When you have lived as long as I have, you will know that the world is quickly becoming more complex. Going back far enough, the world's population was only a fraction of what it is now. People lived on hunting animals and gathering plants in nature. There was very little that was individually owned. Everything was communal. That began to change when people discovered that cultivating the land yielded larger crops with less effort. Some began to claim exclusive ownership of pieces of land and the crops they had planted on it. These claims of exclusive ownership resulted in a need for defending against rival claims. Without a doubt, private property creates division and enmity among us.
After a while a succession of superpowers took control of all available land. By the time of Jesus, it was the Romans who laid a heavy burden of taxation upon most of the then known world around the Mediterranean Sea.
Fast forward to the 21st century. Since the industrial revolution in the 19th century, people are increasingly becoming wage earners first in manufacturing and more recently in service oriented jobs. Instead of collaborating about hunting animals, we now compete for the highest paying, most prestigious jobs. After the abolition of slavery, the rich have built an elaborate scheme of runaway consumption and production to continue to extract wealth from the poor and the middle class.
Rich people live in rich neighborhoods behind guarded gates. Poor people often live in substandard rental housing. Unlike poor people, the rich have access to first class healthcare and education. Without a doubt, private property and the pursuit of wealth and power continues to separate us.
The idea that a God outside the universe created and controls it and everything in it originates in an era without the science and knowledge we have now. Whether God is a supernatural being or a creation of the human imagination it doesn't change the fact that the world today is a far cry from the Kingdom of God the ancient writers recorded and Jesus proclaimed long ago.
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