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Comment count is 16
jangbones - 2014-01-06

rich white American Christians spout this shit, forget about camels and eyes of needles


SteamPoweredKleenex - 2014-01-06

They start trying to claim the "eye of the needle" refers to an actual gate into a city that was very narrow, because of COURSE Jesus wants the rich to stay that way because "prosperity gospel" sounds a lot better than "Divine Right of Kings," doesn't it?


Xenocide - 2014-01-06

The "camel" thing is a mistranslation anyway. The actual word, as far as I've been able to tell, is "rope," not "camel." A rope through the eye of a needle.

Now, you can put a rope through the eye of a needle...by unraveling it and pulling it through thread by thread. But by then it's not a rope anymore.

So the way I've always interpreted is, "the rich can get to heaven, by abandoning all their superfluous crap and giving themselves to a much simpler existence. At which point, they are no longer rich."

Or maybe it's just an idiom Jesus was throwing out there! Hey, Jesus, did you want to ever say anything without people obsessively analyzing it for thousands of years? Like, maybe one day you ordered hash browns for breakfast, and someone wrote it down, and you went, "Oh man, I hope no one ever starts a war over this." Well, TOO BAD.


IrishWhiskey - 2014-01-06

As far as I can tell the 'rope' explanation is just wishful thinking.

Yes, the words for camel and rope were similar, so a mistranslation is possible. But there's nothing textually to suggest he meant anything other than what he said. Putting a camel/elephant through the eye of a needle was a common rabbinical expression for something impossible, the rope metaphor isn't documented elsewhere.

The context is that Jesus is telling a rich guy he needs to give away his possessions if he wants to get into heaven. Not that he needs to live a simpler life in a metaphorical way, but literally give away his stuff to charity.

To an extent that's consistent with the 'don't be attached to stuff' interpretation, but the end of the story is the guy walking away frustrated because he doesn't like the idea of having to give it all up. He wants for his good deeds and following of the commandments to be enough, but Jesus says "too bad, heaven's not actually easy to get into." So of course we've had centuries of people saying "Well we don't actually 'have' to give it away to charity. We can do so metaphorically, I'm sure. Whatever lets me keep my plasma TV."


memedumpster - 2014-01-06

The Large Hadron Colider could probably force a rich person through the eye of a needle... next on Nova!


jangbones - 2014-01-06

the pope says something they don't like so rich Christians call him a hippie and say he's full of shit by pointing at scripture

point out how scripture criticizes their entire existence and suddenly its open to interpretation


Oscar Wildcat - 2014-01-06

Meh. The real evil with Pope Francis is that from what all accounts is a good and decent man is being used by the Church to distract from the pedo scandal that was so dominating the news cycle. It worked. Let's hope he can do some good, it's come at quite a cost.


SteamPoweredKleenex - 2014-01-06

Yeah, I'm hoping for a kind of "nothing makes a saint better than being a former sinner" kind of thing going on, but given the secrecy and money-hoarding the church has done for centuries, it'd take a LOT of Popes like Francis to make me think some actual reform was going on.

Still, him pissing off the founder of Home Depot for being too mean to the 1% was worth it.


Old_Zircon - 2014-01-06

The second to last thing I saw in the news about him was that he was pushing for a thorough investigation into the pedophile priests and disciplinary action as needed, so it's not working THAT well at keeping it out of the news.

The last thing I saw was that he thinks gays shouldn't be allowed to raise children, so there's that.


Oscar Wildcat - 2014-01-06

Perhaps you're not Catholic, Zirc, and don't recognize a little self flagellation when you see it (wink).


memedumpster - 2014-01-06

A good and decent man who is the final authority next to God about all things horrible about his religion who goes on to outright do nothing about it except pay lip service to change is not a good and decent man.

Pope Damage Control I is the worst Pope, his every mannerism is an outright lie. Warrior bloodbath Popes, at least, were honest about the damned religion. This Pope is damned near Satanic.


Oscar Wildcat - 2014-01-06

I like Commie Pope, better than Nazi Pope. As pointed out above, Commie Pope sits on a 2000 year old pile of treasure and thumbs his nose at Ken Langone. "Hey! Home Depots come and Home Depots go. The Church, however, Remains".

That said, anyone hoping for some kind of Reformation is in for a big disappointment. That's what Martin Luther was for, no?


SolRo - 2014-01-06

youth unemployment is a serious problem depending on the context he meant.

it's not a big deal in rich Italian cities, but in poor areas and the developing world it tends to be the root cause of many of the more 'evil' things mentioned.

oh wait, it's religion...context and nuanced views are the real evil.


Xenocide - 2014-01-06

Oh man, hippie jokes! Humor from 50 years ago never goes stale!


EvilHomer - 2014-01-06

People have been making Catholic jokes for the last 1,500 years.


SteamPoweredKleenex - 2014-01-06

To be fair, there wasn't anything except the Catholic Church to make jokes about (Jesus-wise) until about 500 years ago.

Also, this shows that the only Lutheran capable of making good jokes about Catholics is Garrison Keillor.


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