At 12:35 PM 12/3/2007, Dehler, Bernie wrote:
>“Love thine enemies? Turn the other cheek? Not
>so rational, but more powerful than either
>reason or primitive instinct alone can
>achieve. Life is about far more than we can
>possibly reconcile with reason alone and the our
>sacred texts are all about giving us
>transcendent rationales (values) for what's
>important in life.“ ~ Mike (Friend of ASA)
>
>It is interesting that famous atheist Bill
>Hitchins says he disagrees with the morality of
>“turning the other cheek” and “loving
>enemies.” He proposes rooting out and killing
>all Islamic terrorists (and maybe also those who
>just think like Islamic terrorists). No
>negotiation. However, God’s way is to reach out
>to them in love. Sure, there’s also justice,
>but the big picture is to love and pray for your
>enemies, rather than seek them out and kill them. …Bernie
@ The proper interpretation of "turn the other
cheek", etc., in Scripture follows these comments:
"I am pro moral violence and anti immoral
violence, a distinction that is often lost on the
left. Yes, I want to kill bad people before they
murder more good people. ...Remember that sniper
in Saving Private Ryan, the sharp-shooting
country boy who would kiss his crucifix every
time he blew away a nazi? That's who I want on my
team." Monday, December 11, 2006 Let's Hear it
for Dead Amber Males http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/search?q=pacifists
Pacifism is another sinister meme that is a
perversion of Christianity. This week, that king
of all metaphysical hucksters, Deepak Chopra,
wrote an
<http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/07/17/EDGOBIPTND1.DT>idiotorial
for the Chronically San Franciscan newspaper. As
you may know, these primitive new-age folks
automatically tilt way left and therefore tend to
be deeply morally confused. For example, Chopra
asks, “Did Christ teach love or is that just a
liberal bias? In the current climate, it's hard
to remember.... The reversal of Christianity from
a religion of love to a religion of hate is the
greatest religious tragedy of our time.”
This statement is so stupid on so many levels
that it’s difficult to know where to begin.
Chopra goes on to say that enlightened beings
such as himself “can't join any sect that
preaches intolerance, yet we can't fight it,
either, because by definition fighting is a form
of intolerance.” Do you see the perversion?
Fighting of any kind is forbidden because it is
automatically intolerant, and intolerance
produces victims. Naturally, it is exactly this
kind of sick morality that allows evil to
flourish, while, at the same time, allowing
Chopra and his ilk to feel superior to the brave
and virtuous people who actually name and fight
evil! Breathtaking, really. Like all pacifists,
Chopra is actively and enthusiastically working
for the other side: the side of evil." Saturday,
July 22, 2006 The Mythol-Gap Between Left,
Right, and Wrong http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/search?q=pacifists
The Social World of Luke-Acts, Edited by Jerome Neyrey.
http://www.amazon.com/Social-World-Luke-Acts-Models-Interpretation/dp/1565635124/ref=pd_sim_b_title_2
..A group of cultural anthropologists study the
books of Luke and Acts and disect them for
cultural clues that provide info needed to make a
proper interpretation of the scriptures. The
section on Honor/Riposte in the ANE is worth the
price alone! You will never look at "Turn the other cheek" the same way again.
<http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?Matthew+5:38-44>MT
5:38-44,
<http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?Luke+6:27-29>LK
6:27-29 Turn the other cheek. Love your enemies.
The former was with reference to legal
application while the latter was an answer to
those who tried to extend it into the personal realm.
Let's begin with Scripture, and some
observational notes from the sociological well of
Malina and Rohrbaugh's Social Science Commentary
on the
Synoptics.
http://www.amazon.com/Social-Science-Commentary-Synoptic-Gospels-Malina/dp/0800634918
Now a favored argument of skeptics against
"un-Christian" behavior of ridicule is to place
such behavior against admonitions to "turn the
other cheek." Is it proper to do so?
An irony here is that some skeptics....interpret
this and similar commands as directives to
tolerate injustice and be a doormat, and say
"such precepts require the obliteration of one's
capacity to distinguish the good from the evil" [323 - !]
Depending on what skeptic you speak to, this is
either a command to be very nice to them, or a
command to be so nice to them that you become a gullible fool!
Taken in their social context, such commands require neither action.
"Resist not evil," which precedes the "cheek"
admonition, is a well-known Jewish proverb (Ps.
37:1, 8; Prov. 24:19) and actually means, do not
compete with evildoers by trying to outdo them in
terms of getting back at them.
Three examples for the teaching follow: Turn the
other cheek; if someone sues you for your cloak,
also give them your tunic; if you are forced to go one mile, go two.
All three of these things refer to what amount to
inconvenient, but nevertheless perfectly legal, impositions on the person.
The "slap on the cheek" is a type of personal
insult, so that the command to turn the other
cheek is essentially a command not to start
trading insults, but take the higher ground and turn away from the exchange.
It is not a license to allow yourself to get beat
up. More: http://www.tektonics.org/lp/madmad.html
~ Janice
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Received on Tue Dec 4 12:26:42 2007
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