Thetes a ralph nader podcast called jesus was a progressive and he interviews a religious leader
religion
- Thread starter rickyb
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tourists24
Well-Known Member
does that negate anything that I've said? I live in a very small county and I can show you at least 100 different religious leaders. Does that mean they are correct because they come to Ralph Nader to speak? What is the motive of Ralph Nader? Does he live his life for Christ? Is this his motivation?
It's why I always emphasize to you how important salvation is.
It's not injustice to work for someone.
Practice what you preach. Do without a car. Live in a commune. Until you actually start doing what you demand of everyone else you are just a hypocrite. Go back to Europe and give your home to the Native Americans while you're at it. Justice!!
It probably is injustice
No it isn't. Now stop being a hypocrite and start doing all the things you demand of everyone else.
tourists24
Well-Known Member
Competition can also be good. Get five companies trying to get the most customers. It encourages for a company to produce the best product for the lowest price.
Treating your workers bad and making them poor is like doing that to jesus its a verse
It can be good
No one makes you poor. You choose whether to take a job or not. To stay with it or not. Now go sell your car, move into a commune, and start packing for Europe.
Doublestandards
Well-Known Member
To be fair some people do get dealt some bad cards. If you become sick or injured and lose your job things can go south quick. Thankfully we have some safety nets to help people stay afloat, but it can still be tough for some good people
This topic makes me wonder though, because I see both of your guys’ points. Do you think if our government was run on a truly Christian model, would we do more to lessen the wealth disparity gap?
The Bible basically says it’s near impossible for a rich person to go to heaven, do you think a Christian government would tax the ultra rich more to help the middle and lower class, to the point where we don’t have billionaires with multiple mansions and mega yachts and private jets and the such?
Look at every innovation in our lifetimes that make our lives better, easier, more fun. At the heart of every innovation was a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes a group, who came up with the idea. Who worked hard to establish a business based on that idea, made it grow, hired a lot of people along the way and gave them a future. That man, woman, or group held the majority of stock in their company and as people realized the profits being made and the potential for much more they too wanted in, buying the stock. The stock value went way up and the company founder/founders became very wealthy from their stock. Sometimes extraordinarily wealthy.
So let's tax them to death and take away the incentive to innovate. Can you name all the great products that came out of the Soviet Union? No? What about China you ask? China was going nowhere until their leadership allowed capitalism to come in. Even then most of the innovation that they produce in their factories comes out of the U.S. and other capitalistic countries because of our long established entrepreneurial culture.
So people get wealthy from being smart. I'm 100% for safety nets to help people who get ill or lose their jobs. There's a large amount of people who don't pursue anything better in their lives. They just want their paycheck and focus on doing what makes them immediately happy. They often resent others that have more but they aren't willing to work that hard. And too often they make up for what they lack by getting drunk or getting high.
Life is hard. There are no easy answers. I think Christianity can be held up as a way to live that the wealthy can embrace. It is difficult to go to heaven as a rich man but I've known wealthy men who put their money where their mouth is by giving generously to their church and getting involved with programs helping the poor. Didn't dump their wives for a younger woman. Ricky wants to paint all the rich a certain way but many are decent people who did well for themselves because they are very capable. Our system works because of very capable people who work hard. Taxing them to the point that it's not worth the effort will destroy the system that makes our lives much easier. But if it's social justice to make everyone equal and most of us end up with very little, then let's make everyone miserable together.
people and countries make each other poor all the time. why do you think people immigrate?
this is besides the point that jesus wouldnt support capitalism.
however, christianity has supported the dominant economic system over time. what does that say?
Doublestandards
Well-Known Member
I hear ya man, I don’t want a communist system either. I enjoy my privacy, I’d rather own my house and land.
I’m just wondering if maybe a true christian government would do more to lessen the wealth gap.
The majority of Americans work hard without ever being billionaires, let alone millionaires. I don’t think people would stop working and inventing just because they couldn’t afford a private jet and yacht. Nikola Tesla died penniless and he was still inventing to his last days, most scientists and Nobel peace prize winners aren’t in it for the idea of being able to own a mansion with a bowling alley in it
“And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” It does make me wonder, if we had a true Christian government, would there be better systems in place to not allow the ultra rich.
I guess another way to phrase my question for this topic would be to ask, at what point in the system does the wealth gap become too much where things need to change?
i think the wealth gap is already too much because princeton years ago said the bottom 70% of the population have no influence over the politicians, and its alll sharply concentrated at the top.
at the beginning of return of the jedi, darth vader is giving out orders no different than a capitalist for the construction of a death star. i think this scene is partly a critique of capitalism.
you think about it, we have quotes like "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." and then you have @vantexan as a christian man defending rich people. based on that quote, it sounds like you can either be rich or enter the kingdom of god, not both. what would levels of equality would satisfy that quote?
read these christianity quotes, and it mentions freeing the oppressed, freeing hte prisoners, forgiving debts, and the truth setting you free, and then you got vantexan doing willful blindness to the truth which negates all 3 of the other things i mentioned.
the bible basically says its impossible for the rich to go to heaven. they would have to just be middle class to make it. i dont see how you can read that quote any other way.
you should be telling them to give enough money away to be middle class again.
if you want to save people from sin we have to stop committing big sins in the first place.
Doublestandards
Well-Known Member
i think both of you mean well. It is a very interesting discussion.
If I were to play devils advocate (no pun intended) we could really get into the debate and say “what qualifies as rich?”. To a starving kid in Africa, the poorest person in America may be considered rich.
And @vantexan is right in that a lot of things in America that I appreciate so much came through capitalism
I do disagree in the idea that taxing the rich more would halt productivity however. Do we really think Elon Musk would never have started his journey if we were ‘only’ able to be worth $500 million compared to his $44 billion? It’s very hard to comprehend how much a billion is, let alone $44 billion, but I really don’t feel a truly Christian government would be comfortable with that level of wealth gap
But that's exactly what happened in the Soviet Union. Only the leadership and those who made the state look good, like top athletes, lived better lives. I think if everyone practiced Christianity, from the government on down, and I mean sincerely practiced it, then the super wealthy would be much less so and the very poor would be much less so. But there's a difference between everyone on the same page striving to do the right thing and people taxed so heavily that they may be solid middle class but no longer millionaires. You can always point to exceptions but many who achieve want that brass ring. If all their efforts won't make them wealthy because the government takes a huge share then most of them will stop trying. It was John eff Kennedy who pointed out that when you reduce taxes and people can keep more of what they make then the resulting increase in economic activity will actually bring in more revenue than if they kept the taxes the same. You know what? Every time we have cut taxes that's exactly what happened. Government revenue increased. Unfortunately whenever revenue increased our government found ways to spend it all and then some. And look where we are now. Servicing our debt now takes 23% of our tax revenue. And we still print money to cover the rest which will take more and more to service our debt. Not sustainable.
Doublestandards
Well-Known Member
I think this does a decent job of putting into perspective the level of wealth gap we have today
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