Quote:
Originally Posted by StbGuy
It irks me too. There always seems to be one crucial thing rich people forget - the amazingly lucky breaks they all got!  They are so used to blowing their own trumpet, they forget when they were starting out in life, it was a sequence of people that believed in them enough to lend or give them money that helped them get where they are. Now they lord it over others and pretend like they got there on their own steam entirely.
The "love thy neighbour" one irritates me because it is so misinterpreted as meaning you must love and be friendly with people from all walks of life and in general. If you do that, YOU WILL get stabbed in the back or get taken for some kind of ride, betrayed or be forsaken. The Bible is very clear about it, if people just bothered to read on from that line. It is the story about what we like to call today "the good Samaritan". |
I find it more useful to just have a general respect for others...but loving any and everyone is taking it a bit too far. I will not go out of my way to harm others but I can't really indefinitely love anyone I meet....really depends on the individual. So I imagine it more meant something along the lines of don't make enemies where its not necessary, than literal loving of all your neighbors/peers ect...especially with all the translations its undergone I imagine some of the original meaning has been lost/altered...so whenever I regard the bible I try to look between the lines and think about the context of what's in it. I don't follow it but it can be a good point of reference for some conversations/topics.
I never have got how anyone takes the bible completely literally and treats it as though its some flaw-less manual of how to live life...I mean it is a little dated only by thousands of years so social norms have changed and it was originally a loose collection of scrolls and what not, put together into a single book and translated time and time again. So 1 it was written by man, and 2 even if every word in it is true all the translations are going to have screwed with some of the language and original meanings.
But yeah the other day I read an article about some woman who had to go on food stamps after being financially stable most of their life...she was someone who did think people on government assistance where burdening tax-payers and being lazy. Until she was in those shoes, and found no matter how she budgeted her earned money she still would have come up short on food to feed her and her family, no matter how hard she worked. So then her messege was that before people judge they should really think long and hard about how they'd feel if they end up in that position....and have to hear all the stigma about how they aren't putting in enough effort and are a burden to society. I mean no one should be made to feel like that, what is a society if it sees helping its less fortunate members as a huge burdensome waste of taxpayer money?