They, like you said, DL, also count on our zero attention span, gullability, and easily excitable public fear that can be whipped into a frenzie of panic at any time they wish to. — god must be atheist

When you can buy the best in con men or are a con man, things can be made to be easy when lies come from bought and paid for experts.

Remember the tobacco industries frauds. Watch the documentary --- What the Health--- and see fraud taken to the point, again, to where the government is knowingly killing it's people.

Proof of that is in the stats that show Americans are dying younger while in the rest of the world, they are dying older.

Regards
DL

I expect now a knock on my door now, and before I know it, I'll be given a lethal injection between two toes,and the coroner's report will say "Cardiac arrest". — god must be atheist

Slave owners just have no ----- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCVR_ajL_Eo

Regards
DL

distracted, gullible dummy population — DingoJones

This says it all.

Note how the U.S. is dropping in the world stats on intelligence, even as they continue to drop the standards of excellence that American children already are to dumbed down to reach.

Regards
DL

Remember the tobacco industries frauds. Watch the documentary --- What the Health--- and see fraud taken to the point, again, to where the government is knowingly killing it's people. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

You are fixated on "the government". The government wasn't growing tobacco, making it into cigarettes, cigars, snuff, or chewing tobacco. They weren't promoting it by using every trick in the book. Who was doing that? R. J. Reynolds, Phillip Morris, British American Tobacco, Lorillard, et al were doing all that. Who was profiting from tobacco sales? The stockholders of the tobacco companies.

I used to smoke--I pretty much liked smoking--(Marlboro) and was the government putting a gun to my head to do that? No. I decided I wanted to smoke (as an adult, yet -- two years out of college, fully aware of the surgeon general's report. Did the government make me quit (25 years ago)? No. I chose to quit.

There is a lot of ragging on the masses of "stupid people" going on here. Who here is not part of the masses?

My focus here is the immorality of the governments, the oligarch's lackeys, as you seem to know, so I reject your labels. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

You can reject whatever labels you want. But... if you focus on the evils of "the government" to the exclusion of all else, that puts you in the camp of the libertarians. Or the camp of "everyone is too stupid to see how right I am" or the terminal conspiratorialist camp. Take your pick.

You seem to be peeved that there are no people, organizations, governments, corporations, or anything else with sterling moral credentials. Why would there be? We all have feet of clay. We are not gods.

We are not gods. — Bitter Crank

That would depend on how you define god.

Modern Gnostic Christians name our god "I am", and yes, we do mean ourselves.

You are your controller. I am mine. You represent and present whatever mind picture you have of your God or ideal human, and so do I.

The name "I Am" you might see as meaning something like, --- I think I have grown up thanks to having forced my apotheosis through Gnosis and meditation.

In Gnostic Christianity, we follow the Christian tradition that Christians have forgotten that they are to do. That is, become brethren to Jesus.

That is why some say that the only good Christian is a Gnostic Christian.

Here is the real way to salvation that Jesus taught.

Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Allan Watts explain those quotes in detail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alRNbesfXXw&feature=player_embedded

Joseph Campbell shows the same esoteric ecumenist idea in this link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGx4IlppSgU

The bible just plainly says to put away the things of children. The supernatural and literal reading of myths.

Regards
DL

Modern Gnostic Christians name our god "I am", and yes, we do mean ourselves. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Hubris Alert clang clang clang clang clang

There are certainly oppressive governments that limit their citizens wealth to the point of starvation. Those tend to be communist ones (I know, I know, they just haven't figured out how to do Marxism properly, but it's not Marxism that is failed).

Regardless, we can argue about the great unfairness of the taxation system, how corporations are permitted too much control of capital, and whatever. The cause of poverty is none of that. Perhaps some tinkering (or even overhauling) would result in more wealth to more people, but the poor aren't poor because of a rigged system. Some folks aren't going to be able to catch, throw, or run very well even if the field were perfectly level.

Hubris Alert clang clang clang clang clang — Bitter Crank

No reading comprehension. Oh well.

Regards
DL

The bible just plainly says to put away the things of children. The supernatural and literal reading of myths. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I'm all in favor of NOT taking myths literally. Corinthians 13:11... When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

I'm also all in favor of people growing up and being 'men' (responsible adult humans).

I haven't read much about gnosticism -- probably because of the Calvin / Luther dominance on my earlier Protestant thinking. I probably won't become a gnostic in the few years I have left. One can only think about so many things in a day.

No reading comprehension. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Yeah yeah, I'm just one more too-stupid-for-words brain dead slouch. But really, taking on the title of a god is kind of hubristic.

Yeah yeah, I'm just one more too-stupid-for-words brain dead slouch. But really, taking on the title of a god is kind of hubristic. — Bitter Crank

It is following the tradition that Jesus and all gurus and mystics taught.

Regards
DL

They don't need to hide behind needles between the toes. A bullet through the head (faster, cheaper, better) and the coroner's report will still say, as you said, "cardiac arrest", or maybe if they are in a comic mood, "failure to thrive". — Bitter Crank

That's just the problem. And also with a cheaper and easier way of staging suicide, as suggested by @DingoJones.

Faster, cheaper and easier is not always the most feasible,when the Union of Assassins (Local 453) demands that higher cost methods be applied, in order to financially protect the members of the Guild. Their demand is reasonable: the high cost of assassin training for the students, in terms of text books, lab material, and tuition fees, can't be offset if employers can hire dilettante yahoos who will push you in the subway tracks for below unionized wages.

It's a closed shop. the Guild of Assassins. Add to that, if you don't give in to their demands, you can be easily replaced... the obituary will simply say, due to a sudden unexpected illness.

Oi, the Union of Assassins -- I had overlooked their student loan repayment needs.

Well, alright -- needles between the toes, accidental attack by a dozen rare Australian spiders (in Central Park in the winter), decapitation by a weirdly malfunctioning Cuisinart food processor, or exsanguination at the opera.

Is it moral for our governments to impose poverty on us? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

If you put the question in such simple words, there can, I believe, only be one answer: No.

Taxation determines what poverty levels will exist within it’s demographic form. It controls the graph shown below. Governments control taxation and thus control poverty levels directly. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

It is not only taxation as such. It is also the economic policy.

What do you think is the cause of poverty? Couldn't we just address that? — DingoJones

Well, whose poverty? The poverty of third world countries? The poverty of the poor in rich countries?

This is what I am disputing. Standards of poverty are not absolute, but relative, and hence, arbitrary. — god must be atheist

Not necessarily arbitrary. Standards of poverty can change over time and are always relative, that much is true, I believe. Someone who is regarded as poor in our days may have been considered wealthy in past centuries.
But this does not mean that every definition of poverty is arbitrary. For example, I could say that someone who has an income that is not sufficient to buy enough food in order not to starve and to rent a place to have elementry shelter is definitely poor, whatever else may be considered poor under whatever definition. Such an assertion would not be arbitrary for at least two reasons: First, I think I can safely say that the majority of people in the Western world would agree with me. And secondly, in the welfare states of the Western world, it is taken for granted that everyone should have the sufficient financial means in order not to starve.