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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24822 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 29, 2025

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I'm perfectly fine with increasing cost and reducing utility in this situation.

Yes, of course you are. Because you value the wretched above all others, because that is the general rule everyone is taught. This is itself a problem with modernity, if modernity goes back to AD 1 anyway.

I do not value the wretched above all others. I value God. I think there are plenty of ways in which we should make life harder for the poor, in fact. Like restricting healthcare and social security and such. That being said, I still don't think that promoting ruinous usury is a good.

I do not value the wretched above all others. I value God.

Unfortunately, as you probably guessed from my AD 1 reference, Christianity values the wretched above all others.

No I understood the reference, and I disagree with your take on Christianity. The point of Christianity is to become like God. "God became man so that man could become God."

While an obsessive focus on compassion for the weak and wretched is indeed an outgrowth of Christianity, I personally see it as a cancerous and false one, as many educated and thinking Christians do nowadays.

The point of Christianity is to become like God. "God became man so that man could become God."

That sounds like a heresy, mate. Better let a specialist check it out. There are catholic priests in your vicinity.

Hah, I'm literally quoting St. Athanasius. This is why I'm Orthodox. ;P

Oh, I know, that's the joke/point : This is specifically eastern orthodox, not christianity in general. Neither the catholics nor mainline protestant churches I'm aware of would sign off that statement. If anything, they'd consider it a dramatic misunderstanding, not just a minor point of contention.

I figured it was a bit of a joke, heh. It's ok I'm a strange Christian. Even amongst the Orthodox. I've made peace with that fact.

Except in this context Christianity directly opposes usury, the problematic and exploitative behavior in question. For some reason (I legitimately have no answer) most modern Christians have just completely ignored the teachings on usury and how bad it is. Even if you want the wretched to suffer, usury and issues like this cause problems that damage society as a whole - unless you have active sadism and want to make society and your own life worse to make the wretched suffer even more, preventing this kind of thing is to the advantage of the non-wretched as well.

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