no wait he has a point

Acts 4:34-36
"For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles’ feet, and they would be distributed to each as any had need."
They mean this Christianity, right???
- Somehow that translates to you have to give 10% of your income to Pastor Brian. Any other form of charity is great but you should still give Pastor Brian his 10% because he's doing a lot by telling you to give him 10% of your income.
  
  The vast majority of pastors are volunteers or bi-vocational. And yes there are abuses. But also lots of them giving their time and resources to care for the under-resourced. My church''s sr. pastor is going from full time to bi-vocational this year because inflation hit the church and his family. But our church distributed 12 million pounds of food since covid
- “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” – sounds familiar 🤔
  
  Oh yeah there’s a reason a chunk of early communists were Christian pacifists
  
  Christian communism is a theological view (with some historic precedent) that believes Jesus and his apostles were the first communists, so the overlap is clearly there.

- which does all of it's atrocities out of love
  
  Love for only those that are worthy .... everyone else is an animal that is working for Satan and should be killed in the name of God
- Ah, yes, the Crusaders. Using religion to further the state since the HRE.
- Exactly! People keep confusing Christianity with the bible but the former is a patriotic American religion and the latter is middle eastern leftist propaganda
- So, Judaism?
  But seriously, most of the bloodthirsty bits of the Christian Bible are bits carried over from the Torah. Hell, a lot of them are specifically about Joshua conquering everyone around.

And prevent anyone from being really rich.
And prevent banks from getting too big.
And be hospitable to refugees.
And a whole lot of other things that Y’all Qaeda don’t want.

In many historical societies including ancient Christian, Jewish, and Islamic societies, usury meant the charging of interest of any kind, and was considered wrong, or was made illegal.[3]
BTW chrishitery should be the next capitalist McCarthyism. Muhh! red hats!
- Deuteronomy 23:19-20 – “¹⁹ You shall not charge interest to your countrymen: interest on money, food, or anything that may be loaned at interest. ²⁰ You may charge interest to a foreigner, but to your countrymen you shall not charge interest, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land which you are about to enter to possess.”
  Exodus 22:25 – “²⁵ If you lend money to My people, to the poor among you, you are not to act as a creditor to him; you shall not charge him interest.”
  Deuteronomy 15:1-3 – “¹ At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release of debts. ² And this is the regulation for the release of debts: every creditor is to forgive what he has loaned to his neighbor; he shall not require it of his neighbor and his brother, because the Lord’s release has been proclaimed. ³ From a foreigner you may require it, but your hand shall forgive whatever of yours is with your brother.”
  
  just dont look into exodus 21 alright
  
  This sounds good in theory, but is relatively bad in practice. Without interest, no one will loan the government money. Municipalities would need to rely on huge tax increases to fund large projects, instead of bonds funded by small tax increases over time.
  No one will loan money to businesses either, and you are not getting any money to buy a house. It would favor those who already own established businesses, as they can just use profits from one to invest in another one.

No, no this is the part of Christianity where we convert heretics. With heavy automatic weaponry
- "I say the whole world must learn of our peaceful ways.
  By force!"
  
  And on the third day God created the Remington bolt action rifle
  
  Oh lord, he's made of wood.

Ha.. this is an obligation in Islam. I rather my tax dollars help the needy than help my nation and or other nations bomb nations.
- this is an obligation in Islam.
  Obligation doesn't mean they'll ever apply it. They only ever mention such when it's convenient, to make themselves look like better people. All Abrahamic religions are this way(doesn't mean any other religion's any better either). I live in a muslim country, it's just another tool of the state & the ultra rich to control people.
  
  Uhm.. what. Zakat is one of the pillars of Islam.
  There are five key practices that all Muslims are obligated to fulfil throughout their lifetime. These practices are referred to as pillars because they form the foundation of Muslim life. The five pillars of Islam are Shahada, Salah, Zakat, Sawm (fasting), and Hajj. Four categories of people do not pay Zakat: the poor, the indigent, the debt-ridden, and the unfree.

"You don't actually read the bible, you just cherry picked some bits out of the atheist meme book" - actual response I've gotten when I've brought this up.
- Funny, the whole thing is supposed to be applicable. They can't just ignore the parts that fit your terrible atheist agenda. And these points certainly aren't a matter of ignored context.
  I've actually had other Christians argue against the message of love preached by Jesus, saying it's inapplicable here or there. Of course, I can't be a true Christian if I want equal rights for "the gays," healthcare for all, or any of the other various far left (for the US) views I hold.
  Note: I'm a Christian who firmly supports the separation of church and state, sooooo...
- Sneaky little atheistses, always being tricksy to outsmart the omnipotent & omniscient creator and maintainer of existence itself, precious!

The government is going to force all women to have abortions to prove they’ve been faithful
- You mean with a magic potion of dirty water that should not by any mechanism cause an abortion that doubled as a paternity test because God would only cause the abortion if she cheated.
  Realistically this probably mostly served to cow men into accepting that their wife's child is theirs regardless of any suspicions because God said so. There's a reason being Jewish is matrilineal.
  
  Not just dirty… the temple was meticulously maintained, so that “dust” was myrrh, which was used as incense day and night. Not surprisingly, myrrh can cause miscarriage when taken orally.
  So what the scripture actually says is “If the husband is jealous, try to induce a miscarriage. If it doesn’t work, well, then it’s God’s will.”

... As a Christian, I approve.
The idea that the government should run off of some merciless view that the principles of free market capitalism dictate who eats and who doesn't is completely bizarre.
I have nothing against capitalist Christians who think that the principles of capitalism are generally fine and that, otherwise, we have an obligation as Christians to feed the poor and it just so happens to not be the role of government, but any explicitly Christian state has to feed the poor.
- Narrator:
  They didn’t
- Huh, I wouldn't expect to see a Christian on Lemmy.
  
  There are dozens of us!
  
  Eh, might be a bit of... inverse confirmation bias there. Don't assume we're not here just because we're not proclaiming it in every comment. 🙃 There are plenty of us I'm sure, we're just mostly the sane and rational type of Christians you rarely hear much about. Those of us really striving to live like Christ have to practice a certain meekness, selflessness, and compassion for others that makes us highly unlikely to participate in flame wars and the like. 😅🙂
  ...it also makes many of us lean pretty far left.
  
  I don’t consider myself Christian purely because of the word’s connotation, but I am absolutely on board with everything Yeshua taught… including full-blown pre-Marx communism.

That's accurate.

- The pope would just use it to fund a war in the holy land. Wait a second...

Obviously, he meant Maronite Christianity, which is the only^tm true^tm christianity^tm

Jesus didn't use taxes to heal anyone. Why can't we use divine magic? It still has the benefit of being free for all; but it also works better and faster.
- He also didn't FORCE anyone to give to the poor, he only recommended it.
  
  Well there is the New Testament story of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananias_and_Sapphira who God killed in front of everyone for not giving 100% of their money to feed the poor.
- Why can’t we use divine magic?
  Apparently, there was a balance patch that made all clerics' gods quit their interference with mortal matters.

This is funny and it makes me feel good. But you know as well as I do, that it doesn't matter what any religious text says is right or wrong. Fascism and capitalism will take control and health care will be a personal problem.

Jesus' version or Roman version?
- Obviously spanish version.

(To be fair, the Bible doesn't say you should force other people to do those things, it just says you should do them)
- The meme says "force you via taxes". And Jesus Christ Himself told people to pay their taxes.

Religious people should be locked up in asylums
- Evangelicals should be locked up in asylums. Nothing wrong with being religious if you interpret that by living your best life and helping people.
  
  “Nothing wrong with being religious as long as it doesn’t impact your life”
  Isn’t a good excuse

It should be given freely, not because you were forced to. It doesnt mean anything if you were forced.
- Is the point of charity to feed the hungry or to let rich people feel good about themselves?
  It doesn't matter to the hungry person if the food they eat was paid for by taxes or voluntary charity. Food is food.
  
  Ultimately to help people, but if you're forced to, that doesnt mean anything. It just means you figured paying taxes was easier than going to jail
- It absolutely means something, it means the poor suffer less. That’s the point, not your moral absolution
- It's still meaningful because it is helping people, but it's probably not going to count in your favor spiritually. Unless you're supporting getting the system set up or keeping it in place I guess.
  
  Exactly! Paying taxes doesnt make you a good christian, helping people voluntarily does.