a couple of years old, but even more relevant now . . .By Erik V. Williams
Amarillo Globe-News
January 29,2003
http://amarillo.com/stories/012903/opi_aprayer.shtml(free registration required)
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If the right-wingers really studied the matter, they'd find they have more in common with Muhammad than with Jesus. Muhammad was a merchant, a businessman and entrepreneur - a capitalist. Before Jesus walked off his job, he was a carpenter, a common laborer - and with his talk of brotherhood, no doubt would have been a union man.
He hung out with the dregs of society: the poor, prostitutes, tax collectors, and finally thieves. Not exactly the kind of person to whom you would entrust your most precious and eternal possession: your stock portfolio.
Jesus revealed his anti-business agenda as soon as he threw the money-changers out of the temple. To the orthodox for whom taxation is government organized theft, Jesus' clear advocacy of paying taxes by "rendering unto Caesar" is a complete abomination. Scholars are still divided over whether the raising of Lazarus was to escape the death tax or an intent to pay it twice
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Jesus mollycoddled the poor and went out of his way to condemn the rich. His warning that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a wealthy man to get into heaven was typical socialist blather. The affluent have had to devote themselves to breeding smaller camels and building larger needles ever since.
- more . . .
http://amarillo.com/stories/012903/opi_aprayer.shtml