Hacker News Reader

Comment by weare138 | Hacker News Reader

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God."

-Jesus

Matthew 19:24

I see this quoted a lot whenever there is discussion of wealth. However, as with all verses, the context is important as well as the follow up verses. This is not in defense of.

17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.” “Which ones?” he inquired. Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, 19 honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’” “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?” Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:17-26 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Matthew%2019:17-...

This can be read as meaning that your wealth will be left behind when you die, so you are no longer rich.

Actually, I think a more apropos saying is:

Unless the children were looting their elder's estate before the burial, there's no U-Haul behind a hearse.

As an atheist I love reading these passages.. it is amazing how people in this day and age are trying to find "meanings" from a book full of the stories of one person... who lived 2000+ years ago.. imagine if someone tried to find meaning in Beckhams biography 2000 years from now...

I guess you could say the same about people that look to stoicism or people that believe in res publica.

There’s lots of wisdom in old texts. Plato is 2000+ years old. Heroditus. Confucius. Rumi is almost a 1000.

Beckham is a football player and isn’t known for writing down (or saying) wisdom. But I can definitely imagine people reading Marx and Darwin and Hayek 2000 years from now. Biographies and published text.

There's things just as thoughtful that were written in the past 10 years.

The things you cited are famous for being famous, like some celebrity of the ages.

Just like the Mona Lisa was famous for getting stolen and returned, then this was forgotten about but it remained famous, but now just because it was famous previously.

And how much Plato and Herodotus have you read? Nearly all of Western intellectual history pretty strongly disagrees with your argument.

Perhaps, but this is the first time I’ve heard someone refer to Hayek as “famous for being famous.”

I’m not sure if you’re arguing that there’s nothing old that is wise. Or if people are really smart now. Or all knowledge is just repeated over and over.

I don’t think it’s very productive to argue that the Mona Lisa is the most beautiful painting. But I certainly find it pleasing and beautiful. Are there recent paintings as beautiful? Maybe, but I’m not aware of them so they don’t help me.

Maybe there are recent books as useful as Origin of Species or Republic. But I, and many others, haven’t read them so they are potentially useful if discovered and used. While objectively true is the fact that these historical books have been discovered and used.

So I’m not surprised that people find wisdom in historical books or that books that many find useful remain popular for centuries and millennia.

I don’t think this is a reason to not search for additional wisdom. And I certainly wouldn’t claim they are the ultimate in wisdom.

Jesus makes several truth claims, that if true, are extremely compelling for why someone may want to pay attention today. One of these is His claim to be God. You can either dismiss Jesus as a lunatic, dismiss Jesus as a liar, or accept Jesus for who He claimed to be. If Jesus was merely a good man, He would not have claimed to be God. That is not something good people do.

We have no first hand accounts from Jesus himself. We have a couple of first hand accounts from followers. Most of them don't reconcile with each other very well. And even if they did, humans have a long history of collectively believing and participating in supernatural bullshit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbCzb_FWpi4

Lots of people have claimed to be god. Some are even widely recognized as good people. Do we need to give them all our attention? Cause I'm pretty content living my life without believing in wild fairy tales.

Does your belief system require you to be so disparaging to people who believe differently?

If you don't want to pay any attention to the claims of Christianity, then by all means don't.

No, but I'm pretty happy with seeking its demise. Christianity, along with the rest of the abrahamic religions, are a corrupting plague on our planet and society. That which is good about it is not unique to it, and that which is unique to it is not good. We are stagnant in our progress as humans to the degree that we still believe in it.

So, intolerance is the way forward?

Intolerance of bad ideas, not intolerance of those who hold them.

It's not intolerant to state that you do not believe in somebody else's religion. Nothing above is even "disparaging", even that fairy tale remark. It's not disparaging to state that, without good evidence, you believe fantastic stories from thousands of years ago to be fairy tails.

> 'It's not intolerant to state that you do not believe in somebody else's religion.'

Stating that you are, quote, "seeking its demise", is the very definition of intolerance.

> 'Nothing above is even "disparaging", even that fairy tale remark. It's not disparaging to state that, without good evidence, you believe fantastic stories from thousands of years ago to be fairy tails.'

This is the very definition of disparagement.

If I were to refer to your atheistic beliefs as 'the ignorance of children, raised by a wicked society that is under the influence of psychopathic demons', would you view that as disparaging? Of course you would.

The difference between that way of viewing things and your way of viewing things is simply a matter of perspective. The difference is, one viewpoint is based on knowledge, whereas the other is based in ignorance.

Source: I used to be an atheist also. As a teenager. In the Bible Belt.

> Stating that you are, quote, "seeking its demise", is the very definition of intolerance.

Evangelizing atheism is no more intolerant than evangelizing your religion. Personally I have no particular interest in doing either, but if you get bent out of shape over somebody doing it, that's on you. If you don't like somebody disagreeing with your beliefs then move to a theocracy where such things are forbidden. The "intolerance" you describe is in fact an expression of the bedrock of liberal society.

The problem with this argument is we don't have first hand accounts of most historical events and people we accept as having occurred and existed.

A fourth option is that he never actually claimed to be God.

There's actually not real evidence that Jesus even existed. The "official" gospels were chosen in the council of Nicaea in the year 325. There were lots of other gospels wildly contradicting each other, which were arbitrarily dismissed. Even the chosen gospels contradict each other. The writers of the gospels were born between 50 and more than 100 years after the alleged story they're telling. No roman or jew historian of the time even mentions Jesus, and some mentions usually used to claim otherwise are either a medieval addition, or not really a mention of Jesus. I won't go through all otherwise this post would be extremely long. The myth of Jesus' life has many parallels with other mythical figures, like Mythra, Amon Ra, and others, which probably influenced and converged into the figure of Jesus. It was probably considered to be mythical until someone decided to make it historical for political reasons. There were also lots of "Messiah's", which was more expected to be a political and military leader to raise the Jews against the roman oppressors. Even if there was a man with a life similar to what is described in the gospels, minus the miracles, it wouldn't have been god anyway, so it doesn't really matter, but there's absolutely no evidence of that, so most likely there wasn't.

The gospels were not chosen at Nicea. That myth originates from the novel The DaVinci Code. The book is fiction by the way.

You are espousing the Jesus Myth theory. That is a fringe theory which have generally been rejected by historians. The similarities with Amon etc. are pretty superficial except for the universal resurrection theme. Don't believe the websites with long lists of unsourced parallels.

The writers of the gospels were Jesus’ contemporaries.

And I guess you’ve never heard of Josephus? He’s only the most well known Jewish historian since Moses.

Jesus most certainly lived, no serious scholar of history claims otherwise.

To be fair, Josephus has only two quotes about Jesus, and one is definitely a forgery, although it is debated if it is a full or only partial forgery. The other quote is considered authentic, but just mention "James, the brother of Jesus". So not a lot to go by.

But you are correct that historians generally consider Jesus to be historical. It is not so much due to Josephus though, but more due to critical reading of the Gospels themselves.

The quote you claim as a forgery has been a subject of much debate, but I'm relatively certain it's not been proven to be so and many consider it to be at least partially authentic.

Regardless, Jesus was absolutely a historical character. No serious historian debates this.

The passage outright states that Jesus was the Messiah, which means it is obviously a forgery - Josephus wouldn't have written that since he wasn't a Christian. But the question is how much of the passage that have been altered.

The discussion has generally been that some people think that statement was added. There’s quite a bit more to it though, and that’s certainly not the only possible - or even obvious - conclusion.

What do you find the obvious conclusion?

I don't take an "obvious conclusion" position on it. We simply don't know.

Jesus is a known historical figure. Pretending otherwise is silly. The end.

I have learned for myself that God is real. I tried to explain how I know, not that it is proof for someone else necessarily, but (no sales or javascript, hopefully skimmable), for what it may be worth: http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854587400.html .

"It is easier for a rich man to enter Heaven seated comfortably on the back of a camel than it is for a poor man to pass through the eye of a needle."

- Supply Side Jesus, https://imgur.com/gallery/bCqRp

Also if he who is first shall be last, then isn't it a pretty conservative choice to be middle class in wealthiness?

That comic is hilarious!

“All things (e.g., a camel’s journey through a needle’s eye) are possible, it’s true. But imagine how the camel feels, all squeezed our, in a long bloody thread from tail to snout.”

I’ve seen this attributed to C.S. Lewis, but I’ve never tracked it down.

For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.

- Matthew 13:12

^-- which should not be interpreted as rich people are "righteous" and poor people are "bad," but rather people tend to worship the rich and abuse the poor.

It’s “the eye of the needle”. It was a very narrow gate into Jerusalem, which camels had difficulty traversing.

And it is hard for a rich man to pass through because they have many possessions.

These are things you can't take to heaven. These are things you should not covet. This and many other of Jesus's teaching demonstrate that to be holy and good is to focus not on the material, but on helping your fellow man. There's nothing saying you will get barred from heaven if you're rich. But there's plenty that says you should give away your wealth and spend all your time helping others. You know, kinda like what Jesus did...

According to the text, Jesus was an itinerant carpenter or stone mason (depending on the vagaries of translation). He wasn’t a billionaire philanthropist. And by the telling of Acts, his followers lived in communal poverty.

The problem with much of mainstream American Christianity is that it tries to reconcile the greed and amorality of Capitalist wealth accumulation with its own teachings and they are fundamentally irreconcilable. Or, if you want, by its own scripture:

“No one can serve two masters: Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

This. The imagery is that a rich person carrying too much stuff would have difficulty going through the gate whereas a poor person wouldn’t.

More reflection is required for a deeper understanding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_a_needle#Gate

> The "Eye of the Needle" has been claimed to be a gate in Jerusalem, which opened after the main gate was closed at night. A camel could only pass through this smaller gate if it was stooped and had its baggage removed. This story has been put forth since at least the 15th century, and possibly as far back as the 9th century. However, there is no widely accepted evidence for the existence of such a gate.[7][8]

Why do you think it's more difficult for a rich person? Does giving a tithe encourage or discourage the behaviors that make it difficult to make it to "Heaven"?

Think on it.

Jesus never advocated giving tithes or even churches for that matter.

What about The Widow's Mite or

Matthew 22:21 Jesus said "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's."?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com