Rev Prez

I'm actually telling you.

Yes it does. The OP states Jesus would "avoid war," makes no qualifications, and draws no distinctions between Christians views.

The OP does not quote MLK. He says MLK admonishes Christians to do what Jesus would do--which in the OP is phrased as "avoid[ing] war."

Without those premises, no contradiction follows as the OP states.

Then you have to show that this specific war effort is inconsistent with Jesus' teachings.

Rev Prez

infinity

that i waste the amount of time i'm about to on digging up sources on account of someone like YOU is proof that i am far more masochistic then i give myself credit for...

Jesus: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."
Ten Commandments: "Thou shall not kill."
Moses: "For the Lord your God is He that goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you."
The Psalmist writes: "Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me: neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause. For they speak not peace: but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land."
Peter: For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it.

now then...
granting you that many biblical translations tend to not take into account word usage and context of the time they were written, i will stall any argument now by stating i tend to agree with the notion that the hebrew word which translate to 'kill' was, more accurately, 'murder.'
so, let's assume that jesus and the bible (which, while many may take seperately, are inherently tied together because without the one the other is trivialized) speak out against murder, but not against killing as such. there are PLENTY of passages in the bible of righteous smiting and what not, so there's no point in arguing over whether the bible advocates war, because let's face it - it does.

so, the real question is this: does the accounts of what jesus said paint a picture of a man who would support an action like we had in iraq.
well, the answer to that is going to require a lot of speculation on both sides of the fence.
on the one hand, jesus DID say he was not the bringer of peace, but the bringer of the sword... though, in the context of how he said it, one could take that as a parable to mean the blade to seperate the heretics from the believers, and not a literal bringer of war.
also, didn't jesus command the apostles to NOT engage in violence to defend him at the garden, when the romans came to arrest him? did he not tell them to NOT fight in the face of evil, but to resist evil by placing their faith in god and acting in good faith towards all men?

now, put into the context of the iraq invasion. let's go STRICTLY with facts that we now have, without speculation.
the reason we WENT into the iraq war were these:
1. he's in league with the terrorists who crashed the planes on 9/11
2. he has an operating, or seeking to start an operting WMD program

whatever the claims were, and whatever the case may end up being, as of now we have no WMD. we have no clear cut evidence that WMD existed or were being produced.
we have no clear cut evidence of a working relationship between iraq government agencies and OBL.

now, IF there had been evidence, or was now evidence, or a working relationship between the iraq government and OBL, then i'd say the war was plenty worth it.
IF there had been WMD's, i would say military action would have been warrented to prevent a wild card government from having them, but not necessarily invading and occuping the country.

so, what do we have left? he was an evil dictator, who had to be brought down for the good of man kind.
Psalm 37 and Proverbs 24 has jesus talking about how righteous men should deal with evildoers.
current work to properly translate hebrew figures that a reference to an old hebrew maxim were being used, which breaks down to: do not become angered or vexed by evildoers.
Psalms 37:1 and 37:8 is: "Do not strive to outdo the evildoers or emulate those who do wrong. For like grass they soon wither and fade like the green of spring"; "Be angry no more, have done with wrath; strive not to outdo in evildoing"

note, this is not 'don't try to get even with evildoers' or 'don't do anything about them' but seems to be a biblical example of that old saying 'when hunting the monster, take care to not become the monster.'

now, if we can take the iraqi government and the actions of that government's army to be a representation of the intentions of the government (as we did - and used as justification for invading) then the logic can also be applied to the US and its army.
thusly, the prison scandal and other abuses being reported from afghanistan would seem to suggest that current US goverment and army practices are very contrary to biblical teachings, even if the act of war itself is not.
this in fact goes along very well with what the majority of moderate liberals have been saying all along... the war wasn't a horrible idea, how it was dealt with was.

Matthew 5:38–39: "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But now I tell you: do not take revenge on someone who does you wrong. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, let him slap your left cheek too."
however, Mathew 5:39a and current workings on translations could take that more to mean do not *compete* with evildoers... though that says nothing about not resisting them. just do not compete with their ways, or try to out do them at their own game.
it could be argued that certain parts of the patriot act, and this business with the detention of US citizens, is in fact competing with the very government we brought down, in terms of abusing its citizens.

"See that none of you pays back evil with evil; instead, always try to do good to each other and to all people" (1 Thess. 5:15);
in response to a government known for violence, oppression, torture, and limiting citizen's rights... we perpetuated violence, oppression, torture, and limited our citizen's rights.
for, supposedly, attacking us... we attacked them, not in kind, not an eye for an eye... but greater. they slapped us. we put a bullet in their head.

"Do not repay evil with evil or curses with curses, but with blessings. Bless in return—that is what you have been called to do—so that you may inherit a blessing" (1 Pet. 3:9);
evil regime
axis of evil
terrorists
dictator
murderers
torturers
despot
anti-american
freedom haters

"Bless those who persecute you. Bless them, do not curse them. Do not pay anyone back with evil for evil…. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live peaceably with everyone. Beloved, do not take revenge, but leave that to the wrath of God" (Rom. 12:14, 17–19);
we certainly did a great deal of self perpetuated smiting on this one, taking a great deal of revenge into our own hands.

"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Mt. 5:44).
do i even need to comment on that one?

Evoken

Amazing post infinity.. :notworthy

safeinacell

Just to have a crack at the OP, answer I have is "yes" and "no".
For example:
Matthew 10:34 "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword."
Luke 22:51 "He that have no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."
Contrasted with the passages previously mentioned, it turns out there appears to be a contradiction in the bible, and you can make it say what you want it to say. Anybody suprised?

Rev Prez

More style over substance?

Yes, peace is good and the peacemakers are blessed. Where's the Scriptural ban on war?

Followed by a campaign to take Canaan at the command of God.

Yes he does. And?

And this has to do with war in what way?

Yes, peace is good. Where's the Scriptural ban on war?

So what's your point?

Yes, an admonishment of lawless violence, perhaps?

Actually we do. We found two unmarked CW shells, one mustard and one sarin.

Fog of war and whatnot?

Except the Senate report held that estimates of Iraq and UBL's cooperation on matters of safehavens and training in non-convention weapons were reasonable.

1) How is a wild card government that had an active WMD program different from one that actually has WMDs?

2) Seeing that Hussein did have undeclared weapons, how does that not meet your standard?

3) What other military option is there short of invasion and occupation that would achieve the disarmament objective?

You're not making much sense here, but I assume your argument is that the fact that Hussein is an evildoer is not sufficient reason to act, and resisting evil with force absent evidence that such course of action will prevent greater evil from threatening you in the future is contrary to Jesus' teachings. Correct?

Neither of these allegations have anything to do with the discussion at hand.

So World War II's prosecution by the Allies was far worse?

Rev Prez

seeker

[removed]

Back to the OP, Christians use selective reading of the bible to justify just about anything. This is just another example.

Deep down I think most Christians have a sort of 'kill the infidel' mentality when it comes to Muslim countries.

xxthe_leewitxx

The tone of this thread needs to remain civil if the thread is to remain open.

Thank you,
the Leewit

sodium

Where do you get that? It says not to resist evil. It doesn't say, if someone does something evil to you, don't try to get back at them later. It just says, if someone is trying to do evil, let them.

Then it says, that if someone persecutes you, pray for them and do them good. It doesn't say, defend yourself, but only to the limits of the Geneva convention.

Then when one of his followers tries to defend Jesus, Jesus says, put away your sword, because all who take the sword shall perish by the sword. My interpretation is that you're not supposed to take up the sword.

Is there anything that Jesus could have said that you wouldn't be able to interpret as a call for limiting warfare? If he had said, never wage war, you'd be saying that he meant in an unjust cause or something.

infinity

*ring ring*
"Hello?"
"Hey Pot, this is Kettle. You're all spades, baby"

i'm going to desperately attempt to give you the benefit of the doubt that you <comment deleted>, and B. actually read my entire post. all facts pointing to the contrary. but, for your viewing convenience...

it would seem, to the most casual observer, your challenge was to find scriptual evidence of the potential for jesus to oppose, not war in general, but the specific iraqi war. hm, interesting...

<comments deleted>
however, in the future, it would be greatly appreciated if my time were not wasted on someone who is not even responding to what i said, and who is instead going off about a completely unrelated topic of which i wasn't even speaking.

perhaps? perhaps so... perhaps not. you tell me, <comment deleted>

aha! two unmarked shells from the 80's, one of which didn't actually work anymore, and another which was never used.
holy SHIT he was close to wiping out half america with that sort of firepower! my god, it's a good thing we acted when we did!
let me guess... he was planning to deploy those city-destroying weapons with an ACME slingshot, right? or did he have a great big catapault?

i wasn't aware we were playing command and conquer. i get to be NOD

what senate report have you been reading? i seem to recall at least 3 investigations saying there was no evidence whatsoever of anything remotely resembling a 'working' relationship.

china: in a position where deployment of nukes would result in massive retaliation of the same kind. has a rational government which seeks to perpetuate itself and not get blown up.
iraq: supposedly run by an insane madman who's love for death and destruction and utter disregard for the lives of his own people would lead one to conclude he'd nuke you for shits and giggles and not really care if you did anything back. or so they say.

all the countries in the world which we KNOW have nukes are in check due to the fact they don't want to get turned into a glass skating ring.
a wild card country led by a supposed 'madman butcher' who didn't seem to care about being blown up either way would be a serious global threat.

'undeclared weapons' which constitute thus far 2 balls of metal from the 80's and which have a maximum effective damage radius of several blocks absolutely do NOT meet a standard of 'immenent threat to the united states homeland' and cause the need for invasion and occupation.

since when did this become a political options discourse? i thought we were talking about jesus

wrong. the fact that hussein is an 'evildoer' is not suffecient reason, by the teachings of the bible, to be evildoers ourselves to stop him from doing evil.

wrong. that the prison scandal et al. is evidence of 'becoming the monster' we were hunting, which is very clearly laid out as being a great big 'no no' by jesus.

hussein: raper, murderer, torturer
americans: rapers, murderers, torturers.

you asked for evidence this war was against the teachings of jesus. becoming evil in your hunt for evil is against the teachings of jesus.

what exactly does WW2 have to do with the teachings of jesus?

0

Warning:

I'm restating what was said earlier in this thread:

This discussion should be focused on the OP, not on insulting one another. If such behavior continues, this thread will be locked.

Thanks,
Tangie