Susan2

Going out on a limb here, but of late, I get a sense of vigilante-ism. Paul is after all self appointed. Jesus is self-appointed. Are you the Christ, I am.

And I would like to ask a question, was the war in 70, a civil war, a power struggle of a movement that began with vigilante-ism?

ApostateAbe

It wasn't a civil war so much as a popular uprising of the Jews for independence against the oppressive imperial Roman rule. The rebels were swiftly beaten and scattered by a Roman army.

Susan2

ApostateAbe


That may be true. But I am getting a sense of something else. First, I no more buy into the Jewish claim of persecution in regards to the Romans of this time, then I buy into the Southern states claims of persecution in regards to the Nothern States of that time. I recognize to some that may seem a perposterous analogy but I don't think that it is. Even though at the same time I am not saying that the Jews weren't persecuted, but by whom? Just the Romans? Was there no persecution within their own?

Were the Jews of one accord, a monotheism perfected? That doesn't seem likely to me.


Within any government, any religion are factions that wish to rule, dominate, even at, and perhaps most particularly, by the destruction of others of that same group. Sacrifice for what is perceived as the good of the whole, often shamefully, in the name of honorably.


With all the rhetoric going around from all sides, who would know?

Take for example the phrase presented in the op, "The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me."

Isn't that a downplay of 'turn the other cheek'. Is that Paul attempting to soften Jesus, or soften the crowds for him, through Jesus? And yet Paul himself a man who is not just capable, but willing of violence to rule.

Is Paul now taking charge, away from the vigilante-ism that is implied in the gospels, replacing his own? Supplanting Jesus?

It seems plausible to me.

ApostateAbe

The passage doesn't seem to have anything to do with the political tensions against the Romans. Paul is preaching to encourage brotherly love ("Each of us should please his neighbor for his good..."), and the scriptural quotation is given as an example. Jesus is presented as sharing or shielding the insults directed at Christians, as a gesture of solidarity. The epistle was written to Christians in Galatia, which was far away from Jerusalem and probably did not have nearly the hatred of the Romans as the Jews in Jerusalem did.

Susan2

Is it your contention that Paul really is a changed man, he’s a lover not a fighter? Martyrdom. Complete annihilation, solidarity!

I have a few acres for sale would you like to buy it? Show a little brotherly love? Paul would be happy, Jesus would be happy, I would be happy, and you could change your name from ApostateAbe to HappyAbe.

ApostateAbe

I don't know about that. I think any conclusions about the Apostle Paul need to be firmly grounded in his writings. What does he claim to think? I put much more weight on the explicit meaning than I do on perceived implicit undertones.

Susan2

Well Mr. Abe,

I went out to Colorado last year. Very beautiful. My brother-in-law took me and my sister into the Rockies. Eventually, we wound our way down into a cayon. I was just awe struck. It was that beautiful. A georgeous stream wound it's way through the cayon. One of the things that amazed me was the huge boulders that had fallen off the face of the mountain and landed in the stream. I'd look at that mountain towering over my head, and the huge boulders just waiting to come down., then back at the mountain. Some of them hung there percariously. I was witnessing nature reclaim itself.

I went home and wrote a silly little poem, not that it's great but it sure seems appropo to the subject.

In the moment of the crushing
when grand illusions fall

Nature will recover what
others thought was small.

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread....73#post6031773

I know this sounds silly, but it sure does help me understand things. I have applied that silly little ditty to a number of things. Seems to work every time.

I must admit, I have no fondness for Paul.

ApostateAbe

I think maybe that poem highlights a difference between you and me. My poetry has no undertones. It just falls on the reader like bag of rocks.

Dwindling Deity

God's sky dome holds clouds it's believed
'til climates with mist are conceived

God makes the lightning strike ground
'til electrical currents are found

God's rainbows are magic of skies
'til diffraction of light we surmise

God's Earth is a disk we are told
'til the knowledge of sages unfold

God tells us the Earth is immovable
'til an orbiting Earth becomes provable

God's fallen angels possess us
'til facts of psychology bless us

God made our females inferior
'til humanity makes none superior

God made all life in six days
'til our knowledge was given a raise

Is Yahweh perpetually shrinking
With each step to the next in our thinking?

My reading is like my writing. I focus on the explicit meaning more than anything.

Susan2

You've crushed my grand illusions of ever being a poet.

ApostateAbe

I certainly didn't mean to. I could never hope to become a master poet beyond comedic poetry, as in limerick writing. I always had troubling putting words on intricate subjects like emotion, which is what a poet is expected to do. The poem I showed you was written just a year after I turned against the Christianity I always believed, when my anger against the religion was the most vehement.