I know some folk believe you can use the Bible to support any view but...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I know some folk believe you can use the Bible to support any view but this Proverb captures the essence of Donald John Trump:

There are six things the Lord hates,
seven that are detestable to him:
haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,
a false witness who pours out lies
and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.

Proverbs 6 16-19

[DetlefK]

1. Conservative Christians don't give a fuck about the Bible.

Jesus preached that rich people don't go to heaven. Riches bad, poverty good. What we got was the "Prosperity-Gospel".

Leviticus 23:22 commands that there should be entitlements for poor people and immigrants: free food, paid for by the land-owners. What we got was poor people being derided as "moochers".

And just last week Evangelicals denounced Jesus Christ's sermon on the mount and said, they would prefer that somebody strong would defend Christianity with violence.



They don't give a fuck about what's in the Bible. The Bible is merely good for cherry-picking a reason to hate what they already hate without reason.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. Acts 4:32

The congregation of believers was one in heart and soul. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they owned.

[Igel]

5. Yup.

But it was voluntary, not imposed.

In fact, bad things are reported to have happened when a couple said they'd participate in that and held back--with the statement that if they had just not participated it would have been fine.


Such voluntary sharing is a good thing and says good things about the group engaging in in, from a NT point of view. Hard to read much more into it. (It's also likely that this overstated things a bit: Those who didn't want to participate would either have made themselves scarce--not a good thing--or just been lost in the generalization that Luke, presumably, drew. We notice this kind of overgeneralization when it suits us, but why limit it to just things that justify our personal thinking?)

I've never met one (R) who objected to people voluntarily joining a collective. They thought it was foolish from the word 'go', but not wrong or something that should be prohibited--and mostly they thought it foolish because people would be unequally combined, not because of different assets but because of different motivations and commitment. But Luke handles that objection ("ἦ? ????ί? ??ὶ ???ὴ ?ί?" ) .

I have met a lot of people who believed that forced collectivization is a good thing based on this verse. (And, oddly, some of those were (R), they just didn't call it "socialism".)

[TheDebbieDee]

6. Sharing everything you own?

Sounds like soshulizm to me...

[workinclasszero]

4. Yup

The only use these republican "christians" have for the Bible is as a weapon to kill and oppress their perceived enemies.

They dishonor Jesus Christ 24 hours a day. Every good republican does the exact opposite of what he taught.

John McCain is the latest example with his BS speech about the republican takedown of healthcare and then he turns and plunges the knife deep into the backs of the poor and sick while he enjoys the very best full and free healthcare paid by our taxes.

You think that SOB fears a just God he may be facing soon? HELL NO! His god like all republicans is Ayn Rand. They hate the non rich with a passion and will destroy us all whenever they have the power to do so.

Then go to church on Sunday and thank God they are pure as they destroy the poor and sick the rest of the week.

[Moostache]

2. Don't need a Bible, Koran, or WWJD quote book to know these things...

There is nothing "divine" in the Book of Proverbs, nothing that represents a quantum leap forward in human understanding or thought...what was "true" then and is "true" now is simply "true", not divine, nor divinely inspired...

As a matter of fact, from a strictly evolutionary perspective, ALL of these behaviors can be explained as survival benefits to an individual by strengthening the group/tribe/clan/society that makes an individual human formidable at all. Human evolution really took off as a dominant species on the planet once we started forming larger societies and went from tribe to town to city to state to nations and pooled the associated resources to make the astounding possible and to build from starvation threatened hunter-gatherers to planet threatening apex-species. Societies that promote the very behaviors scum like Trump abhor is what allowed everything you see now...from the computer screen or phone on which you read these words to the cars and transports that take us from one place to another with speed and comfort unknowable to the ancients. Society is what makes humanity great, not "rugged individualism" (never has and never will....it is a vanity for adolescents and libertarians cum republicans to wallow in).

Substitute "Lord" with "Tribe" and "him" with "it":

There are six things the Tribe hates,
seven that are detestable to it:
haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,
a false witness who pours out lies
and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.

Book of Moos 4 12-20

Just as true and just as relevant. It is certainly true that Trump is the antithesis to the beneficial individual, the part that makes the whole greater than the sum...but he is nothing more or less than the archetype for antisocial behavior and a perfect avatar for the moral rot at the very core of the Republican ideology and current party.

[chaplain_M]

7. Ol' Yahweh himself wasn't especially compliant with that list of "don'ts"

Shedding innocent blood was a habit with him, e.g., firstborn males, global flood.