coffee_enjoyer
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User ID: 541
There are a lot of reasons why Muslims have a lower chance of assimilation: the religion allows for shame and correction and ostracization; they emphasize ritual purity, and every religion that does this has a stricter in/out group preference, eg gypsies and Haredim, because it conditions the mind to see others as unclean; they are inherently Arab and Arabized, because the whole religion is in Arabic and all prayers and all major commentaries, and the translations are not considered inspired, and all the centers of theology are in Arab countries, so there’s a constant pressure toward exclusion; Muslim countries want to sustain a strong Islamic in-group preference for biological and political reasons, which will always be stronger than Catholicism’s reasons of piety, and they are definitely finding ways to transfer large sums specifically for this reason; the story underlying Muhammad and the Quran is one of fierce exclusion and struggle, as opposed to the Christian story where the early Christians mingle freely; Islam has an entire corpus dedicated to how you present yourself publicly, so once your town or city becomes majority Muslim there’s now peer pressure for how you dress etc; Catholicism is frankly just a weekend lecture and nothing more for the vast majority of Catholics; Catholics were assimilating into a dominant culture that is, compared against Islam, 99.99% similar in all the important beliefs; the most extreme Catholics become priests and have a TFR of 0, while the most extreme Muslims become Imams and have a TFR of 3+
These are very basic things that a commentator should know. “Muslims will assimilate because Catholics did” is a really terrible take because it just ignores all the unique factors in both religions.
coffee_enjoyer
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1d ago
Saw it go viral on Twitter. Does kind of read like a bot post but it’s just a cute 3d world game you can play in browser without signing up
coffee_enjoyer
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1d ago
Cute 3d world browser game: https://messenger.abeto.co/
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1d ago
He is the GOP’s attempt to replace Charlie Kirk. He has zero reputation among online conservatives but was somehow ingratiated into the GOP establishment, so they are rolling him out everyone.
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3d ago
The Gospel of Mark with its original ending and older manuscript variants. It has a divine tension where the reader is not totally sure whether Jesus is actually the Son of God. As the academic majority believes that Mark is the first gospel with the other synoptics written on top of it (making editorial mistakes in the process), the original reading is the most interesting. It shows the original energy of the religion.
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Jesus’ family thinks he is out of his mind
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Christ admonishes the disciples for being cowards when He calms the storm
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People doubt Christ because he works as a carpenter, as opposed to his being a “son of a carpenter”, with this word having a great meaningspace of artisan and craftsman and builder; this sustains the tension of his legitimacy.
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He is emotional, angry and sighing while healing people
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There is the messianic secret motif which echoes the story of Euripides’ Baccheus (note all similarities: God entering human form in humility to reestablish correct worship in secret while facing opposition from society, blessing those who recognize him and promising disaster to those who do not)
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The character of Bartimaeus who is theorized to allude to Plato’s Timeus
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From what I’ve read from people who can read Koine Greek, it is written in a style between Hemingway and ebonics, and erring toward the latter. It is literally not even written well, which I think is awesome.
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There is the very important note that Jesus cursed the fig tree when it wasn’t the time for figs, which is essential for understanding what He is actually doing and the purpose of faith and cursing.
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Prayer is articulated as an activity in which the person believes they’ve already received what they asked when they pray, which is fascinating, and a very phenomenologically different activity than today’s prayer with very different psychological consequences
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It ends with a sense of cosmic horror: “So they went out quickly and fled from the tomb, for they trembled and were amazed. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” This is very fitting for a human race which just crucified the appointed savior of the world. I would also be left in a state of cosmic horror. To me this has the feeling of the original, unfinished ending of Mozart’s Lacrimosa, which leaves you in a state of dread and questioning. Now if Mark is original, this is also important for clarifying the very first sense of the crucifixion. Is it hopeful? Is it horrible? Perhaps both.
I like this original dramatic tension because the reader winds up feeling like the clueless Centurion — “truly this man was the Son of God” — for no other reason than the way He lived. You can almost read OG Mark in an atheistic lens of, “imagine someone lived totally as the son of God in our sinful and evil world”. It’s also important to read this in the context of two Solomonic Wisdom Books: Ecclesiastes and the Wisdom of Solomon. Ecclesiastes paints a world without any hope after death, and the Wisdom of Solomon was written around 0AD as a correction to this. How does Wisdom correct the nihilism of Ecclesiastes? With the archetypal righteous person, who labels himself the Son of God, who is put to a shameful death by the evil and worldly after claiming God as his Father. This and many other similarities should lead us to believe that Mark was written with the Wisdom of Solomon in mind.
coffee_enjoyer
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6d ago
Nothing crazy: cancel affirmative action, restrict immigration accordingly, do away with guilt narratives about disparate outcomes. I feel like progressives think that the worst case scenario of affirmative action is slightly slower progress, at a pace which doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. If only! The worst case scenario is that the Chinese gain global hegemony and completely control the trajectory of the mankind because the pace of technological change all but prevents new competitors from arising. So we’re in the midst of a life of death struggle against a different civilization for world domination. And the Han are pretty cool and peaceful, maybe their foreign policy decisions even justify their victory, but I’d rather not have a Total Han Victory over the rest of history.
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7d ago
This hypothesis is now quite conclusively disproven by a study using within-family African admixture and then separating out the genes responsible for skin color. The great cremieuxrecueil on x last week:
https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1967752858251469117
Individuals who derive more of their ancestry from Africa tend to be less intelligent. Between persons, this could be due to things like people who look more like Africans being subjected to discrimination, or people who have more African ancestry somehow ending up with worse family environments. So, we have to go within-family.
This means testing to see if one or another sibling who has more African ancestry (because they'll inherit different amounts from their parents due to random chance) is more or less intelligent. Why does this work? Because siblings with different amounts of African ancestry have the same family background and their appearances (in terms of looking more or less African) are unrelated to how much they differ in African ancestry. So, my friend ran the test. It came back that the relationship we see in the general population is the same as the one we see comparing siblings, and even when comparing other types of relatives. That is, the sibling with less African ancestry tends to be more intelligent.
The "IQ per unit of admixture" is statistically indistinguishable between the population and within-family results, and yes, it explains most of the Black-White difference in IQ. I just wanted comparably-scaled results for all the traits here, so you're seeing r's. It's pleasant that the within-family variance reductions aren't enormous for siblings, which is what we expect even with quite high heritabilities given their genetic relatedness. It's the same result we've seen with American data, and it's also nice to see that in the case of this trait, the global admixture result can be interpreted like the within-family one. Presumably this only holds with measurement invariance, as we see in the U.K. when comparing Whites and Blacks there. Since we see this in the U.S. too, it's likely that the previous, already-published within-family null—which had a sizable effect in the correct direction which also could not be distinguished from the global r—was just a false-negative.
In general, within-sibling skin color analysis shows no significant effect
This should make us happy, because it means that White people are not incredibly evil senseless folks constantly putting lther groups down and thereby making them dumber through mysterious processes. Rather, White people are so selflessly kind that they are willing to forego their own intuition and self-benefit at the civilizational scale in the errant pursuit of universal justice. (As an aside, that trannyporn0 theory is certain in my mind, because I once messaged him on the old site and he mentioned that he was looking into IQ-by-%AA admixture data.)
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8d ago
The notion that Christians ought to forgive everyone no matter what is usually defended with Luke 23:34, where Jesus asks God to forgive those involved in his crucifixion (which implies that he himself forgives them). But there’s a problem with this: it’s not actually clear who Jesus is speaking about, whether that’s the Pharisees who have the greater sin involved in the crucifixion, or whether it’s the soldiers just obeying orders, or whether it’s the public who are celebrants of the event. Some scholars believe this only applies to Pilate’s soldiers, who were involved in obeying orders but not the cause of the evil. I think this is reasonable because the utterance occurs in the middle of the description of the soldiers engaged in an action: “there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ And they cast lots to divide his garments”. If the forgiveness were intended for everyone, it would be more clear to articulate this later in the event where there would be no confusion that he is speaking at large to all gathered.
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8d ago
I see everyone cheering for this but I think it’s not ideal. The right act here is to not forgive, because the offender is not repentant, and you should only forgive if someone recognizes their wrong and wishes earnestly to change. And even then, in such a case, it is still acceptable not to forgive, because the Christian conception of judgment (as in what Christ says) is that we are judged by the judgment we pronounce and measured with the measure we mete out. If you judge correctly, you do not face the same punishment than you demand of another. Loving your enemy, which is obligatory, does not mean eroding justice; you can love your enemy and not forgive, because he isn’t repentant or because he is just too evil. Though regarding this latter thing, you are supposed to always forgive a brother, ie fellow Christians, but this is a specific class of people, not just everyone in the world, and it is still written that they must be repentant. Remember that Jesus didn’t forgive Judas. There are a lot of people that Jesus doesn’t forgive, for much “smaller” infractions per Matthew 25, and they are sent into eternal flames.
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8d ago
When I visited Harvard’s Unitarian church due to social obligation, they all snapped their fingers in agreement with the pastoress. The racial disparity of Harvard faculty was noted in the homily. It’s neat that American Christianity is totally modular and you can just attach whatever you want to it. It’s not a good thing, but it’s neat.
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9d ago
The new generation has nowhere left to discuss politics or philosophy in a way that actually encourages discursive skills. Forum culture is dead; Reddit’s new UI prevents longterm discussion by hiding all replies automatically and showing few comments + algorithm promotes short form content + mod culture promotes consensus with severity. Facebook / YT have comment UIs that discourage long discourse by making it impossible to keep track. Discord is either too localized or too populous for long arguments. Three more things work against the youth: (1) the popularity of Hip Hop culture with its proud disdain of any kind of thinking, making middle class Whites more likely to respond with an emoji or a SYBAU when confronted with an argument. (2) The increase in economic and academic competition, meaning kids have less time discuss freely and for fun. (3) The increase in addicting content online, sapping attention.
Instead of brushing off something a deranged lie, you can argue why you think that it’s a deranged lie. The injury clustering claim is made by Nick Maynard, whose credentials are:
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Former clinical director of surgery at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, one of the largest hospitals in the UK
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Lead reviewer for professional standards of the Royal College of Surgeons of England for 10 years
He describes it as follows to NPR
I think seeing four young teenagers come in, in the space of one hour, with gunshot wounds to their testicles, which we have never seen before, is beyond coincidence. Seeing as one of my ER doctors did, seeing 12 or more patient[s], young teenagers coming in with gunshot wounds to the head and neck, all at the same time, is beyond coincidence. The clustering of symptoms is what makes it so dramatic. And it is something that we at all levels — ER doctors, general surgeons, urology surgeons, neurosurgeons — have all recognized this clustering of injuries.
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10d ago
I haven’t seen this mentioned yet but Kimmel’s guest for that show played a song with the lyrics
keep all them fascists underground
don’t let them bastards get you down
Which I think she altered just for the show. You can hear it at 2:50 and she’s confirmed it on social media.
coffee_enjoyer
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11d ago
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74z4gy5g31o
Gaza aid site offered a 'women only' day. It didn't stop the killing
Palestinian men mostly take on the risk, jostling to secure a box of food for their family […]
Sheikh al-Eid died from a bullet injury to the neck. She is one of two women known to have been killed on Thursday's "women's day". The BBC also spoke to the family of the second woman who was killed, Khadija Abu Anza. One sister, Samah, who was with her said that they were travelling to a GHF aid site when an Israeli tank and troops arrived. From a distance of just metres, the troops first fired warning shots as they told them to move back, Samah said on Friday. "We started walking back and then she was hit by the bullet," Samah said. "They shot her in the neck and she died immediately."
There are also risks because Israel is arming and funding criminals gangs in Gaza, gangs affiliated with the Islamic State:
"Some people here die from stabbings and attacks — all over food. We've all turned into mafias and road blockers."
Pretty obvious why men would want to venture to get aid in these conditions. You’re right that in UN-patrolled areas this doesn’t happen, but Israel has (naturally) prevented UN-mediated aid distribution.
coffee_enjoyer
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11d ago
There’s no compelling evidence that they are trying to steal food or storm the sites. In some cases they are fired upon 800 meters away from a site. In other cases they are fired upon when waiting in line too early. The state of the aid distribution, if anything, make stampedes and other risks more likely, which the UN and aid groups have warned about since the start of it (even before that). The examples of stampedes which you link occurred inside buildings and in small alleys, and there’s no excuse for a stampede to occur in an open area with almost no remaining building. Additionally, the use of live rounds makes no sense when dealing with an emaciated unarmed crowd so far away, when even a paintball gun would do a better job both deterring any unwanted crowd movement and also in delineating the desired passage for the population.
The reason boys collect the aid might be because the IDF frequently shoots civilians. From the UN Human Right’s Council report on the 16th:
Importantly, the Commission has found that children have been directly targeted in various ways by the Israeli security forces since 7 October 2023, including during evacuations, at shelters, and more recently at GHF distribution sites. Medical professionals told the Commission that they have treated children with direct gunshot and sniper wounds, often to the head and abdomen, indicating that the Israeli security forces have intentionally targeted children during their military operations in Gaza. In relation to the attacks along the evacuation routes and within designated safe areas, the Commission found that the Israeli security forces had clear knowledge of the presence of Palestinian civilians, including children. Nevertheless, Israeli security forces shot at and killed civilians, including children who were holding makeshift white flags. Some children, including toddlers, were shot in the head by snipers.
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11d ago
We have a few confessions from soldiers about this.
Three days ago in the Hebrew language Haaretz (translated)
For Bani, a sniper in the Nahal Brigade, changing roles is no longer enough. The wound he describes is too deep, too profound. "It started about two months ago," he testifies. "Every day, we have the same mission: securing humanitarian aid in the northern Gaza Strip." His day, and that of his comrades, begins at 3:30 a.m. Accompanied by drones and armored forces, they set up a sniper position and wait. According to him, between 7:30 and 8:30, the trucks arrive and start unloading their contents. Meanwhile, the residents try to advance to secure a good spot in line, but there's a boundary they don't notice. "A line that, if they cross it, I'm allowed to shoot them," Bani explains. "It's like a game of cat and mouse. They try to approach from different routes, and I'm there with the sniper rifle, with officers shouting at me, 'Take them down, take them down! I fire 50-60 rounds every day, I stopped counting kills. I have no idea how many l've killed, a lot. Children."
Regarding the “boundary they don’t notice”, these may be invisible or only known to the IDF soldiers:
Establishing an invisible “security perimeter” then shooting civilians who cross it has become common practice in Gaza, Israeli soldiers have testified. When asked how his squad decided whether to shoot unarmed Palestinians, Raab said: “Its a question of distance. There is a line that we define. They don’t know where this line is, but we do.”
Raab quoted in the above is an American-Israel dual citizen who was tricked by a journalist into confessing to the killing of a family in Gaza, though not at a food distribution site. He shot an unarmed man, the man’s brother who went to retrieve his body, then the father who went to retrieve the bodies of his sons. This example is unusual in that an international team of journalists pursued all the evidence they could on this one particular instance over five months. So we have a confession, a video of the killing, interviews with witnesses and survivors and the family, death records, and geolocations.
More testimonials from soldiers at the aid sites includes
It's a killing field," one soldier said. "Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day. They're treated like a hostile force – no crowd-control measures, no tear gas – just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the center opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire." The soldier added, "We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred meters away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there's no danger to the forces." According to him, "I'm not aware of a single instance of return fire. There's no enemy, no weapons." He also said the activity in his area of service is referred to as Operation Salted Fish – the name of the Israeli version of the children's game "Red light, green light".
[a different testimony] In one incident, the soldier was instructed to fire a shell toward a crowd gathered near the coastline. "Technically, it's supposed to be warning fire – either to push people back or stop them from advancing," he said. "But lately, firing shells has just become standard practice. Every time we fire, there are casualties and deaths, and when someone asks why a shell is necessary, there's never a good answer. Sometimes, merely asking the question annoys the commanders." In that case, some people began to flee after the shell was fired, and according to the soldier, other forces subsequently opened fire on them. "If it's meant to be a warning shot, and we see them running back to Gaza, why shoot at them?" he asked. "Sometimes we're told they're still hiding, and we need to fire in their direction because they haven't left. But it's obvious they can't leave if the moment they get up and run, we open fire." The soldier said this has become routine. "You know it's not right. You feel it's not right – that the commanders here are taking the law into their own hands. But Gaza is a parallel universe. You move on quickly. The truth is, most people don't even stop to think about it."
[a different testimony] "I was at a similar event. From what we heard, more than ten people were killed there," said another senior reserve officer commanding forces in the area. "When we asked why they opened fire, we were told it was an order from above and that the civilians had posed a threat to the troops. I can say with certainty that the people were not close to the forces and did not endanger them. It was pointless – they were just killed, for nothing. This thing called killing innocent people – it's been normalized. We were constantly told there are no noncombatants in Gaza, and apparently that message sank in among the troops."
[a different testimony] They talk about using artillery on a junction full of civilians as if it's normal," said a military source who attended the meeting. "An entire conversation about whether it's right or wrong to use artillery, without even asking why that weapon was needed in the first place. What concerns everyone is whether it'll hurt our legitimacy to keep operating in Gaza. The moral aspect is practically nonexistent. No one stops to ask why dozens of civilians looking for food are being killed every day." "The fact that live fire is directed at a civilian population – whether with artillery, tanks, snipers, or drones – goes against everything the army is supposed to stand for," he said, criticizing the decisions made on the ground. "Why are people collecting food being killed just because they stepped out of line, or because some commander doesn't like that they're cutting in? Why have we reached a point where a teenager is willing to risk his life just to pull a sack of rice off a truck? And that's who we're firing artillery at?"
[a different testimony] “The claim that these are isolated cases doesn't align with incidents in which grenades were dropped from the air and mortars and artillery were fired at civilians," said one legal official. "This isn't about a few people being killed – we're talking about dozens of casualties every day."
Then of course you have the doctor testimonials. A popular Dutch newspaper just did a big investigation on this last week:
Each time a food distribution point opens, doctors in the hospitals see dozens of civilians arriving with gunshot wounds. Most are boys—teenagers and young adults. They are brought in large groups at once on donkey carts. Some still carry empty food bags. Several doctors notice a pattern in the injuries. The targeted body part differs each day, as if it’s coordinated work, they suggest.
coffee_enjoyer
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12d ago
This is not a primary resource, but I found it informative for the things he did “offline”:
https://scholarstage.substack.com/p/bullets-and-ballots-the-legacy-of
Charlie Kirk was not just a piece of internet bombast; his main field of action, in fact, was not on the internet. Kirk was one of the most effective institution-builders and coalition-crafters in the United States. He was less an influencer than a power broker; everyone in MAGAland acknowledged the leadership role he played in building and holding together Trump’s coalition
TPUSA was a leadership incubator for a generation of conservative activists. His success with TPUSA made him a favorite of the Republican donor class. His show gave him a ready excuse to interview politicians, think tankers, and media personalities across the right. All of this gave Kirk an impeccable Rolodex—he had access to a vast network of conservatives who mattered and an unerring eye for up-and-comers who should matter. He was constantly connecting politicians with donors, statesmen with staffers, and media outfits with the next brilliant young producer or marketer. There are a good four dozen people in the Trump administration who owe their appointments to an introduction Kirk made on their behalf—and this was true not only of the Trump administration, but also across Congress, in state governments, and in news agencies like Fox News.
coffee_enjoyer
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13d ago
Many believed that United had such regulatory capture and lobbying capacity that they were above the law, and so the victims of their injustices couldn’t plausibly seek justice against the company. Many believed that there were hundreds or thousands of victims of United and that their victimhood was especially heinous because (to simplify) they had purchased medicine but were withheld the medicine they purchased and were promised while they actively dying. Doctors, patients, academics, and those in the industry came forward after the event to talk about this. Something outside the law is treated according to the traditional norms regarding outlaws, as that’s just what means. None of this applies to Kirk, who was firmly within the law.
coffee_enjoyer
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15d ago
The card in question. There is something “more to life than having everything”. This satisfaction is a secret shared between Donald and Jeffrey which they enjoyed together in their last encounter. This “wonderful secret” is referenced in the phrase “enigmas never age”, which Jeffrey “noticed” last encounter, but which they won’t mention publicly. This is all written within the silhouette of a woman, with Donald Trump’s signature acting as pubic hair. In 2003 it was not considered noteworthy for a rich guy to hang out with 18 year old women, and we know Epstein trafficked in underage women, so the overwhelming probability is that they are referencing underage girls.
The reason for Epstein being Mossad I’ve made a number of comments on (I wish there was an easier way to search and paste the URL)
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15d ago
The Trump-Epstein birthday card and the bombing of Qatar may be linked. It’s not anyone in America leaking this stuff as otherwise it would have been published 2016-2024. I think it’s Israel showing its guns, reminding the President that they’re in control and that there’s much worse than can be released if he doesn’t go along with their decisions in the Middle East. The birthday card makes clear that Trump’s relationship with Epstein involved underaged girls, and of course any such relationship was recorded by Epstein, and it’s most probable he was a Mossad or Israeli Military Intelligence asset.
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15d ago
Japan’s 1/1000th rate of gun crime is not invalidated by one outlying case of assassination. The assailant in question planned to kill a cult leader for 20 years, tried and failed to obtain a firearm, built his own firearm, then spent a year planning to kill Abe only because he supported said cult. This was a highly unusual event all around.
…Of course. Charlie Kirk would still be alive today if America had strict gun control. There’s only a tiny chance that this terminally online dude would be able to acquire an illegal firearm in Utah, and still only a tiny chance that he would successfully assassinate him through some other means. The gun is a causal factor in his death, in the same way open borders is a causal factor in the illegal immigrant example. In both cases, the victim reasonably believes that policy decision effects a greater good which supersedes the risks and harms.
I of course totally disagree that we should care about illegal immigrants and pretty much agree that we should have guns, but that’s opinion.
We can try to imagine a reversal of the scenario. If a pro-immigrant pundit were slain by an illegal immigrant, would conservatives make callous remarks on social media? I think so, yes. I don’t think they would “celebrate” it, but they would definitely make brusque political comments online. I recall reading comments like that after the Mollie Tibbetts story (illegal immigrant killed progressive American girl). We can’t say that it’s different because one side is objectively wrong about things, because polite politics requires that we pretend / believe that this isn’t the case.
But Charlie Kirk’s death is also unusually significant. He was a household name for anyone tuned in to youth politics. He was being groomed for leadership in the conservative movement, so it’s the equivalent of killing a political candidate (you can’t replace someone like Charlie Kirk). His death was unusually public in our uncensored social media environment, and also wildly gruesome. And his show was a symbol of open political discussion, even if only at the surface level. So there’s a sense in which Charlie Kirk’s death is more of an apolitical public tragedy. There’s the political dimension to it, but there’s also the apolitical tragedy dimension. As both parties would be happy to fire anyone who made light of the Boston Marathon Bombing after it happened, it comes down to how Kirk’s assassination ranks up against other objectively sacrosanct public tragedies. I actually don’t like him but I would say it’s something of a sacrosanct public tragedy because of the aforementioned incidental memetic properties of the event.
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17d ago
But if we have evidence that secular organizations in history have been as violent, dogmatic, and successful as the Taliban, then I’m not sure how you are reasoning that the Taliban’s afterlife belief has been instrumental to some particular “benefit” of their movement. Even in regards to their suicide attacks, we have plenty of cases of suicidal acts from secular organizations, like the Japanese in WWII or among the Romans. It is not sufficient to claim that the Taliban benefits from their afterlife belief just because (1) they have such a belief & (2) their movement is highly motivated, because there’s also a dozen other things that the Taliban are doing.
Surely belief in an afterlife is at play in at least some individual cases [of charity]
In some cases, sure. But I think it’s complicated by a lot. Jews give proportionately more to charity than Catholics and usually do not possess an afterlife belief. Bekkers’ “The Pursuit of Differences in Prosociality Among Identical Twins” finds that charitable donations are mediated by frequency of church attendance, with each additional visit resulting in $20 more to charity. Something noteworthy about Jewish charity is that its mediated by perceived victimhood, such that Jews who have “experienced antisemitism” donate 10x more on average to Jewish charities. This little factoid is very insightful in explaining how prosociality functions within group dynamics generally: the perceptions of injustice as a class and a common enemy propel in-group benefitting. Not only does this make sense in light of evolutionary biology, but it also makes sense in light of early Christian history, as they emphasized their victimhood, their enemy, and their common “class”. And of course this propelled Marxism too.
Give all superfluous possessions to the poor" as such isn't really a clear Christian teaching
You will not be able to find any early Christian Father who said that one can be spiritually perfect while being wealthy. Catholicism venerates those like St Francis in part because he gave all of his wealth to the poor — and his family was quite wealthy.
first off, this does happen. There are nuns and monks and religious orders and missionaries. Those all exist.
In many cases these are career decisions decided a young age. How many rich Catholics ever decide to do this? 0.1%?
you seem to think that Scripture says "be poor and you get into heaven" which isn't the case
If giving your surplus wealth to the poor instead of buying a mansion earns you a greater reward, which every Christian thinker of the first 500 years would have told you, then we should expect reasonable self-interested afterlife-believer to do this given the cost / benefit analysis. Do you disagree that giving to the poor and abstaining from worldly pleasures provides a greater reward? Do you disagree that it makes salvation more secure?
Acts 5
This narrative line begins at the end of Act 4 (as you know, chapter divisions are not original to the text). At the end of Acts 4 we read:
Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus,sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.
We learn that the true believers were of one heart and soul, did not believe their surplus was their own, and distributed to the needy from all of their profits. This same narrative continues —
But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife’s knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet.
The problem of Ananias is brought up as an exception to the Godly conduct which Luke had just relayed (think I accidentally wrote Paul in my last comment). Luke highlights the problem of Ananias and why he is being mentioned at all: “for himself”, “only a part”. It follows:
But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.”When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last.
The word “keep back” is important because it has the connotation of a moral crime in itself. This is not neutral terminology: this is the sin being called out.
ἐνοσφίσατο: may merely mean from its derivation, to set apart νόσφι. But both in LXX and N.T. it is used in a bad sense of appropriating for one’s own benefit, purloining
Now Ananias lied in doing this, but the narrative is not written in such a way that the lie is the weighty crime of Ananias. The narrative is about sharing surplus, and the emphasis is on the lack of sharing by Ananias. This section of Acts had just mentioned that none of the Christians believed that their surplus was their own. The section did not previously mention lying, neither did it mention anything about a promise or oath that the Christians made with respect to charity, neither did it mention that Ananias would have obtained some social benefit from the completed charity. You will find no saying among the early Christians that lying about how much you make deserves death. But we do find such sayings against greed among the early Christians. We can look at the Didache, one of the oldest Christian texts:
The way of death is this: […] greed […] loving worthless things […] not having mercy on the poor […] turning away from the needy […] advocates of the rich
If you have gained something through your work, give it away as a ransom for your sins. Do not hesitate to give, nor complain when you give, for you know the good paymaster of your reward. Do not turn away from anyone who is in need, but share everything with your your brother, and do not say that anything is your own. For if you all share in the heavenly things, how much more in earthly things?
Now certainly, people can believe whatever they want about God and religion. But But I think that believers of new age thought, those who believe in “the righteous rich”, should have the honor to not lie about what they believe. Why corrupt the name of Christ? Because the religion of Jesus and his first followers is very beautiful and pristine, and it’s all in plain language. If someone wants to take some aspects of Christ’s teachings and conform them to fit their own base instincts, that’s in their right, but I wish they wouldn’t claim to actually follow Christ, because that’s not accepted in the actual religion. It’s some other thing. We have the primary documents! We know what was taught and what was practiced.
Notably absent from your collection of verses: the many verses in Scripture that celebrate accumulating wealth and offer concrete advice on how to do so
Jesus completed our understanding of things and we now know not to store out treasure on earth.
The urbanite’s favorite social leisure activity is trying a new restaurant. They make plans in advance around it, it’s where they sustain their friendships, it’s where they experience novelty without drugs, it’s a whole big thing. There aren’t that many novel spaces that you can relax in which aren’t a restaurant in a city.
Humans also just naturally become addicted to new food and clothes, because they experience these every day. You see corrections against this in the Bible for this reason: “is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”, and “for the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”. But where will an irreligious progressive hear a correction against becoming addicted to novel food, unless they’re into stoicism and mindfulness?
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