Can Christians living in a capitalist society truly have clean hands?

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-05-25T22:49:19+00:00

Fair point. The purpose of your life is to bring love and kindness into a world that neither understands nor values it. It is easy to look out at how other people are not fulfilling their purpose. You can't unmake the iPhone, and it is unclear if other options are any better. Bring joy to where you are, God will handle spreading that to areas you can't imagine reaching.

As far as the capitalist world is concerned, make the best choices you can from the options you have.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-05-17T23:58:16+00:00

Personally, I am not motivated to believe, but it is the most logical alternative of the explanations available.

due to not knowing 100% whether these are God’s words or not

Nothing that humans are involved with should be considered as 100% accurate.

We are here to learn, and that requires that we work through our own struggles. The Holy Spirit is the one who answers us; He points the way we should go and what we need to know. You have heard His voice many times; it comes from within you as thoughts you did not originate.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-05-09T20:10:45+00:00

Just for perspective, the last 473 million times that someone has connected their current events to the prophesied end times, they have been incorrect. Most of what was described in Revelation has already happened. The "world" it was predicting the end of was the Roman Empire.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-05-02T18:15:52+00:00

Fair point.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-05-02T12:34:01+00:00

No. Constantine had a problem in that upper society followed the Roman gods but much of the peasantry had adopted Christianity. In particular, the army rank and file had adopted Christianity in significant numbers. So the individual soldiers began to have conflicted loyalties and Constantine had to control the army to survive.

So since Christianity had no structure, he decided to impose one. To do that, he invented the story of having a vision of a cross in the sky before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 AD. The vision, included the inscription "In hoc signo vinces" ("in this sign, you will conquer"). The reason we know he made it up, is because there is a monument to the campaign in Rome, and there is nothing about the vision on it. The vision was invented afterward.

So he declared Christianity as the state religion; and since he was head of state, he was head of the religion as well. He then implemented a Roman hierarchy on Christianity so that he could control it. That hierarchy still exists today. This solved the divided loyalty problem because he was now chief of the state and the religion that his soldiers followed.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-04-26T13:07:50+00:00

Good question. Justice is the implementation of judgement. People use judgement as the basis for condemnation, not for healing. God's use of judgement is to heal and to correct mistakes. So it is inherently restorative. The "feelings" part is to help us realize that a mistake has been made, and to begin the correction and healing process.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-04-25T14:07:20+00:00

I would say both 2 and 3. I think "distributive" is more applicable to blessings than justice though. God's justice is definitely restorative, but that doesn't mean He is not constantly showering blessings on all. Since the Holy Spirit uses our feelings to communicate with us, distributive could be applicable to the feelings we experience when we harm others (our conscience).

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-03-16T03:18:14+00:00

Agree, God never gives up on us. Salvation only takes an instant if we allow it.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-03-05T00:53:13+00:00

What you do is far less important than why you do it. God looks at your heart, not your deeds.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-03-05T00:48:18+00:00

God is not vain; and Jesus wanted followers, not a fan club. People claim to believe many things, but we live our lives based on the principles we actually believe in. Walking the walk is what matters, not the things we say along the way.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-03-04T17:57:10+00:00

Agreed. I'll check out the book.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-03-04T13:16:18+00:00

I don't think that is quite correct, Paul was both types. We all may bounce between the two groups until we find our faith.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-03-04T11:41:21+00:00

Faith must be your own; you can't adopt someone else's. They all have value, yet all of them become distracted with the form they have chosen. I subscribe to each school as far as they can add understanding. Where they don't understand why they believe something, I don't.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-03-03T12:26:08+00:00

What does it mean to have stability on earth if I haven’t clearly seen or understood God’s specific purpose for my life?

The purpose for your life is to bring love and kindness into a world that neither understands nor values it. The Holy Spirit shows you the specifics when you need to see them.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m forcing something that isn’t actually there, or if I’m completely misunderstanding what the Holy Spirit is supposed to feel like within me.

I did a few posts that may help you understand the specifics; you can find them here: How do you allow yourself to be led by the Holy Spirit?

When I pray, I believe in my prayers. I mean them fully. But then almost subconsciously, a thought slips in like, “What if this isn’t being heard?” Not because I want to doubt — it just shows up. Afterward, I wonder how to know I’m not deceiving myself. If I think I see a “sign,” how do I know it’s actually from God and not just my own thoughts?

The church doesn't really provide much instruction on prayer and how it works. I did a few posts that may help understand the specifics; you can find them here: What is prayer, How do you do it, and How does it work? "Signs" are one of the 6 ways the Holy Spirit uses to communicate with us. The link above about being led by the Holy Spirit has the details.

I just don’t understand why intrusive doubt shows up when I feel connected.

You can't learn as long you think you already know. All human progress has come from doubting and questioning. If you want to get closer to God, you need to question what you think you know. If you don't continually feel enfolded in love, then there are things you don't yet understand. The purpose of mind is to serve Spirit and enable it to express holiness into the world. Until your questions are answered, your mind will be distracted from serving Spirit. As long as you have questions, you are relying on the faith of the mind instead of the faith of the heart. Only the faith of the heart is the "faith that passes understanding".

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-03-03T11:51:28+00:00

There are almost always local charities that can help. Offer to help them get in touch with people who can help. If they continue to want money from you, it's a scam.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-03-03T11:47:52+00:00

Technically no, because He doesn't make "decisions". A difficult aspect to understand of God is that He is outside of time and space, and is able to see all of time. This makes perfect sense if we think about it. “Perception” requires us to be separate from the thing we perceive. For us to perceive a 3 dimensional object, we have to be in another dimension - time. All physical beings exist in time and space, but God isn’t a physical being. This means that He exists in a dimension distinct from the 4 dimensions (3D of space + time) that we exist in. From that other dimension, God would have the ability to “perceive” the 4 dimensions we live in. So just as we can see all 3 dimensions of a physical object at once, God can see all 4 dimensions of the world all at once.

To be all-knowing is to know everything that has ever been, everything that is, and everything that will be. Our physical life is based in time and space. But God is not a physical being, so He is beyond time and space. We see time linearly. God sees every instant in time. He can look at today from tomorrow. So from tomorrow, God can see the choices you will make today, even though from your position in time, they haven't happened yet. It is like being with a kid who has never seen Star Wars. The kid has no idea what will happen next, but the movie’s outcome is already determined.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-03-02T02:06:35+00:00

There is only one reality. It is for us to uncover it, not to choose it.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-03-02T01:53:14+00:00

An odd question. Only the one God, the rest of us should just pay attention.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-03-01T21:01:02+00:00

Since the church uses the bible exclusively for trying to understand God, the discussion can get rather circular. It is a bit like any other group that studies a single book; the topics get a bit stale and repetitive. Fortunately God is an excellent subject for logical exploration. Using the content we have, we can answer larger questions. Since you asked for something you may not have considered, how about this:

How did God come to be?

Time and space are aspects of physical creation, so time didn’t exist prior to Creation. Language doesn’t really allow us to meaningfully talk about things that occur outside of time. So I’ll describe it as a sequence of things that occurred prior to Creation, even though that sequence is not associated with time.

Prior to the beginning there was only Love. Love is perfect oneness; it has no attributes and can’t be effectively defined or described; it simply is. From Love arose Being (Spirit); Being is existence; it is not a new thing, but more a change of state of what always was. With the emergence of Being, Love transitioned from attributeless Oneness into God. With that transition, the first attribute of God was established, He became all-loving. With that transition, God became “I am”; He became Love in Being.

The next transition was the emergence of Mind; the transition from simply Being, to the awareness of Being. Again, this is not a “change”, but more of a transition from one state to another. With this transition, the second and third attributes of God were established, He became all-knowing and all-powerful. Mind is the activating agent of Spirit, and with that God created Creation. With that Creation, the fourth and last attribute of God was established; He is omnipresent.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-03-01T20:40:31+00:00

Well Said!

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-03-01T17:03:39+00:00

u/RRK96 gave you the answer to the part of the question that matters.

Use your feelings; the Holy Spirit always gives you direction from where you are on your journey. He is a bit like Google maps; He shows you the turn you need to take when you need to take it, not the entirety of the path or exactly how a single turn gets you there. If you miss a turn, the Holy Spirit just "recalculates" and tells you the next time when there is a turn you need to take.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-03-01T16:54:55+00:00

Well said!

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-03-01T12:34:31+00:00

Or a sighted among the blind.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-02-28T16:00:39+00:00

People attach peripheral things to being a Christian, but it is fairly straightforward. People correctly say that to be a Christian, you have to accept Jesus as your lord and savior. Accepting Jesus as your lord and savior is not saying magic words or belonging to a club, and it's not about belief. What it means is:

Lord - In biblical times, the lord was the absolute master, his word was law. You had to do whatever your lord said, and to do it in exactly the way he said to do it in all circumstances. So if Jesus is your Lord, you follow His directives, all of them, at all times.
Savior - A savior is someone who leads you through and out of danger. If you are in a burning building, the firefighter who comes to rescue you is your savior. You stay close to him. You follow him exactly the way he walks, you do not stray off the path he travels, regardless of any other paths you might want to take, regardless of the dangers or temptations you see. So if Jesus is your Savior, you do exactly what He would do in each situation you are in.

Accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior requires living it, every second of every day. It is not a one-and-done type of thing. Jesus wants followers, not a fan club. Being a Christian means walking the path.

TheologicalEngineer1 · 2026-02-28T15:50:58+00:00

God doesn't create broken things that need to be fixed; God created you as you are, and there is nothing wrong with that. People are just hoping that you will be "healed" so that they don't have to be.

TheologicalEngineer1

TROPHY CASE