Why conservative?

Question

The conservative christian right believe in low taxes (or keeping poor people in poverty). Surely jesus was a socialist. He believed in giving to the poor but you christians insist on voting republican (the opposite of socialism). If you were real christians you would be socialists.

Agree?

why not??????????

Answer 1

Actually, Jesus believed in free trade. After all, he was God and established that in the Jewish society, and put in the year of jubilee amont other things to keep in check and protect people against huge debts toward each other. Not all Christians are republican, though I say a majority appear to be. This is most often due to issues such as abortion and freedom of religion more than financial institutions. For those who don't know, every seven years, all debts were forgiven, and as you got closer to that seventh year, all prices went down to prevent people from racking up massive amounts of debt and just spending what they didn't have. Every fifty years all property returned to it's original owners (back to an even distribution of real estate) this prevented people from becoming too poor with no way out.

Free trade, when properly used, is an excellent check against poverty. If you have money, you can give to the poor, that's wonderful. There are more things than just money to give though. You can give jobs, which is supported by republicans. Help businesses, that means more jobs, that means more money, that means less poverty.

There is also the democratic view. we should give to the poor money. That's not bad, that sounds good too. So democrats raise taxes so that there is more money to put into programs to help the poor. It doesn't have as long term a success rate as the first, but it does reach a broader spectrum of people.

Socialism is a separate view. Socialism says that we should evenly distribute wealth across the board, so that everyone is equal. That would mean that everyone gets money of equal degree, that sounds good on paper, but then we have practice. What happens is that people don't want to do jobs that will require high degrees of success to get to them, because it doesn't make any difference. Unless you really have a serious passion for medicine, or for law, you aren't going to pursue a career in those because it costs you too much money, and you don't have much because it's all evenly distributed so everyone gets a little bit.

There are many other views, but that's all I'm going to cover for now.

Answer 2

No. You are so wrong on understanding what the "conservative Christian right" supports and that Jesus was a socialist. My god that stuff is a bunch of crap. I note you had no sources for stating the the conservative right believe in low taxes and that keeps poor people in poverty. You need to do some research on both subjects ( Christ's politics and also what makes for 'poverty') before you start trying to form a question or make an argumentative statement.

Answer 3

Only a partial agreement, a.a.1.1. While I agree that Christ said give to the poor, He didn't necessarily say to give to the government to aid the poor. (Though it is true that he said give what money the government requires in taxes, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's...") In fact, the Church is supposed to be the entity, according to the Christian Scriptures, that provides for the poor and needy. You can see this in Acts when it talks about how the early Christians "shared everything in common." So, conservative Christians might believe that it is the Church's role to help the poor, not the government's, hence the lower taxes. Now, whether all conservative churches do this in practice is a different question...

Also, though I may disagree with the interpretation, there is a part of scripture that could be used to support the conservative mentality, if taken out of context and at face value. If you read John 12:1-8, we find a story of Jesus telling Judas that money from a perfume poured on Christ's feet was better used that way than if the perfume was sold and the money given to the poor. Thus, one might see that story as saying that the work of Christ trumps the service to the poor. Now, I for one see the service to the poor as an integral part of the work of Christ in the world, but I can see how others might take this verse differently.

Answer 4

I am a conservative and a Christian. You don't know or care what I believe so stop pretending you do. Jesus belonged to no political party and I give to several different organizations that are none of your business. By your statements you do not even know the meaning of socialism much less what a republic is. If by your questions your going to demonstrate such ignorance it might be better for you to just go play solitaire on your computer. With practice you may even get to where you can use more than two fingers.

Answer 5

To conclude that Jesus was a socialist because he supported giving to the poor is so far out in left (or right) field as to be ludicrous. Jesus was apolitical. If giving to the poor makes one a socialist then I guess that makes Bill Gates, one of the world's greatest capitalists, also a socialist, right? And to say that low taxes keeps poor people poor is just as laughable. Can you think for yourself or do you just parrot what your socialist instructors say?

Answer 6

Well that's sort of contradictory to a story in the Bible about Jesus. There was a woman who came to Him and began annointing His feet with expensive oil. Some of His disciples began to complain, saying that the oil could have been sold and the money given to the poor. Jesus told them "you will always have the poor, but I will not always be here".

Sure He believed in taking care of the poor, that goes along with being a good Jew. He also said to give to Caeser that which was Caeser's, right?

Sort of goes against your whole theory huh. Oh well, I'll stick with Jesus :)

Oh, btw, lower taxes does not mean keeping people in poverty.

Answer 7

To say poor people don't have a god is outright assinine. The nations with the fastest growing christian populations are some of the poorest.

The problem is that Christians are worrying about the wrong issues.

Answer 8

I am afraid you are mistaken.

Personally I am a moderate -- neither a conservative nor a liberal (I have positions that would be viewed as either conservative or liberal on a case by case basis).

Having said that, conservatives in general are for higher accountability (and yes lower taxes).

Liberals in general are for lower accountability (and yes higher taxes).

Using that paradigm has helped me to understand the behavior of conservatives and liberals.

Jesus believed in helping the poor (but with accountability)... so he was not a Socialist.

Cordially,
John

Answer 9

Well.........we have a choice between voting for a murder, immorality supporting democrat, or voting for a republican who won't give money away to people who haven't done anything to earn it. Republicans do their fair share of lying, stealing etc. too though.
Just because we vote conservative doesn't mean we agree with every single thing so-called conservatives do in office. We just don't have much of a choice!

Answer 10

I agree! Jesus was a socialist hippie in his day. Conservative Christians hate to here that!