Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God
Matthew 19:24
I like to contextualize this in a modern form. I like to say, "there are no billionaires in Heaven. In the end, every last one of them burns." When I see Musk, Bezos, or Trump, I see men who are literally and inevitably headed for the very literal fires of Hell. Let them have their vanity here. In the end, they're all gonna fry.
I don't know what qualifies as "rich." But I don't think a modest 401k to support yourself in retirement is going to damn anyone. I don't know where the line is, but by the time you get the obscene level of a billionaire, you have been consumed by greed.
I like to imagine wealth and as an anchor. Would you die, your soul tries to ascend upward. But those with great wealth find themselves chained to a great golden weight, a spiritual manifestation of their wealth and greed on Earth. And as they try to fly upward, they instead are pulled down, down, and down. They see the surface of the Earth rise up above them like a diver descending beneath the ocean's surface. And they do not stop falling until they reach the Pit.
The context for the original quote is Jesus speaking to a "young ruler". The young ruler asks if he will be judged as a good person. He follows all the religious laws and is very pious. Jesus tells him to sell his possessions and give the money to the poor. Jesus promises the man that his reward will be great in heaven, but the young ruler cannot bring himself to do it.
I don't see this as Jesus telling everyone to live in poverty. This is Jesus testing the man's faith. Even though Jesus himself promises the man a reward for giving up his possessions, he doesn't trust Jesus. He doesn't have faith that his actions will be rewarded in heaven. The warning isn't that having possessions is inherently evil, but that one can be so tied to their Earthly possessions they can refuse a direct request by Jesus himself.
Me catching up on historical Christian theology on YouTube to help contextualize the spirituality of my youth:
I'm loving this lecturer's depth of knowledge on this subject and he's right that literally every person who knows that religion exists has some kind of theological standpoint whether or not they even believe in a God at all-
-but I completely disagree that the specific question of divinity is worth even asking let alone debating or worst case scenario creating divisions between people over. This isn't even me saying I believe in it or not in fact I specifically refuse to engage with that question in any way.
Debates regarding the divinity of Jesus have been overwhelmingly used throughout history to provide cover for ideologies that both directly contradict the actual words of Jesus and which have caused the suffering and death of millions. "It's fine that we rape children because we believe in the divinity of Jesus!" The nicene creed ruined one of if not the greatest antiestablishment movements in history and was instrumental in its transformation into itself being the abusive establishment.
Now, I do understand that this makes me by default non-nicene, but it's the fact that that binary exists in the first place that I specifically object to. They're the ones making it an issue for no reason other than to have something to hold over other people's heads that requires no actual thought or effort. They don't have to actually debate theology, they've ended the discussion there by choosing a fundamentally unprovable premise to hinge their entire argument on. They've absolved themselves of expending any effort to better the world because by saying one passage out loud their labor is complete.
The nicene creed exists for no other reason than to wage ideological and literal wars over so that real good can be ignored or even fought against. It does not improve the world in any way. The nicene creed ruined Christianity.
Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.
What lecturer are you referring to, have a link?
Bruce Gore, specifically on church history. Seems to be a Presbyterian which imo are usually the biggest nerds but that was what I was looking for anyway ;)
I made the same journey during COVID, ultimately arriving at a similar place that the Nicene Creed was the first in a long line of obvious retconned political and human decisions. For what is worth, I also feel like it's in the same vein as most of what Paul did, codifying and standardizing to the detriment of the source material and to the benefit of anyone willing to take charge.
I'm still genuinely shocked that anyone can read the Gospels and then not see the record-scratch pivot in tone for everything else afterwards. Well, shocked in as far as to then be disappointed at how easily a mess of addenda created something antithetical to a bunch of nebulous good vibes with no clear avenue to monetize it all.
Which, oddly enough, Buddhism does as well, but owns it as part of the process.
Holy shit, that's the best AI animation I have seen yet!
This is the worst AI video generation will ever be.
It's getting truly scary. The assault on fact will be much easier going forward.
That is like saying that Jurassic Park was the worst that special effects would ever be.
Reminder that corporations remove Luigi merch from marketplaces. And social networks like reddit ban using Luigi face as profile images etc
I think I agree. I thought it was remarkably realistic and not in the uncanny valley like almost all AI animations.
Off topic. This is definitely not a shitpost
Upvote nonetheless
🎄
Kinda wanted to redeem myself in this community after my chad mctruth shitposts bombed lol
^(Also, when searching for Luigi on Lemmy and sorting by top, the original image this video is based on shows up from this community)
Fucking scared the SHIT out of me when it animated!
Nearly threw my hands up and yelled I AM NOT A CEO
This animation is incredible. The best AI generated animation I think I've seen. The only weird thing I can detect is the excessive flopping of his sleeve. But to make up for it is the way his index finger is slightly bent because you can't tuck the rest of your fingers all the way in without doing so. Crazy stuff.
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