I didn’t ask you whether Jesus was a card-carrying social democrat, soviet communist, or the author of Robin Hood. So that's what they call the strawman fallacy. What I asked you was whether "you think Jesus wasn’t more like a socialist than like a capitalist” or whether “he was advocating only for cooperation, not for systematic charity.” And I asked, “Do you think Jesus was more like an individualistic, libertarian social Darwinian than like a collectivist?"

Jesus was obviously a collectivist since he thought God is centrally in control of all of us who are God's children. The coming of God's kingdom would make that control apparent to everyone.

You suggest that the prosperity gospel wouldn't have "resonated" with Jesus because he and his fellow Jews were highly stressed (conquered, impoverished, fearing for their life under Rome, etc).

But Jesus’s opposition wouldn't have been merely circumstantial. You're missing the more fundamental part of his outlook, which shows you're not so familiar with Christianity or with the New Testament. Jesus contrasted everything that happens on this planet with the prospect of an eternal afterlife. To have a good afterlife, we need to please God, and God judges not just our actions but our mental states. If you love money more than God, God will punish you for it. If you lord it over others as a tyrant, God will punish you for it. If you use your wealth to fornicate with women, using them as sex objects, God will punish you.

Any earthly success is trivial in comparison with the eternal afterlife. That's the root of Jesus's opposition to secular, materialistic standards. He would have dismissed the prosperity gospel as a satanic bastardization of his message, as one that makes excuses for earthly compromises in God’s name. It wouldn’t have been just a lack of “resonance.” That’s a minimization of the anti-Christian essence of the prosperity “gospel,” the latter being an American rationalization of materialistic hedonism, according to an authentically Christian standpoint.

You then rattle off a few random Christian statements, culminating with the reminder that Jesus didn’t write Robin Hood. No, he didn’t, but the idea of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor is obviously inspired by Jesus’s example since Jesus condemned the wealthy and blessed the poor. And Jesus identified himself with the poor, calling his followers those who are “poor in spirit.”

According to Matthew 25:41-45, Jesus said, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me…Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”

My point in asking about Christianity was stated clearly in my earlier comment so I need only quote from it: “Extreme individualists end up in conflict with each other because they’re hostile to the idea of finding common ground. Take for example American libertarians and evangelicals. To make that coalition work politically in the Republican Party, American conservative Christians have had to deny the obvious socialist essence of Christian morality, as it’s presented in the gospel narratives of Jesus’s life.

“Now you say that socialism is a great evil, and you reject religion. So how fragile and cockamamie must be the Reagan coalition? When the truth comes out, secular libertarians and conservative Christians will be at each other’s throats. In the meantime, those forces have united around the banner of Trumpism, hilariously surrendering their individuality out of fealty to a monstrous idol and demagogue. Remind me again what’s so individualistic about Trumpian libertarians.”

You say you wouldn’t base your worldview on archaic religious superstitions. That’s fine. I wouldn’t either. The question is whether secular individualists in the US (assuming you’re American) can survive for long without finding common ground with Evangelicals. Currently the US is being torn apart by tribalism and by a culture war. Individualism is at the root of that tribal fracturing. The tribes fracture too because there’s no ethos or mythical narrative holding Americans together anymore. Again, that’s where collectivist values would enter the picture as a remedy for some American woes.

You ask if I understand that you prefer for me not to post this exchange on Medium, even though it’s already posted in the comment section. Do you not want it posted because of some harebrained obsession with property rights or is it because you understand that I wiped the floor with you, and you want to keep that fact as quiet as possible?

Run along now, Mr. Libertine.