this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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Memes

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

The thing to understand about Christianity is that it was originally a reaction against the Roman empire and then got co-opted and integrated into it. As a result, ever since like the 4th century Christianity has been about basically the opposite of what Jesus talked about. It turns out all that stuff about turning the other cheek stops being relevant if the emperor has his soldiers paint crosses on their shields while they're out conquering and enslaving the Gauls. Of course, you can keep all the mythological stuff, who cares, but anything relevant to politics or the material world mysteriously seemed to reverse once they entered the halls of power.

The carrot of being accepted into the empire was matched with the stick that if you didn't go along with the imperial-approved form of Christianity you'd be burned at the stake as a heretic. Any sects still clinging to anti-imperial sentiment get hunted down and exterminated just like when they were being fed to lions, but it's the Christians doing it to each other now, so you don't even have to get your own hands dirty. This approach worked way better at suppressing dissent than just trying to ban Christianity altogether.

Of course, a lot has changed over the centuries. And originally it wasn't perfect or anything either. But imo, it was when Rome Christianized that Christianity Romanized, and ever since its real values have had more to do with Rome than with Jesus. The meme's, "moneyless, classless, stateless" ideal of heaven is a relic of the original teachings that gets shunted off to the purely mythological side, where it not only doesn't matter, but also occupies a place in their brain that could have otherwise been sympathetic to making good things happen in the material world. That's already resolved, there's no need to worry about it, there'll be pie in sky when you die.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

Oh it makes sense now, recuperation is not a capitalist concept, it is an imperialist concept!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

They didn't keep the mythological stuff, that got edited out too as needed once it started disagreeing with the State and the Church.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 2 weeks ago

The description of the first primitive church in Jerusalem is very close to an ideal anarchist commune.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Sadly... that doesn't really track with Christianity.

I mean you can add the overall benefits of everyones needs are automatically met. There's no talk of toiling for food etc...

But on top of the automatic fact that angels clearly have a hierarchy, god is clearly a full power ruler, there's tons of verses that talk about people that will be the least in heaven, or greatest in heaven (Matthew 5:19). On top of building treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:19) etc...

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's because there are no brown people in their version of heaven.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

Ah now it all makes sense

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

And no one has to work, they are provided with everything they need. Almost like a universal basic income or something.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (2 children)

More like post-scarcity. I don't think even the wildest leftist thinks we're quite there yet.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

On calories housing and most everyday things we are post scarcity if we ignore distribution. In fact we over commission and under deliver all these things. We over produce food by a factor of around 1.5, housing is much less transferable but even there we're unbelievably wastefull, energy is basically the only thing that isn't outright overproduced but really only because when we have cheap energy we just tend to use it, often to produce more stuff.

So imo we are by bookkeeping standards post scarcity, delivery/distribution is just fucked and partially because of that we are creating tons of waste.

We could all live in comfort and those who want to could work less, and none of this would break. The real world economy(things, energy, housing , food, water, logistics capabilities...) is so large and secure it could support the world population. If not for the barriers and assumptions, the intrinsic I've got mine fuck you of the systems.

For me that is being there, and I hope that even if you can't agree on that point, it at least illustrates that we are incredibly close to post scarcity.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Heaven was literally [re]invented to be a description of utopia specifically so that toiling workers wouldn't get distracted trying to create it on Earth.

"oooh heaven is a place on earth" take that shit literally, fam

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (10 children)

Even the more devout Christians I know (who actually have opinions about different theological positions) believe Earth and human society should not be modeled on heaven and attempts to do so will fail due to humans being inherently / essentially Fallen. This is part of how they rationalize their resistance / apathy towards movements for justice, at the very least they believe it is futile to seek justice in this life.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This is part of how they rationalize their resistance / apathy towards movements for justice, at the very least they believe it is futile to seek justice in this life.

Sounds like bullshit an unjust leader would feed them.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago

It is religion ...

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 weeks ago

Shoutout to my boy Camilo Torres who famously said, "If Jesus was alive today he'd be a guerrillero."

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 weeks ago

“Not like that!” My dads response when I tell him Jesus was a communist.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Is the 0 getting around a commie filter or?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It's 0 because communism is a moneyless system

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 weeks ago

Shit i have got to read more the0ry

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