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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Is Christianity the same as socialism
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
The main problem with your argument, for me, is that it assumes that the "standards of the Chinese sweatshop-workers" ought to be treated as normative. I disagree there because I think they their economic situation, not through any fault of their own, should be for ease of use and understanding and to withstand the constraints of conscience be treated as being very much below normative. To treat absolute poverty as normative is to legitimise it, which can hinder the impetetus to do something about it.
It's not so much treating poverty as normative, as recognising that when you feed the vast amount of poverty in the world, you and I both come out as very rich indeed.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Just to clarify, many of the posts on this thread debate the merits of socialism but few engage with theology and the tradition.
Failure so to engage risks relegating Christian faith to the private realm rather than working out how Jesus is Lord of the whole world, not just the religious sphere.
Plenty of people have discussed ethics on the thread. But I don't see why theologians should be invoked to solve purely economic problems.
Actually I don't see why anyone who isn't an economist should be cited to answer economic questions. If Mad Geo suggests that taxation is morally theft, or Papio says that immense wealth is an intrinsic moral evil, then I'm interested. But if anyone says that tax-and-spend, or libertarianism, work better on a purely pragmatic level, then I'd like to see them cite some actual economists in support.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
I don't equate ethics with theology.
If Christians are meant to be instruments of God building his kingdom on earth as in heaven, then attention needs to be given to the characteristics of this kingdom.
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
Neither do I, but theology includes ethics (for me, anyway), and as far as I can see ethics is the only part of theology that is relevant to economics.
What non-ethical aspects of theology would you want to introduce to the debate?
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Sir Pellinore
Quester Emeritus
# 12163
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I don't equate ethics with theology.
If Christians are meant to be instruments of God building his kingdom on earth as in heaven, then attention needs to be given to the characteristics of this kingdom.
A thousand bravos! ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
One of the problems of being a Christian in real time in what appears at least an amoral world is that you usually make important moral decisions on the hop.
There is usually no time for the finely nuanced reasoning of an Oxbridge tutorial/supervision.
Sometimes I think we (including me) think far too much. "Cerebral Christianity": great on paper.
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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Well...
Posts: 5108 | From: The Deep North, Oz | Registered: Dec 2006
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