Posted on 02/12/2022 4:18:20 AM PST by Kaslin
Commie pope, but what’s new, Christianity has slways taught communism. Everything for me nothing for u! Oh, and make it look like we are the good guys.
My wife and I have been decluttering our garage and home the past few weeks. Boxes were opened for the first time in decades. A box of shoes, some new; didn't realize I had them because they were forgotten. Same for sweaters, T-shirts with logos, etc. Boxes of books, gadgets, materials - all boxed and forgotten. Only obvious after a couple decades that we didn't need them, and now being disposed of. At least we didn't pay for a storage locker. So hard to let go of junk...
From Martin Luther King, Jr.:
(To the others I pinged, this is a fun, and informative, read.)
Let me state clearly the basic premise of this sermon: Communism and Christianity are fundamentally incompatible. A true Christian cannot be a true Communist, for the two philosophies are antithetical and all the dialectics of the logicians cannot reconcile them. Why is this true?First, Communism is based on a materialistic and humanistic view of life and history. According to Communist theory, matter, not mind or spirit, speaks the last word in the universe. Such a philosophy is avowedly secularistic and atheistic. Under it, God is merely a figment of the imagination, religion is a product of fear and ignorance, and the church is an invention of the rulers to control the masses. Moreover, Communism, like humanism, thrives on the grand illusion that man, unaided by any divine power, can save himself and usher in a new society--
Cold atheism wrapped in the garments of materialism, Communism provides no place for God or Christ. At the center of the Christian faith is the affirmation that there is a God in the universe who is the ground and essence of all reality. A Being of infinite love and boundless power, God is the creator, sustainer, and conserver of values. In opposition to Communism's atheistic materialism, Christianity posits a theistic idealism. Reality cannot be explained by matter in motion or the push and pull of economic forces.
Christianity affirms that at the heart of reality is a Heart, a loving Father who works through history for the salvation of his children. Man cannot save himself, for man is not the measure of all things and humanity is not God. Bound by the chains of his own sin and finiteness, man needs a Savior.
Second, Communism is based on ethical relativism and accepts no stable moral absolutes. Right and wrong are relative to the most expedient methods for dealing with class war. Communism exploits the dreadful philosophy that the end justifies the means. It enunciates movingly the theory of a classless society, but alas! its methods for achieving this noble end are all too often ignoble. Lying, violence, murder, and torture are considered to be justifiable means to achieve the millennial end. Is this an unfair indictment? Listen to the words of Lenin, the real tactician of Communist theory: "We must be ready to employ trickery, deceit, lawbreaking, withholding and concealing truth." Modem history has known many tortuous nights and horror-filled days because his followers have taken this statement seriously.
In contrast to the ethical relativism of Communism, Christianity sets forth a system of absolute moral values and affirms that God has placed within the very structure of this universe certain moral principles that are fixed and immutable. The law of love as an imperative is the norm for all of man's actions. Furthermore, Christianity at its best refuses to live by a philosophy of ends justifying means. Destructive means cannot bring constructive ends, because the means represent the-ideal-in-the-making and the-endin-progress. Immoral means cannot bring moral ends, for the ends are preexistent in the means.
Third, Communism attributes ultimate value to the state. Man is made for the state and not the state for man. One may object, saying that in Communist theory the state is an "interim reality," which will "wither away" when the classless society emerges. True--in theory; but it is also true that, while it lasts, the state is the end. Man is a means to that end. Man has no inalienable rights. His only rights are derived from, and conferred by, the state. Under such a system, the fountain of freedom runs dry. Restricted are man's liberties of press and assembly, his freedom to vote, and his freedom to listen and to read. Art, religion, education, music, and science come under the gripping yoke of government control. Man must be a dutiful servant to the omnipotent state.
All of this is contrary, not only to the Christian doctrine of God, but also to the Christian estimate of man. Christianity insists that man is an end because he is a child of God, made in God's image. Man is more than a producing animal guided by economic forces; he is a being of spirit, crowned with glory and honor, endowed with the gift of freedom. The ultimate weakness of Communism is that it robs man of that quality which makes him man. Man, says Paul Tillich, is man because he is free. This freedom is expressed through man's capacity to deliberate, decide, and respond. Under Communism, the individual soul is shackled by the chains of conformity; his spirit is bound by the manacles of party allegiance. He is stripped of both conscience and reason. The trouble with Communism is that it has neither a theology nor a Christology; therefore it emerges with a mixed-up anthropology. Confused about God, it is also confused about man. In spite of its glowing talk about the welfare of the masses, Communism's methods and philosophy strip man of his dignity and worth, leaving him as little more than a depersonalized cog in the ever-turning wheel of the state.
Clearly, then, all of this is out of harmony with the Christian view of things. We must not fool ourselves. These systems of thought are too contradictory to be reconciled; they represent diametrically opposed ways of looking at the world and of transforming it. We should as Christians pray for the Communist constantly, but never can we, as true Christians, tolerate the philosophy of Communism.
My husband is a saver-of-things, but I try to move items out. When an adult child moves out, we give him or her some boxes and say, “Take books, take dishes, take things from the garage!” and most recently, I gave one of my daughters a list of things I don’t need that might have cash value and said, “If you can sell any of this stuff, you can keep the earnings.”
We very much need to do that this year.
Same with my wife, she always tells me to get rid of junk; I’m a hoarder of sorts. When our daughters moved out, they left behind some boxes of stuff. It’s been about 20 years and their boxes are still here. We’re finally going to dispose of them this year, as our daughters still don’t want them and they have no space in their homes. We’ve given furniture to relatives, who sell or trade them to others. My wife’s brother gave a bunch of toys to us as he is out of space, and we sold many on eBay and were surprised that they fetched ten times their original value. Easier to let go of junk when you make money on it. Trying to simplify our lives by decluttering!
Can’t Take It with You - Alan Parsons Project
Well I sympathise completely but there’s nothing I can do
I am just a humble servant with a message here for you
Well I know you have good reasons and there’s things you’ve got to do
But the boatman won’t be waiting and he’s leaving here with you
And you can’t take it with you
No matter what you do
No you can’t take it with you
Not the place you’re going to
Well I sympathise completely but there’s nothing I can do
I am just obeying orders, I’m a simple soul like you
Well you really are persuasive, but I’ve heard it all before
And the boatman’s getting restless as he stands upon the shore
And you can’t take it with you
No matter what you do
No you can’t take it with you
Not the place you’re going to
I’m not interested in making the effort to sell things, but if someone else in the family wants to, that’s great. My reward is fewer things!
I hope to move out of this house into an apartment some day, and I don’t want to have to start purging at the last minute.
When Kathryn has to watch someone she loves drown in their own blood and beg for “the shot” maybe then I’ll listen to her opinion.
L
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