Is Socialism Moral? Especially, Christian?

[Purple Knight]

The question for debate is whether a socialist system is closer to how Jesus intended people to behave than a capitalist one.

The sub-question is for those who think socialism is moral whether that was inspired by religion or not: If a country's laws were very close to what Jesus (or your morality) taught, but as a consequence, the country was a very bad place to live, would you move there? For example, a country that has a lot of assault because it is a law that you turn the other cheek and don't hit back, and you'll be punished for retaliating. Or a country where ministers roam around, imbued with legal authority, and they decide when you must sell all your possessions and give to the poor, including your house and car.

It's very easy to have high morals when the consequences are less present because the system you happen to live in works to protect you from them. Is there something extra moral about choosing to live where the system doesn't do that? Or is it just foolish? Because perhaps the goal is to have and hold the highest morals possible and if you've been given an ivory tower with which to protect them, that's simply a logical choice to achieve maximum morality.

[William]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #20]

But is that what Jesus was saying to everyone? And if everyone was doing what Jesus was saying, who would "slap" anyone anyway?
So the "problem" cannot be how you explain it, but rather, that there are those who resist even wanting to properly envision what system Jesus had in mind for humans and how a world might look if it were to be a proper interpretation of what Jesus had in mind.

This gets close to the understanding I was trying to have people come to in this thread:

I was aiming for that.

This gets close to the understanding I was trying to have people come to in this thread: There will always be people who do not do as the law instructs. If turning the other cheek was the law - do not retaliate against assault - people who want to hit people would move there.

Unless they were somehow prevented in doing so, which then harkens to the story in Revelation - where this "Kingdom" could thrive without the hitters....if memory serves me well.
But until such a thing occurs (re Revelation) there appears to be no chance in such taking root in any current social-cultural-political system.

Socialism has some bad second-tier effects too, though first-tier, it's a perfect system to just use what we have to take care of everybody, if we have enough. Those pesky after-effects include people becoming lazy and overbreeding.

I am still not convinced Jesus was talking socialism. Other aspects of his overall message are not encouraging of laziness and unfettered reproducing.

What is it with current socialism examples laziness and reproducing?

Turning the other cheek similarly looks good on paper, but because anyone may hit you and you're encouraged to let it happen, it doesn't work in reality. You can say it's moral, and no one can really refute it, but other than people who want to hit others and have no threat of retaliation, no one would want to live in a place where retaliation was illegal.

Thus doe such a system actually exist, and is such a system what Jesus was encouraging us to at least contemplate?

I don't think so myself.

[boatsnguitars]

Which political system supports slavery? That's the one Jesus supported.

In context, Jesus supported the idea of humans serving one another, which strictly speaking is not a known "political system" which can be pointed out (from all the political systems we do know of) and declared as "This is what Jesus supported!".

Respectfully, Jesus said a lot of things. He wasn't always preaching 'service to others.' In some cases he was telling his supporters to take up swords, or obey ones masters (even if that didn't provide proper, good service), or telling people to pluck out eyes, or lying about eternal life, etc. Let's face it, Jesus was not a Philosopher, political or otherwise. He was a cult leader who rambled on about some good and bad ideas.

[boatsnguitars]

Which political system supports slavery? That's the one Jesus supported.

In context, Jesus supported the idea of humans serving one another, which strictly speaking is not a known "political system" which can be pointed out (from all the political systems we do know of) and declared as "This is what Jesus supported!".

Respectfully, Jesus said a lot of things. He wasn't always preaching 'service to others.' In some cases he was telling his supporters to take up swords, or obey ones masters (even if that didn't provide proper, good service), or telling people to pluck out eyes, or lying about eternal life, etc. Let's face it, Jesus was not a Philosopher, political or otherwise. He was a cult leader who rambled on about some good and bad ideas.

It's important we don't picture Jesus as some genius who understood complex topics like Economics, Politics, Psychology, Science, Sociology, Biology, etc.
He was a very standard itinerate preacher who had a short career, and died. The ideas he espoused preceded him for the most part, though he may have a few sayings that he came up with. His death made him more important than he really was, and the religion that formed around him benefitted from the new technology (copying/scribes). We have to stop creating heroes where none exist.