Best answer to the "Stalin Gambit?"

[Metahive]

Formless, if you read the NT, you surely must have noticed just what people Jesus associated most with, what people he preached to most and what people he talked about almost exclusively. It's neither the rich and popular guys or the roman occupiers, it's the poor, the outcast and the downtrodden. The former group (minus the Romans who barely figure into Jesus' thoughts) gets bashed actually quite often, be it the callous rich guy Dives who lets the poor beggar Lazarus starve to death in front of his house and goes to Hell for it, the pharisee who goes to the temple and pats himself on the back for being so pious while the tax collector behind him is full of guilt and asks for forgiveness (and is, according to Jesus, favored by God for this) or the rich youth who asked Jesus about how to be a good person and was told to give all his wealth to the poor. That's where the "camels going through the eye of a needle" saying comes from BTW. Then there's the infamous passage late in Matthew where Jesus predicts hell for all those who don't care about the poor and the weak ("I was hungry and you didn't feed me...").

If you really read the whole NT there's no way you can say that Christianity didn't aim at the little people primarily, period.

No need to bother with the Divine Right of Kings to prove your point.

Just using it because it's the most direct practical refutation of Energiewende's nonsense claim that Christianity never supported the status quo.

[...]the only important difference between the two is that Marx wanted to actually implement a common man's Utopia on Earth[...]

Well, he predicted it was inevitable to happen, but Marx himself had no clue about how that would actually come about in practical terms, hence the need for Lenin and others to develop the necessary political theories to go with it. Just like Jesus predicted Armageddon but it's only modern fundamentalists who work on making it happen. The parallels are uncanny.

[Spoonist]

The Reformation in particular splintered the established governments drastically and is probably one source of modern liberalism.

Martin Luther, the guy who among others kickstarted the Reformation wrote an essay about the "Freedom of every Christian Man". ...snip... Other protestant countries like Sweden, England* and Prussia kept their absolutist monarchies just fine.

I'm in Metahive's camp here. In Sweden the king Gustv Vasa used the reformation to strengthen the state and the governement, by reduction (confiscation) of church resources and by building a state controlled church. All of which was essential for what would be Sweden's contribution in the 30 years war under Gustavus Adolphus.
Without the reformation the national state of Sweden would have been much weaker.
And the same can be said for the reformation of England. Without the revenue confiscated from church much of the next century would see a weaker england.

Why? Because more important than appealing to the everyday people was appealing to the Roman elite and making Christianity sound cool and non-threatening to the elite. This is the opposite of what you are proposing. Why? Because that's how you convert Romans (and most importantly the Roman Emperor) to your religion. And it was greatly successful; this is why the Vatican is housed in... oh, yeah, Rome.

This gets most of the early history of christians completely backwards. It was because they targeted the poor and powerless (like women) but mostly because they targeted intellectuals not part of the real elite, like urban administrators, that they had their early successes in the east and then rome. Its not until after a portion of the population converted that local converts targeted their lieges. It was definately threatening to the elites since it meant a change, but it also provided a populistic opportunity of the wannabe elites. Assyrians in 1st-2nd cen come to mind.
Also the christian unrest etc in the roman empire while being outlawed in the 3rd was the reasons for the "edict of toleration" and "edict of milan". Such unrest against the powers that be isn't really appeasement.
How you converted the roman emperor was not by appeasement, instead Constantine's mother was of the christian sect. Just like lots of people of Moesia at the time. So he was already favorably imposed long before he became emperor. He also got a lot of his education in the east so his formative years would also be influenced by christians.

after the secret police assassinated Stalin.

Que? What the fuck?

Those passages merely attest to the behavior of the early Christians and the Apostles, but not to the teachings which lead them to give so much away to the community.

Uhm? Come again? Those passages and others like it are what led to monks and nuns, as in all of the cloister orders etc. And that was waaaay back under Theodric the Great. And the influence continues onwards, there was a reason why I mentioned the fransciscans you know.

[the atom]

Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

But Adam didn't die. Wait for the apologist to say he died a spiritual death rather than a physical one.

I think the point of that story was that eating from the tree of knowledge made him mortal, thus he eventually died. It's been awhile since I was in catholic school though, so I might be wrong.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

But Adam didn't die. Wait for the apologist to say he died a spiritual death rather than a physical one.

I think the point of that story was that eating from the tree of knowledge made him mortal, thus he eventually died. It's been awhile since I was in catholic school though, so I might be wrong.

That doesn't work though, since it quite clearly says "for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." In other words, God was bullshitting, news at 11.

[Metahive]

Two other things that make this rationalization futile.

First, it wasn't the fruit that brought mortality to Adam and Eve, it was God throwing a hissy fit and cursing them with it and even then, as Eternal_Freedom noted, death didn't come to them on the very day as threatened but hundreds of years later. What stopped God from simply killing them then and creating replacements while placing the tree somewhere they couldn't reach? Too arrogant to admit he had made a mistake himself perhaps? But who would know?
Second, the threat was in itself futile, Adam and Eve knew neither death nor good and evil and had therefore not the means to make heads and tails of God's commandment. How do you follow a commandment when you don't know that following it is "good" and disobeying it is "bad" and the "punishment" is something you have no concept of? Some intelligent designer, that god.