Many people use Jesus words as justification of their political agenda. Well, that’s another issue. Today I want to see Him as something different.
What about if Jesus is not an ethical teacher that teach you how to get to heaven. What about if what He said can actually be PROFITABLY applied for REAL benefit in THIS life.
That could be pretty unintuitive. After all, many Jesus’ advice is quite suicidal. And that’s the very reason why his teaching is popular. Too many people want to promote suicidal advices.
Nobody is actually practicing what He said. They just insist that the rest of us do because they want us to fuck our self up for them.
But with a little “creative” interpretation, it could actually be something quite lucrative. And who knows it’s the correct interpretation.
Let’s examine one of the case. Be fair and merciful. Jesus claimed that it’s the essence of all Torah.
If you’re fair, you properly align people’s interest with your interest. So people want to be fair. Being fair is then sort of like an end to itself because it’s profitable. If you’re merciful, then you step on less toes. You make less enemies and more friends. There is a lot of people that want to be fair for say 20% of their interests. Those people will then be nice to merciful people.
Then you have a lot of friend and biz partners. Then because you’re fair, you profit those who profit you. Then more people want to profit you. Because you’re merciful, you start of this positive feedback lucrative relationship with more people. Then ever wonder why the rich get richer? Yea they got thousands of fan on their back wanting them to get richer. Employees, families, judges, cops, politicians, and who knows what.
Yes, Jesus’ words, unlike classical economy, contains plenty descriptions of positive feedback system! And positive feedback system is the key to achieve anything BIG.
And yes the richer got richer. As Jesus said. To those who have, more are given. To those who doesn’t, the little he has is taken from him.
What’s more here can’t possibly be just money. It’s skills, connections, mindset, traits the rich have that they keep having more and more above the rest. It’s incomplete to say that the rich are more dilligent, or more determined, or have more money and that’s how they got rich. The truth is the rich tend to have more of everything, and keep getting more because they have more.
As we practice the heavenly profit path we get rich. When we get rich, we get laid. Women prefer the rich. What matters is not how rich we are. What happen is how rich we are relative to the rest. Those who are not getting it then get relatively poorer under capitalistic societies. Then they didn’t attract biz partners and get relatively poorer again.
Or what about this. Faith can move mountain. Way to go. It’s a very important concept in game theory. It’s called Nash Equilibrium. Nash Equlibrium is like a blackhole that can attract situation. The more people believe in a Nash equilibrium the more they believe on it, the more they count on it, the more they bet on it. Once they bet on it, the sort of want it to happen.
Imagine 2 kings, Bob and Ann competing to be an emperor. Say more people believe that Bob got mandate of heaven. Then more people would fight for Bob. Then Ann’s followers will get crucified naked along with their whole family while Bob’s followers will rape hot cunts. Once you believe Bob is the winning team, and start putting that faith into action, say by massacring Ann’s followers, you’d better hope Bob do win. Lest you ended up like Nazis in Nuremberg’s trial.
Uhuk uhuk… Don’t judge. Just learn. And you’ll go to achieve great fortune. When that happened, who are we to tell that Bob is evil? Who are we trying to remove a speckle from a savvy politician’s eyes while our own eyes are blocked by a bucket of bullshit called norms, morality, and ethics often without questioning where all those really come from.
And what about giving the other cheek? Well, a slap is an attack against your pecking order. It doesn’t cause significant bodily or monetarily harm.
Imagine if you’re a jew and a roman soldiers slap you. Well, you can slap back, but that means crucifixion. However if you yield, the roman soldier also has another choice. He can keep beating you. But what does that mean? What would happen if we keep beating the fuck out of those that already yield to us? No body wants to yield to us anymore. Not a good idea. Of course, this strategy won’t work against those with not much reputational cost. Still Jesus could mean something around that area.
It’s once said that Keynes, one of the richest nobel prize winner in economy, once said that he’s heavily criticized by the commies. He said it’s quite good that the conservative capitalists are cursing him too. So here is a tip for true christians. Offend everyone equally. For that way you get slapped by both side.
Or what about George Bush that got shoes thrown at him. Imagine if it’s Saddam that got hit by shoes. George, which was the most powerful man on the earth, chose a light attitude. The shoe thrower got a light sentence for the physical damage he causes. However, he isn’t penalized for the magical damage of lowering George’s peking order.
And what about that the greatest among us are those who serve? Yap. Free market capitalism. The greatest among capitalists are the those providing the best service to the most customer. What else? A great idea ha. The greatest idea ever. It’s said that even Adam Smith himself is not a smart mathematician. He is inspired by Jesus actually. Lots of good things are inspired by religions, in ancient time. Now all the good ideas move to science, blogs, and internet.
The smart don’t bother using religions anymore to make their point because they now have plenty of evidences anyway. But how the hell they have plenty of evidences that an idea works? Because we tried the idea. And why did we try an idea? Because some lunatic believe in an unintuitive nonsense called religion telling us to believe it’s a cool idea. Religions used to be quite fine till like 50 years ago. That’s another huge topic. No I don’t look up to religions. I won’t look down to it too much too. Nowadays, I would say most religious ideas sucks. But that’s another huge topic.
And what about seek first the kingdom of God/heaven and it’s truth and all will be added to you? Perhaps heaven ways are ways that works no matter how the situation. I like Math because a few rules in Math govern all things. Perhaps Jesus wants to teach us that by understanding a few rules that govern all things we can kick ass, quite obviously.
Say we’re fair, merciful, and capitalistic, for example. Then we wouldn’t need to worry about what will we eat, or what will we wear, or how wide our TV is, or how big our house is. Why worry of what we eat, if rice comes cheaply from Vietnam. Why worry about what we wear if textiles come cheap from China.
When we give to what other’s ask, namely opening our market, then we can concentrate on what we’re good at and have abundance. Or sort of.
Yea give to those who ask for it. Contrast that with so many people that are giving us protection against things we never want. Males protect women from polygamy and prostitution. Religious bigots protect us from drugs, and porn. Did they even bother to see what we’re really asking? Compare that to capitalists. Bigots are asking for T shirt with Che’s picture. Capitalists give what others’ ask, not what they think others’ should be asking. Giving to those who ask is then one principle of capitalism. We give what others’ ask so we too, get what we are asking.
Perhaps giving here means selling at cheap price after further lowering marginal cost. Jesus, after all, is a jew.
And what about find the truth and the truth will set you free. Here is some truth. Jesus said that prostitute will go to heaven faster than religious expert. Jesus turned water into wine, suggesting that it’s okay to get drunk, smoke ecstasy, marijuana. If anything, the bible actually teach us to give wine to those who are doomed.Imagine if we legalize marijuana for anyone that don’t have kids. There goes poverty.
And when Jesus says that people shouldn’t get a divorce, his disciples quickly ask, “Why marry?” Yea. Why bother? Marriage rates, measured by numbers of babies born within wedlock drops to 50% in US when congress makes tough alimony laws that makes divorcing a bitch. Why get married? What’s wrong with wine? Do you feel free already?
Perhaps there is something there. Some truth that’s difference than what religious bigots want us to believe. Knowing those truth would set us free, and that means deprive bigots from slaves. Why else church opposes translating bible 500 years ago? Somehow they knew, that easier access to “truth” will indeed set people free. God can be way more libertarian than religious rulers.
And what about plucking our eyes if it deceive us. Does porn deceive you? Doesn’t look that way to me. If anything porn allow males to more accurately access product quality. Porn is not deceiving. Clothes are and burqha are. Perhaps, the eyes here mean any irrational bullshit. You wouldn’t want to have that kind of eye anyway. Lest you end up in gas chamber following inaccurate political strategy.
Imagine if you live in a country. Say some people says that free market doesn’t work. Would it make sense to pluck that deceiver out to Gulag and keep embracing free market? Yea capitalists don’t use high handed means to exterminate even vermin that hate them. Aren’t capitalists true Christians? But even if we do, we’re still good. Just look at what commies do to bourgeois in communist countries. I am not suggesting that we should kill commies. But we should remember that we are already too nice for them.
And what about the idea that our father in heaven gives rain to those who are evil and good. Imagine if you’re God. Imagine if you insist that only the good guys get rain. Now it’s even more difficult and costly right?
A miracle is like debugging a program. So you have this computer program called universe. Then you have to create a miracle. So you press that break button, point the debugger to the right place and change the variable. If you keep doing that then you’re not a good programmer. Good God do few miracles.
For that same reason capitalists, unlike Bob’s supporter, benefit not only those who love capitalism but also those who hate us. Aren’t we like God already? Lowering cost of SEO to those who are good and evil alike?
So benefiting everyone, even those that hate us is what differentiates the good guys from the normal guys. After all, even Hitler loves his allies. Even commies take care their comrades. But capitalists benefit everyone. And that’s why we’re the good guys.
We put PC, and software, and information on the fingertips of commies and capitalists alike. That’s not so “up there” isn’t it. We did it for our own profit. We don’t deliberately try to help those bigots. If anything we prefer not to. Our left hand don’t know what our right hand is doing, as Jesus said. But it means a lot for everyone right? That’s why more and more people embrace capitalism and globalization.
What else. Jesus claimed that he doesn’t cancel the Torah but completed it. Let’s put an example. In one hand he said sort of look like he’s canceling the eye for an eye commandment. Well not demanding an eye for an eye sort of explains, perhaps, the true original intent of the commandment. It’s not really an eye for an eye. It’s really mean that we should minimize damage to anyone’s eyes in the first place as if their eyes are our own eyes. Of course without an eye for an eye rules some crooks would pluck out many people eyes say when robbing and hence why the law is necessary. However, any other arrangement that sort of work to properly align our interests would work fine too.
That being said, an eye for an eye, called tit for tat, is the algorithm that win a repeated prisoner dilemma’s game made by Robert Axelrod. So while the original intent is not to have anyone’ eyes plucked, perhaps the best way to do it is to indeed have an eye for an eye rule.
And what about do unto others what others want to do to you? The first thing people think is I want people to give me money so I should give money away. Let’s think again. Do we really want people to give us money out of pitty? No. We want them to be fair to us. We want them to pitty us only when we’re in really really fuck up situation. So we treat others fairly too. Ayn Rand once said that he will never sacrifice someone else for his interest nor will she sacrifice herself for others. I think Ayn is not far from kingdom of heaven.
And what about not judging? One day I was in a Spa and I see an Irian. I’ve heard about how in Irian their officials used up a lot of the people’s money. I didn’t like politicians. I judged them evil. So I didn’t exchange contact with them.
But what did I know? In a world where so many people opposes free market, we need corrupt leaders to counter the evil will of socialist and religious bigots. These corrupt officials serve an important social function. Also he has something I don’t, power. And that guy was very polite to me. Next time I meet him I would learn from him. Perhaps I can be a rich dictators too.
After all, aren’t we all politicians? We break laws when we think we won’t get caught. And all politicians make so many laws that everyone is criminal anyway to maximize control. If we blame those, aren’t we like commies that blame capitalists while they themselves do not understand money? The same way, we blame politicians for having so much power while we, our self, don’t bother learning how political power works.
That being said, kingdom of heaven may have a version that’s more real. Something on our own mind that get us things. If after we die there is another judgement that put some additional benefit, it’ll be a different story. I don’t know. However, perhaps some rewards for following some heavenly path is right here right now. Out of the fruit we know the seed. Just try. If things work well and we get richer. Then good. If not, the idea may come from Satan.
My favorite is the story of Samaritan. Jesus said that we have to love our neighbor. Then the jew asked, who is my neighbor. Jesus said that your neighbor is those who have mercy on you. So what is he really saying? Be nice to those who are nice to you. Simple. Who among us wouldn’t want to help those who have helped us when we’re in need? If I am dying on a street and some guy helped me, wouldn’t I be very grateful to that guy? Wouldn’t it be to my be best interest to be nice to those who are good to me? Good to those who are good to me and ignore the rest sounds like pretty sound life strategy.
To be frank, I wasn’t sure on what Jesus is. No body knows whether the gospel is even true or not. He only showed up for like 3 years and changed the world so much. The gospel mentioned 4 passovers. Like Buddha, He is not something we should just ignore and move on.