Avarice

For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. - 1 Timothy 6:10 (KJV)

The Love of Money

The love of money is referred to as avarice. While some people and even some dictionaries are hesitant to make a large distinction between "greed" and "avarice," it would be wise to note the very important differences between the two words. You can have greed for any type of thing - avarice has a distinct and specific interpretation that should always refer to the love of money, treasures, and/or valuables - types of things where their only purpose is to augment one's wealth. While food may be very valuable to someone, that would fall under the jurisdiction of greed, not avarice.

It makes sense that the two words would seem almost interchangeable due to the roots and etymology of the word avarice. It does indeed come from the word greed or covetousness, but if it were not necessary to make a distinction between greed and avarice, the distinction wouldn't have been made. This "Catholic encyclopedia" summarizes what is meant by avarice:

Its special malice, broadly speaking, lies in that it makes the getting and keeping of money, possessions, and the like, a purpose in itself to live for. ... It is more to be dreaded in that it often cloaks itself as a virtue, or insinuates itself under the pretext of making a decent provision for the future.

This highlights the biggest problem with avarice: it can be difficult to detect. There is a distinction to be made between the reality that money and valuables are not inherently bad to possess or to acquire and the actual problems with a love of money. If it would help to bring clarity to the problem, it is not merely an appreciation or utilization of money, but the love of, or perhaps obsession with, money.

We can bring further clarification onto the subject at hand by a brief discussion on false idols.

Idolatry

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. - Colossians 3:5 (ESV)

The second commandment in the old testament is to have no idols before our Lord. It is mentioned much more often throughout both the old and new testaments. For the secular non-believer, this may seem completely inconsequential, but unfortunately it causes just as many problems for the secular as it does for the believer. Just because you don't believe in God doesn't mean you're magically exempt from all the problems that come from this broken world.

Idolatry is the worship of something as the ultimate something, when in reality that something does not contain properties worthy of worship. The reason why God is proclaimed as the only one worthy of worship is because He is perfect - all other things are imperfect, and thus do not warrant worship. This is not to say you cannot like those things, but to worship something imperfect is folly. It is folly for both the religious and for the non-religious.

When you worship a fallible, imperfect source, you put your trust, faith, happiness, and security in that thing. Given that that thing is imperfect, as all things are, you are essentially putting all your eggs into one basket - one basket that may fray, break, or rot away.

Now, you may say, well of course I don't worship anything!

Worship

Unfortunately, everyone worships something. Many people worship their own selves, as we see in many of the hedonistic materialist and humanist sects, or science, as we see in Darwinists and naturalists, but a large number of secular people actually worship money. We are naturally draw to worship something. As I said, just because you don't believe in God, doesn't change the reality of the world you're living in. We were created to worship God - when you deny Him and choose not to worship Him, you are naturally drawn to worship something else.

Of course, if you don't believe that, you may still be inclined to say that I'm talking nonsense. The disconnect that happens here is between what you believe is implied by the word "worship" and what it truly means to worship something.

To worship something is, as I stated earlier, to "put your trust, faith, happiness, and security in that thing." People all do this - whether you want to identify the thing you are doing as "worship" or not, that is what worship is and that is what you are doing. You consider this thing to be the thing - the thing that will make you happy, that will fulfill your hopes and dreams, keep you safe and will never let you down. We all seek something that will answer all our questions, that will keep us secure, safe, and happy - when you dismiss God from that list of options, you will make a new list and pick something else. If you take the time to think about what it is that you put your hope and faith into and decide that it's nothing, then surprise, it's probably yourself. The worship of the self is still worship, and it is still idolatry - and it will still disappoint you.

To summarize, the problem with idolatry is that all things besides God are finite, flawed, and imperfect. All things will disappoint you, and thus it is unwise to put your faith, trust, happiness, and security into those things. Even if you do not believe in God, this reality stays consistent - all things are imperfect. There are no perfect things in this broken world, so it is folly to put your trust into any of these worldly things.

Avarice as a Narrative

Avarice is closely tied to idolatry - with a lack of God in their lives, many people end up worshiping wealth. It is, unfortunately, heavily pushed onto people today. Go to college and be successful so you can make money, get a good job so you can make money, don't get married - focus on your career and make money, don't do something you love just get a high paying job because money, if you're not making money you won't be happy, we need to let poor women have access to abortion because if not their kids will be poor. The new sin of our age - being poor. Bad enough that you would be better off having not been born, than to be poor.

If you don't see it you aren't paying attention. Avarice is being pushed as a virtue - as mentioned earlier, this is where avarice's power lies, in the ability to mask itself as merely making good decisions, to be prepared for the future, to be secure, to be happy...

There are right and wrong ways to deal with money. It is okay to make money, it's okay to have a good job, it's okay to be wealthy. It's what's in your heart - the way you view money and what you believe it has the power to do.

I've known people who made far and above the amount of money my family did who were still struggling with bills, in debt, and complaining about money. I still currently know some of those people. The way you utilize your money is as important as how much you have. Living paycheck to paycheck and having to decide which bills are more important is certainly not an easy-going situation, but when you stop to consider how people with multiple times more money than you are still miserable, it should really make you stop to think. More money didn't make them happier.

We all like to think we'd be happier and better off with just a little more money. If we made just such and such more money, it would all be fine and we'd be good to go. It turns out, once you get there, you still have the same mindset. The more money you make you will always believe that you'd be better off if you just made a little more. Just a little more money, and I'll finally be happy.

This is all due to the folly of the worship of money. Money is a finite source - which means that it can run out, but it also means, much more simply, that the quantity of money available in your life - the quantity of the thing that you've placed all your trust and security into - can fluctuate. It can go up and it can go down. Any source that is not God is finite - the quantity of that source can fluctuate. You will always have as much God as you need - He is an infinite source. The finite source of money is quantifiable - and you just know you'd be so much happier if you had just 200 more of it. Just 500 more of it. Just 10,000 more of it.

This mindset of "just a little more" is the worship of money. Until you break out of it, you are placing your faith in money, and it will always disappoint you.

The Church of Money

It gets worse, though. The worship of money has been pushed very heavily and has a strong following. The Church of Money has started to preach that our intrinsic value as a person is directly tied to how much money we make. The value of our choices, our behaviors, and our careers are directly tied to the amount of money that they bring us. Actions, behaviors, and tasks performed by us are meaningless if we are not compensated for them.

Something that is being pushed, perhaps not only recently but I've only seen it within the last few years, is the injustice of people not being paid for literally every thing that they do. From taking care of your own children to smiling and interacting with other humans, the dominate narrative is pushing the idea that we are performing unpaid labor and that any and all actions and interactions cannot be justified if they are not compensated. When someone makes less money, it is not merely an injustice, but that person is devalued. Not the person's work, or the person's effort, or their knowledge or experience, but the person is said to be devalued when they are not compensated - they are not being paid (despite a complete lack of a contractual agreement to perform labor), thus they are not appreciated as people. The failure to distinguish between these two ideas is not an accident and this narrative is incredibly harmful.

The vast majority of this harmful narrative is pushed upon women. I apologize as I'm unable to find the actual article, but awhile back I noticed some buzz about a study which seemed to show that married women earned less money than unmarried women, and included the stats that married lesbian couples also earned more money than married women who were married to men. The reasons for this supposed gap and the study itself are less important than the reactions I saw from women who were discussing the study. The common theme I noticed was women proclaiming that "men make your life worth less".

The word choice here is as important as the message it is meant to convey. They could have chosen to say perhaps that men make you earn less money or that they push women out of the workforce or the like, but they chose the word life. Men make your life worth less... because of the amount of money being made. They directly tied the worth of the woman's life to the amount of money that she brought in. When it could be said that a woman was earning less money "because of" a man, they purposefully chose to articulate a sentence which explicitly denotes the idea that it made the woman's life worth less.

Because of money.

If the implications here aren't obvious enough, not only is money being worshiped in this scenario, but human lives are being rated as better or worse for the amount of money that they produce or possess. We have entered a territory wherein not only is money worshiped, but people who do not have it, do not want it, do not make it, or do not worship it are being literally dehumanized. The focus could easily have been placed on the person's work or efforts, but it was purposefully structured to emphasize the person's worth. We are being instructed to believe that a person who is paid less is worth less.

While I could see the connection being made between the idea that if someone is indeed paying someone less or not paying them at all, then that person does not view the underpaid or unpaid person as valuable, but we are not witnessing this distinction being made - we are being told that that person is in fact less valuable for making less money, not just to the employer, but to everyone. We are being told that they can only be made valuable again if they are paid more money. The only salvation so to speak for that person lies in them being able to produce and acquire larger amounts of money. The perhaps injustices of being paid less or not paid are purposefully warped and twisted into a narrative that allows people to be convinced that they, individually as humans, are not worth as much if they are not paid more.

It is unfortunately a subtle distinction that is easily slipped in without notice - the lack of a distinction between the value of the person and the value of the person's efforts is not difficult to get away with, as we see, but it is an overwhelmingly important distinction to make. When we thoughtlessly allow ourselves to use language that explicitly ties a person's value to the money that they make, we allow ourselves to push money and the importance of money further and further into the forefront, whether consciously or subconsciously. This has all along been about the worship of money.

Emotional Labor and Caregiver Labor

Two notable topics wedged deep into the unpaid labor narrative are "emotional labor" and "caregiver labor." While the latter is related to many paid positions, such as child care/daycares and nursing homes, what it refers to in this context is "unpaid caregiver labor," summarized as perhaps "being a housewife," or taking care of an elderly parent. Emotional labor refers to the actions of responding to and interacting with other human beings, such as in a customer service, food service, or retail position. The idea behind these two topics is that there are millions of people not being paid for work they are doing - and again, this narrative tries very hard to target women.

Emotional labor is oftentimes actually paid for - if you do work in a customer service position, your ability to interact pleasantly with even the most rotten of people is very valuable to the work you do. Realistically, people who are better at this sort of "emotional labor" will be ideal for these positions and paid accordingly. Emotional labor, in these positions, is actually a job requirement and expectation.

The problem with the concept of "emotional labor" as it is pushed today is that interacting with people is something we all must do literally all of the time, forever. This is an important note to make here: "emotional labor" is referring to a person's efforts involved in interacting with people, for example, making eye contact, being polite, smiling, making an effort not to be rude, thinking about how your behaviors affect and influence other people, being considerate, etc., i.e. emotional labor can be summarized as "making an effort to be a good person to other people in day to day interactions."

The idea behind unpaid emotional labor is that people all over the workforce and in their day to day lives are not being compensated for their emotional labor, or as we defined it, "making an effort to be a good person to other people in day to day interactions." What we see here, then, is that people are making the distinction that being friendly or hospitable to other people is not worth doing unless they are being paid for it. This is bizarrely used to justify being rude to people because they are not paying you. While this may not be a mainstream idea at the moment, I have seen it more than once.

While before we saw the devaluation of the person for lack of compensation, we see the same theme - the devaluation of friendliness, hospitality, and civility due to lack of compensation. The narrative is now pushing that it is not valuable to be bearable to be around unless you are being paid for it. If no one is writing you a check for smiling, then you should not. It's not worth it. This is part of a narrative where nothing is worth doing unless you are being compensated for it. It is not worth it to even smile at someone unless there is money involved.

The dangers of this narrative should be clear as well. We are all taught how to interact with others from the first days that we are able to speak. These "social skills" have for literally ever simply been a part of life that we understood to be important in order to interact with other people. We are now being taught that you should be paid for your social skills - not just in job positions which literally do require them, but all the time. If you don't feel like not being insufferable, then it is totally okay unless someone whips out their checkbook and writes you an emotional labor check! Go ahead and be a rude customer, curse out the guy on the phone, push someone out of their seat on the bus, no one is paying you to not do these things.

To attempt to instill in people that someone needs to pay you to not be insufferable to be around is effort being made to create a society in which "being friendly" is something we need to pay someone to do. This should be flat out insulting. Has anyone ever offered you money to smile at them? Imagine how outright creepy that would be - but this is the reality of the narrative of unpaid emotional labor. Furthermore, I would implore that anyone who would be happy to smile at someone for being handed a fiver needs to sit down and think about their life.

The ideas of unpaid caregiver labor follow a similar pattern. Unpaid caregiver labor refers to, usually a woman's, maintenance of the home, caring for others, child care, elderly care, and other similar things that we have long been expected to do as a part of our lives and are now being taught that we should be paid for.

The most startling aspect of this narrative is, or if it isn't it very much should be, the idea that taking care of one's own children is unpaid labor - and that mothers should be compensated for this. If you believe that taking care of your own children is not valuable unless you are being paid for it, I would implore that you do not have children. If you already have children, hopefully I can outline why this mindset is dangerous and outrageously selfish.

We'll start with the basics: as before, we are seeing that something we have always been expected to do is now not worth the effort unless we are being compensated for it. Like being a good person in your day to day interactions, taking care of your home and your children is something that is a part of living in this world and living your life. The idea is that this work is important and valuable, so it should be compensated. The opposite of this idea is that if you are not being paid to take care of your children, then it is okay to not feed them, leave them in a hot car, or lock them out of the house at night.

First, a little logical reality about paid labor: jobs do not exist necessarily. The entire purpose of someone hiring someone to do something is because they have a need and are looking to have someone else fill this need. In order to provide a reason for this person to provide this need, the person looking for someone to hire must provide some sort of compensation. No one needs you to clean your house. No one needs you to take care of your own children. No one needs you to take care of yourself, your pets, your elderly parents, or anything else that you need you to do. You are the person who has the need - this means that either you pay someone else to do it, or you do it. That is how paid labor works.

Let me put it this way. If I want to build something or perform maintenance on something, i.e. if I have a need, I do not go out and find someone to pay me for myself to fulfill my need. There are only two options: I fulfill my need on my own, or I pay someone else to fulfill my need. I do not get paid to fulfill my own needs. If I do not want to pay someone to build a barn, I must do it myself. I do not go looking for someone and say, "I have a proposition for you, I'm going to build myself a barn and I need someone to pay me to build it." That is nonsense.

If I need my house cleaned, my only options are to pay someone else or to do it myself. There is no one out there looking to hire me to take care of my own house. If I want to have children and raise them, that is my own need and the only two options to fulfill those needs, again, are to pay someone else or do it myself. Just like if someone else wants to have someone look after their children, they either pay you (or someone) or do it themselves.

The danger of this narrative comes through quite clearly in relation to child care as brought up earlier. You are putting together a situation in which it is not worth it to take care of your own children unless you are being paid for it. The devaluation of children is not unique to this narrative and it is not new to the dominate narrative, and this is just another way in which it's being pushed.

The main idea behind unpaid caregiver labor is that caregiving is important, and important things should be compensated. The problem again arises from the worship of money - that something is only being valued if there is money to be made in it. Let me make a clear example of something else that could be considered pretty important.

Charitable work is unpaid. It is explicitly unpaid because the people requiring this charity are unable to provide any compensation. When we perform charitable work for the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the disabled, or the otherwise downtrodden people of the world, not only are we explicitly not paid, but we typically must use our own funds in order to perform this work. When we feed the hungry, we provide the food; when we clothe the naked, we provide the clothes; when we shelter the homeless, we provide the shelter. This work is incredibly valuable, it is incredibly appreciated, and it is incredibly important. It is also incredibly unpaid.

Yes, caregiving is important. Raising good children and caring for them is vastly important - but to attempt to insist that this work must be paid to be valuable is to devalue your own work. You, yourself, if you are of this mindset, are putting yourself into a position to devalue your own efforts because you believe that they are not worth the time if you aren't seeing a paycheck. If you believe it is not worth the time to clean your own house unless you're being paid, you are devaluing your own home. If you believe it is not worth the time to care for your elderly parents if you aren't being paid, you are devaluing your parents. By allowing yourself to buy into this narrative, it is not just the dominate culture that is telling you what is or is not important, but you trick yourself into devaluing your own effort.

To believe that something is not valuable if it does not produce money is harmful to your own life and your own happiness. It is a form of avarice and a form of idol worship. It is not wrong to be paid for the things you do, but it is wrong to believe that things are not worth doing unless you are paid for them.

Rationalia's At It Again

I already explained my opinion on Neil Degrasse Tyson's proposed virtual country of Rationalia. Recently, he addressed the fact that a large number of people and news outlets wrote pieces about how bad of an idea it was.

Apparently there was a video where he discussed this idea more in-depth, though I did not see it and, full disclosure, still have not. This address of his is enough to point out his own inconsistencies.

The first thing I will mention, and most interesting thing, is that the vast majority of pieces explaining why Rationalia is a terrible idea bring up, as I did, the mass amount of attempted utopias that ended in dystopian nightmares that were predicated on this same idea. What's interesting about that is that Neil does not address this at all in his, what we will call, rebuttal. He even links to some of the articles discussing his idea negatively that mention this very important, glaring, and well observed issue with "rationality based government," without even attempting to explain why that tooootally wouldn't happen again.

The second most interesting thing to me is how Neil was "intrigued" by how many people hated the idea. His failure to even attempt to understand or see the problems people had with his idea is very telling. Tying this into his failure to even partially address the obvious, historical fact that his idea has been tried before and turned into an utter nightmare - multiple times - shows how out touch he is. This sort of mentality was actually mostly what I discussed before - the imagined "war" between logic and emotion.

We can skip over and ignore his failure to understand how morality can't exist without an unchanging, foundational standard upon which to base them. That is a very normal problem atheists and relativists have and entails quite the discussion. We can easily point out the inconsistencies without this explanation.

We will, however, briefly touch on his failed attempt to bring the bible into this. He discusses how morals have "evolved," and can be quoted saying:

The Bible, for example, is not a fertile place to find anti-slavery commentary, nor discussions of the equality of women.

It's interesting how much different issues all tie together sometimes. This goes back to my discussion on the realities of equality and fairness. Now, it is clear from what Neil believes and the context that he thinks the bible describes women and their role in life as being "less than" a man's, when the reality is that men and women are not, and never will be, equal - because men and women are different. The bible acknowledges the reality that men and women are different and fulfill different roles and the doctrine of Christianity does not insist that women are or should be treated less good than men.

Let me recap real quick if you are lost: men and women are not equal, but neither is better. Apples and oranges are not equal, but neither is inherently better. They are different, and ironically the denial of this evidence-based reality is rather illogical.

It is worth noting that the bible also does not condone slavery, but I don't want to get too carried away. Summarized, let me start with Exodus 21:16, "Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death." There are passages that discuss slavery, but slavery is not condoned - the bible discusses slavery and how slaves and their masters should behave because slavery was a reality of life. Interestingly enough, "slaves" in these times and in this context of history were more akin to indentured servants than what we think of when we imagine slaves. This is a common misunderstanding that because the bible says something like, "if you're a slave, be a good slave," that someone can twist this to mean, "the bible said slavery is ok!" No, the bible is discussing how to behave according to God's will regardless of your life situation. It says it's not okay to be a terrible person due to your circumstances in life - even if your life sucks and you're a slave, you're still supposed to do all things for the glory of God because ultimately that's all that really matters.

Moving on.

Neil attempts to "clarify" that when he said everything would be based on evidence and reason, he only meant government policies - and by this, somehow implies that anyone ever thought differently. Neil, we all knew exactly what you meant.

The rebuttal goes on to talk about how scientists deal with problems and how that would then be applied to policy making and governance. In collecting links and reading a bit more, I came across this interesting passage that covers that quite well. According to the twitter user who posted it, it's from 40 years ago, but that is irrelevant.

This passage even directly references the concept of policy that Neil is so intent on reminding everyone that "that's all I'm talking about!" Where to build a road has no clear and defined answer. What our children should learn to best prepare them for adulthood has no clear and defined answer. Most, if not all, social policies and social concerns not only have neither clear answers nor solutions, but are frequently unclear themselves. Sometimes, we don't even know what the problem is, or whether or not there even is a problem. 

This rebuttal goes on to define how, exactly, Rationalia's citizens and government would look and behave. There are several interesting points to make here, but this one I will quote entirely because it's rather important:

In Rationalia, the sciences that study human behavior (psychology, sociology, neuroscience, anthropology, economics, etc) would be heavily funded since much of our understanding of how we interact with one another derives from research within subfields of these disciplines. Because their subjects involve humans, these fields are particularly susceptible to social & cultural bias. So the verifiability of evidence will be of highest concern.

While I wasn't entirely sure why at first, reading this was actually very disconcerting. It was perhaps the most uncomfortable part to read in the entire piece. After considering what about it was so distressing, I was brought back to something else I discussed briefly in yet another post.

When psychology and psychiatry were new fields of study, the scientists who did many of these studies performed a great number of immoral and absolutely nightmarish studies on people. Some of these studies scarred them for life or even caused physical abnormalities along with plenty of other issues. Some studies were performed on animals, and as such were a little less outright terrifying to learn about, but some of the experiments and subsequently terrible things imposed onto human test subjects were chilling enough that you'd think it was the plot of a macabre torture movie. Devastatingly, a lot of scientific advancement was actually made during the holocaust, as Nazi scientists immorally performed excruciating experiments on living humans without their consent, like how long does it take a newborn baby to starve to death if deprived food starting immediately after birth.

These terrible practices were brought to an end due to our natural emotional reaction to how immoral they were. Neil talks about how morals "evolve" and are "shaped" by "rational analysis of the effects and consequences of a previously held moral." The problem with this line of thinking is there is no rational analysis of emotional morals. This brings us right back to the first and foremost important thing to note about this entire idea: there is no evidence-based, rational, scientific, or logical reason to not cause harm to humans, up to and including execution. The only reason these terrible practices were stopped was because of emotional, moral responses to the atrocities that were performed.

Now, I'm not saying that the first order of business of Rationalia's psychology program would be to ignore human rights and start subjecting people to these atrocities once again, no. No, I'm just saying that it would get there. It would definitely be a possibility. Any denial that a purely logic-based society that ignores emotional and non-logical things like dignity, the right to life, and compassion is entirely capable of getting to the point of nightmarish experimentation "in the name of progress" and euthanasia of the physically and mentally disabled is naive. It has literally happened before. I'm not sure why astrophysicists are such bad historians.

Another interesting clarification made in this rebuttal is that Rationalia would entail complete freedom to be irrational, if you desired. You'd simply not be able to propose policy or changes etc. without evidence and reasoning. He then states that "For this reason, Rationalia might just be the freest country in the world."

This is somewhat funny because there is no evidence anywhere in his proposal that this would be the case. It is simply something he has thrown into the pot to attempt to quell people's fears about the obvious and inevitable tyranny that would result from this sort of thing. What, exactly, is the reasoning that it would be okay for a common, every day citizen to have the freedom to be irrational? What, exactly, is the reasoning that it would be okay for a common, every day citizen to have the freedom to do literally anything? There is nothing logical about freedom. We know, understand, and cherish freedom because it is self-evident - we very obviously have the freedom to do anything, to think anything, and perform any action we want. There is no evidence for freedom, it is merely something we know. Without God, relativists, naturalists, atheists, and people like Neil do not understand why freedom is real, but they simply understand that it is. What restricts it is the possible consequence of the utilization of our freedom depending on your location and the government of the area you reside. You could run down the street naked if you wanted - you have the free choice to do this. But you may get arrested, as public nudity is illegal.

This example entails the problem. Yes, you have the freedom to do anything you want, but the policies and laws of a government will impose punishments upon people for doing things that said government has established is not okay to do. You have the free choice to murder, but it is illegal. You have the free choice to sell meth to children, but it is illegal. You have the free choice to eat a dead rat you found in your garage, but you might die. There are consequences for our free choices - some of them are natural, some of them are imposed by the governing body of the country where you perform these free actions.

How, exactly, does anything proposed about Rationalia necessarily entail that citizens would have the freedom to be irrational? We are currently living in a world where there are countries that will execute civilians for practicing religions - either be it any religion, or particular religions that are specifically deemed not okay. It's not like this is something that "couldn't happen." Why has Neil been able to establish this policy of "the freedom to be irrational" upon Rationalia without first providing evidence, reason, or rational for it? What qualities of a country founded upon the idea of pure logical reasoning would somehow preserve the freedom of a person to not abide by the founding principles of that country?

This is perhaps the most ironic part of his entire rebuttal. It is entirely unsubstantiated, it does not follow necessarily from the established doctrine, and is directly opposed to the entire foundation of the country in the first place. What Neil is attempting to insist is that Rationalia would have the one line consitution of "All policy shall be based on the weight of evidence," and that, somehow, this entails freedom for the citizens. There is a very good reason why not only the Constitution is very many lines long, but that the Bill of Rights was passed shortly thereafter. The Bill of Rights, if you'll recall, also containing very many lines.

This is not the only line of his rebuttal that is unsubstantiated and does not follow necessarily from the established doctrine. He even attempts to say that practicing religion would be entirely allowed in Rationalia, as well. This is quite interesting. How did he extrapolate all this from "All policy shall be based on the weight of evidence," anyway? How does Rationalia's basis disallow the government from proposing the idea that "religion is harmful," and then providing "evidence" such that, as far as the governing people are concerned, religion is "directly attributing to the irrationality of citizens," who then vote for or grow up to be irrational government workers, then subsequently creating policies that disallow people from practicing their religions? Is it because "Neil said so," or is there actual evidence or reasoning for this?

The vast majority of his "clarifications" can be analyzed this way. There's one more fun point to make, however.

He discusses the idea that Rationalia would have an "Office of Morality" where morality was discussed. He concedes that Rationalia may (read: will, definitely) get their morals wrong, but then he throws in this fun tidbit:

Is slavery moral? The USA's Constitution thought so for 76 years. Should women vote? The USA’s Constitution said no for 131 years.

This is fun for me, because, taken quite literally, the USA's Constitution in fact did not think slavery was moral. Slavery was made illegal literally, quite specifically, and exactly because of the USA's Constitution, or more specifically the Declaration of Independence. You can argue that these are "two separate documents," but it was understood and established that the Declaration of Independence was "the promise," and the Constitution "the fulfillment." It was an oversight, or possibly a "misunderstanding," for 76 years that allowed slavery to exist. The reason slavery was made illegal was specifically because it was found to be irreconcilable with the Constitution/Declaration of Independence, seen here:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

To treat blacks as less than whites and keep them as slaves was inconsistent with the established doctrine of the United States as a country - the founding principle that started the whole thing, that all men are created equal. You'll also note the handy "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights," which actually establishes that morality is not dictated by the government, but by a higher power. But we've already made it quite clear that Neil is not a historian.

So, no, the USA's Constitution did not legislate the morality of slavery. It in fact did the opposite, and it was - wait for it - fallible, finite, biased, and flawed people that caused the self-evident moral law to be ignored. Please explain to me again how Rationalia's one line constitution will do anything to preserve freedom or human rights? Literally the reason slavery was made illegal was because it conflicted with the self-evident truths bestowed upon us by our Creator, not "bestowed upon us by our super rational government."

And, briefly, the Constitution also didn't "say no" to women voting - it was the interpretation of the document, once again, by the governing bodies. Nowhere in the Constitution did it say "oh btw chicks can't vote." Allowing women to vote was due to the fact that new amendments could be added to the Bill of Rights because the Constitution allowed for it if it was voted in by a majority of the people and the government. This brings further light onto the reality that Rationalia's "one line constitution" does not allow for the ratification of new amendments. Neil literally is just taking the Constitution and applying parts of it to his idea of this virtual country without realizing that's not how countries or constitutions work.

So, not only does Neil's attempt at rebutting the evidence-based rational behind the massive dislike of Rationalia fail to actually address anyone's concerns (like dystopian murder societies), but it in itself was not based on the weight of evidence. He just said some things that sounded nice to ensure people that his imaginary virtual country would totally be great because he didn't want to be wrong.

I've said this before: if a "smart person" doesn't understand why they're wrong, they might not be all that smart.

Apatheism

I never heard the term "apatheist" before, though I understand the concept quite easily. An apatheist is basically someone who doesn't believe in God, but far from Richard Dawkins worshiping anti-theistic atheists, simply doesn't care about the question.

As far as the declarative definition goes (who knows how many people identify as one but have their own special definition like many atheists and theists alike), apatheists are not interested in accepting or denying claims about God. They are almost agnostic, except that instead of not accepting or denying claims and taking a position of genuine uncertainty, the apatheist does take a stance in that they believe God to not exist, but with much less fervor and interest than the atheist.

The necessity of this word is questionable. If someone takes a stance on not believing in God, regardless of why, that person is an atheist. If someone does not take a stance on believing or not believing in God, they are agnostic. If they believe in God, they are theistic. The current use of the term apatheist is, if I had to take a wild guess, likely due to the stigma attached to atheists. It is possible to not believe in God and not be a busybody about it, and "apatheists" probably weren't keen on lumping themselves into the same category as militant, ideological atheists like Mr. Dawkins.

Historically, it looks like the term was "practical atheism," and it was not looked upon favorably. Now, it's been rebranded as "pragmatic atheism," and by many others as "apathetic atheism."

What's interesting about apatheism is that their arguments for their disbelief in God are similar if not exactly the same as the atheists'. I suppose they are just far less adamant about it. It sounds to me like anyone who may identify as an apatheist probably put more time into their decision than they want to sound like they did. I'd assume the truly apathetic atheist put much less thought into it than anyone who took the time to learn about and identify with this label. I would simply call these people "secular," though realistically if they are truly apathetic about the question of God, then they don't call themselves anything.

Apatheism apparently has three "main" arguments, though I'm sure there are plenty if you found one and asked them. These arguments are absence of motivation, indifference, and lack of evidence. They are all rather self explanatory, though I suppose apatheists who use the "lack of evidence" reasoning simply put less effort into it than your typical atheist. Ultimately, the most interesting part about the apatheist is, at least according to these sources, they don't believe the question of God has any bearing on their life.

This stance, whether taken by a self-identified apatheist or militant anti-theistic atheist, is the most puzzling to me. Even when I was an atheist, the reality of the scenario that if God did exist it would be most troubling for me was not absent from my thought process. The thing was that, at the time, I actively believed He did not exist, and therefore I believed I would not be in the trouble that I was aware I would be in if He did. To somehow take the stance that the question of His existence is entirely meaningless is showing ignorance to the reality of the situation.

I believe these people are experiencing a classification error - they are ignoring the philosophical reality that the answer to the question "Does God exist?" is either yes, or it is no, and that both of these answers have a very real impact on your life. The belief that the question of God has no impact on your life is not apathy, it is naivety. If He does not exist, then life and all existence is entirely meaningless. We will all die, along with the universe, and nothing we have ever done or ever will do matters for anything. If He does exist, then there is hope and there is meaning, but then there is also consequence for those who would deny Him. While you may attempt to argue that the impact on your current life is minimal if He does exist, the impact on your ultimate destiny is much greater - severely so.

Religion, however, could be argued to not have an impact on your life one way or another. While I would disagree, as attending a church was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, quality of life boosts I've experienced, the merits of organized religion - as it exists within the context of a flawed and finite people - can be argued. There are pros and cons, in relation to the type of organized religion and the specific congregation of people you'd be amongst. And, ultimately, we have the reality that "going to church doesn't get you into Heaven" (though it does help).

I would assume that many people who believe the question of God would have no impact on their life are misconstruing the philosophical reality of the question of a higher power with the various pros and cons of being affiliated with and participating in a religious organization.

The problem with "apathic atheism" and atheism in general is that the vast majority of them fail to bring their thoughts and beliefs to their conclusion. You can believe that there is no God all day, but until you bring that belief to its conclusion, you won't understand the implications of that belief. Professional atheists who do bring their belief of a God-less existence to its conclusion rightly state that atheism necessarily entails nihilism - the belief that nothing matters. That is to say, nothing at all matters, at all, ever, for any reason. Nothing.

Nihilism is a position of pure hopelessness. While some people have attempted to paint nihilism in a positive light, these people, too, have failed to draw their beliefs to their conclusions. Believing that nothing matters is cute and fun when you're young and want to do drugs and have sex at parties, sure, but the reality that if nothing matters, then any decision you've made about what to do with your life and how to live it is, ultimately, meaningless. Nothing you do matters - you will die and cease to exist, as will everyone you've ever known, everyone who will ever exist, and the universe and all potential life that could ever exist. It will all wither away and there will be nothing. Everyone you ever loved is meaningless, the things that brought you joy are nothing. To attempt to draw a positive light out of this situation is purely cognitive dissonance - painting over hopelessness with bright colors and a smiling sun wearing sunglasses is disingenuous at best.

You can only remain apathetic toward a position of pure hopelessness by packing your life with mindless distractions and busy work. We are thoughtful creatures and our minds ultimately will wander toward the question of meaning in our lives - to stay "apathetic" to the question of God is to willfully keep yourself thoughtless.

Russell's Teapot

We're visiting our friend RationalWiki again for this post about "Russell's Teapot."

Russell's Teapot, or The Celestial Teapot, is an "analogy" created by Betrand Russell. The actual concept, as it appeared in its natural form, is:

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes.

But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense.

If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

It has two notable uses, one of which being an argument for "the rationality of atheism," while the other is as a method of explaining why the burden of proof does not lie upon the person questioning the belief (whatever it may be, though usually religious).

The main problem with Russell's Teapot is quickly explained in just the second sentence of this wiki page: "By using an intentionally absurd analogy, Russell's Teapot draws attention to the formal logic behind the burden of proof and how it works." (emphasis mine)

The problem with intentionally absurd analogies is that they tend to be insincere. What those are typically referred to as is a "strawman fallacy." Russell's teapot is, unintentionally I'm sure, a great example of the strawman fallacy, which is where a concept is taken, purposefully changed into something that is easier to attack, and then attacking that concept rather than the actual one being discussed. It's fascinating that this is somehow acceptable rhetoric.

An undetectable floating space teapot, just like a floating spaghetti monster and every other false analogy to God, are literally all strawmen - you take the concept of God, turn it into something that is literally entirely different, and attack that instead of the concept of God, because it's easier and makes you look smart.

The reason that this argument still seems viable to the atheist is because they believe that God is just as absurd as these examples, which actually demonstrates a lack of understanding of the concept they are attempting to discuss.

I reviewed this before, but this ties back into the "Which "god" are you talking about?" argument, which only exists due to a failure to understand what the concept understood to be God is actually referring to. I'll go over it quickly:

The concept known to be God is not "the Christian God," or "the Tao," or "Allah," but rather the Unmoved Mover, the Uncaused First Cause. God is understood to be the reason why anything exists at all - He is the Creator. The concept of God is understood and accepted by every religion as being the exact same concept, but the different religions disagree on what attributes that concept has. Christians and Muslims believe in the same God, they just disagree about who that God is and what He does or has done or what He wants us to do, etc. Different religions may disagree with how or why He created the universe, or what sorts of things He's done or not done, but they all agree that God is the Creator, the one who made existence, who exists outside of our universe.

So "the concept of God," is not what any particular religion may describe God as being like, but the force that created the universe. The concept of God exists outside of our universe, as God created the universe, and thus could not "be from" our universe. When we are arguing about whether or not God exists, you're not arguing with someone about whether or not "the Christian God," or any other particular "religion's God," exists, but if the reason that anything at all exists is due to the concept understood to be God - a timeless, spaceless, and immaterial Creator that exists outside of our universe.

That distinctly means that any arguments that pertain to God's timelessness, spacelessness, immaterialness, etc., are not special pleading. God as a concept is understood by any and all people discussing it to specifically be outside of the laws of our universe. When you use a specifically not timeless, spaceless, and immaterial example as an "analogy" to God, you are being insincere and creating a strawman. If your argument is that the timeless, spaceless, and immaterial Creator is actually a teapot, or spaghetti, or a unicorn, then that is a different argument. When you argue about the possible existence of an undetectable floating space teapot within our universe, you are explicitly creating an example of a thing that is not analogous to what we mean when we discuss God.

Re: Rationality of Atheism

The concept here is that we "don't have evidence" for God (arguable), just as we don't have evidence for a celestial teapot. The atheist using this argument may then attempt to compel one to disbelieve in the teapot, or God, due to the lack of evidence for these concepts, as there is no reason to believe in it. This method of using the teapot argument is insincere - the concept of God and the concept of the celestial teapot are not analogous, thus conflating the two as similar arguments is purposefully misleading.

An undetectable floating space teapot would, by its own definition, exist within the context of our universe. Simply put, given the context of our universe in which this teapot would exist, its existence is evidentially and logically improbable. God, by His own definition, does not imply that He would exist within the context of our universe, and thus we cannot use the context of our own universe to make evidential or logical claims about His improbability based on our understanding of "improbable" as it exists in this universe.

The fact of the matter is if I'm arguing for the existence of something that does not conform to the laws of our universe, then the laws of our universe cannot be used as a basis for whether or not that something is improbable. You can make other arguments against it, and I can of course respond to your arguments, but based on this, specific argument, the teapot and God are not analogous. Russell attempts to use the obvious, inarguable absurdity of an undetectable floating space teapot as an analogy for God, when the two concepts are not comparable. You cannot argue that God is an absurd or improbable claim to make based on these concepts because we cannot make arguments about the laws that exist outside of our universe. We cannot know what the laws are, if there are any, outside of our universe, so we cannot argue that God violates those laws. An undetectable floating space teapot does fall within the jurisdiction of our universe and thus is susceptible to the laws of our universe, which it roundly violates.

The only way to use this argument without being intellectually insincere is to make the claim that not having evidence for something is a good reason to neither believe or disbelieve in that thing. Not having evidence for or against something is a good reason to withhold judgement and remain agnostic, not to make the jump to atheism.

The refutation of this method of utilizing the teapot argument is well discussed very much at length by someone else here, if further reading is desired.

Re: Burden of Proof

The other main way in which Russell's Teapot is used is as an attempt to claim that the skeptic, or atheist, is not the one who needs to provide evidence or argumentation against a religious (or possibly other) positive claim. The way that this argument works follows the same insincerity as it did previously, but still varies slightly in its application.

The teapot in the false analogy both has no evidence for its existence, and is also not falsifiable. We already discussed falsifiability earlier, but a lack of falsifiability merely makes something not scientific. Zealous believers in falsifiability consider it to be necessary for a question's importance to be valid, thus this ties directly into God's unfalsifiability and the conclusion by these people that therefore God is not an important question.

This is very silly, considering the implications of God's existence or nonexistence. An undetectable floating teapot doesn't sound like it has much bearing on anything of importance certainly, but something that has the potential to greatly and permanently influence your destiny sounds like it could be a little more important.

So this false analogy, in this context, performs two actions: it conflates a tiny floating space teapot that exists within our universe with the Creator of the universe who exists outside of our universe in a strawman argument, and it attempts to apply the teapot's inconsequentiality to God.

It then draws these to the conclusion that because there is no evidence for an undetectable floating space teapot, and because the existence of that teapot, if applicable, would be meaningless, that if you don't believe in this teapot, you do not have to explain yourself, but rather anyone attempting to defend the existence of this teapot would need to do so. It then turns "teapot" into "God" in a spectacular explosion of straw.

This is yet another way that atheists attempt to cast off any burden of proof they may have. The problem with this dead horse of an argument is that the burden of proof, when appropriately applied, will depend on the set up of the debate and the situation at hand. Atheists attempting to say that they can merely sit back and decide when a theist has provided a convincing enough argument without ever having to say anything of substance in return is intellectually bankrupt and flies directly in the face of how debate and discussion are supposed to occur.

It is true, if I make the positive claim that God exists, the burden initially lies on me to provide the proof. However, if the atheist is the one who starts by making the positive claim that God doesn't exist, the burden of proof is now his. He doesn't get to make a special case for himself merely due to the fact that question revolves around God - and any attempts to justify this purposefully unsportsmanlike position, including a teapot, are equally underhanded.

In fact, the entire position of the atheist that the burden of proof is never his is yet again based on a misunderstanding of the concept of God! As mentioned at the beginning of this piece, the reason the atheist believes that teapot and spaghetti comparisons are valid to make against God is because he truly believes God is just as absurd as these concepts. Because the atheists assumes that God is absurd as a concept, he makes the conclusion that his position is the default position of believing something that is rational and logical, while the theist is attempting to prove something that is absurd.

The only way to combat this kind of misunderstanding is a clarification of what God is. When you attempt to take God out of the equation, you aren't left with science explaining how the world works with no further issues - because now you have no reason for that world existing at all. How did we get here? There must be an explanation for why any exists at all, and if it is not God, then it must be something else. It cannot be "nothing," and a position that God doesn't exist for this reason cannot be a default position. There is no "default" position because the question "Why is there anything at all?" must be answered with something. The claim is that the reason anything at all exists is because of God. If you want to contest that God doesn't exist, you must replace God with something else - you can't simply make the claim that "the reason existence exists isn't real," because now you have to justify how you think existence exists. The atheist is not simply "lacking a belief," they are, in fact, claiming that the answer to why anything at all exists is not God. Essentially their position is "your answer to this question is wrong." You cannot "lack a belief" in the existence of an answer to the question of why anything at all exists - because we exist, there must be an answer. If your claim is that it is not God, then it must be something else.

An undetectable floating space teapot did not create existence, or do anything really, thus there is nothing that must replace the teapot if you contest that it is not real. If you argue that a teapot is orbiting around in our solar system, the consequence of being wrong is null. If you are arguing that there is a timeless, spaceless, and immaterial Creator who created all of existence, if you are wrong then there must be a replacement. The teapot can be replaced with "nothing," God cannot. There must be something. Arguing against God requires a replacement argument.

Any and all attempts to cast away the burden of proof fail for this reason, and there are more reasons though I don't feel they are important to get into at this moment.

The wiki page makes one more notably interesting claim, which is:

In addition, the point where the teapot becomes "undetectable" is analogous to numerous ideas used in the construction of scientific theories regarding how the universe works. Namely, if something is entirely undetectable and as such has no effect that can be measured or observed, directly or indirectly, then its existence or otherwise essentially makes no difference to the world.

This is similar to the idea of falsifiability, that is, if something is not falsifiable, then it is not important. This claim is that if you can't detect or measure something, then its existence is inconsequential.

Well, what if it's not? What if this undetectable, unobservable thing... does, in fact, affect the universe? It may sound absurd on the surface, but the idea that we could dismiss that something may be important just because we can't see it is both arrogant and presumptuous. This is yet another thing that pseudo-scientists and naturalist adherents simply assume based on their preexisting biases. If something is undetectable and unobservable, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. We didn't know atoms existed until recently - that doesn't mean that they were inconsequential. They literally make up everything - that's pretty consequential. What if there is something that we have yet to discover or understand that is of consequence - and what if it is of severe consequence?

Why be so arrogant as to proclaim that anything outside of the scope of human understanding is not important? It's stunning, really, to see the leaps of faith "rational" naturalists are willing to make sometimes.

Sure, perhaps there is no use in wondering whether or not some sort of thing that we can't see and have no concept of exists and whether or not it can influence our lives. But oddly enough, we do have a concept of God, and the idea that this concept could greatly influence your life is both known and understood. To dismiss the question of God out of hand as absurd and not worthy of contemplation is, I'd argue, actually what is absurd. We have uncountable numbers of people who have proclaimed the value of the question of God. Whether or not you come out of it believing in Him, attempting to proclaim that there is no purpose to even exploring the question is quite roundly naive. Is "being right" and looking smart worth eternity?

Jesus Was Not a Communist

The entire conversation on communism, or socialism, and how it relates (if at all) to Jesus' teachings has become increasingly common lately. It's been brought up long ago, but the kerfuffle about it seems to be popping up more often alongside the sorts of social movements that are occurring/attempting to occur recently. This little poll on Debate.org shows that popular opinion is rather split on the issue. It's a popular, attention-grabbing enough of a topic that this article prefaces itself by saying that it asked two "Christian advocates for the poor" if Jesus would be a communist or a capitalist, to which both of them say, obviously, He would be neither, and yet the article continues to run off this premise as if it's the actual subject of the piece.

The title of this post may have given away the ending already, but let's start with some introductory information.

Why would people even argue that Jesus may have been a socialist, or even a communist? There are some bible verses that people enjoy using to attempt to push this narrative, I'll quote several of these up front without comment to set the mood.

Jesus said to him, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." - Matthew 19:21

And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! 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." - Mark 10:21-25

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also will answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?' Then he will answer them, saying, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." - Matthew 25:41-46

Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. - Acts 4:32-35

Now when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a desolate place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves." But Jesus said, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat." They said to him, "We have only five loaves here and two fish." And he said, "Bring them here to me." Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children. - Matthew 14:15-21

Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, "I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way." - Matthew 15:32

And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward." - Matthew 10:42

And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. - Matthew 4:23

There are several different themes seen here within these passages. There are plenty more, but I'm not going to cover literally every passage that has been used to attempt to justify the Jesus as a communist narrative, so these will do. Generally speaking, the themes we see here are concerning wealth and distribution of that wealth, provisions for the poor, hungry, etc., and Jesus' proclivity for helping and healing the sick, blind, etc. These are used in various ways by people who wish to use Jesus to push their own agendas.

Before we get into these themes, I'm going to make this simple: I'm going to explain the overall theme of the actual bible, which will quite readily dispel the vast majority of these false narratives. Jesus was not campaigning for any specific government system - He was here to spread God's word, show people how God willed for them to live, and compel people to follow Him (along with other stuff). God is the ruler of all things, He sits at the throne of Heaven. Jesus called us to behave as God desires us to, so any and all things that Jesus did and taught will ultimately tie back into this truth. This means if you believe Jesus was somehow preaching about communism (or capitalism, or any government system), you're immediately incorrect because Jesus is preaching about God the Father, who is the ruler of all things - not the free market, not the working people, not the queen of England.

When you're attempting to justify that somehow Jesus was preaching about socialism and not about God's kingdom, you're forgetting a very key factor about Jesus' teachings and Christianity in general. Just as we must have the free choice to love or not love God, otherwise it is not truly love, in the same way we must have the free choice to do as God wills, otherwise we are not truly doing as God wills. In fact, it is possible to do as God wills and still not enter into the kingdom of heaven, as it is all about the position of your heart.

People will still attempt to justify how their government system of choice just happens to be just like what Jesus taught, meaning that it's a good Christian government system. They are still wrong, and we'll get into the details now.

Wealth

Jesus insists multiple times to different people to sell all of their possessions for one reason or another, and is quoted in several different ways saying how a wealthy person may have quite a hard time finding his way to heaven. In Acts we see the disciples selling all their belongings and providing for people by distributing everything they had. These situations, quotes, and actions are used to attempt to show how Jesus was all about redistributing wealth, that no one should be rich, and that we should give and provide for all people so that no one is poor or hungry.

This interpretation is a classic case of simply skewing the words of the bible out of context to get them to sound like they agree with you. Yes, Jesus called multiple people to give away all of their wealth, and the disciples did indeed have a communal wealth-sharing community in acts. The problem here is that the meaning behind having the wealthy give away their wealth is completely lost in a socialist setting. Furthermore, the passage in Acts is being quoted highly out of context.

As briefly touched on above, our decision to do God's will must be a free act, or else we are not actually doing God's will. This means that any government system or otherwise that would force us to give away our wealth or care for the needy is actually taking away our free choice to do this on our own. This would mean that Christian people in a communist society would still be compelled to give of what they have and care for the needy despite the government "doing" it for them, as it must be a free action for it to actually count.

When Jesus calls for the wealthy to give away their wealth, He is suggesting it to them as something for them to choose to do. The passages in which He instructs people to give away everything and follow Him are taken out of context. Matthew 19:21 is prefaced by the man who Jesus is instructing to give away his wealth actually asking Jesus what it is he must do in order to attain eternal life. He asks this of Jesus, to which He initially responds that the man must uphold God's commandments. The man says that he has done so, and asks what he could lack, to which Jesus then responds, literally, "If you would be perfect..." as in, if you truly want to be the absolute best Jesus follower you could ever muster, go ahead and sell everything you have. Matthew 19:22 actually says that the man then goes away sadly, because he had a lot of stuff. Stuff he didn't want to give up.

This has nothing to do with socialism, but is actually related to how we aren't supposed to be attached to our earthly belongings. By giving away all of his belongings, this man would prove that he hasn't "built up his treasures" here on earth, but that he's more interested in building up his treasures in heaven and following Jesus. We are all called to give up our earthly attachments, even those of us who are poor. The reason it is "easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven," is not because he's rich, but because of what earthly wealth does to us. It is incredibly simple and straight forward for someone who has nothing to look toward the promises of heaven because his life is probably not too cozy here on earth. But a rich man - a rich man's life is comfortable and enjoyable. Riches can lead to sins like avarice, which can draw someone even further away from the kingdom of heaven. The easiest way to not be attached to your earthly treasures? Give them away, obviously.

Christian programs that help people use their money better are actually prefaced by the idea that when we are better able to handle and account for our money, then we are more able to use it to help others. It is not always literal that someone would give up their belongings, but rather what we are to give up is our attachments. Indeed, if all the rich gave away everything they had, they would no longer have anything to give. Those that maintain and increase their wealth are able to then use their blessings to be blessings to other people. They can't do that if they are greedy and attached to their wealth.

As for that passage in acts, it's highly out of context, moreso than the previous passages. What is happening in acts isn't the apostles just deciding randomly to enact communism, but it's actually part of the establishment of the church. The people who are selling their belongings and caring for one another are specifically Christians who came to the disciples because of the gospel. These people congregated to be part of Jesus' church. That is, these people who were selling their stuff and providing for each other were all followers of Jesus. They weren't the general populace of the country but they were the church. Jesus calls for his church to take care of one another, which is precisely what they were doing. This, again, must be a free action.

I've seen someone go so far as to say "Well, look, we'll just change the word "apostles" out for "government," and it's communism!" Yes, let's literally change the entire meaning of the passage, then it will mean what we want it to!

I understand how similar this can appear to be to communism by people who aren't actually Christians, or even Christians who don't truly understand how the church is supposed to operate. The problem is that, like everything in the bible, you can't just take something out of context and act like it totally backs up your claims. Acts is about the formation of the early church, and once Jesus died - which He did for the church - the disciples were the closest thing you were gonna get to Jesus. These people were absolutely trusted to act on their word because they were compelled by Jesus, God in the flesh Himself, and the holy spirit. They taught Jesus' word and spoke the gospel boldly. They provided for anyone who would become part of the church.

What I'm getting at here is that the only way to attempt to justify this as communism would be a communist system of government in which the church was the government. This would, in fact, not be a communist government because "the church" is not the people who own and run a church building, but "the church" is the body of Christ, the people that follow Jesus, the entire congregation of disciples. This would, funnily enough, be the closest thing to the actual "communist utopia" that people talk about - where people are compelled by the love of their fellow man to give up their own wealth for them, take care of them, and work for one another. It, however, would require that every one of these people was a genuine, hardcore Jesus lover because you're simply not going to get this sort of thing any other way. Nothing compels someone to give up their belongings, open up their home to strangers, feed the hungry, raise other people's children, and care for one another with absolute reckless abandon except for the love of Jesus Christ Himself. This is why communism as a government system must force everyone to do these things, because not everyone is compelled by their love for Jesus to actually give up everything for each other. Voluntary communism is not a thing without Jesus.

So, sure, you can argue that this is in favor of communism, if you just replace "communism" with "the church."

This theme of wealth distribution is the most frequently used to attempt to play the Jesus as a socialist narrative, but there are a few others we'll touch on. 

Providing for the Least of These

Jesus insists to His followers, and does it Himself many times, that they feed the hungry, clothe the naked, etc. He is shown more than once as miraculously using small provisions to feed many thousands of people and very often has concern for the poor and hungry, usually doing something to help them whenever He comes across them. These passages are used to show how Jesus would support the ideal of communism because it, if it ever worked correctly, would provide for these same people, which would make Jesus happy or whatever.

The passage in Matthew 25 is used most frequently to show that not only did Jesus insist that people help the needy, but that not doing so is in fact likely to land you in hell. This is melded with other false interpretations about works to form a narrative where people insist that Jesus was actually saying you must give to the poor, feed the hungry, so on and so forth, or else you're doomed to hell.

The fact of the matter is that the principle of free choice still applies here, though it comes alongside another principle: giving cheerfully. If you give to the needy out of fear of damnation, you still aren't doing it right. Jesus says that people who follow His word will help the needy - will, as opposed to must. What He's saying is that when you truly love Jesus and follow His commandments, you will simply be compelled to do the things He's called us to do. You won't be able to help yourself - it will come naturally. And you'll be happy to do so, because you know you're doing what Jesus would have wanted.

This means that those who never helped the least of these aren't damned because they never gave to the poor, but because helping the needy is a physical manifestation of the spiritual reality you experience within you. When you are genuinely following Jesus, helping the needy will come naturally, you will feel compelled to do so. That means that these people who did not do so were not as tight with Jesus as they thought they were.

So Jesus did instruct his followers to help the needy, though He also instructed His followers to spread the gospel and share the love of Jesus. The government will not do this when they forcibly take your money and give it to someone else - you miss out on what is actually the most important part of helping the needy, which is doing so because you're compelled by the love of Jesus Christ. If you're "helping the needy" by paying the government to do it for you, you basically might as well not be doing it at all. The government isn't going to spread the gospel and bring those needy people to Jesus - it will bring those needy people to the feet of their government, where they will depend on their government and not the God who is actually the one who provides for them. In fact, by allowing the government to take credit for providing for these people, you could easily argue that you're allowing these people to be led astray, away from God, the actual King.

Healing the Sick and Blind

Jesus frequently heals lepers, gives sight to the blind, and casts out a legion of demons at least once. Passages involving Him going around and making life better for large numbers of downtrodden and outcast are used to insist that Jesus would be thrilled if a communist government also went out and used their resources to heal the sick and at least care for the blind, since they probably wouldn't actually be able to restore their sight.

This is probably the weakest argument for Jesus as a socialist, but it is used nonetheless. The first and foremost, most blatantly obvious point to make is that Jesus cast out demons, gave sight to the blind, allowed the lame to walk, and so on because He was Jesus. Jesus is God in the flesh, and therefore can actually perform miracles.

Now, the case is actually dismantled that much more, because we are taught that the power to perform miracles is in us through the power of the holy spirit (to clarify, it's not us who has the power, God still has the power, but simply acts through us). Which means that the only situation in which we could ever hope to even do anything miraculous like Jesus did is in the context of a Christian life. Which means, as we talked about before, the church has to be the one who does these things, not the government.

Conclusions

At each point we were brought back to how these things Jesus taught that seem socialisty on the outside specifically need to be performed by the people as free actions, not forced by the government. We cannot give freely unless we are free to give. If the government is forcing you to help the needy, you're not choosing to do so because you're compelled by your love for Jesus. This is directly at odds with the teachings of the bible.

Many people use this as an argument that Jesus would be a capitalist, as a free market allows for you to make your own choices in life, however, you still miss the mark. Jesus was God in the flesh, and that is what Jesus would be. There is no prescription for government in the bible, but for the church, the individual actions of each person. At the end of the day, what Jesus would be in favor of is for His church to bring glory to God through their upholding of the commandments that Jesus gave. No human system of government is a parallel to the God's kingdom, even a monarchy misses the mark - God is the King, and He desires for His people to uphold His commandments, but He wants them to do so freely and cheerfully out of love for Him and for one another. Good luck finding that in a monarchy. The only system Jesus would favor would be the church as He has already made very plainly obvious. Attempting to say it would be anything else basically misses the entire point of why Jesus came.