarily negate that at all; unless you take a literalist view on those particular phrases in the bible and think of them as if Jesus had been here back in 1990 and said the same things which wasn't the case.

That's because american christians are protestants (i think) Why do you think they ended up there? Britain didn't want them at the time. :p They even dumped the Quakers and other religious nutcases in America (There are exceptions, but that's often the case). And contrary to catholic christians, protestants have a different mindset about material things, first off, i remember my history teacher said that even if you ge rich, you should not give wealth to the beggars because they will keep asking for more BUT you still have to spread your wealth when you die, give back to your community then, etc. It's rather different than what most people usually view christians. =P

Slightly OT but, I agree. The issue I have with 'end-times' ideas is that you don't find any such scenario - and I'm including not just Christian versions, but the whole New Age 'ascension' idea and other versions too - in which everyone gets raptured, saved, ascended or whatever. Usually, it's the very reverse; a tiny, favored minority survive and prosper while billions suffer and die. It's not about the world being saved, it's about a chosen few watching all the people who don't agree with them getting theirs. Which is a fantasy I think the world can do without.

Being that God as such would know the complexities of life far better than we do, its hard to figure that people who aren't doing the best with the knowledge that they have readily available to them would have to pay for x, y, and z that they didn't do (ie. we still have limits in our capacities). I don't know that I'd necessarily promote the 'highway into heaven' concept as, I don't know, but if it were only a small handful being saved - I'd like to at least be at peace with my own outcome and know I did the best that I had in me rather than worrying too much about whether it was enough by someone else's standards.

keyes is a conservative catholic.

Protestants are a majority in America, but we have a very sizable Catholic population. In most states, Catholics are the single largest denomination since Protestants are split into Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc.


England broke with the Catholic church in 1534, before religious dissidents started getting shipped off to America. Catholics were being discriminated against in England by the time significant migration to North America was taking place. Those who came to America from England for religious reason were not just mainline Protestants (not even mostly mainline Protestants) but largely members of fringe groups such as Puritans, Quakers, etc.


What kind of crazy history teacher did you have? Protestants do quite a bit of charity work. I've never heard of Protestants waiting until they die to share their money. However, Protestants stereotypically are frugal and save up a lot of money for retirement.

Jesus said something along the lines that if a man tries to steal your coat, give him your shirt as well. If a soldier forces you to carry his pack one mile, go ahead and carry it two. If a man slaps you on one cheek, offer to let him slap you on the other.

I think that the best example of Christianity is contained in the character Uncle Tom in Uncle Tom's Cabin. A lot of people who haven't read the book like to interpret Uncle Tom as someone who is disgusting because he is seeking to curry the favour of Whites by being submissive to them. That isn't the case at all. In fact, he is extremely kind and gentle to everyone, including other slaves. His final master, Simon LeGree, would have given him special favours if he had agreed to beat other slaves. He refuses, because his Christianity forbids it, and allows himself to be beaten to death instead.

This is a perfect example of how authentic Christians should behave. Instead, nearly all Christians are simply fake Christians, who aren't going to Heaven at all.

" However, Protestants stereotypically are frugal and save up a lot of money for retirement."

Must have been influenced by that (i remember he was giving Rockefeller as an example, the guy made a fortune with oil and various other things... and only gave for institutions with his name near the end of his life) ... And sorry for the other mishaps. =/ Been a while since i had history of the US =.= Memory loss is showing... Heh anyways, it was just my own little reasoning ><

This is how a lot of these 'so called' Christians would behave if there weren't huge inherent problems in 1) what would happen to society if they all made themselves have nots 2) didn't confront evil but took the pacifist route. I mean if your arguing to bash the integrity of the bible with this then yes, you have a point about its inconsistencies.