Evangelicals call it "prosperity gospel" and it's a total perversion of Jesus' teachings. Basically, it claims that rich people deserve to be rich because their wealth is proof that they have God's favor. It's used to explain away why preachers are allowed to own private jets, yachts and diamond mines.
Considering I know that Jesus asked his followers to give up earthly possessions to join him, I don't trust those con artists pretending to be God on earth. God wouldn't favor people doing the opposite of what he sent his son down to preach.
There's another verse of the bible that says "all things are possible with god"
However...One thing the bible is pretty consistently against is liars, cheaters and thieves.
To be a mega-church preacher, you need to be a liar a cheater, and you need to know how to run a scam, so that would fall under the category of a thief.
"Give me all of your money and god will cure your cancer!" obvious scam and a lie.
"Give me all of your money and god will make your credit card debt vanish" is another thing I've seen mega-church types say.
The one time Jesus was ever violent was when he flipped tables and used a whip to get all the merchants out of the church. But under 100% of other situations, he literally wouldn't fight anyone even if they attacked him unprovoked.
Does that sound like the kind of guy that wants a church to be a for-profit business? Mega-churches claim they're non-profit, but all of them live in giant mansions and own multiple private jets and multiple cars that each cost more money that I've ever earned in my life.
I'm non-religious, but I'm more in line with what Jesus wanted people to do than 99% of self proclaimed Christians.
Luke 19:45-46: Then he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; 4and he said, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer’; but you have made it a den of robbers.”
Yeah, I don't believe these megachurch pastors believe the word of God at all, or they wouldn't be in that line of work.
Somehow in being an atheist I'm a more honest Christian than them in that I at least state outright that I'm not a Christian. That's more honest than pretending to be Christian just to leverage people's hopelessness to scam them into an even more dire and hopeless situation.
Jesus is actually hiding under my couch right now. When I first saw him down there, I asked him what he was doing there and he said "I'm hiding from the Christians"
The boss upstairs set him up with a pocket dimension with his own utilities down there, but sometimes when it's just him, the cats and my dog in the house he'll come up to my room and watch me play video games.
He doesn't like my taste in video games, he's put off by the violence in a lot of them. But when I showed him video-essays on how "the flood" works in halo, he compared it to the bullshit megachurches are always doing, how they infect people and extort them into giving up their money.
Jesus is a really cool guy....modern day Christians on the other hand...that's another story
99% of self proclaimed Christians hate megachurches.
If the figure is that high, it gives me hope. I wonder if there's data on this somewhere.
Megachurches are definitely among the "principalities and powers" we struggle against.
If they're not outright thieving, they're just self-help seminars preaching about how "Jesus and Americanism are actually totally compatible for realsies."
Consider all of the nations with Christians, and all within. You have large denominations like Roman Catholics who make up the largest portion of Christendom, a sizable amount of Orthodoxy and then protestants. Protestantism itself is divided into denominations. You have classical protestants which also rule out megachurches, such as the Anglicans/Episcopalians (Anglican communion forming the third largest Christian communion) Reformed/Presbyterians and Lutherans. Maybe a little sprinkling of Moravian and Methodist in there. Then you have evangelical Christianity with Baptists, non denominationals, some pentecostals. There's low church baptists who again would mostly be anti megachurch. Imagine your small rural congregation "me and my KJV" type.
Generally to get to the megachurches you need to go down the pentecostal/charismatic side of the non denominationals. Sure there's a sizable amount, but when you put all of Christianity in perspective, you can see it's a small slice.
22“Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23“And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’
Matthew 7:22-23
I shudder to think of how these types have deluded themselves. To think they'd meet their Creator and say something like:
"Look, Lord, I know we locked the homeless out during a blizzard and used desperate peoples' resources to buy a private jet, and undermined the Gospel's perception across the entire world at every turn....but we raised so much money...for YOU!"
"Give me all of your money and god will cure your cancer!" obvious scam and a lie.
"Give me all of your money and god will make your credit card debt vanish" is another thing I've seen mega-church types say.
Incidentally, there's a conjecture around Christian circles I've seen that says these kinds of actions are what the phrase "thou shalt not take the lord's name in vain" actually warns against.
Not cursing, as it has become commonly associated with, but the literal act of using the lord for vain purposes. Like saying "Give me your money and god will cure your cancer"
They should just release a version of the Bible word for word, except the title of the book would be "Liberals Guide to Life", and watch them all go crazy over the nutty stuff in there.
This is terrible design. You'd want it oriented vertically (gravity is basically free energy!) And some unacceptable loss-of-camel may occur due to circular saw use instead of a complementary-conical camel-squisher.
Whilst I enjoy the design with saw blades for added gratuitous violent exterior, being technically correct on the internet just trumps that. It's simple aesthetics mate.
Given the amount of force and level of violence it would take to make that happen, I'd think the needle would get destroyed or pushed out of place pretty quickly.
You'd need to embed the needle halfway through the tube, and it would have to be flush with the rest of the tube. And it'd need to be a thick ass tube.
You're also going to need to strain the bones and cartilage out, and pulp them.
They probably figure if they treat a camel like they've been treating the rest of the world and the people in it, it might prove they've got a chance! Lol
Christians are so desperate to ignore Christ that they literally made up a gate that they called The Eye of the Needle and said that's what Christ was talking about. This gate, which definitely never existed and was not at all what Christ was referring to, was supposedly a bit narrower than other gates and a camel could get through it if it was only carrying a moderate amount of wealth rather than an extreme amount.
It's still impossible to get a rope through the eye of a needle unless a rope and a thread can be used interchangeably. I'm not much of a language expert to say for sure lol
According to the Lexham Bible Dictionary, "most scholars reject this interpretation because the meager textual evidence most likely can be attributed to speculations about this verse by some church fathers."
I talked to one of the authors of the New American Bible, who told me the text is a mistranslation, and it's more like "harder than putting a rope through the eye of a needle", which would've been an idiom familiar to the fishers in the area.
It means "impossible", which is suitable because the things Jesus called for you to do make a rich person into a not rich person, as far as material wealth goes.
According to the Lexham Bible Dictionary, this interpretation "dates back to the fifth century and suggests that kamelos, the Greek word for camel, should actually be read as kamilos, which denotes a rope or a ship’s anchor cable. ... However, most scholars reject this interpretation because the meager textual evidence most likely can be attributed to speculations about this verse by some church fathers (Origen, Cyril of Alexandria; see Fitzmyer, Luke, 1204; Barclay, Matthew, 239)."
They also disagree with the gate interpretation, saying that "Scholars have found no historical foundation for this view, and no evidence supports the existence of such a small gate in Jerusalem’s walls."
Grew up with this stupid interpretation that it refers to some small gate in Jerusalem that camels had to bend down to use or something.
Jesus literally gives the answer in the next sentence:
”Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” He replied, “What is impossible for mortals is possible for God.”“
Luke 18:25-27 NRSV
God can save anyone. And my layman’s interpretation on top of it, no man can save himself.
Well yeah, but if you're a Christian you believe that it's literally God telling you that you can't be rich and go to heaven. God may make an exception, but it would be just as absurd for you to count on being an exception to this rule as it would be for you to count on being the exception to the rule that "none come to the father but through me". If you're rich, you're just as damned as if you were never Christian to begin with.
I am a Christian and I think your argument is weak. That Jesus talks of a rich person here is irrelevant, the core of Jesus teaching is that salvation is a gift freely given, but not something we can obtain in our own power.
Fair point, what I meant is that in relation to being saved, it’s irrelevant he is rich because only God can save people. In relation to the hardships you’d face with being a Christian and rich it’s valid.
One thing I never understood was how any of it could be taken seriously if I could do literally anything and then go to confession and it's all ok. Like imagine the absolute most atrocious thing one could do, then admit you did it to a priest, and you're good? What if you just did that over and over again?
I'm not looking to "slam" Christianity, I'm just curious about that part.
It is something you can see the early Christians debating as well.
This is a take from James 2
“”What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.“
James 2:14-18 NRSV
And this is from Romans written by Paul
”There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.“
Romans 8:1-2 NRSV
”because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.“
Romans 10:9-10 NRSV
And from Ephesians (which might have been written by Paul)
”For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast.“
Ephesians 2:8-9 NRSV
I’m just cherry picking a bit here, plus there was of course much more debate on this topic than what we have documented. My personal thought on is it that, while it may seem wildly unfair, what other alternative than “saved by grace” could there really be that doesn’t result in people saving themselves. If Jesus truly paid the price, what else is there to pay?
The concept of "works" without knowing that term exactly was always how I explained myself: in that I may not have any faith, but if any of this is real I should be judged by my actions regardless of what I believe to be true.
I can understand your viewpoint and while there are verses in the bible that are very clear on Jesus being the “way”, I personally think God is doing everything he can to save as many as possible. And if someone is living in accordance with how God wants us to live I genuinely hope that is enough.
I mean, you also have many people from other religions who dedicate their whole life to knowing God and following his teaching. Sure if the teaching is evil, that’s an issue, but many religions follow the same basic principles and I think there is more to it than just whether you specifically call yourself a Christian. Don’t really have any bible verses to support it, just my personal conviction.
If you sincerely make the choice to follow Jesus, you would feel immense empathy and guilt about bringing calamity on your fellow human beings. If you had already done so, you'd be moved to repent and atone with those you afflicted, with whatever life you had left.
That's the power of Christ's love.
If you were an evil mustache twirling villain who thinks "I can just say some words and act real sad and I get zero consequences for all the evil stuff I enjoyed doing", you're fooling yourself. As if God would be some kind of mall cop and not see the evil heart right through it lol.
You know someone's heart by their works and their nature. They aren't saved by good deeds, but good will towards their neighbors is a side effect of being saved.
This is why it's so heartbreaking seeing how people abuse the name of Christ to get people's guards down, before dragging both through the mud. Evil's best footsoldiers are hateful "Christians in name only".
People always ask about a certain funny-mustached dictator's final thoughts alone in a bunker. "What if he really meant it? Would Jesus forgive him?"
Yep! But I imagine if we're honest with ourselves and he was actually leaning that way, he would have put a stop to his atrocities much sooner. A confession only out of the sudden realization of impending consequences is seldom a change of heart.
That Jesus talks of a rich person here is irrelevant
It's really very relevant:
20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
The message here isn't about buying your way into heaven, it's about earthly attachments. In part it is about sacrificing your own desires, but ultimately it's about split loyalties. If you want to enter heaven, you cannot be burdened by avarice, by the desire for possessions. And if you truly seek to follow what Jesus is teaching, then you would give up everything to do it.
I agree, but I think making it to sound like Jesus says rich people can’t be saved is a misinterpretation. It seems to me he says it’s hard for rich people to truly follow him and his teaching, and that only God can save people.
The problem is, if after hearing the teaching you are still rich then you haven't understood the teaching or really accepted the message - because you are still attached to your worldly possessions.
It's not that "rich people can't be saved"... it's that being rich and following Jesus are fundamentally incompatible. You can't be rich and "truly follow him", as you put it.
The easiest thought experiment here is asking "But how do you get rich?"
Well, it's certainly not by putting others first and being fair and equitable in all your dealings. That's against the "game" (oh sorry, "best practices") of business.
A ton of capitalist co-opting of Christianity makes all kinds of excuses for why a Godly person could work 1,000,000x harder than everyone else and be "blessed" with the burdens of wealth, but it's all propaganda.
Inheritance maybe? Okay, the question still becomes: What did you do with your resources?
Being honest with these questions makes the truth rather apparent, in my humble opinion.
Context is important. Literally the next couple verses in both passages say something along the lines of "The disciples asked, 'Then who can be saved?' Jesus said, 'With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.' "
I think it isn't really to do with the money itself but with the mindset. If you're the type to dodge taxes and scam people, and love money above all, which is arguably what it takes to become rich, then you clearly aren't a Christian transformed by God.
Shaking hands with St. Peter, slipping him a crisp $20: I think everything's all set here, don't you Pete? C'mon, open up those big beautiful pearly gates.
Without getting too /r/atheism, it is funny to see the lengths many Christian scholars will go to try and justify that line.
“Oh, well they were probably actually referring to this giant arch that might have once been translated as “the eye of the needle”, meaning that they were saying it’s really easy to get into heaven”
Like what the fuck? What do you guys think is the point of the passage then?
And these aren’t like yokels and grifters. They’re like PhDs in Christian Theology. The religion at a point is just almost entirely concerned with making up translations and it literally always has been
Lust and gluttony and envy fall under greed. You could also argue sloth for greed of sleep. Wrath and pride are the only two that don't fall under the greed category.
Yeah, it's pretty unambiguous. Jesus tells the rich boy that came to him to give away all their possessions and let the Lord clothe them as he does the birds and flowers. Rich boy gets real sad and goes away.
Christians love to do this thing where they pretend each verse, taken completely out of context, stands on its own. Seems to be especially popular with American evangelicals.
In fact, they like to think that the verses only make sense out of context. No matter how many other verses you can cite across multiple books where Christ makes it clear He's commanding you to abandon the idea of worldly, material possessions and dedicate yourself and your wealth to helping other people and spreading the word, they'll go "No it was just a gate" and keep not doing what Christ told them to while pretending to be Christians.
Well it's pretty easy to get around even without the translation mental gymnastics, you just have to ask for forgiveness before you die and put the church as the only beneficiary in your will.
No. Many of them aren’t. I get the jab, but I think reducing everyone who has strange or perplexing, even illogical views to just being “an idiot or a grifter” isn’t productive.
We're not talking about people who have an academic interest in Christian mythology in the way that there are people who have academic interests in Egyptian mythology or Norse mythology. We're talking about people who believe the myths as divine truth. It's like if I had a PhD in Norse mythology, and I thought I was going to Valhalla, a real place.
In the US at least, and elsewhere for sure, Christian nationalism partnered with fascism is on a very steep rise. This is a "bad thing," and I experience exactly zero shame in standing against people who are already trampling the rights and agency of so very many people based on religious views.
Ok. That’s fine. Perhaps instead of viewing them entirely in ways that allow you to look down your nose at them you could instead try to understand them and find out what systems lead to religious beliefs - including religious belief in people who are objectively smarter than you are.
You don’t help anyone by treating them entirely in this sneering, beneath you way. It might make you feel better about yourself, but it doesn’t actually help any of the people you profess to actually care about.
... you could instead try to understand them and find out what systems lead to religious beliefs ...
Been doing that already a long time, thanks for assuming I haven't.
... including religious belief in people who are objectively smarter than you are.
Isaac Newton is a wonderful example. Absolutely brilliant in so many ways, and absolutely wrong in others. Just because someone is "smart(er than me)" doesn't mean that they're always right and I'm always wrong.
Somebody wants to be religious, have theistic views? That's fine, I don't care. I think they're wrong, but I don't care. I believe that people who put so much into it that they get accredited (why?) degrees in their beliefs (ones that I think are wrong, as previously mentioned) are well beyond just "being religious" and deep into fantasy indulgement. I also believe that there is a great deal of overlap between such people and those who want government to adhere to a specific set of religious rules or laws.
You don’t help anyone by treating them entirely in this sneering, beneath you way.
Maybe this is simply a problem of world experience. You seem to have a view of religious scholars that does not align with reality, including not being able to comprehend why someone would want to receive a degree in religious studies.
It’s a lack of empathy and experience that drives you on this issue. Try to have a conversation with some of these individuals before indulging yourself
okay, but you can look at the specific perplexing or illogical view when making that judgment and if that specific illogical view is designed to promote your own wealth the needle on the bullshitometer moves a bit closer to "grifter"
