I remember watching a skit where someone time travels like 50-100 years into the future to see if all the problems get solved, war, climate change, etc. the guy assures everything fine and reveals the solution. The rapture came and took all of the religious people away. Everyone left was easily able to work together to solve all the issues.
I follow a guy (Matt Taylor) who studies a branch of Christianity called the New Apostolic Reformation, a branch that's like if Evangelical theology, prosperity gospel, and morals merged with traditional charismatics. Lots of prophecies. These are also the Seven Mountains Mandate people--the people who believe they should be in charge of the 7 pillars of culture, like media and education. He posted a a zoomed out version of the above picture, labeling everyone he recognizes from NAR. The NAR has been courting Trump since his first term. Trump is delivering for them.
We talking Iran, the secular democracy prior to 1953? Or Iran, the US backed military dictatorship that lasted until 1979? Or Iran, the Revolutionary Socialist Government that imploded in the run up to the US instigated Iran-Iraq War?
Oh oh oh. I gotcha. We're talking about the modern theocratically controlled Kingdom of Saud uh... Hinduvista Federal government of India um... Revanchist Anti-Communist Christian Cult of the Park/Yoon government er... Apartheid State of Israel oh, here it is, Ayatollah's Iran.
Damn, can't believe America would end up like Evil Foreign Country, instead of a model liberal secular government we traditionally support.
I would say $100K+ & provide a link. Idk. It's nice & short, it's lowball & true to say, and if people want to look up more accurate numbers they can do so on their own time.
There's only one point in the bible where someone actually asks Jesus how to receive eternal life. Jesus says to keep the commandments and also:
"Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; then come and follow me.”
There are many possible points of disagreement within Christianity because, like it or not, the Bible is unclear and even contradicts itself on many subjects (and this is a Christian saying this). But prosperity theology is so clearly the opposite of everything in the Bible that any self-respecting evangelical should ostracize it. That they don't is the proof that the gospel is not what many evangelicals are interested in.
To reinforce this, Jesus didn't just say it was hard for a rich person to get into heaven, he said "And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich [person] to enter into the kingdom of God." --Matthew 19:23-26
Personally, I think this is specifically referring to the level of greed that it requires to hoard enough wealth to become (and stay) a billionaire while the world suffers. It's important to understand that this is our Bible, the foundation of everything Christianity is supposed to be about. These freaks have twisted it so much, it's unrecognizable...
fun fact, the "eye of the needle" isn't referring to a needle. they're small gaps in the big stone walls just big enough for a person to squeeze through but intentionally designed so that a camel cannot get in. he's not even saying it's metaphorically impossible he's saying it's literally impossible, and by design.
Though she clarified that donations wouldn’t actually go to help those infected, White used medical imagery to add urgency to her fundraising plea during a pandemic. “Every single day we are a hospital to the sick, not necessarily the physically sick,” she said. “But we are a hospital for those who are soul sick, those who are spiritually sick.” White went on to suggest that contributors offer a $91 donation, citing Psalm 91, or “maybe $9 or whatever God tells you to do.”
What I cite the bible for
Matthew 21:12-13 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’
You might enjoy reading some of the works of Bart Ehrman. I'm an atheist who has been reading a lot about Jesus and the early church (first three centuries). I would recommend, How Jesus Became God.
Anyway, good for you for recognizing prosperity bs for what it is.
Ehrman is great, as are his books and his podcast (which is called "Misquoting Jesus"). He's one of the most objective mainstream New Testament scholars (in the field of textual criticism), and he doesn't try to advance any agenda. He states clearly whether his points are the consensus of non-evangelical scholars, or whether he's in the minority (which is rarely); whether other scholars disagree with him (and why); what the evangelical scholars say, etc. He doesn't encourage either atheism or religion; he's simply a textual criticism scholar.
It's literally a sin in many sects, not to say those sects aren't entirely hypocritical on the matter, but trading priestly duties for money is explicitly a sin in a lot of Abrahamic religions.
I like Ehrman. I think Jesus had, before the Resurrection, no clear idea of who/what he was and that what Ehrman shows is how the early church not invented but discovered the divinity of Jesus.
Calvin was totally opposed to this kind of theology. I presume you're referencing to Weber; but if you read The Protestant Ethic closely, he didn't speak about mainstream Calvinism of his time, but German puritanism, which was opposed by mainstream Calvinism.
Rapture already happened as predicted. The problem is, literally no one except like, one dude named Rick in Michigan and the Yang family in a small fishing village in China.
Everyone else got left behind in a spiraling purgatory chaos world.
Nah, it was originally about making sure your population had good morals, then about controlling your population more generally, then about making money, then about banning fun for some reason, then about making money again
It's true there are religious nutjobs in the white house currently, but there were also nutjobs running and ruining the country in the previous government. Let's see who's actually fighting for the Americans, instead of licking the boots of foreign bad actors.
I would honestly rather not see how bad the foreign bad actors gets, especially with the current administration. The "find out" phase has so much more to go.
I bet you're one of those ILLEGAL immigrants or iran backing islamists who Trump want to deport. Serves you right. Or if you're a citizen, shame on you for not protecting your own country from those invaders.