Someone on Facebook asked,
I've had some run-ins of late with the so-called "prosperity gospel" of protestants. This is the disgusting belief that one's riches are blessings from God... and that those who are not rich are not blessed by God. Does anyone have any idea what ridiculous, scripture-based rationalization they use to support this garbage?
To which I responded:
It originates from Calvinism, with its heretical notion of Predestination (some are created for heaven; others are created for Hell) and the only way to know which group you are in -- or any person -- is to see if God is "blessing you" with material wealth. The Puritans were essentially a branch of this, and they helped found America -- or at least the White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant part of it. But surprisingly, this thinking is deep within the American psyche, even today! Just look at a dirty, smelly homeless man, and ask yourself "is he going to heaven?" A tiny voice says "no". People still associate poverty with crime/evil, even though the two have no connection whatsoever.
Poor people can still have morality. Many saints were poor. Being poor doesn't make you a criminal any more than being white or having blond hair. Choosing to commit crime is a product of one's upbringing, religion, morality, and most important: FREE WILL. There are poor people who would never steal, and rich people who steal all the time!
In my old hometown, the rich white kids on the "good side of the river" where the ones who drove around town bashing mailboxes, stealing car stereos, committing vandalism, etc. even more so than those on the "bad side of the river". It had nothing to do with yearly income.
Oliver - I had a failed business several years ago that failed in part because my "partner" believed this stuff.
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Matthew - If Calvinism were rational -- or even Scriptural -- I wouldn't be a member of this group because I'd join Calvinism. But I'm not Calvinist for a reason. Like all protestant sects, they don't have a leg to stand on.
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Mark - Read "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" by Max Weber. A great book that goes through the ideas of Luther and Calvin and contrasts them with Catholicism.
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Matthew - 1 Corinthians 9:27
But I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway.
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Matthew - 1 Corinthians 4:4
For I am not conscious to myself of any thing, yet am I not hereby justified; but he that judgeth me, is the Lord.
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Oliver - But we all know that protestants love to point out memorized King James passages. Which passage in the King James bible says, "And the Lord spake unto the masses saying, 'if thou art destitute, thou shalt burn in the farthest reaches of Hell because thou art repugnant and smelly.'"?
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Matthew - As you can see, Predestination is not Scriptural. Also: Luke 16:22
And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham' s bosom. And the rich man also died: and he was buried in hell.