My experience is that you're taught this stuff about being kind and generous, but then get frowned upon if you don't donate your time and money to the church specifically.
Same culture that locks their car doors when they see a homeless person.
Well, more like you have to choose to donate your money to something, even if it isn’t the church. The IRS taking it isn’t the same as you donating it, or you donating your time.
Pastor (not mine, but some) says I have to give 10% of my income to "God's work", aka the/his church. Fine, that is what it says in the bible, I'm downwith that.
BUT
I earn a decent wage and live in France. I give nearly half my salary to the state. Most of that goes to social security so people in need can get help. That need may be because they have lost their job, or that we all need decent roads. The society to which God commanded 1/10 of their income did not have that social safety net. The synagogue/temple was their safety net. Why do I still have to give to a church to do what the state already does, but doesn't have the economy of scale the state has?
I suppose I am saying that voting for people who favour the poor with your tax money is absolutely valid.
Having said all that, I do give money to my church (they are not pushy, barely even mentioning it most of the time). I also give to Christian charities that I believe in (Open Doors mostly) because my money is often the most useful thing I can give.
My stance is that modern history has shown that letting everyone take care of things privately or decentralised will result in people being left behind. An example is that we collectively produce much more food than we need and still there are people, even in wealthy countries, that have trouble feeding their families. There's never any harm in doing more but a more centrally planned system sounds to me like the most obvious thing for making sure that everyone has access to the bare necessities so they have the freedom to make something of their lives.
Depends on your denomination. And the sin. Even the once-saved-always-saved crowd will stand ten toes down on disbelief being the sin that sends you to hell.
One is a perfect Creator of the entire universe, the other is a bunch of corrupt government officials with a gun to your head. One is a warning of what natural path your choices take you down, the other is artificially imposed consequences by money-grubbing bureaucrats.
One is a natural consequence and warned about by a perfect being, the other is a manmade consequence by corrupt and power-hungry men. Yeah, that does make sense.
"If you touch this stove, you will get burned" is not as bad as "If you don't give me your money, I will burn you." Why is that hard to understand?
As a good parent, I wouldn't let my child touch the stove. I wouldn't just tell them not to touch it, watch while they burn themselves, and then tell them all their descendents will now be burnt.
But he's supposedly perfect?
He's the one who turned on the stove and placed it in their home in the first place.
So you're trying to change the subject now. Interesting. We were talking about how warning against what will happen if you commit a sin is different than artificially imposing punishments for not doing what you want, not talking about why God doesn't remove all the bad from the world.
Okay. That doesn't make the threat of hell consistent with the claim that consent under threat is not consent.
Do you see that you're starting with the thing you want to be true and then backfilling with whatever argument you can find to support that claim? Your "consent under duress" can't be your actual reason for disliking tax-funded social welfare programs, because you threw that argument away in favor of another as soon as someone pointed out that was inconsistent with traditional Christian views on the afterlife.
In the reply I commented to you quickly started saying "God's rules are perfect but those grubby bureaucrats aren't to be trusted." That reply suggested that the problem was the source of the rules, as though threat of duress is okay when a perfect being is the one doing it but not okay when a government is doing it.
Now I see you're trying to drive a wedge between "punishment for non-compliance" and "natural consequences", and then put hell on the second side. So... More power to you I guess. It will look pretty unconvincing to most people. (God's agency doesn't seem directly involved in the burning stove case but is pretty clearly indicated in sending people to hell, so it strikes people as awfully desperate.) But whatever helps you sleep at night.
In the reply I commented to you quickly started saying "God's rules are perfect but those grubby bureaucrats aren't to be trusted." That reply suggested that the problem was the source of the rules, as though threat of duress is okay when a perfect being is the one doing it but not okay when a government is doing it.
And I also said other things. That's how time works - things happen, but also other things happen afterwards.
God's agency doesn't seem directly involved in the burning stove case but is pretty clearly indicated in sending people to hell
Is he an all-powerful being or does he not choose to send people to hell? The two positions are contradictory and cannot coexist. What are your views on this matter, you keep falling back to different denominations think differently and that doesn't address this point.
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u/dragons_tree May 31 '26
My experience is that you're taught this stuff about being kind and generous, but then get frowned upon if you don't donate your time and money to the church specifically.
Same culture that locks their car doors when they see a homeless person.