an anarchist
Your local loco.
Or is that what the government wants you to think?
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Is government a byproduct of our sinful nature?
- Thread starter an anarchist
- Start date
What about voting? There are many Christians who vote for governments of all sizes, so is that a deliberate sin since the result is supporting a sinful organization? Would you suggest no Christian ever vote?
It is a natural social tendency to form leadership. The larger the number of people the more there has to be a hierarchy. Militaries work in a similar fashion. Try to wage war with no ranking or leadership. Won't work.
an anarchist
Your local loco.
I would suggest Christians do their best to not take any part in government, including voting.
And I'm going to guess you think taxes are a sin, too. If so, you using the very infrastructure that government provides you are engaged in a sinful activity. So your only option is to live somewhere off the grid, and where you don't benefit from anything that government provides.
Talk about how being an atheist solves a lot of problems.
an anarchist
Your local loco.
The government has monopolized essential services. I still need essential services. Using essential services I don’t think is a sin because the government has monopolized it at gunpoint.
Some yes. Not all. At least, not that we can explicitly tell from the text.
Father Heathen
Veteran Member
There will always be some form of leadership or rules and the means of upholding them within structured societies.
Given all of the incidents of corrupt government actions, one would think that it is a product of our sin. However, I don't think that is so. Rather, absolute power corrupts absolutely (as the saying goes).
This is why I think that it is a very bad idea for the Religious Right to put in candidates who change our laws (abortion, war, torture, homeless, lower tax for the rich, outsource factories, etc). Mixing politics and religion seldom works.
Hebrews (said to be God's chosen people) were also chosen by Hitler to be tortured to death. Couldn't God choose someone else for a change?
The same type of government doesn't always work the same for all nations.
For example, just after WWII, China suffered from a bad economy. It had been a democracy. Inflation doubled every week, and that required a wheel barrow of money to buy groceries every few days. There were empty houses and unemployed. There were vacant farms and starving people. Someone had to connect these various disconnected things.
In came Communists (a mixture of a dictatorship and Socialism). Socialism is when the government pays for almost everything (free medical care, roads, military, etc). Republicans in America conflate Socialism with Communism, yet, they want public funds to pay for roads and the military, too. It costs too much for an individual to buy a nuke and keep it in his back yard. An effective military has to be government run.
When the Communists took over China, they said that they'd chop the heads off of anyone who inflates prices. They also chopped the heads off of anyone who opposed them. They were slicing open bellies of pregnant women, and they ran holding their guts and fetuses. The royal family ran out of the palace, the women ran with bound feet (symbolic of not needing to work because they were royal), and to get away from the invading Communist army. The peasants, who had already picked the last of the weed roots from the hillsides, fed their babies mud, knowing that they would not survive the night, but at least they would not cry from hunger until they died.
I am not condoning Communism, but for the Chinese, at that time, and in that condition, it worked, and everyone soon was able to eat and find housing. Since then, the Chinese economy thrived, and now has utterly conquered the US economy. Today, China is buying up US farm land and publicly traded companies on the stock market, as well as privately held companies. Living standards in China have greatly improved, and they have high tech gadgets and high tech military. While US missiles travel a slow mach 5, Chinese rockets were traveling at mach 10 over President Trump's aircraft carrier that he moved to the the China Sea. China forciblly took back Hong Kong, Taiwan, and chased foreign ships off of the China Sea.
They shouldn't have had the judges in the water in the first place.
Judging from past decisions, not voting might be the solution.
Some governments should not be upheld....Hitler, King George III, etc. This is what caused revolutions and wars.
The US is quickly turning into the same Monarchy that King George III had.
The US was formed to give rights (speech, assembly, religion), but now have lost the ability to sue HMOs (must arbitrate with the HMO as the arbitrator that finds itself guilty--successful arbitration is almost nonexistent). Our privacy has been invaded (W. Bush spied on everyone's phones....Google Eric Snowden for more info about this), and the Cancel Culture kicked off Elon Musk, Mike Lindell, and Donald Trump (to name a few). We are losing the rights that we fought for in the Revolutionary War against George III.
The Middle Class is almost non-existent, having been made poor, and more poor than ever find themselves homeless. The tax breaks for the rich are responsible. We are getting to the point that the rich buy houses and rent to the non-rich, and they can charge anything they want....another day older and deeper in debt (like the song says).
Good point.
Welfare allows teeth to be filled, but there are many towns that insist that people need to be a regular patient of a dentist to have fillings, so they refuse to fill (and end up pulling teeth). For kids, they were putting in temporary fillings (soft material) which would need redoing later. That resulted in more pain, more dental problems, and more cost (the cost of filling it right the first time was cheaper). The temp fillings was the idea of Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of California.
Biden recently wondered why laws were made to prevent welfare recipients from working (their money would be confiscated by reducing their benefits). That was not a formula for getting people off of welfare.
Lets remember that Jesus cured the sick, and didn't ask how much money they had.
Sheldon
Veteran Member
The alternative to government would be to revert to a feral existence, where individuals and small groups fought a lawless dystopian existence for resources. I don't believe in sin, or any deity, or the biblical creation myth, so I see no relevance. However government is simply a necessary expedient for human societies that prefer to live without a constant lawless struggle to survive.
I'm not sure what you think is evil about government, beyond your subjective religious interpretation?
Jesus: "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's." Yet, Caesar had him crucified. So, if Jesus could see the future, why did he strengthen Rome by suggesting that everyone pay taxes?
In ancient England, the king told the peasants that he was building a castle that they could hide in if the country was invaded. Vikings invaded, and the king thought that they might leave the peasants alone, and take over as their leader if they could defeat the castle, so they didn't allow peasants into the palace. There were stores of grain, water, and other necessary supplies in the palace, and the peasants were slaughtered.
So, promises of governments don't always hold up.
When governments protect themselves, and don't protect the people, it is time for change.
In the recent Russian attack of the Ukraine, you'd think that the Ukrainians would allow Russia to annex it. Ukrainians, after all, voted to join Russia a few years ago. But the Ukraininan leader doesn't want to give up power, and he is willing to lose buildings and lose people to defend his nation.
It is in the best interests of the United States to prevent Communist nations from merging. However, the US can't be the policemen of the world. It is too expensive in dollars and casualties.
People on disability SSI, find that they have to appease the arbitrary rules of inspectors in their homes. They are not allowed to have food boxes (like cereal) on their refrigerators, etc. Goverment has been getting petty and bossy, especially for the poor (and the poor are burgeoning).
Sedim Haba
Outa here... bye-bye!
Government is a disease posing as it's own cure. It's never enough, those governing always want more power.
Don't confuse government with rule of law. But who's law? G-d's or Man's? That is the question.