If Jesus believes in self sacrifice for the good of others, how could he oppose Socialism when those are the principles that justify socialism?
Wrongo! Socialists demand that YOU sacrifice for the poor, needy, and the lazy, but those in charge of it never sacrifice what they have.
Jesus sacrificed Himself for all, not just the lazy and poor, but for the rich and the selfish also. All they need to do is believe in Him.
There is a pretty clear distinction between personal sacrifice to help another man that is given freely and out of compassion, and the imposed government socialism that steals from one man in order to coerce loyalty from another man to that government.
I would recommend reading the article before DEMONstrating your ignorance.
Self-sacrifice for the good of others should be on an individual level and not coerced by the government.
There’s self-sacrifice & then there’s enforced sacrifice...there’s the difference.
If Jesus believes in self sacrifice for the good of others, how could he oppose Socialism when those are the principles that justify socialism?
If I take from you under the treat of imprisonment and/or death and give what you produce to someone chooses not to work, or keep it amongst my fellow overfed party leaders...
...IS THAT CHARITY?
You seem to worship the state. You’re in for a Hell of an eternity!
May I chime in here? I suspect you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick because a lot of us are providing you with answers while assuming that you know something that perhaps you don’t.
It sounds as though you are wondering if God is trying to force humans to obey a lot of senseless, inhibiting laws by threatening us with punishment when we don’t comply. If this were indeed the case, we would just be a lot of miserable slaves, obeying a cruel God out of fear.
If the Lord had wanted mindless robots who would simply do His bidding, He could presumably have made them. It’s not clear why God would have wanted helpless slaves like this, but a Being Who made the galaxies could certainly have had slaves if He wanted them.
But that is not what He wanted, or what He created. He Who made the vast beauties of the Universe out of an outpouring of love wanted creatures who would love Him back and rejoice with Him. He wanted loving sons and daughters, not prisoners. And—this is the important thing—real love, honest love, cannot be coerced. Think about it: if someone holds a gun to your head and says, “You must love me or I’ll kill you,” can you feel genuine love for him or her? You might be able to pretend love for awhile, but it wouldn’t be the real thing. Real love originates in freedom. It is a choice.
So the Lord gave us free will. We are free to do as we choose. Logically, this necessitates the opportunity to reject His love and goodness as well as the chance to accept them. (And that, by the way, is exactly why there is evil in the world: because we do have this free will, and freedom permits us to do evil as well as good.) We can decide to love and follow Him, or we can choose to distance ourselves from Him.
Of course, talk is cheap; to say that we love God while engaging in a lot of actions that create evil, sorrow, suffering is hypocrisy, not love. It’s not really any different than if you say you love your wife, but you ignore her, hurt her, lie to her, undo her good and helpful works, and generally reject her. It’s easy to say that you love her, but your actions toward her say otherwise, and a man who loves his wife doesn’t act this way. In the same manner, if you really love God you don’t behave in ways that harm his other creatures and distance yourself from Him. If you love Him, you want to take steps to draw closer to Him.
So all the apparently capricious rules and regulations are not set up to compel mindless, rote obedience as a way of avoiding punishment. Those rules—do not lie, cheat, steal, commit murder, screw around before marriage, commit adultery, envy and covet what others have, obsessionally love money, etc.—are founded in a very deep understanding of basic human psychology. They order our relationships, organize a godly society, and orient us toward God. Adherence to these rules strengthens us to deal with evil in the way that going to the gym strengthens us to deal with the physical demands of life. They are steps or exercises that gradually draw us closer and closer to the Lord until we are fully embracing Him. As we love Him more, we feel a desire not just to obey the simple rules, but to act more and more as Christ did, in self-sacrificial altruism to create good and combat evil.
Again, it is your choice to take the steps that will bring you closer to God, or not. It’s the consequences of “or not” that are disturbing. If hell is an infinite distance from God, it’s rather terrifying to contemplate an existence without His goodness—without light, love, hope, peace, beauty, kindness, happiness of any sort; without anything we want, only its opposite. This is not something a selfish God banishes us to out of sullen, demanding caprice, but something we deliberately choose ourselves. If we sniff suspiciously at the love of the Supreme Author of the Universe and turn away saying “Nah, there has to be a catch, I want to do what I want to do,” that’s not coercion on His part. That’s a childish selfishness on our own part.