899 The Bible is Marxist

[Martin Hash]

[Xenophon]

I disagree.

In your examples regarding the book of Acts, the verses described people giving of their own volition. In Communist thought, the State would be the Top-Down redistributor of resources. In Acts, the people who gave did so out of their own personal conviction. They weren't coerced

Your example from Proverbs is a verse that compares the attitude of a person who gives, and a person who uses their material wealth as a sort of security blanket.

Your example from Exodus is taken out of context. That chapter is not describing the day-to-day operation of Israelite society in a political sense. Chapter 16 is the chapter where God provides manna from heaven to the starving Israelite tribe. The verse you described doesn't describe a communist ethos, but a miraculous event, in that no matter how much manna they gathered, everyone had enough. This was a miracle, not Communism.

The Bible clearly defines traditional gender roles, and is anti-egalitarian. Modern American Evangelicalism follows a bastardized Gnostic heresy, simply because most congregants are too lazy to treat the Bible with reverence, instead substituting biblical ideologies for secular ones.

[DBTrek]

I agree that the early Church, described by Paul in the Book of Acts, voluntarily adopted communal (proto communist) behaviors. But to echo Xen, the key difference is that it was voluntary. I like freedom. Communities should be free to be as communal as they want with their own stuff, just don't flex the muscle of government to force me to participate.

[Martin Hash]

The Marxist ideal doesn’t have an overarching authority either; they excuse away Communism as an intermediate state before total ascension.

[Xenophon]

The Marxist ideal doesn’t have an overarching authority either; they excuse away Communism as an intermediate state before total ascension.

Marxism is a secular worldview which attempts to bring utopia to earth, whereas Christianity teaches that true utopia exists only when in fellowship with God and His Church in the metaphysical sense. Marxists try to coerce people with the threat of violence to give up all their freedoms in the pursuit of "equality", while Christianity only requires fealty to God and his Son, Jesus Christ. The Christian belief-system does not require coercion in order to exist. Sects of Christianity that attempt to rob people of their liberty via coercion or force are heretical.

[Martin Hash]

Marxists contend that only antisocial people threaten their paradise, and Christians have God watching them.

[Xenophon]

Marxists contend that only antisocial people threaten their paradise, and Christians have God watching them.

The difference is that God's judgment takes place when you die, as a result of your choices in life and whether or not you accept Jesus as your Lord, and Marxists put you in camps and murder millions of people in this life for not bending the knee. God gives you a choice, and Marxists do not.

[Martin Hash]

Theists only relatively recently gave a choice; just a couple hundred years ago people were banished, which essentially meant death, or declared heretics and killed outright. Only the liberalization of the church stopped that and look what happened, given a choice the majority of people choose to be secular. Marxists know this; they’re much more forthright with their penalties; not just threats of Sodom & Gomorrah.

[Fife]

Yep, as far as I know, God leaves the Exit door unlocked at all times. Appealing to the bad acts of one earthly church or another is a mismatch, isn't it?

Plenty of people choosing not to partake in the life Christ professes all around me, is it the same for you all?

If you don't want to participate, no hay problema. Take your chances with the cold, cruel world and the tender mercies of Old Scratch.

Uncle Joe, not so much.

[DBTrek]

Secularists simply supplanted religious ideology with socio-political ideology.
... and then proceeded to produce a body count that ten thousand years of organized religion couldn't touch.
/shrug

So much for "Enlightenment".