Are you broke?

[OP ED]

This strategy didn't work out so well for Jesus either.

All it got for him was his system being coopted as just another mechanism of control. I'm not one of his worshippers so I don't personally feel inclined to regard submission to my executioners as a virtue.

-----

I also don't buy the idea of hunter-gathering as affluence. Not with a mortality rate giving a life expectancy of half the one that exists in post-industrial society. Tell all their dead children how lucky they are that they don't work in the service industry.

[brekin]

Broke->broke ass-> dead broke->busted flat->there are levels and degrees to financial states akin to love and madness that people experience differently. Some stock brokers fall from the sky when their income falls to something a person struggling on minimum wage would see as lush. Some people on subsistence incomes have worked out their lifestyles where they have more freedom and less responsibility to pursue their creative endeavors than people who are extremely wealthy aren't ever able to achieve. Priorities.

Good doc on Netflix right now, Surfwise, showing the upsides and downsides of pursing a life not based around material acquisitiveness. Think family from the documentary The Wolfpack meets The Beach Boys.

[KUAN]

Jesus was quiet well off apparently, so was fuckin Buddha

[divideandconquer]

Jesus was quiet well off apparently, so was fuckin Buddha

I don't know anything about Buddha, but Jesus? Are you talking about Mary? She may have come from wealth but she married Joseph, a poor, cursed carpenter who won himself the bride of a very wealthy family, but no rich dowry to accompany her. So Mary found herself not only wed to a cursed man, but without the huge dowry she had grown up to expect her father would give her. In the Bible, Mary refers to her "low estate".

[Elihu]

to us materially Our Savior does not now have defacto earthly dominion. Neither had he any while he was here. He will someday. Perhaps soon.

[Belligerent Savant]

.

This strategy didn't work out so well for Jesus either.

All it got for him was his system being coopted as just another mechanism of control. I'm not one of his worshippers so I don't personally feel inclined to regard submission to my executioners as a virtue.

Actually, there are alternate views that "Jesus" (or, the figure presumed to be the same entity depicted in the Bible) was in fact quite the revolutionary, and did not shy away from confrontation with his (and his people's) oppressors.

See S.G.F. Brandon's Jesus and the Zealots : A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity as an earlier work along such lines, or a more recent/pop-ish (and according to certain critics, a bit glossy though at times entertaining) take along similar lines, Reza Aslan's Zealot: the Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._G._F._Brandon

[S.G.F. Brandon]'s most celebrated position is the controversial one, that a political Jesus was a revolutionary figure, influenced in that by the Zealots; this he argued in the 1967 book Jesus and the Zealots: A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity. The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth (1968) raises again, amongst other matters, the question of how the Fall of the Temple in 70 CE shaped the emerging Christian faith, and in particular the Gospel of Mark.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/books ... .html?_r=0

According to Mr. Aslan, Jesus was born in Nazareth and grew up a poor laborer. He was a disciple of John the Baptist until John’s arrest. Like John, Jesus preached the imminent arrival of the kingdom of God, which would be an earthly, political state ruled by God or his anointed, a messiah. Jesus never intended to found a church, much less a new religion. He was loyal to the law of Moses as he interpreted it. Jesus opposed not only the Roman overlords, Mr. Aslan writes, but also their representatives in Palestine: “the Temple priests, the wealthy Jewish aristocracy, the Herodian elite.”

In the last week of Jesus’ life, Mr. Aslan writes, he entered Jerusalem with his disciples in a provocative way that recalled royal entrances described in Jewish scripture. He then enacted a violent cleansing of the Temple: something like radical street theater, except that it took place in a site of supreme holiness.
Provoked by that action and his other rantings against the Temple and its caretakers, the authorities arrested Jesus. The Romans crucified him as a rebel, a zealot and a pretender to the Judean throne. The charge on the cross is historical: the Romans took Jesus as claiming to be the messianic king of the Jews. Since only the Roman Senate could appoint kings within the Empire, claiming to be a king was treasonous and punishable by the worst kind of death: torture and crucifixion.

All that said, as others alluded, being broke (in turns, or otherwise) can be a liberating and life-changing event for some, providing much-needed perspective (though such reflections aren't usually considered until/unless one overcomes their "brokeness"; easier to reflect from a position of more comfortable means.)

It's also far easier to wear it as a badge of pride or honor for those with no dependents. For those living with others that rely on them, being broke can be markedly more soul-crushing and/or frustrating.

Hell, if all I had to concern myself with was myself, I'd be happy enough on a meager income, living in a modest unit and perhaps joining the peace corps or an equivalent (and in any event, not too overly concerned with maintaining a long-term means of income). As it is, I have others that require my support; don't have the luxury -- not now, at least -- to contemplate the life-affirming attributes of an uber-modest sustenance model. That's just me, though -- and it's subject to change with time/circumstances.

[Freitag]

.

This strategy didn't work out so well for Jesus either.

All it got for him was his system being coopted as just another mechanism of control. I'm not one of his worshippers so I don't personally feel inclined to regard submission to my executioners as a virtue.

Actually, there are alternate views that Jesus was in fact quite the revolutionary, and did not shy away from confrontation with his (and his people's) oppressors.

Exactly. He told his followers "sell your cloaks and buy daggers". Judas was a sicarii, an assassin whose weapon of choice was a dagger. "Iscariot" derives from "sicarii" (modern-day assassins in Mexico are still called sicarios).

[Elihu]

Luke 22
31And the Lord said, ‘Simon, Simon, lo, the Adversary did ask you for himself to sift as the wheat, 32and I besought for thee, that thy faith may not fail; and thou, when thou didst turn, strengthen thy brethren.’ 33And he said to him, ‘Sir, with thee I am ready both to prison and to death to go;’ 34and he said, ‘I say to thee, Peter, a cock shall not crow to-day, before thrice thou mayest disown knowing me.’

35And he said to them, ‘When I sent you without bag, and scrip, and sandals, did ye lack anything?’ and they said, ‘Nothing.’ 36Then said he to them, ‘But, now, he who is having a bag, let him take [it] up, and in like manner also a scrip; and he who is not having, let him sell his garment, and buy a sword, 37for I say to you, that yet this that hath been written it behoveth to be fulfilled in me: And with lawless ones he was reckoned, for also the things concerning me have an end.’ 38And they said, ‘Sir, lo, here [are] two swords;’ and he said to them, ‘It is sufficient.’

[Elihu]

Luke 23
4And Pilate said unto the chief priests, and the multitude, ‘I find no fault in this man;’ 5and they were the more urgent, saying — ‘He doth stir up the people, teaching throughout the whole of Judea — having begun from Galilee — unto this place.’

6And Pilate having heard of Galilee, questioned if the man is a Galilean,

7and having known that he is from the jurisdiction of Herod, he sent him back unto Herod, he being also in Jerusalem in those days.

8And Herod having seen Jesus did rejoice exceedingly, for he was wishing for a long [time] to see him, because of hearing many things about him, and he was hoping some sign to see done by him, 9and was questioning him in many words, and he answered him nothing. 10And the chief priests and the scribes stood vehemently accusing him, 11and Herod with his soldiers having set him at nought, and having mocked, having put around him gorgeous apparel, did send him back to Pilate, 12and both Pilate and Herod became friends on that day with one another, for they were before at enmity between themselves.

[Elihu]

This is impressive sounding, but I'm afraid I don't know what it means. "mercantile nature"? What the hell is that? Ancient Rome?

somebody? anybody?

Ancient and Current

[divideandconquer]

Luke 22
31And the Lord said, ‘Simon, Simon, lo, the Adversary did ask you for himself to sift as the wheat, 32and I besought for thee, that thy faith may not fail; and thou, when thou didst turn, strengthen thy brethren.’ 33And he said to him, ‘Sir, with thee I am ready both to prison and to death to go;’ 34and he said, ‘I say to thee, Peter, a cock shall not crow to-day, before thrice thou mayest disown knowing me.’

35And he said to them, ‘When I sent you without bag, and scrip, and sandals, did ye lack anything?’ and they said, ‘Nothing.’ 36Then said he to them, ‘But, now, he who is having a bag, let him take [it] up, and in like manner also a scrip; and he who is not having, let him sell his garment, and buy a sword, 37for I say to you, that yet this that hath been written it behoveth to be fulfilled in me: And with lawless ones he was reckoned, for also the things concerning me have an end.’ 38And they said, ‘Sir, lo, here [are] two swords;’ and he said to them, ‘It is sufficient.’

Jacques Ellul and others refer to the fact that two swords could not possibly have been "enough" to defend Jesus from his pending arrest, trial and execution, so their sole purpose must have been Jesus' wish to fulfill a prophecy (Isaiah 53:9-12).[1] As Ellul explains:

The further comment of Jesus explains in part the surprising statement, for he says: "It is necessary that the prophecy be fulfilled according to which I would be put in the ranks of criminals" (Luke 22:36-37). The idea of fighting with just two swords is ridiculous. The swords are enough, however, to justify the accusation that Jesus is the head of a band of brigands. We have to note here that Jesus is consciously fulfilling prophecy. If he were not the saying would make no sense.[2]

Because when Peter draws one of the swords a few hours later at Jesus' arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, slashing the ear of Malchus, Jesus rebukes him saying: "Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword."(Matthew 26:52)[1]

[DrEvil]

This is impressive sounding, but I'm afraid I don't know what it means. "mercantile nature"? What the hell is that? Ancient Rome?

somebody? anybody?

Ancient and Current

How about just spelling it out in plain english instead of spouting cryptic nonsense? I'm sure it makes perfect sense to you, but without context it's just so much gobbledygook.

[Grizzly]

Joe Bageant Deer hunting with Jesus Despatches from America's Class War

“There was and still is a tremendous fear that poor and working-class Americans might one day come to understand where their political interests reside. Personally, I think the elites worry too much about that. We dumb working folk were clubbed into submission long ago, and now require only proper medication for our high levels of cholesterol, enough alcohol to keep the sludge moving through our arteries, and a 24/7 mind-numbing spectacle of titties, tabloid TV, and terrorist dramas. Throw in a couple of new flavours of XXL edible thongs, and you've got a nation of drowsing hippos who will never notice that our country has been looted, or even that we have become homeless ourselves.”
― Joe Bageant, Rainbow Pie

[dada]

I'm broke. If I wasn't broke I'd blow all my money on something stupid, I'm sure. Driving around the country, making a documentary. Starting a business. Falling in love with the wrong person. So it's probably for the best.

If I had more money, would my politics be different? I doubt it. Although I don't even know what my politics are, anymore.

Something I've been thinking about is anarchism. There's all this talk about the 'sovereign self.' But isn't that like a ruler? I think it is. So anarchism isn't for me. Sounds hypocritical. Then again, everything does.

My heart has been broken for about a year and a half. Now I write whenever I have a spare moment, every day. Stopped drinking and smoking weed. I'm very critical of all of my own thoughts and perceptions, and everyone else's, living or dead. So I've been growing a lot. Kind of surprises me, how much one can continue to grow when one allows oneself. So I guess a broken heart isn't all bad. Not that I'd mind if it healed.

I think my taxes could probably pay for about three boxes of cornflakes for the war machine. They certainly aren't buying any bombs. So I'm not too worried about that.

I like this:

"Kṛṣṇa is the Godhead because He is all-attractive. Outside the principle of all-attraction, there is no meaning to the word “Godhead.” How is it one can be all-attractive? First of all, if one is very wealthy, if he has great riches, he becomes attractive to the people in general. Similarly, if someone is very powerful, he also becomes attractive, and if someone is very famous, he also becomes attractive, and if someone is very beautiful or wise or unattached to all kinds of possessions, he also becomes attractive. So from practical experience we can observe that one is attractive due to (1) wealth, (2) power, (3) fame, (4) beauty, (5) wisdom and (6) renunciation. One who is in possession of all six of these opulences at the same time, who possesses them to an unlimited degree, is understood to be the Supreme Personality of Godhead."

I have none of those. But I think it would be pretty cool if I did.

[KUAN]

.
I would've thought having rigorous intuition would make one an agnostic. hey, that's what I 'believe' ....