Yes it does! You were trying to use the passage to prove your point when in fact it does NOT support your point.
I wasn't using that passage for anything, YOU used philippians,
When you speak of government managed collection of taxes in order to distribute it to the poor you ARE talking about wealth distribution. You can't escape that.
Re-read what I wrote, I don't need to type it again.
Well, your poor reading of Leviticus 25 aside, are you arguing that we should have a theocracy? Because right now WE ALREADY HAVE THESE INSTITUTIONS they are called Churches. Join one, donate, leave others alone.
I'm no arguing that we shoud have a theocracy, how many times do I have to say this, I'm saying if christians are going to take part in civic life they'd have to include these christian principles ... I've been through this already.
You want what they have so that you can do with it as you wish. The definition of coveting.
No ... I don't ... when the poor cry out for justice God doesn't call it coveting ... What you're defending, capitalism, depends and demands on coveting..
Are you arguing that Yahweh isn't God, or are you just making a distinction with no difference?
Anyway, again false. Genesis 18 shows the attempt at a bargain between God and Abraham in which God states that If there are 50 who are virtuous in the City he would spare Sodom, or 45 or... and so on. The conclusion was that there was nobody virtuous in the city of Sodom. When the Angels arrived to destroy Sodom it just happened that Lot, the gate keeper, greeted them and tried to protect the Travelers from the men of Sodom who were intent on raping them. It was because of Lot's efforts to save them from the men of the city that the Angels chose to spare Lot and his family.
But as I said, Lot was not wholly spared as his family would go on to give birth to the two enemies of Israel through incest. He was not entirely virtuous, he just happened to be spared in the moment because he at least attempted to be virtuous.
Yes Yahweh is God, where did yo uget that?
The distinction doesn't exist between the society and the government.
The barganing happened AFTER Yahweh had decided to destroy the city.
You argue that Sodom was destroyed because the city "institutions" were corrupt. This is false. As was made clear in Genesis 18 and 19 it was destroyed because every individual in the city was corrupt. You have simply put the cart before the horse.
No ... it wasn't destroyed for that, the bargaining came after the decision ...
Churches operate non-profit. Again, join one and leave everyone alone. Stop looking at what your neighbor has. That's not your job
That's like saying "if you don't like slavery, just live in a place without slavery, don't fight against it." .... I'm glad that christians didn't think like you in the 1800s
You can not force others to give, as I already showed. This is not God's wishes. Preach at them all you want, but the giving must be freely.
I've answered this already, again, pay attention, the economic foundations, i'ts not forcing to give if we have more things in the commons than in private for profit industry.
So how do you get from here to where you want to be without taking from the rich to give to the poor? You can't. You argue an impossibility if wealth redistribution is not part of it. If your assumption is that everyone will simply agree to join this commune then again there is no need for government.
create public industry, change tax policy, designate more land or information or whatever to the commons, set certain industries as public services (not for profit), stop corporate raiding and abuse, and so on ...
Again, false. There is no such commandment in the Bible. It is all individual. It is what YOU need to do. When God punished the people of a city like Sodom it is because all the PEOPLE were bad individually.
That's a bizzare interperetation, that's not how words are used in the bible when God talks about certain cities or nations, he's never refering to every single individual, he's talking about the institutions and society and so on, and if you're arguing that Sodom is the exception due to the negotiation with Abraham, which was after the decision, that's a silly argument, and assumes that God didn't know what he was doing.
Not the way you propose doing it. We've seen this kind of impossible ideology attempted time and time again throughout human history and it invariably ends in greater misery because your ideology depends on a human nature that does not and can not exist. This is why the Biblical Philosophy is so brilliant regardless of a person's belief in God. It focuses solely on the individual, asks THEM to be a better person and to NOT judge others and force them to be better people.
Nonsense, public healthcare works better everytime, countries where banks are regulated as public industires didn't have a crisis, areas with more cooperatives do better in europe and so on.
It doesn't depend on human nature at all ... the whole point is to change incentive systems.
If it's SOLELY on the individual, does that mean that how you deal with civic decisions doesn't involve you're christian concience?
And putting thousands out of work.
While putting thousands out of work, and in the long temr putting thousands more, there are better ways to put poeple to work.
Bible orders us to pay our debts. And again, your efforts put many people out of work.
The bible also condemns fraud, it doesn't put people out of work, it allows peopel to not be homeless ....
Because privatization = evil, I guess? How about you spend your blood and sweat starting a new public clinic that will compete with the newly privatized clinic? When you are done with the laundry list of reasons why you can't do that you will then have all the reasons why the other clinic is going private. Welcome to the world.
No because privitization many times hurts the poor and working class, it also brings things out of the democratic sphere where the poor may have a say to the plutocratic sphere where they don't-
The whole point of a public clinic is that it isn't for profit ....
The reason the clinic is being sold is because people want to make profit .... and you don't make profit by providing free healthcare or cheap healthcare for poor people.
Welcome to the world is a bull**** response.
Take you're argument and put it to slavery "if you don't like slavery, go start your own farm without slaves and compete."
And a year later when half the people have lost there jobs you can congratulate your self for a job well done. Also, out of curiosity, did you work for the car wash at the time?
And not a SINGLE instance in your litany of supposedly virtuous deeds where you actually give a single thing to the poor. Not a soup kitchen, not a food pantry, not a day care center.. nothing. You are trying to find Biblical justification for a whole host of political activities that you do instead of actually helping the poor.
No I didn't work at the car warsh .... countries with strong unions don't loose jobs as much as those with weak unions.
A soup kitchen gives the poor a meal, a public clinic gives then affordable healthcare, it actually changes their economic lives, a day care center takes care of kids, a union allows for them to negociate free time so THEY can take care of their kids.
A food pantry feeds for a day or so, stopping forclosures gives people homes.
society isn't made better by philanthropy, it's made better by the institutions.
God didn't jusy say "have an economic system like the nations, but as individuals be good" no he made the mosaic law he made sure the institutions were egalitarian and cared for the volunrable. In the first century church he didn't just say "give to poor people if you'd like," no they "held all things in common" and made a system.
It's even EASIER for YOU to give some rich guy's money to the poor to make your conscience clear.
It isn't easier, it's easy to do as the pharasees and drop some of your surplus into the temple money box, it's harder to actually try and make the system better.
Of course you are. Just other people's property...
Let me ask you, were abolinitionist christians in the 1800s justified? Could not EVERY SINGLE ARGUMENT you level against biblican social justice been leveled against them as well?
