There are several passages that suggest money & Christianity aren’t aligned. Several passages in Acts talk about the disciples selling everything after Jesus passes and living as a commune with no private property. It says they sold & shared everything together.
There’s the camel & needle proverb. There’s Matthew 25:32. There’s multiple passages that speak of selling what you own and giving it to the poor. There’s Jesus throwing the merchants out in the temple.
When did Christianity become like this? Probably when power saw it could abuse faith, so hundreds/thousands of years ago. Your instinct is great, and you should challenge Christians. I mentioned Matthew 25:32 because it seems so diametrically opposed to what many Christians in power say. We’re supposed to care for the homeless, the immigrant, the prisoner—that’s what this book says.
James 2:15 states that belief is not enough. Belief without works of faith is empty, the same as no faith at all. People telling you they are a Christian while behaving otherwise should be made aware of this passage.
I say this as a Unitarian Universalist. I study the Bible to inform my beliefs, but they are not defined by them. I do think Jesus has been commodified and warped, and the people in power who tell us we’re a Christian nation in the US have lost sight of scripture. They quote the Old Testament and ignore John 13:34.
I also studied all this so when ICE / this government comes for me, I’ll have my receipts. Maybe it won’t matter, but speaking truth to power is important. If so many people believe this book, why do we act like we do? It’s power’s fault, not religion.
Note, I was an atheist for 20 years. I know all about the ills of religion. UU is not like my Catholic Church growing up. If you haven’t been to UU or a Quaker org, it’s worth your time.
I appreciate seeing the Quaker love on Lemmy! (UUs are awesome too, in my experience!)
It’s a great community and shares a lot with us. More people should know about faith communities doing the good work in the world, rather than swindling their congregations for mega churches with elaborate shows, while telling people “empathy is not Christian.” It’s absurd what’s happening in those congregations right now.
It’s power’s fault, not religion.
I was with you until this.
Religion is a set of beliefs, typically in things beyond what we can falsify (hence faith). It’s not inherently powerful to believe people should be treated with respect. A belief in democracy is a belief in giving others equal power to our own (part of my UU faith).
Unitarian Universalism holds very little power in the world. It’s a beautiful faith tradition. Sure, there are powerful religions, but again, that’s power, not religion.
One of the proposed reasons the Romans adopted Christianity was because the church would help collect taxes. For all of the middle ages the church would be one of 3 instances that “run” a state (estates). Taxes were a big part of that job.
That means the answer to your question was just roughly 1700 years ago.
It has been this way for decades? It blew up when televangelism became a thing.
Sew your seed!
Pretty sure the Catholic Church was collecting money from across Europe to build oppulent fortresses and cathedrals way earlier than the 50 years ago
Fair, I stand corrected 🙂
Because religion, particularly Catholicism/Christianity, are giant grifting operations who promise you better positions in heaven by giving money.
They pick and choose what they want to follow. Treating everyone kindly, and with humanity? Nah, no way. Slavery? Sure, have at it.
Plus, most of them didn’t even read the bible anyway.
Read up on The Great Awakening in the USA.
You had large parts of the USA without an established church and a lot of religious freedom. So, you had pastors able to preach whatever they wanted without government intervention. This free market Jesus produced a lot of religious diversity. Some pastors used this as an opportunity to turn religion into a business.
It’s always been a business. Even in biblical times. The only time Jesus got violent in the Bible, was when he beat the shit out of the money lenders doing business in the temple.
Crazy how the only thing to cause the son of God to fly into a violent rage was unfettered capitalism
He also killed a fig tree for not having any figs on it.
This is also perfectly understandable.
The question was kind of vague in terms of what part of Christianity he was questioning, but it seems to be focused on how churches currently function. At that point, I figured I’d focus on prosperity gospel for some US churches, which is a uniquely American phenomenon.
To just say “religion has always been like that” may bury understanding on how the current form came into being.
The documentary Marjoe is a really good exploration of this. Former child preacher who stopped believing, and invites a documentary crew as he does a tour.
It’s in the public domain - they forget to register it, so you should be able to find the full movie online.
basically Mormons.
They are a small part of the overall movement.
It’s not mandatory to give donations, and it’s only something well off people should do according to the bible.
Corinthians 9:7 (ESV)
“Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
But the entire idea of literate people needing a pastor to read them the Bible is already going against their beleifs.
Timothy 2:5 (ESV)
“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
Churches are scams that Christians have internalized. They were needed back when nobody could read.
Orginized religion is a control mechanism from old times that we have left lying around for any old con man to take advantage of. Modern Protestant movements have been coopted by grifters.
Wish I had known this when dealing pot in college to pay for college. I would have dropped out and become a preacher.
Religions a grift, this fits that ethos.
The 1100s is when an Italian merchant made up a story about the “eye of the needle” being a gate in Jerusalem that a camel could juuuuuuust about squeeze through if the owner bowed their head or something.
Is that lie really that old? Goddamn…
It is, but it’s not any older, which is one of the reasons it’s clearly made up. No one talked about it for over 1000 years then suddenly a guy with something to gain suddenly knows this “fact” about a place he’s never been, and no one else outside of his vicinity can remember it.
How else are we hey going to pay to shuffle the pedo priests from church to church to evade getting locked up.
Religion is the oldest scam in history.
Note Jesus didn’t disdain giving alms, but said the poor widow gave more than rich men, who also flaunted giving. Women and orphans were the beneficiaries of these funds as well, I am guessing, as temple upkeep and scribes, priests maybe, etc.
He was enraged at the selling of animals for sacrifice. I can’t imagine it was for usurious rates.
You’d have to further research it on sites that specifically address Jewish law, preferably from Aramaic and Jewish translations. I have fur babies hindering me rn
it became a thing because the catholic church was (still is) actually the leftovers of the roman empire, and acted like an empire as a result (the only reason they dont today is because they no longer have the power to crush nations). this lends false legitimacy to others trying to use Christianity as a platform for personal gain.
Ask Martin Luther
This reminds me of a very old joke I heard from a zizek lecture I think.
How can we be sure that Judas didn’t really betray Jesus Christ? Whatever one thinks about the Jews, they know the value of the things they sell, so no Jew would have sold a god for mere 30 silver talents!
(I hope this isnt offensive to anyone, although i don’t think theres many religious people on Lemmy)
Also.
Two Jewish men pass a Catholic church on which a large poster addresses non-Catholics: “Come to us, accept Catholicism, and you instantly get $30,000 in cash!” While walking away, the two friends become engaged in a debate about whether the offer is meant seriously. A week later, the two friends meet again in front of the same church, and one of them confides to the other: “I still wonder if that offer is serious.” The other replies condescendingly: “Ah you Jews, all you think about is money!”
Let me know if people want this deleted and I’ll do it. Don’t wanna be a provocateur today.
Two beggars are sitting side by side on a street in Rome.
One has a cross in front of him; the other one the Star of David. Many people go by and look at both beggars, but only put money into the hat of the beggar sitting behind the cross.
A priest comes by, stops and watches throngs of people giving money to the beggar behind the cross, but none give to the beggar behind the Star of David.
Finally, the priest goes over to the beggar behind the Star of David and says, “My poor fellow, don’t you understand? This is a Catholic country; this city is the seat of Catholicism. People aren’t going to give you money if you sit there with a Star of David in front of you, especially when you’re sitting beside a beggar who has a cross. In fact, they would probably give to him just out of spite.”
The beggar behind the Star of David listened to the priest, turned to the other beggar with the cross and said: “Moishe, look who’s trying to teach the Goldstein brothers about marketing.”
Good religious people generally keep it to themselves unless specifically asked lol.
“Good religious people” aka friends and enablers of pedos.
You are the company you keep. Especially the ones being evangelical about putting their religion into politics and forcing others to live under their dichotomy.
As if there aren’t pedophiles in non-religious settings like schools or sports or the scouts or youth music or roblox or anywhere else you happen to have places where there’s children.
You don’t give a crap about children or stopping pedophiles. You just need a blanket you can throw over everyone so you have a reason to be MAD. lol
Otherwise it’s hard to point at someone enjoying religion privately to themselves and say “that guy need to stop”
Get a life weirdo. You can’t just shout pedophile every time you don’t like something.
The founder of gateway church getting outed as pedo is the least surprising of the only recent events where once again it’s not the trans or drag queens touching the kids.
Curious how many kids he helped connect to priests via his gateway.
What tans or gay people do in the privacy of their own home is theirs too but that’s not stopping the religious nut jobs from invading that privacy and pushing their cult into the lives of other and politics. You fucking hypocrite.
How about you get off your knees and stop defending the pedos and their fucking cult.
No one who cares about molested kids throw around the word pedophile as much as you do. If anyone is helping pedophiles it’s you. You are trying your damned hardest to blur and obfuscate what a pedophile actually is. You’re out here crying wolf as loud as you can and it’s hurting the victims smugly claim to be worried about. You’re a fool.
Im not connected to any of those people buddy. You can stomp your feet and cry all you want but you can’t force me to believe what you believe. It doesn’t matter how pissy you are about it.
Oohhhh go on Ted Cruz, defend your cults and pedo grooming centres harder dipshit.
Come on. Tell me what’s different when poor old innocent religious people want their privacy for their religion but actively invade the lives of gay and trans people just wanting to live? What about their rights to privacy. Or do you only care about freedom to worship made up shit.
You hypocritical buffoon.
So all you do is strawman arguments? Cool.
I have no issues with trans people and this whole conversation started because I mentioned I DONT bring it up to people unless they directly ask me.
I don’t invade peoples lives. Maybe Ted Cruz does but I’m not Ted Cruz. Are you Adolph hitler? He hated Jews so you must hate Jews?
Keep defending your genocide I guess.
The truth is the only one trying to force their control on people’s lives here is you. I mentioned I’m religious and you just can’t tolerate that. You made it your mission to force me to stop being religious. You failed, but that’s your goal. To force your believes onto other people. That’s you’re goal, not mine.
This is extremely xenophobic.
It’s not like the church wants to point those parts out and the followers sure aren’t reading the thing.
