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Comment by _bin_ | Hacker News Reader

This is a pretty common question that's raised: how can we square this with loving our fellow man?

The short answer is Christianity isn't a utilitarian belief system. While God loves everyone equally, he puts some of us closer together in love: family, friends, neighbors, countrymen. This incurs a greater obligation, plus we ought to love more those who are closer to us.

Sadly, a lot of Christian faiths teach dogma before the underlying reasoning or take a Bible-only approach which I find to be incredibly incomplete. In case your upbringing didn't include much theological reading, I would strongly recommend Civitas Dei and Summa Theologiae; the latter is less explicitly relevant to its definition but probably a better book overall.

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I think you are going too far in telling other people that their religious beliefs are wrong, and that you know better (unless you are God yourself).

I really don't see how anything I wrote was that controversial; he's free to disagree and pursue his own beliefs, obviously. Everything someone says that's not wrapped up in formal logic or statistics is implicitly opinion; the fact that I find repeatedly saying so tedious and ridiculous doesn't mean I'm asserting I am somehow an arbiter of the One True Faith.

We all act as we think best. I can try to change how others think. That's about the start and end of it.

> The short answer is Christianity isn't a utilitarian belief system. While God loves everyone equally, he puts some of us closer together in love: family, friends, neighbors, countrymen. This incurs a greater obligation, plus we ought to love more those who are closer to us.

This is very directly contradicted in the parable of the Good Samaritan, though. When Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself, and Peter asked “but who is my neighbor”, Jesus pulled up the Samaritans - a group that the Jews had ethnic and religious conflicts with. (A modern equivalent for modern Jews might be the Palestinians). And he pointed and told a whole story that basically said “these guys. Love these enemies as if they were your family”.

So, yeah, I’m gonna hard disagree that Christianity supports treating your own townspeople as more worthy of help, versus helping the poorer people in other countries.

I find your picture of a god as you describe it, as something i would not want to have.

This interpretation sounds like a great excuse to stop helping others and spending your time behind a computer instead of actually being out there and helping.

If you would really believe, do you think Jesus would sit at home and comment instead of helping others?

And lets talk about helping. Who needs help? Your neighbour who has food, electricity, heating or a human child somewere else dying because of food? The same food which you probably throw away every day?

Nonetheless, while we are at it: What is your excuse that you believe in a god who is almighty but creates humas who then starve? Doesn't that sound more like a shitty god? Or if we play devils advocate: The Devil does the killing and god would actually like to see you and everyone else to help that human?

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