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To: SMARTY

A few weeks ago, my pastor said God didn’t care about economic systems, socialism vs capitalism. Humans argue about such things, but God is above all this.

It might be time for a new pastor.


15 posted on 05/30/2018 6:51:29 AM PDT by PSUGOP
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To: PSUGOP
A few weeks ago, my pastor said God didn’t care about economic systems, socialism vs capitalism. Humans argue about such things, but God is above all this.
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others. - Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

Cynicism towards society - and towards God - is a necessary and sufficient condition for socialist ideology. Cynicism is the opposite of faith, and without faith it is impossible to please God.

21 posted on 05/30/2018 7:32:34 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (Presses can be 'associated,' or presses can be independent. Demand independent presses.)
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To: PSUGOP

Most of them are Liberal. Our priest is certainly and so was the one before him.

I like sending him articles about how Christians are treated outside the US


26 posted on 05/30/2018 8:34:40 AM PDT by SMARTY ("Nearly all men can stand adversity...to test a man's character, give him power." A. Lincoln)
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