First of all, I thank you for your important comment.

You say that my accusations are baseless, that I would to consider words more carefully…but I think that you don’t understand who and what I am really accusing! Perhaps, it’s guilt of my bad english?

When I talk about “ignorance”, I refer to those people (that are the majority of the believers!) who stop thinking to the important questions about their life. I refer to those people who believe in all that is said to them.

These people believe in the original sin when, if they thought with their own head, they would understand that children haven’t any sin!

These people believe in the soul’s resurrection after the mortal life. But if they really thought, they would understand that the “resurrection” doesn’t exist. It exists only for the zombie!

These people believe in the immaculate conception of Jesus by Mary. But if they really thought, they would understand that the only way to give birth to a child is through the sexual relation.

These people believe in miracles: Jesus has heal people, has turned water into wine, has walked on the water, etc. But this isn’t religion, this is magic! For these people, Jesus is like David Copperfield!

I could continue, but I am sure that you have understood the concept.

For me, these people are the “poor in spirit”.

Who are, instead, the rich in spirit?

In a few words: the rich in spirit are those people that don’t believe in something only because it’s written on a book.

If someone believe that what is written on the New Testament corresponds to truth, this one has to believe the same for what is written on the Old Testament: he has to believe in Adam and Eve, in the tried omicide of Isaac from Abraham on order of God, in the many maledictions to Jewish like this one:

Because you did not serve the LORD your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the LORD sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.

The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand, a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old or pity for the young. They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine or oil, nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined. They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the LORD your God is giving you.

Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you. Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities. The most gentle and sensitive woman among you—so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot—will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For she intends to eat them secretly during the siege and in the distress that your enemy will inflict on you in your cities.

(Deuteronomy 28:47-57)

You says:

Being poor in spirit probably means that someone finally has enough humility to accept that God has answers that they do not have.

I respond that a God that we have invented could not have answers that we don’t have.

Our points of view are so distant, but I hope that you understood mine.

Thanks again and best regards,
Giovanni

Were Jesus’ followers lazy? No! Some of them, after struggling and failing to get through the crowd to see Jesus, lowered their paralyzed friend through a roof (Luke 5:19). Another, Zacchaeus, humiliated himself by climbing a tree because he was too short to see over the crowds (Luke 9:3-4). No, Jesus did not reward laziness!

You contradict yourself again by saying that Christianity is to stop thinking. Did the Saint-philosophers stop thinking? Did the Apostle Paul stop thinking? Did Peter stop thinking after Jesus died? And even this reply, does this sound like the brainless response of someone who has stopped thinking?

Your accusations are baseless. You would do well to consider your words more carefully before you start telling the world (i.e., Digg).

Being poor in spirit probably means that someone finally has enough humility to accept that God has answers that they do not have. People spend all their lives thinking that they know better than God. It’s like a person with cancer who thinks they know better than their doctor. They think drinking plenty of water and getting exercise is all it takes to cure their cancer when the doctor insists that other treatments are necessary. It’s like a kid who keeps disobeying their parents, thinking they know better, only to find out years later that their mom and dad were right all along. That kind of humility is being poor in spirit.