Solo

Thanks, Andrew.

Jiri

Didymus

So... when the world's Christians resisted Hitler, were they violating a precept of their religion? Would the same apply to Eastern labor leaders and others who defied Stalinism?

Is submission to tyranny a tenet of Christian belief?

Petergdi

Only at a personal level. If someone is specifically out to injure me, then I should let them. This doesn't mean that I should let someone injure others. In fact I said that one must oppose injustice to the enemy and to the stranger.

There were many pacifists who came to the conclusion that Hitler had to be stopped, and that doing so required doing bad things to Germany and the German people until he was stopped. I think they were right.

Peter.

scamp

Somehow Christian's overlook exactly what has been written about Jesus within their very own sacred New Testament. A very long list of criminal and moral wrongs are listed about Jesus. He deserved the death penalty within that society and in fact if he were doing these same things in our society today he would be in jail or a mental instutition. Some of the many wrongs Jesus did:
Disruption of the family unit - condoned murder & disrespect for other's beliefs - was a plain ordinary thief - encouraged & agreed it was OK to beat and/or flog human servants/slaves - allowed & preached it was OK to let people take advantage of you - disrespected of his own mother & brothers - was against marriage (if you marry you ae not worthy of heaven) - encouraged followers to give away all possessions - taught his followers to abandon their familys - taught followers to actually 'hate' the members of their familys - was disrespectful of the natural order of nature - committed animal cruelty without regard to the owner and his family.

A Righteous person? I think not. Many before and after him were put to death for far less infractions.

What would be the outcome of a jury trial in America today based on the above charges? Jail time and or a mental instutition for certain. Yet - Christian's still state daily their lies about this person. He was NOT a loving & peaceful person. He was hateful - rebellious - nasty and plainly not able to live within the society he was born into.

storytime

Jesus overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple where they sold pigeons and doves, etc. Would this event have been possible considering the strict rules applied for Jewish people about protocol to be observed in those days?

This sounds so much like the way TV evangelicals run their show and sells. Instead of pigeons and doves, the sales consist of nik-knacks in exchange for donations.

show_no_mercy

Quite ironically, I think this is one of the instances where a historical Jesus "makes sense" so to say. If the HJ actually attempted this during the tenure of Pilate, he would have been executed almost immediately IMO. The fact that the gospel authors go out of their way to make Pilate seem like a level-headed prefect (which is contrary to how he's portrayed by Josephus - who is writing for the Romans - and by Philo) is probably evidence that Christians had to do massive amounts of mental gymnastics to remove Jesus' [nearly] justified execution at the hands of the Romans to blame it on the Jews for post-70 polemical reasons.

If there was a fictional/mythological/non-historical personage behind the Christ of legend, then Mark could have picked a more level-headed prefect to have Jesus be tried by so that the story makes sense. Why Pilate was "picked" must have meant that they really had no other option.