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Quote# 72044

[re: Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's]

That statement shows to me Jesus had a sense of humor.

What belongs to Caesar?

It was like Jesus was saying, render nothing to Caesar, because nothing belongs to Caesar.

Clirus, CF 93 Comments [4/8/2010 9:17:55 PM]
Fundie Index: 61
Submitted By: EnemyPartyII
WTF?! || meh
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#1145077
oop

Missed the point completely, didn't you?

Maybe you will find a kind atheist who will be able to explain Christianity to you.

4/8/2010 9:25:02 PM
#1145079


Yes, that's exactly why Jesus paid his taxes.

4/8/2010 9:26:14 PM
#1145080


uh.

what.

okay, when the IRS comes to your door, you tell them Jesus said you shouldn't pay your taxes.

Have fun with that.

4/8/2010 9:29:08 PM
#1145082
Olivia

So, when he concluded, "Render unto God what is God's," he meant...?

4/8/2010 9:35:43 PM
#1145083
John_in_Oz

You're very close to the reason the Gospels say the crowd thought Jesus's "Render unto Ceasar" quote was so brilliant.
Remember, at the time the crowd didn't think he was the Messiah, nor did they think he was God. Yet they're still reported as having thought the comment was brilliant.
Let's face it, in the absence of either of those to bits of backstory, it seems a pretty ordinary claim, not one to get the crowd onside.
However, a few years before Jesus time, there had been an itinerant rebel leader, fighting to throw out the Romans, claiming 'the Holy land belongs to God alone.'
So the priests were trying to get Jesus into trouble, asking should he pay his taxes. Either the crowd would be pissed off, or the Romans would. However, Jesus's answer sounds like a 'yes' to the Romans, and a 'no' to his audience. And the crowd went wild.
No wonder this was reported as a clever answer, although in the absence of context, it really isn't very clever at all.
Oh, I'm certain that if Jesus existed, he had a better sense of humour than you do.

4/8/2010 9:37:33 PM
#1145085
WMDKitty

Taxes, bitch!

4/8/2010 9:39:44 PM
#1145087
dionysus

If you thought that was funny you should try reading Genesis or Revelation. They're absolutely side-splitting.

4/8/2010 9:40:46 PM
#1145090
campbunny

Wait... how exactly does nothing belong to Caesar?

4/8/2010 9:57:11 PM
#1145091
Kevin Klawitter

On the plus side, even one of his fellow CFers thinks he's nuts:
I am GOBSMACKED.

This is, without a doubt, quite the most blatant misreading of scripture I have EVER seen.

4/8/2010 9:59:53 PM
#1145093
Thejebusfire

Is that you Kent Hovind?

4/8/2010 10:09:24 PM
#1145094
Hive

I needed that laugh today. Silly Christians.

4/8/2010 10:12:44 PM
#1145097
louislois

You know that whole Sermon On The Mount thing?

Jesus was just kidding about that, too.

4/8/2010 10:15:31 PM
#1145100
gotpwnt

Stupid Christian misses the point. Jesus was saying the taxes belong to Caesar.

4/8/2010 10:34:39 PM
#1145101
Frogflayer

@Thejebusfire - That was my first thought, the old Kent Hovind defense.

4/8/2010 10:42:56 PM
#1145106


I want to cross-stitch this, frame it, and hang it on my wall.

4/8/2010 11:28:49 PM
#1145107
Professor M

This is another moment of prescient modernism on the part of the authors of the NT. 2000 years ago the transition from real to symbolic exchange (i.e. from a barter-based to a money-based system of trade) was near-complete but still recent enough to not be taken as completely natural. The "render unto Caesar" bit riffs on the status of symbolic exchange (where the "symbol" takes the form of an image of Caesar formed in metal) WRT the concrete Real (the land, which "belongs only to God"). This ability to play (with humor) on the presence of the signifier in the Real rather than only the Symbolic was mostly suppressed with Plato, and would not reemerge into the mainstream until modernity. The implied joke at the expense of both empire and trade is particularly late-modern. The State, on behalf of Caesar, collects "taxes", but this ends up ultimately amounting to a pile of signifiers which no longer provide access to the signified -- Caesar's power is reduced to the literal hoarding of empty signifiers. (And remember, money as symbolic exchange backed by the State is a product of the state -- so returning the coins-as-empty-signifiers to the state may legitimately be framed as the return to a disorganized and symbol-obsessed child of the object of his obsession by those more grounded in the real world.) So, we have a clever semiotic turn used as a joke at the expense of imperialists, worldly religious authorities, and the nascent capitalist class alike -- really, whoever wrote this stuff should be recognized as the founder of modernist literature.

Sure, as theology the Gospels might be mostly crap, but as an experimental novel they can be fun.

4/8/2010 11:31:14 PM
#1145113
Night Jaguar

Yep, Jesus was a regular old comedian....

"Don't you notice that Jews ride their donkeys this...
***lays back, acts cool***

While Romans ride them like this...
***crouches up and acts nerdy***

*crowd laughs*

Well, my mother said bore me while a virgin. Apparently God likes to put it in the ass....

Thank you Jerusalem, I'll be here all week. Remember to try the bread and wine, I put my blood and sweat into it." - Gospel of Carlin

4/9/2010 12:02:22 AM
#1145116
the old firm

Why do we always have to teach Fundies about the Bible?

4/9/2010 12:05:22 AM
#1145117
GodotIsWaiting4U

It is indeed a brilliant little passage. At first blush, it looks like it's saying "tithe and pay your taxes like any good citizen would", which is SORT OF is...but then there's the question: It says to also give God what is God's, but in Christianity AND Judaism, what DOESN'T belong to God?

One of those real head-scratchers.

4/9/2010 12:09:11 AM
#1145119
The Jamo

I don't think it really matters. The bible is bullshit either way.

4/9/2010 12:19:22 AM
#1145121
raindrops

Clirus, you need to use that brain of yours once in a while.

4/9/2010 12:20:52 AM
#1145122
Sandwich Board

Wow. When you die at the Palace, you really die at the Palace.

4/9/2010 12:24:34 AM
#1145129


Except for nearly all of the known world, you're right.

4/9/2010 1:10:45 AM
#1145133


Nothing, of course. Only the political power in the region.

4/9/2010 1:41:32 AM
#1145142
Canadia

Even Gawd does it for the lulz.

4/9/2010 2:38:27 AM
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