(February 25, 2015 at 12:33 pm)Nope Wrote: Jesus actually said that anyone who didn't feed and clothe the poor would not get to heaven. He also said, if you have two cloaks, give one to the poor. If I believed that an all powerful being who could send me to a place of eternal torture wanted me to share my excess with others, damn right I would be giving things away. I would only own what I needed to survive because that is what Jesus taught. It isn't that there aren't Christians who help the poor but very few give up as many material goods as Jesus required.
Paul's teachings provide Christians a way out from a more strict lifestyle. They can look down on the poor because Paul said that the poor should work or not expect a handout.
Though I find it no more believable than the Pauline version, I can at least muster something like sympathy (even a grudging respect) for Christianity when it was still a Jewish sect. But once it was sold to the Gentiles and the Hellenized Jews of the Diaspora, it went completely off the rails. My loathing for that liar and charlatan Paul is nearly boundless.
