Jesus said, "If you don't work you don't eat!"

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Mary Matalin on the Colbert Report (thanks for the correction Jenmito) said that Jesus was not interested in social justice and was all about self-reliance, and that Jesus said "give a man a fish feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and feed him for life."

Okay, already pretty funny... of course that famous aphorism is not from the gospels. (The miracle of Jesus multiplying loaves and fishes would read kind of odd if it were. Maybe everyone in the crowd had to come back to Jesus' house after the sermon to do some landscaping.)

She then summarized Jesus's teachings as "If you don't work you don't eat."

(I owe a 1% on edit apology... turns out that actually is from the bible, but it's not anything Jesus said and doesn't mean what she thought it meant. It's from one of the epistles but doesn't change the punch-line.)


I didn't know the line from the bible at all but did recognize it from someone who made it pretty famous more recently.

According to Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, it is the first principle of socialism. (So says wiki)

(The phrase is actually not the anti-poor RW Ayn Rand bullshit she thinks it is. It is an attack on fatcats like her and her buddies who have never done a days honest work.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_who_does_not_work,_neither_shall_he_eat

[Mika]

1. Is there a link to the Lenin quote

Thanks

:hi:

[onenote]

6. I found this with a google search

http://trueslant.com/matthewsteinglass/2009/11/05/he-who-does-not-work-does-not-eat/

[GodlessBiker]

10. Good work! Amazing.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

12. Added to (edited) OP. I was wrong on two counts.

First, I didn't realive that {Paul had actually said that.

Also, though I associated it with Lenin my context was wrong.

So apologies to readers, though not to Ms. Matalin.

[SwampG8r]

29. jesus is already punishing her by

having her marry carrvelle

[roguevalley]

25. Poor Jesus. I don't really give the gospels too much of my time because

none of them were contemporary, they were Pauline who was a complete asshole and they can say anything you want. Matalin showed herself to possess a canker, not a soul. Whatever you do for the least among you, you do also for me.

She's a cankered bitch.

[JuniperLea]

2. HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Priceless!

[kestrel91316]

3. [phone] 000 000

[bluestateguy]

4. I think she is confusing Jesus with John Smith of Jamestown

As I recall he said that.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

15. Good call.

You are correct and win fishing lessons... but not a fish. We know that would just corrupt you.

It was famously said by:
Saint Paul
John Smith
Lenin

Now if only George and Ringo would say it!

[Sebastian Doyle]

21. No, George would say "Don't eat the fish....

....it might have been a relative in a previous life."

[grantcart]

5. I think he also argued strongly that everyone had a right to bear arms as well.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

16. I think Jesus' central message was to allow health insurance competition across state lines

[JuniperLea]

7. Actually... it is in the Bible... But it was Paul that said it...

2 Thessalonians 3:10 (King James Version)

10 For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. Uh, that was the Apostle Paul

and he was referring to people in the Christian communities who thought they were too important to share the work. It did NOT refer to poor people.

[JuniperLea]

11. Yep... interesting to read the entire thought...

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Thessalonians%203&version=KJV

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

14. Thank you. Correct and I reworked the OP accordingly.

[Dappleganger]

17. Exactly.

Would not, as in having the ability to work but refusing to share in it. Early Christian communities were based on everyone doing their FAIR SHARE, sharing all possessions, selling their riches/land and giving it to the poor, good works, etc.

[quakerboy]

22. Oh.. You mean Communism?

The early Christian communities did seem to have that working for them, at least until the roman empire co-opted them. Its kinda been downhill from there. Seems like our modern "Christians" are much better representatives of the philosophies and beliefs of the Roman empire than of Christ.

[jenmito]

9. It was on the Colbert Report. Colbert went at her with another quote from the bible about

helping the poor or how the rich should give away their earthly possessions or something...

[onenote]

13. the give a man a fish quote is often attributed to chinese philosopher Lao Tzu

[Ikonoklast]

18. ...who always exaggerated just how big the one the got away was.

OK, he was a doctor, too.

[PSzymeczek]

28. Give a man a fish,

and he'll eat for a day. Give a man religion, and he'll starve to death praying for a fish.

[Bluenorthwest]

19. Saul of Tarsus said that

He said many things, including this: " the women should keep silence . For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home."

So I suppose she really ought to shut up and ask James what she should think, if this is about the wisdom of Saul, aka Paul.

[Bitwit1234]

20. I have an idea....Why doesn't SHE start an employment agency

I there are so many people out there who want jobs, she should start and employment agency and get them all the wonderful wonderful jobs available don't you. If bush and the republicans had not given them the tax breaks and let them funnel cheap goods and services (oh yeah you get an un-intelligible clerk answering questions in CSR jobs) and no one does a thing. Matlin could start a trend get the public employed instead of saying they don't want to work...just think, she would be a hero getting them jobs they really want.

[unblock]

23. i think jesus actually said, "how kin yeh hahv yer puddin if yeh dohn't eatcha meat?"

[HughMoran]

24. very good

the twisted manipulation of supposed bible statements by the right-wing wackos is amazing.

[Berry Cool]

26. What I find amusing is that wiki also says

of the "first principle of socialism":

This is not really directed at lazy or unproductive workers, but rather the bourgeoisie...in a communist society...there would be no class of individuals that lives off the labor of others...

The principle would not apply to those who could not work, such as the elderly or the lame. These groups would have a right to society's products because they were not at fault for their condition. The elderly, furthermore had worked during their youth, and so could not be denied life’s basic necessities.

Don't know how accurate this is, given that it's wiki and not everything has a cite, but if so, it sounds like the complete opposite of what Mary and her ilk believe. She, of course, would say "Damn right it does--what you just described, a situation where people aren't allowed to just live off the trust funds they inherited, and old and sick people are taken care of without having to work, is socialism." But, um, Mary, you just expounded on it as a great principle in line with the teachings of Jesus...

[DailyGrind51]

27. James 5 "Warning to the Rich"

The Holy Bible: King James Version. 2000.

The General Epistle of
James 5

Warning to the Rich
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Mt. 6.19
4 Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sab'a-oth. Deut. 24.14, 15
5 Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.
6 Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.

Yeah, that New Testament doesn't say much about social justice, contempt for capitalists, maybe?

[burning rain]

30. Speaking of the Soviet system, work was both a right & an obligation.

Refusal to work was punishable as a criminal offense, "parasitism" (тунеядство ). The Lenin quote is exactly accurate, in the original: Кто не работает, тот не ест.

[yellowcanine]

31. I believe that was a rule made by John Smith in Dick Armey's "Socialist" Jamestown.

[old mark]

32. Jesus REALLY said "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. TEACH

a man to fish, and he will spend all day floating around in a boat drinking beer."

The original "Fish" line has nothing to do with the bible at all - it was from an old Chinese proverb, or at least that's what it says online....


mark