You can't love Ayn and be a Christian

[Beerina]

"You can't be Objectivist and Christian at the same time!", piquantly squealeth the socialist who fancies himself clever. "I gotcha!"

Sadly, you cannot be socialist and Christian, either.


Jesus said to help your neighbor. He didn't say to pull out a gun and force your neighbor to help your other neighbor or you are authorized to shoot him.

Jesus led by example, and attracted people that way, who voluntarily joined him. NO threats of violence. It is straying from this that causes problems.


Is there any political philosophy that most closely resembles leading by example and voluntary association, and, specifically, disclaims using force to ape the actions and goodness of voluntary association?

 

[BenBurch]

Beerina; You cannot be a Communist and be a Christian.

But Jesus advocated a form of socialism.

 

[hgc]

Jesus said to help your neighbor. He didn't say to pull out a gun and force your neighbor to help your other neighbor or you are authorized to shoot him.

I don't care what Jesus said or what blinkered definition of Socialism you're using, but I can tell you this: You can't have civilized society unless the rules, including collection of taxes, are enforced.

 

[A'isha]

Jesus said to help your neighbor. He didn't say to pull out a gun and force your neighbor to help your other neighbor or you are authorized to shoot him.

What did he say about rendering unto Caesar, and how did he treat tax collectors?

And about what rich people should do with their riches, and how much they were supposed to keep?

 

[TimCallahan]

Why even fret about socialism? Do you know of a socialist (not communist) society that's threatening us today? I don't think there are any significant socialist societies around anyway. Most of the world's democracies have a system of capitalist incentives and socialist supports. They don't seem to be eager to give up either of these.

And who on this forum is Christian? So, why bother worrying about it?

 

[geni]

Jesus said to help your neighbor. He didn't say to pull out a gun and force your neighbor to help your other neighbor or you are authorized to shoot him

You appear to be under the impression that taxes aren't voluntary. Have you failed to employ a competent accountant?

 

[Rolfe]

And who on this forum is Christian? So, why bother worrying about it?

More than you probably think.

The fallacy at the top there is the failure to think through the definition of "Christian". A Christian is someone who believes in Jesus Christ as the Saviour.

Lots and lots of them can and do make a complete hash of being decent human beings. Sometimes, it's the people who make a complete hash of being decent human beings who decide they need outside help.

Other times they have a complete blind spot, and while still continuing to believe in Jesus Christ they carry on in ways that seem to other people to be in complete contradiction to that belief.

You might say that a Christian who truly understands Christ's teaching should not follow or approve of Ayn Rand, and that would be an interesting discussion. But since it's possible for people to have absolute disconnects in their thinking, and to indulge in all sorts of peculiar rationalisations to have their cake and eat it, you can't arbitrarily decree that they're not actually Christians.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

You appear to be under the impression that taxes aren't voluntary. Have you failed to employ a competent accountant?

Rolfe.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Beerina; You cannot be a Communist and be a Christian.

But Jesus advocated a form of socialism.

And of course was pro slavery so not that much socialism.

 

[daenku32]

Jesus was an Anarcho-Capitalist. Right?

 

[Ryokan]

Jesus said to help your neighbor. He didn't say to pull out a gun and force your neighbor to help your other neighbor or you are authorized to shoot him.

Considering that the myth of Jesus has him living 1500 years before the invention of the gun, I'm not surprised.

I've also never heard of someone shooting their neighbor for not paying taxes. I guess it could be an American thing. Or something you made up.

 

[Rolfe]

Considering Jesus actually said, "pay your taxes", he's on a bit of shaky ground there. Of course the "pay your taxes" line was a bigger political hot potato at the time, for completely different reasons.

Rolfe.

 

[Camillus]

And verily Jesus said unto them: "You lot haveth not a clue about the history of socialism or communism."

 

[LukeB]

I've also never heard of someone shooting their neighbor for not paying taxes. I guess it could be an American thing. Or something you made up.

Maybe if beerina makes a the worlds dumbest smartest ever comparison to VIDEO GAMES we'll all see the light about just how totally not silly and tired his "taxes = being shot" rhetoric is.

 

[Tricky]

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year-old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”

--John Rogers

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Sadly, you cannot be socialist and Christian, either.

Are you sure of that?

32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. 33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all 34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

Jesus said to help your neighbor. He didn't say to pull out a gun and force your neighbor to help your other neighbor or you are authorized to shoot him.

He didn't say that, but he kind of did just that. At least his father acting on behalf of the apostles is reputed to have done pretty much just that. See Acts 5: 1-11.

 

[mhaze]

"You can't be Objectivist and Christian at the same time!", piquantly squealeth the socialist who fancies himself clever. "I gotcha!"

Sadly, you cannot be socialist and Christian, either.....

That's one of the dumbest critiques of Objectivism that I've heard. Send her over here and I'll debate her with one arm tied behind my back.

Socialist and Christian? Under duress, yes; or suffering under a misunderstanding as to the nature of Christianity, yes.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Beerina; You cannot be a Communist and be a Christian.

But Jesus advocated a form of socialism.

The early Christian church practiced communism. (See my previous post.)

 

[mhaze]

The early Christian church practiced communism. (See my previous post.)

Restate accurately, please.

"It didn't take long for the early Christian Church to figure out communism didn't work".

 

[mike3]

"You can't be Objectivist and Christian at the same time!", piquantly squealeth the socialist who fancies himself clever. "I gotcha!"

Sadly, you cannot be socialist and Christian, either.


Jesus said to help your neighbor. He didn't say to pull out a gun and force your neighbor to help your other neighbor or you are authorized to shoot him.

Jesus led by example, and attracted people that way, who voluntarily joined him. NO threats of violence. It is straying from this that causes problems.


Is there any political philosophy that most closely resembles leading by example and voluntary association, and, specifically, disclaims using force to ape the actions and goodness of voluntary association?

It would be nice if we could do it entirely voluntarily. Yet, as far as I can tell, there's so many who chant bovine-excrement like "the poor are all LAZY", "it's YOUR fault for being poor!", and so forth (Note: there may exist lazy poor. But there also exist lazy rich. It's also a fact that there exist many factors outside of one's personal choices that affect their lives and how they go.). With that kind of attitude, I suspect any "voluntary" help from such people is going to be limited -- and likely too limited.

It'd also be nice if we could have an anarchy. But that wouldn't work either. So we need an archy.

And to be fair, most high-quality governments now don't go and shoot you if you resist paying taxes you're legally obligated to pay, they just put you in jail I suppose you could get shot if you made a threat on the police's life, but that's only natural, they're just reacting to protect themselves from your aggression.