Shrike
10d ago
Anything with significant quantities of rare earths - which describes a lot of modern military technology.
This is a problem for all countries that aren't China right now - but I think most of those countries will survive.
China's not going to help - China wants to make sure the Israeli security situation is as miserable as possible, because that means US resources and attention will be diverted there and away from Taiwan.
This isn't really a consideration at play if the US is no longer Israel's patron, is it?
France? I wouldn't pin my hopes on France coming to the rescue given their own large internal problems. They can't even supply the Ukrainians with enough materiel to fight off Russia.
I'm not suggesting France will "come to their rescue," I'm suggesting France will sell them military hardware. France's support of Ukraine hasn't halted French arms sales elsewhere (e.g. they are still attempting to sell the Rafale to various parties, I believe). You can make of that what you will but "France can't/won't sell people military hardware" doesn't seem correct.
As for Russia itself? Russia supplies the air-defence systems used by Iran and has been accepting a lot of help from them with regards to drone technology and drone warfare. Russia is the largest military partner of Israel's biggest regional threat - I don't think they're going to be much help.
Russia has relatively good relations with Israel (and notably Israel has declined to assist Ukraine) and a history of cooperating with Israel on military technology. Russia also doesn't have much qualms about selling to both sides of a conflict, I don't think, and have (allegedly) agreed not to sell arms to Iran due to agreements with Israel in the past, so I'm skeptical that the Russian relationship with Iran would actually prevent them from selling arms to Israel.
In the same future where the US has abandoned them, there's no doubt going to be a cessation of remittances and other support from American jews to Israel
Why? I don't think American Jews are sending support to Israel because the US government suggests it.
paying Egypt to stay friendly to Israel
Why do you think this is necessary? Israel and Egypt are trade partners, Egypt is the first Middle Eastern nation to recognize Israel (getting close to 50 years ago) and both the Arabism and the Islamism that precipitated past Israeli-Egyptian conflict have waned somewhat. I don't see it as impossible, but I don't see why it's inevitable, either.
The nations surrounding them, and by simply closing their borders to land/air traffic.
My understanding is that the majority of Israel's imports are via sea.
Iran is more than capable of shutting down their shipping infrastructure, even if they have to send the weaponry to the Houthis to do it.
Why hasn't Iran done this, then? It sounds to me like Iran could have destroyed Israel already without needing to develop nuclear weapons. This would probably have been a better idea than letting Israel bomb them nonstop for days. What's stopping them?
I would note that the Houthis are in Yemen. Yemen and Iran are both too far away from the Mediterranean to close shipping lanes there with the ease that they can close shipping lanes through Suez. What mechanism do you propose for shutting down shipping? Missile strikes on port facilities, maybe?
I don't think they'll necessarily attack them, but charging obscene fees to render those imports uneconomical when they don't just sabotage or block them is well within the bounds of what they could do.
How are the neighboring nations going to charge fees on goods imported via the Mediterranean traveling through international waters? Cutting them off in Suez would be annoying, but it would not be the end of the world - the Houthis already accomplished a partial closure of the Red Sea, rerouting many ships around the Horn of Africa, and Israel didn't collapse.
It sounds to me in your telling like losing the United States as a patron would be irritating and expensive - does it really follow that Israel will cease to exist as a state?
Shrike
11d ago
Trump is term-limited, there will be no vote on whether or not he leaves office absent a Constitutional amendment (which is extremely far-fetched).
US elections are also held at the state level, so there's no real way for him to rig the elections via the federal bureaucracy (unless he's using the CIA to hack the voting machines, or something). I suppose he could attempt to stage a coup of some variety, but I agree with you assessment of the federal bureaucracy there.
Shrike
11d ago
(the orthodox, who do not contribute to the economy in any real way and are exempt from military service)
Interestingly that exemption ended last year.
Their military additionally requires a vast array of inputs which they are unable to source domestically, and if their current imperial patron left they would be unable to maintain the military edge their security environment requires.
What, specifically, can they not make? And if they can't make something, why couldn't they source it from a non-patron power? The US declining to be Israel's patron doesn't mean, for instance, that the US stops selling Israel aircraft - but if they did, Russia, France and China would all be happy to source anything Israel couldn't domestically manufacture, don't you think?
But energy independent?
Ah, my mistake. They export LNG, but that doesn't go writ large for the rest of their energy.
Without the US empire giving money to all the other nations in the region to pacify them, supplying Israel with interceptor missiles/other materiel and engaging in various trade arrangements with oil suppliers, how does Israel maintain their energy security? How do they maintain their food security, given that modern farming practices also rely heavily on petroleum for energy and fertiliser? How exactly do they make up for that 95% reduction in available energy when the imports get cut off due to war? How much of their military supply chain is entirely domestic?
Presumably the answer to these questions is "the same way all other nations do." (Now, in point of fact, I think Israel sources their own interceptors - Iron Dome, David's Sling, and Arrow, since they have retired the Patriot.)
Who, specifically, is going to cut off their imports? And how?
Perhaps you tacitly assume that all surrounding countries will attempt to attack Israel again as soon as the US withdraws its security umbrella? I do not understand why I should assume that this will happen (let alone why the attempt should succeed) - a lot has changed in the Middle East since the Yom Kippur War. But if I should assume that, I would like to know!
Shrike
11d ago
Quite possibly this was not an attack but I don't think it's a post-hoc claim; the warning that Russia would strike our infrastructure has been registered in some corners well in advance of this happening. Jack Murphy reported in 2022 that the CIA was conducting a sabotage campaign inside Russian soil and I've been operating under the assumption that the Russians would retaliate in kind (if the claims were true, which seemed plausible) ever since.
Shrike
11d ago
The only explanations I can come to are that it was the Russians, and that's why it isn't being speculated in the news that it was the Russians.
I think this is plausibly correct. It might not even be about the Tomahawks: we're running sabotage teams on Russian soil, they're running sabotage teams on ours, we're both pretending that we aren't. Maybe something else happened in the specific case in Tennessee but my guess is that there's been an entire series of Recent Incidents that may later be revealed, if the .gov/Kremlin opens the books in 50 years, to have been done by Russian sabotage teams.
For states, violence is a form of negotiation. It makes governments look bad to admit that foreign sabotage teams are operating in their soil (both internationally, as it may constitute an act of war with the implications that entails and domestically, as it signals impotence or incompetence) but if you don't want to come off looking weaker in the negotiation you need to respond.
Shrike
11d ago
Why does Israel need an imperial patron?
In the past Israel got along okay without the US (buying military hardware from, notably, France).
Today they are capable of manufacturing most of their own military hardware except for fighter aircraft and helicopters (the bottleneck on the former likely being engine manufacturing). It looks like they are a net food importer but are energy independent. As others have pointed out, they have a growing population and an advanced military.
So why do they need a patron? I'm not trying to be confrontational here, I'm just trying to figure out the argument that they can't survive without a sponsor. It seems like to me that as long as they can prevent sea access from being cut off they should be just fine on their own. Is there a bottleneck that I'm not seeing here?
Shrike
14d ago
Ah yes this makes sense - and yes, I do think it's correct that the Russians don't have the capability to generate aircraft in numbers approaching that of the US or China.
I do seem to recall when last I checked that their 40 or so losses of Su-34s had probably set them back about a year's worth of production, which I really don't think is all that bad, particularly considering how small the Su-34 fleet is. Whether or not they can afford to purchase them, though, I don't know - and losses of aircraft that aren't still in production (IIRC: Su-25s, Su-24s, Tu-95s and Tu-22Ms) will obviously hurt quite a bit more.
Shrike
15d ago
Afghanistan borders China, seems funny potentially helpful to have an airfield there!
Shrike
15d ago
because they know that they're not that great at building airplanes.
I'm not really sure how much it matters how well your aircraft is "built" when it's hit by a missile, but I am given to understand that Russian aircraft are actually designed pretty well - the Flanker, for instance, is pretty commonly acknowledged to be a peer to the F-15 (and of course the Russians equipped their aircraft with equipment such as high off-boresight dogfighting missiles and electronically-scanned arrays before the States during the Cold War and today continue to develop capabilities not fielded by the West, such as the Felon's cheek radar arrays and of course the favorite weapon of comic book villains everywhere, nuclear-tipped air-to-air missiles).
The major game changers have been the Russians introducing their equivalent of the JDAM (allowing them to drop far more tonnage for far less money from outside the range of Ukrainian air defenses)
Yes. From what I can tell, the (embarrassing) lack of glide bombs was more important to the lackluster support provided by the Russian air arm than any sort of aircraft quality issues.
However, I'd suggest a third thing where the VKS has stood out - perhaps not a "major game changer" in the course of what is primarily a ground war, but their employment of the MiG-31 and Flankers carrying long range air-to-air missiles seems to have been relatively effective, with the Russians scoring at least one kill with the R-37 in excess of 100 miles. Being able to threaten Ukrainian aircraft even when they are able to mask themselves from the Russian surface air defenses seems to have created real problems for the Ukrainians, and of course despite receiving F-16s more than a year ago the Ukrainians don't seem to have been able to seize air superiority, which I would guess is due partially to the effective Russian SAM network but also partially to the fact that the F-16/AMRAAM combo is just outsticked by the MiG-31/Su-35 and R-37 combo.
I could be wrong as I haven't looked into the Mainstay's situation very much, but from what I can tell the Russian airborne early warning fleet is too small for them to consistently keep them on station providing situational awareness, which is also embarrassing but if anything makes what their fighters seem to be able to achieve more impressive.
Shrike
15d ago
My understanding is that close air support was always understood to be extremely attrition heavy in a peer war - supposedly, the USAF expected to lose 60 A-10s against the Soviets daily.
Other sorties are much lower risk - while the Russian Su-34 and Su-25 fleets have been hit hard, the MiG-31s and strategic bombers have been quite safe in the air.
(Frankly if anything the Su-25 losses are lower than what we might expect from Cold War projections, the Russians have been using them for close air support - and I think continue to do so, Wikipedia lists one as lost in February to a MANPADS, which suggests a CAS role, and they've lost around 40, it looks like, over the course of years, not weeks. However without knowing the total number of sorties I can't compare to the supposed USAF projections for the A-10.)
Shrike
15d ago
I suspect this will make it harder, not easier, for the Chinese to enforce the rule, unless they actually intend to cut all trade of rare earth with the US (which is not what they are saying, as I understand it).
Either way, if the US wants to get stuff, and the Chinese are Serious About It, they probably won't go to the Chinese and say "hi yes we want to put these rare earths in our stealth bombers" they will use third party cut-outs in other nations, just like they did the last time the US needed rare metals from its main geopolitical rival/Communist totalitarian enemy.
Shrike
16d ago
It's not an either/or, the US can pursue onshoring as a permanent long-term solution while pursuing other avenues in the interim.
The USA isn't actually capable of replacing China's role in the productive economy in any timeframe that's actually relevant.
Replacing China's worldwide economic production isn't necessary; what the US ideally needs to be able to do is fulfill domestic national security needs. Nevertheless, it's worth noting that the US (re)opened a single rare earth mine in 2018 and in a couple of years it supplied 15% of worldwide production.
This means no more harddrives, no more lithium batteries etc.
First off, it does not. It means the Chinese are putting regulations on export. If you read the article it suggest the Chinese will likely ban exports to defense companies. So yes, I suspect the tech and defense industries will actually be able to source harddrives, lithium batteries, etc. for the next 5 - 10 years.
Why? Well, setting aside the fact that the US actually has at least some rare earth mining and refining capability in-country (and is currently, as I understand it, in the process of building more, so 7 - 10 years to have at least some replacement for Chinese goods is probably pessimistic even if you don't assume the US invokes national security to cut through red tape), I'd just remind you that Russia has been able to source actually embargoed items for its military from Western sources despite the US having a much better ability to deploy soft and hard power worldwide to sanction them than China does to sanction the US. If the Chinese move to cut US defense firms out of the loop, that
- Does not impact the tech sector, and
- Is no guarantee that the US won't just import them via shell companies.
Shrike
16d ago
Obviously the best solution for the US is to bring all of these capabilities in-house (to one degree or another) but the funniest solution would just be to say "these Chinese have made their ruling, let them enforce it" and then buy secondhand from India, same way the Russians have been getting around our sanctions.
Shrike
25d ago
I think I agree that a firearm has a lower entry point. However the drone might pose a greater threat at relatively similar skill levels, although it's possible that counter-drone tech advances and popularizes quickly enough to once again raise the skill level necessary to use a drone competently.
The truth is that a low-functioning psychotic with a gun (or a drone) does not pose a threat to society even if he poses a threat to individuals in society. It's intelligent and organized individuals that pose the threat to social stability, and guns and drones are a force-multiplier to that effort. Drones are to modern society what firearms were in an earlier: an extremely powerful tool – or weapon – that allows relatively under-equipped groups to reach parity with professional soldiers. The drone is to the tank what the musket was to the knight.
Shrike
25d ago
I have nothing against shotguns (used one recently against a raccoon) and with a slug or buckshot they can be effective at the 75 yards or so that I was shooting at for sure. But compared to a small caliber rifle, they have some disadvantages:
- Large bore, meaning there's a lot of recoil
- Accuracy will fall off at longer ranges, and on sporting shotgun models the bead sight might not be the best possible configuration (as you say, while performance at longer ranges might be less relevant for people in the UK, particularly in Western American states it's the name of the game, although people will likely use slightly spicier rounds than the .223 if they're shooting out at longer ranges).
- Much less modular
Of course – with sufficient practice, almost anyone could have made the shot I made with a smoothbore musket, or a bow. The reason the AR and similar platforms are popular is because it's versatile and easy to use, not because it's the only possible solution.
Now if I was marketing to English gentleman, I would consider making a double-barreled .410 shotgun with slugs that could accept a red dot sight (...is that legal?) to get a lot of the same functionality for pest hunting as an AR.
Shrike
25d ago
Correct, but on balance I'd say it's much easier to manufacture an explosive device (a bottle filled with gasoline, for example, at the simplest) than it is to manufacture a drone. Imagine if you could just walk into a department store and buy a fully-functional guided anti-tank missile with everything but the warhead. That's what a drone is.
Shrike
25d ago
Not much to tell! Shot and killed a coyote off of the back porch with an AR (chambered in .223) while growing up. Probably at 75 yards? It had come up to steal a chicken. This was a not-infrequent occurrence back on the farm, and we've killed a variety of predators though a variety of means, but the AR-15 was our typical go-to because it's reliable, relatively light, didn't require cycling a bolt for a follow-up shot, and of course it's easy to put whatever sight or other attachments (such as a flashlight) on there that you want. Plus, of course, if you had to you could grab the same gun for a defense against a (human) home invader.
I'm not going to pretend I couldn't have done that with another weapon, but a semi-automatic "sporting" rifle in a small caliber like .223 is ideal for dealing with predators like coyotes and foxes.
Hunting rifles are overkill – they are often heavy, use a larger and more expensive round with more recoil, and you typically mount optics on them that might be more suited to longer ranges and actually hinder target acquisition at closer ranges (this depends entirely of course on your property layout – on a ranch you might prefer a scoped weapon.) Also, I think I prefer the pistol grip on the AR rifle if I am shooting standing. But a less powerful round like a .22 is not generally considered powerful enough to reliably kill a predator, particularly at longer ranges.
An AR is cheap, reliable, and lets you get the first and second shot on quickly. It's also very modular, meaning you can easily adapt the same gun for different situations (so for example I used the same lower but a different upper receiver chambered with a larger round to kill a deer while hunting). This can save you a few bucks, and also it's cool.
Obviously it's not the only option, but for that specific threat (predator, relatively close, say expected at 200 yards or within) I would want a rifle with the same characteristics: small and fast rifle round with a flat trajectory, iron or red dot sight, semi-automatic. And that's a very similar problem to the one the military is trying to solve (especially for dismounted urban combat) so the design convergence is natural.
Shrike
25d ago
You do if you know where to look.
Things will get worse on this front as the technology and expertise necessary to operate it (which is low, but there is an entry barrier) percolates through society.
Shrike
25d ago
I’ve never seen posters here advocate for gun ownership to protect from wild animals
Worth noting that this is a very common use-case IRL, although the self-defense question is of course much more interesting and gets more "air time." I've personally used an AR-pattern rifle to shoot predators in defense of livestock.
Defending oneself against predators is very rare but it's enough of a problem in bear territory in North America that ammunition sellers will advertise ammunition as being relevant against bears. Mountain lions (and maybe wolves) are also a potential threat that might warrant a handgun in some places, but don't pose the same challenges that killing a bear does.
Shrike
25d ago
Yeah Gun rights are a peculiar American psychosis where, if guns were to come into existence today, the current status quo would just have a 0% chance of being the way they entered 2025 American Society.
This isn't true, and we know it's not true because we've had a chance to test it: the modern equivalent of guns (in terms of a destructive individual technology) is the small drone, and you can buy them from Walmart (or whatever your Australian equivalent is) with no background check of any sort the last time I checked and only very minimal and nominal regulations on their use.
Shrike
1mo ago
What is the clear evidence that an afterlife belief is instrumental? Afghanistan of the 90s and before was possibly the most theistic country in the world, and all Muslims believe in an afterlife. Bacha Bazi is an Afghan costume that coexisted alongside Islamic belief for a millennia until the Taliban banned it.
What I am suggesting is that without the belief in the afterlife, that Taliban would never have done what they did, which makes it instrumental. The fact that other people believed in the afterlife is immaterial to the question of whether or not belief in the afterlife was instrumental for the Taliban.
But if you like, we can take another angle: we've already discussed (and agreed) that religious people give more to charity. Surely belief in an afterlife is at play in at least some individual cases?
This argument falls short because the Christians who do not have dependents also don’t give all superfluous possessions to the poor, neither do the wealthy Christians with dependents usually live austerely after providing for their relatives.
"Give all superfluous possessions to the poor" as such isn't really a clear Christian teaching (which the exception of some sects, I think) so, again, if we are judging Christians by their own standards I don't really see the issue here. (Might be different for the specific sects).
I think criticizing Christians who do no charitable works at all (and I am sure such Christians do exist) is fair. But also they are (arguably) not supposed to be ostentatious about donating, so it can be tricky.
we see condemnation in the Church Fathers about nearly every conspicuous expression of wealth, even rings.
Sure, but setting aside the fact that the Church Fathers said a lot of things, many of which many Christians do not hold to today (unless they are in Scripture, they are not considered canonical, although they are often considered helpful) criticizing displays of wealth is not the same thing as saying wealthy people will go to hell (as you seem to suggest above).
then it should follow that those who believe in the greatest reward imaginable for all of eternity should be able to put up with a few decades of poverty. I’m at a loss for why this wouldn’t happen unless the belief is not quite fully believed.
Well, first off, this does happen. There are nuns and monks and religious orders and missionaries. Those all exist. There are still people being persecuted and even executed for their faith. That actually happens. But secondly you seem to think that Scripture says "be poor and you get into heaven" which isn't the case. Really, your soteriology isn't in line with what most major Christian congregations teach.
the parable of the rich man and Lazarus...Luke 12:33...Acts 4-5
In all of these cases I think you are stripping out some context. Your gloss of Acts 5 is misleading; it's very clear from the text that Ananias died after Paul's rebuke because of dishonesty – here's Acts 5, versus 1 - 10:
But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things. And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much. Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out. Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband.
There's probably a good argument that Luke 12:33 ("Sell what you have and give alms; provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys.") applies to Christians broadly, particularly viewed in light of 12:15 (" Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.") and it's often viewed this way. But we should also consider the context of Luke 12 is that Christ is preparing the apostles for persecution (see e.g. Luke 12:11 "And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say: For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say.")
In my experience Protestants do take Luke 12:33 seriously, but not literally – that is, they do believe (and act as if they believe) that giving alms is good, and giving possessions to charity is good, and stores up rewards in heaven, but they also don't try to liquidate everything that they have immediately to give alms – perhaps because they often have or aspire to have families, perhaps for the same reason they don't expect to be taken into the synagogues and questioned, perhaps in some cases as you suggest because they don't really believe, perhaps because they have reasoned their way out of the application of the verse through various means. (The standard line in Protestant denominations, I think, is that "you should tithe.") And certainly it's quite arguable that while the principle of giving alms is good, the context of the passage suggests the specific instruction was meant to be acted on by the Apostles. Now, maybe you don't find this persuasive! And maybe Christians who would argue that are wrong and you are correct! But contextualizing it like that is not crazy.
As for the story of Lazarus, I think the closest suggestion to rich = hell is this line:
Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
A full reading of the parable might lead one to wonder if his sin was being insanely wealthy, or not doing alms to the beggars outside of his gate. Considering that the moral of the parable seems to be as follows – "And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." – it seems likely that the actual thrust of the parable was aimed at the Pharisees (see Luke 16:14 - 18) who would not hear Christ's message even after His resurrection. That doesn't mean that there's no theological information about wealth here, of course, but again the context needs to be kept in mind.
To step back for a moment, I think what's happening here writ large is that you're taking a (not necessarily incoherent) reading of Scripture – which I do think some Christians share – and then insisting that all Christians are hypocrites for not sharing it. (Notably absent from your collection of verses: the many verses in Scripture that celebrate accumulating wealth and offer concrete advice on how to do so.) Setting aside the fact that your methodology here is unmistakably Protestant (and thus your root assumptions are not shared by many Christians!) it's just true that Christians' reading of Scripture and what it means varies considerably and that it might be more parsimonious to assume that most Christians simply do not share your interpretation of Scripture, rather than insisting that most Christians are hypocrites. Certainly (although a great many Christians are hypocrites) it's a bit more charitable, I think.
I want to circle up on this entire thing by saying, firstly, apologies for the late reply (I've been busy, but I found our conversation thought-provoking and I appreciate that!)
Secondly, to circle back on the broader point – you've been arguing that nobody is convinced by Scripture in the Year of Our Lord 2025. But the reasoning you offer suggests at best that few people believe this. (Which some Christians would agree with emphatically, citing Matthew 7:14!) Moreover, your original point was that it's harder today to believe than it was in the past. But all of your arguments (that Christians don't truly believe in the teachings of their religion because they engage in conspicuous displays of wealth) were true throughout most of the history of the Church. The problem of hypocrites and pretend believers was real even in the 1st century, and the accumulation of wealth and power by the Church over the course of history – which you seem to suggest is downstream of a lack of conviction on the part of Christians due to modernity – happened long before modernity and the scientific method as we currently would identify them posed an ideological threat to Christianity as such.
Shrike
1mo ago
The other groups in Afghanistan were not nominally Islamic, they were all practicing Muslims.
I suppose this depends on who you ask but the Taliban seem to think that practicing pederasty is incompatible with correct Islamic practice.
There’s no clear evidence that an afterlife is instrumental here.
There's very clear evidence that an afterlife is instrumental. You're shifting the standard to claiming that the belief in an afterlife will always and everywhere prevail. But remember, you said
Do you think their constant obsession with the rewards of the next life have aided their cooperation and virtue?
And I would say – yes, clearly.
I think “under certain circumstances Christianity actually condemns selling everything to the poor” is an enormous cop-out.
Why? Why shouldn't Christians be judged according to their own teachings? I don't even disagree with you that Christians often fall short of their own teachings – and it's fine to criticize that – but it's important to understand those teachings first. If Christianity specifically teaches that one's first duty is to one's family and dependents it is silly to criticize Christians with family and dependents for not impoverishing them to give to charity (see perhaps most notably 1 Timothy 5:8, which compares failing to provide for one's own house with apostasy!)
Now – I don't disagree with you that Christians often act as if they do not believe what they say that they do. I do this, to my shame. But – to your point about faith – the people in the first century whom you suggest had such an easy time believing in Christ ALSO did this! If your idea that belief is harder now is correct and that is why Christians today act as if they do not believe was right, we would expect the first century church not to have that issue. One need only read the writings of first century Christians to be disabused of that notion.
And today people do this in other areas quite frequently (for instance lots of people know that drinking is bad for them...), unfortunately. The fact that people today, or in the first century, act contrary to their own professed belief and knowledge has little bearing on the belief itself (alcohol IS bad for you even if you act as if it isn't!)
I know one particularly prominent Catholic family and they have enormous mansions and nice cars...It can only be that they don’t genuinely believe in the rewards of heaven, which if believed would necessarily result in maximal charitable activity (certainly not mansions and luxury cars). At the very least, the threat of hell for being rich should be enough to get them to abstain from these sorts of purchases.
Well perhaps they are familiar enough with Catholic doctrine (as I think I am, although I am not Catholic) to know that that's not how salvation works in Catholic teaching.
The verse you are probably thinking of is as follows:
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” - Matthew 19:23 - 28.
Not stated in the text here (even as a riddle or hyperbole): "rich people go to hell." Nor is that a teaching of Catholic doctrine as I understand it.
Now, it IS true that there's a certain tension in Christianity, especially early Christianity, with wealth (see for instance James 2, but note that James does not advocate for kicking the wealthy out of the church!) But on the flip side, I certainly can't think of any sort of general command in Christianity for people to sell all they have and give it to the poor (the instruction in Matthew 19 was to a specific individual – although quite arguably it applies more broadly! – and you can see in Acts 5:1 - 4 that even in the early church described in Acts 4 liquidation of wealth to give to those in need was entirely voluntary.)
It’s famously unusual.
I don't disagree that the very specific thing you said never happens is unusual. :)
Shrike
1mo ago
Good point with Iran. I actually think Ireland is also an interesting example. And unlike Iran, the revolution in Ireland was bottom-up, but Ireland was then quickly hollowed out by secularism just the same as England (despite the role religious tensions played in their departure!)
Keep in mind that Electoral College votes are determined by population (which would include illegal aliens), so even if no illegal aliens vote their presence, if large enough, does skew the Electoral College. Not coincidentally, the President has been calling for a new census.
Gerrymandering and court cases and deportations might be unseemly (or they might be politics as usual, I suppose that depends on the specifics and your personal judgment) but all of them are at least done under the color of law, unlike outrider voter fraud.
This would be extremely funny, and I hadn't considered that seriously, but I suppose it is possible. The 12th Amendment bars people ineligible for the Presidency from the position of Vice-Presidency, though, which might be ruled to put a damper on the idea.
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