The Teachings of Jesus

[Orion Rules]

[...] we took out their critical infrastructure. The Saudis said they wanted to cause max suffering so that they shivered at the thought of it for generations to come. We assisted them in this. We took out their critical infrastructure for sanitation, and basic living necessities, even farming, and fishing, and water for drinking. Those were strategic acts of warfare to purposefully cause mass suffering disease starvation and death. [...]

Some won't last in the last war, it will be so basic. They will be disappointed if there isn't one:

[Just AnotherPerson]

You are wrong. The Ceasar quote is not about taxes. Also I am certainly against killing as is everyone I know and as is Donald Trump. Heck he got grief for not blasting Iran after they shot down the drone because he didnt think killing people over a machine was right.

Also what about the abortions going on. Did you know @Just AnotherPerson that more black babies were aborted last year than were born alive? Is that killing, Is that Racist? My point is that Jesus talked about morality that comes from the indvidual not the state. The state is neither moral or imoral. The population controls that

You yourself cant seem to give a clear answer as to what the meaning of this statement was. Even if I give you an answer you will mock it. But I will do my best to elucidate it for you.

The conversation most certainly was brought up using taxes. Jesus used the taxes question as a means for a higher teaching. But he most certainly did speak of the taxes when he gave his thoughts. They posed the question to him, because they were trying to trap him, just as many trolls in this forum do when they are troll questioning.

Excerpt in it's entirety. You have to take the whole thing in it's entirety to understand it. And see how he used it as an example to get his point across.
Matthew 22:15-22¹⁵

Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. ¹⁶ They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. ¹⁷Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?" ¹⁸But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? ¹⁹Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, ²⁰and he asked them, "Whose image is this? And whose inscription?" ²¹ "Caesar's," they replied. Then he said to them, "So give back to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."²² When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

My interpretation:

They were asking him if he believes it is right to pay taxes, keep in mind the tax system was corrupt to the core. The asked him since he is man of integrity and who teaches the way of God in accordance with the truth, is it right to still pay taxes? But Jesus was not going to get caught up in that one. So he gave them a teaching about living in the world while not being of the world.

Now we know Jesus spoke the parable you cannot serve two masters, you cannot serve both God and money, for you will love one and hate the other. The parable of the tax coin would seem to contradict that, but upon closer inspection it doesn't.

We cannot escape the conditions of this world the laws of cause and effect. You still have to pay your bills, you still have to pay your taxes. You still have to wash the dishes and do the laundry. You cant escape the mundane conditions of the world, because that is your existence. But you can in fact live in the world without being caught by the world. You can still pay that taxes, while living in the spirit.

You can live with one foot walking on the earth and one foot walking in the kingdom. If God is the beginning and the end, if he exists altogether everywhere, then there is nothing that is not Gods in the first place. We can label things and call them this and that. But ultimately everything is God. By giving back to God what's Gods, we drop our desires for the worldly and set our heart on God. We give back to God what's Gods when we come back home.

When Jesus spoke the parable, "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven". He was teaching that if we are attached to worldly desires, we will not practice the way. We will be occupied, and not living in the kingdom. But those who have given up all attachments to worldly desires, have no hindrance. They can easily set their heart on God. But those who get caught tend to stray, and are not able to walk steady on the path. When we are seeking God we spend every hour of every day in communion with him. We walk in the Holy Spirit. When we are caught by wants and desires, we chase them. Day after day time passes by, we chase those desires. In the end desires are unfulfillable, and endless. There will be no end to them. To the last day we will chase them. If you are a person who loves God, then if you want to truly worship, you have to have the time. It is a matter of mind.

He also uttered the parable, "unless you become as little children, you cannot enter the Kingdom of heaven". Because the children are in the Kingdom of heaven already. They don't have responsibilities or heavy conditioning yet. They are light and free. They live in the moment, without worry of the past or future. They are an expression of the Kingdom. They are not chasing this or that. They are alive and free, they just express life as it is.

This doesn't mean we have to act like children, or not be responsible. It is merely a matter of how you hold your mind.

He said, "Look at the birds of the air they neither sow or reap, or gather in barns, yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And, which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his lifespan? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies in the field, they neither toil nor spin, but even Solomon in his glory was not clothed as one of these". Everything is the kingdom of God. The flower does not have to worry about tomorrow, or yesterday. He just grows beautifully day by day. When the sun shines he opens his petals, and happily turns towards the sun. The flower is the Kingdom, the flower shines. Everything is the kingdom. We don't have to do anything.

Jesus said, "the fields are already white for the harvest". The Kingdom of heaven is at hand. All you have to do is pick up your mat and walk.

[donttread]

The interesting thing about the emboldened statement (in a general sense) is that it's completely false. Religious conservatives are much more likely to help the homeless and needy than are liberals. Take a look at Habitat for Humanity -- Christian-based. Missions around the world that seek to help the poor learn to grow their own food -- Christian-base.

Where I live there's a large Mennonite population and they are the first to respond to any crisis nearby.

A part of the Christian faith system is the tenet of being charitable and helping the poor, and most of them take that responsibility very seriously. They just understand that it is their own personal responsibility -- not the government's responsibility.

Liberals on the other hand have made the living situation much worse for the homeless -- just look at LA.

You have this one completely backwards.

So is that statistically true or do you just have a couple examples you have extrapolated from? Serious question. As for the personal not government responsibility. I get that , Jesus never asked the government's for anything.
However, charity ain't getting it done and we have already established that some taxes will be spent to help the disabled, the poor etc. We are merely divided by two things
:1) One which government ( state ( which I favor) or federal. And
2) How those programs will look in terms of whom they are extended to, how they will work and perhaps most importantly how they will be monitored for efficiency.

[FindersKeepers]

So is that statistically true or do you just have a couple examples you have extrapolated from? Serious question. As for the personal not government responsibility. I get that , Jesus never asked the government's for anything.

Yes, it is statistically true.

Among Democrats, Independents, and Republicans alike, almost exactly half of the group averaged $100-$999 in annual charitable donations at the time of this 2005 poll. There was virtually no difference among the parties in the size of that moderate-giving group, so those results were not included in the graph to the left.

If, however, you zero in on giving that is heavier or lighter than the middle range (the bars pictured here), you find that the parties differ a lot. Democrats and Independents both had many zero-to-very-light givers (less than $100 for the year), and modest numbers of heavier givers. Republicans, in comparison, had comparatively few skinflints, and numerous serious donors—31 percent sharing at least $1,000 with charity, versus 17 percent among Democrats, and 20 percent among Independents.

And, keep in mind that conservatives make a bit less income than liberals, yet they donate more.

As individual donors, conservatives are hearty givers—as made clear in this graph, the one previous, and many other data sets.

https://www.philanthropyroundtable.o....s.-generosity

However, charity ain't getting it done and we have already established that some taxes will be spent to help the disabled, the poor etc. We are merely divided by two things
:1) One which government ( state ( which I favor) or federal. And
2) How those programs will look in terms of whom they are extended to, how they will work and perhaps most importantly how they will be monitored for efficiency.

If the charity "ain't getting it done," it's because liberals are not stepping up enough.

The biggest thing, however, is that government-funded charity does not "feel" like charity -- it feels like an entitlement and the recipients feel entitled to it, which makes them angry because they feel they cannot take responsibility of their own lives. That, too, has been studied and determined.

[countryboy]

You are correct it was a blanket statement. I know many Christians and not one of them is even a Trump supporter. I meant specific evangelicals. But you are right, what I said was a blanket statement and is wrong. But it wasn't my comment anyways. I was translating midcan because I was asked to. But there are groups of evangelicals who believe the hand of God was involved in Trump getting elected. There are tons of videos online. I wont post a bunch of them, just one. You can easily google it.




As per Midcans comment. I don't agree with him for putting that comment in this thread. This thread was meant to be a good thread, and not have anything to do with politics or Trump. It was to be a thread about the teachings of Jesus. I am not sure if I agree with Midcan or not because I don't know exactly what he was saying. I may or may not be right.

I am not foreign to Christianity. I was raised in the church. In adulthood I chose to no longer claim a religion. The last sermon I attended was when a preacher was chastising people for not offering enough tithes. I felt that he did not understand the true spirit of Jesus's teachings.

Jesus said do not shout on the street corners as the hypocrites do. When you pray go in secret and pray to God in your heart where he sees and hears everything. That is not an exact quote, just going off memory here. If we are the Temple of God then why should we have to go to a church or pay tithes in order to receive the Lords blessings? Tithes in the bible were simply taxes, of the day. There is no reason for the church to mix up the teachings of the good word with greed. It seems to me, to contradict all that Jesus taught. I am not saying all churches are this way. But that was the last time I ever walked into a church. Now the whole cosmos is my temple.

But I am not a Christian hater my family on my mothers side are all Christian, on my fathers side all Catholic. Like I said this thread was simply meant to be about the teachings of Jesus. But it seems we cant have anything good or decent in this forum without it descending into something terrible. It is sad.

You could've made it a TPF thread, and banned anyone who went off topic.

[Cotton1]

[donttread]

Be careful. You will might offend the local "conservative" element with all this talk of nonviolence and love.

And of caring for the poor! After all, we should all know that that beggar CHOSE to be schizophrenic with no family support!