Written by Slayer666 on 20.05.2009 at 19:32

Written by Konrad on 20.05.2009 at 18:10

Heh, no thanks. I already know that I have no use for that kind of philosophy. In essence, being a bastard is one of the best ways to shield yourself from this shitpool of a world we live in. However, to me, being a bastard just comes naturally. Why should I forgive? Why should I love those who mean me harm in any way? I quite often fail to even understand the concept of forgivness. If a person screwed you once intentionally, chaces are, he's going to do it again, and this time the effects could be more drastic. And even after he/she did that, you should still forgive and "pray" for him/her? Why did he/she do to deserve that? The only sane thing to do is cut yourself from them completely. Or, seek revenge, to make sure the asshole doesn't try anything like that again. That's how I do things in my life, and it hasn't failed me once. And belive me, I have more inner piece than anyone who wants to make everything allright and forgives. Because I know that very few will mess with someone like that, rather than with someone who will forgive them and put all behind them. The bastards are also far more respected.

Well, you can still forgive someone and never want to see them again or distance yourself from them. Like I said it's a state of mind. Also, I wouldn't call a bastard someone who wants revenge. If you AREN'T the person fucking somebody over or betraying someone in the first place, then you are following what Christ taught more than you think. If you are truly going to be against Christianity, then start betraying your friends, stealing things from innocent people, starting wars for profit, raping women, and supporting totalitarian regimes. The fundamentals of Christianity have nothing to do with the Organizations who have claimed to follow his teaching. So...if you are going to be against something, at least know what it is that you are defying.

That is not forgiveness. To forgive means to accept them again, even if they F-ed you.
I'm not trying to defy anything intentionaly, and I consider such acts absurd. What the heck is a person trying to prove by devoting themselves to screwing anything? I just deal with matters as I see fit, do what suites me and only me best, and don't give a damn if I'm against some flawed philosophy. The opposite of love is not hate. It's not caring at all.

Written by Slayer666 on 20.05.2009 at 23:26

That is not forgiveness. To forgive means to accept them again, even if they F-ed you.
I'm not trying to defy anything intentionaly, and I consider such acts absurd. What the heck is a person trying to prove by devoting themselves to screwing anything? I just deal with matters as I see fit, do what suites me and only me best, and don't give a damn if I'm against some flawed philosophy. The opposite of love is not hate. It's not caring at all.

After reading your posts it is rather apparent that you do not understand the concept of forgiveness and how it relates to the Christian world view. As Christians, we are asked to forgive, but that doesn't mean we are to forget. We are to "turn the other cheek" which is not the same as letting someone continue to beat on you.

For as long as Christianity has been around, there have been those who have made the claim that Christians are called to complete pacifism and non-violence. Often the folks who make this claim quote the passage from Matthew, in which Jesus tells the disciples, "Do not resist an evil-doer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also."

"Do not resist an evil-doer." Gee, that sounds pretty clear-cut, doesn't it? If that's what Jesus said, then it seems to be saying pretty clearly that we are not to defend ourselves against anyone who would harm us. Can that possibly be what Jesus meant to teach us? Did he really mean, for example, that parents are not to defend their children from an attack?

Well, the answer to those questions depends on whether Jesus actually said something that can be accurately translated into English as "Do not resist an evil-doer." Remember first of all that Jesus spoke in Aramaic, and Matthew wrote his gospel in Greek. More important, though, is something else. First, the phrase "do not resist an evil-doer" does not appear anywhere else in the entire New Testament. However, the phrase "do not repay evil for evil" is found throughout the New Testament. In I Thessalonians: "See that none of you repays evil for evil." In I Peter: "Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse." And in Romans: "Do not repay anyone evil for evil." The notion of not repaying evil for evil, of not indulging in tit for tat, seems to have been a deeply ingrained notion in the first generation of Christians. It would make sense that they would have received this teaching from Jesus.

And it would make sense that this is what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. Remember the context in which Jesus said these words. He was talking about the Jewish law, which allowed not merely self-defense, but also retaliation. That law allowed that if someone hit you in the face and broke your tooth, you were allowed to reciprocate. It allowed blow for blow, gash for gash, life for life. And so Jesus says to them, "You have heard it said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not..." What? What word would make sense here? I think what would make sense here is the word "repay." "You have heard it said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not repay an evil-doer." You have heard it said that retaliation is ok, but I say to you that it is not. What makes sense in this context is that Jesus said not "do not resist an evil-doer" but rather "do not repay an evil-doer." Also note that many more modern and more accurate translations do use the word repay.

Now, most of us would like it if that is what Jesus said. It would mean that Jesus was forbidding retaliation and revenge, but he was not forbidding self-defense, or defense of others. That makes sense to us. We don't want to think that Jesus wants parents to stand by and let their children be murdered, or husbands to stand by and let their wives be raped. But we have this problem -- we have the rest of the passage. We have Jesus saying, "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other." It's one of the most quoted passages in the whole New Testament, and it certainly sounds as though Jesus means that when someone strikes us, we are simply to stand there and allow ourselves to be struck again.

I can't imagine that what Jesus meant. A biblical scholar by the name of Walter Wink, who is Professor of New Testament at Auburn Seminary in New York City, has written a fascinating analysis of this passage. That analysis indicates that over the last two thousand years we may have radically, and in many circumstances tragically, misunderstood this text. To understand it properly, according to Wink, we need to know some things about the culture in which Jesus lived.
First of all, we need to know that in Palestine 2000 years ago, (and, I am told, in much of the Near East today) a person's left hand was used only for certain "unclean" tasks related to hygiene, and it went against deeply ingrained social taboos to use that hand for anything else. This means, of course, that if a person were to strike another person, the only hand available to do the striking was the right hand. The other thing we need to know is that in first century Palestine, one struck an equal in a different way than one struck an inferior. One always struck one's equals either with an open palm or with a fist, but one never struck an equal with the back of the hand. One backhanded one's inferiors -- masters backhanded servants, men backhanded women, parents backhanded children, and Romans backhanded Jews.

Now, armed with those two important pieces of information, let's look at the passage again. Jesus begins his scenario, "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek..." He's hitting you on the right cheek. And we established earlier that there were very deep social taboos against using the left hand for such a thing. So if he's hitting you with his right hand, and he's hitting you on the right cheek, what does that mean? It means he's backhanding you. He's hitting you the way one hits an inferior. This isn't a fistfight -- it's an insult. The intention is not to injure, but to humiliate. Someone in power over you - a master, a man, a Roman -- is making it clear to you that you are an inferior.

But now, Jesus says, "... turn to him the other cheek." And what does that do, offering him your left cheek? What options does he have? He can't backhand you again, unless he uses his left hand, and he couldn't do that -- social norms forbade him from even gesturing with that hand. So if he's to use the only hand remaining to him -- the right -- then he can't backhand you again. He has to hit you with the open palm, or with his fist -- but that would mean hitting you the way one hits an equal, a peer. And now Jesus' listeners would have laughed -- because now you've got him. You've put him in a position where if he hits you again, he has no choice but to hit you not as an inferior, but as an equal. In other words, what Jesus is saying here is "Don't let anyone treat you as an inferior. Don't let them rob you of your dignity. Find a way to assert your value as a human being, as a child of God." This statement of Jesus, then, is not about allowing others to abuse you -- it is about finding away to have power and dignity in a degrading situation.

And according to Walter Wink, it is the same with the other two statement of Jesus in today's passage. "If anyone sues you for your coat," says Jesus, "give him your cloak as well." What's that about? Well, first we need to know that the words "coat" and "cloak" as they appear in our English translations of the Bible are a bit misleading. A first century Palestinian wore only two garments -- an undergarment, which is rendered in English as "coat", and an outer garment, which is translated as "cloak." Now, the scene Jesus is painting is that of a person who has borrowed money -- someone who is so poor that the only thing they have to give as collateral is their outer garment, their cloak. They have not been able to repay the debt, and now they have been hauled into court. This is exactly what the greedy creditor had been hoping would happen -- since Jewish law did not allow loaning money at interest, the only chance creditors had at making any money off a loan is if the debtor couldn't repay the loan and had to give up whatever they had given as collateral.
And what does Jesus advise? "If anyone sues you to take away your outer garment, give your undergarment as well." In other words, take off your one remaining piece of clothing, and stand there naked. And what would that have accomplished? It would have shamed the creditor. It was a great shame in Jewish culture to cause or to look upon the nakedness of another, and so by taking off the one piece of clothing remaining to him, and standing naked in open court, the debtor would have been saying to the creditor, in effect, "Shame on you. Shame on you for taking advantage of my poverty, and for taking from me the only piece of clothing I have to keep me warm at night. And by standing here without any clothing at all, I am showing the whole village what kind of person you are." Once again, says Walter Wink, this is advice from Jesus about what his listeners could do in an abusive situation.

My guess is that Jesus' third piece of advice might have been the favorite of his listeners. You remember it: "If anyone forces you to go with him one mile, go also the second mile." Now the expression "go the second mile" has become firmly ingrained in our language. But again, biblical scholarship tells us that we haven't really understood what Jesus was saying. The word which we translate "force" was a very particular Greek word. It was the technical term for the Roman practice of requisitioning labor from those in occupied countries. We run into this same word when Jesus is on his way to Calvary, and the Roman soldiers "force" Simon of Cyrene to help Jesus carry the cross. Now it turns out that the Romans had very strict rules about this. A soldier was allowed to compel a passerby to help him carry something -- but not more than one mile. The punishment for making someone carry something more than one mile could be quite severe, depending on the mood of his commanding officer. So, for example, when a soldier on the march wanted help carrying his pack (which weighed between 60 and 85 pounds, not including weapons) he had to let the commandeered person go after one mile.

Look at what Jesus advises: "If anyone forces you to go with him one mile, go also the second mile." Now what is the Roman soldier going to do? If he lets the person continue past one mile, he's going to get into serious trouble. He's got to get that pack back before his centurion sees what's going on. And so Jesus' listeners would have been greatly amused as they imagined a Roman soldier scrambling after a Jewish peasant, pleading with him to give his pack back, while the peasant cheerfully insisted that he was glad to carry it another mile. Once again, Jesus is helping his listeners find a way to assert their dignity in an oppressive situation.

See, there really wasn't much that Jesus' listeners could do to buck the system. A slave backhanded by his master couldn't hit him back. An impoverished peasant couldn't change the system that allowed his very clothes to be taken from him. A Jew couldn't refuse the Roman soldier who demanded that he carry his pack. But Jesus told them: despite all the things you can't do, there are also things you can do. There are ways that you can remind your oppressors that you have worth and value as a child of God, no matter how they treat you.

So is this passage license to exact revenge upon one's enemies, or to hate one's enemies? No, it is not. But it seems pretty clear that neither is it a command to allow one's self to be continually abused. It is a passage which makes it clear that God wants everyone to be treated with dignity, and that we are to do what we can to make a world in which everyone's value as a child of God is acknowledged.

I expect we will go back to the comatose like state of infancy.

I would like to believe in reincarnation, as that promises that I'll at no point be in utter darkness for eternity.

Written by Throne Dweller on 01.06.2009 at 15:50



I would like to believe in reincarnation, as that promises that I'll at no point be in utter darkness for eternity.

Ahh, yes it's a beautiful belief. Me who holds strong Buddhist beliefs, ya know I believe in reincarnation. It's a scientific theory just like evolution (there's nothing to COMPLETELY prove OR disprove it but there's evidence to SUGGEST it). Early Christians believed in reincarnation but the Catholics did away with it during the first major Christian council thing.....they deemed it as a "heresy" (just like they deem most science lol). There's evidence to suggest rebirth, but what evidence suggests that there's heaven/hell/purgatory?

what exactly is the purpose of being trapped in purgatory anyway? what purpose does it serve? If purgatory was supposedly created by the supreme (God, The Father) then it shouldn't have been made without any thought put into it, right?

I'd like to see some examples of scientific evidence that suggests reincarnation.

Written by [user id=160] on 06.06.2009 at 02:49
Early Christians believed in reincarnation

Really? Do you have some documentation on this claim since reincarnation is the opposite of basic Christian faith.

I think it is between Heaven and Hell hahahha