Memes

Especially when the next couple of verses explains it.

Kind of how they only focus on half of the definition of Gluttony and ignore how it also means excessive Greed.

And these aren’t like yokels and grifters.

They’re not?

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.

You can defeat Jesus on technicalities. This is why it's always important to have a lawyer write your holy books.

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.

Maybe Jesus was referring to cigarettes and meant that only Marlboro smokers could go to heaven.

Although 'Jesus' means 'Mexican First Name' in Spanish so it could be something entirely different that we are missing

So are you suggesting we should grind up and forcibly extrude rich people through a small tube into a container devoid of air? I'm open to this idea.

You don't need the saws, just a big enough pressure difference. Google explosive decompression or the Buford dolphin accident

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.

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.

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.”

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"

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.

God can save anyone.

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.

Cult-dropout here. I care.

You need to keep a good lawyer and a good priest on retainer, to keep you out of jail and out of hell

https://i.imgur.com/JwuGK8O.mp4

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.