Gamera

Again, this means you MUST follow the Good, by doing good things (whatever that is), and no matter how you feel about the people you do good things for.

Leaving aside the conundrum of you valorizing the doing of good things, which means its a reward also, it totalizes ethics by making us have to do things according to some definition of the Good.

That's exactly what Plato argued in The Republic, the first plan for a totalitarian government.

mountainman

Two questions:
1) Are you a psychologist, psychiatrist or a layman of such?
2) How do you associate this word "evil" with this word "love"?

There are no conditions to unconditional love, and emotional
conditions are not preserved in texts, only in the emotional
conditions of the observers of said texts.

Where are you coming from dude?
See the map below, and tell me clearly.




Pete Brown
www.mountainman.com.au/map_of_consciousness.htm

RED DAVE

From RED DAVE:
From RUMike:
We're not talking about someone. We're talking about Jesus who, by some gobbledygook, you call God.

From RUMike:
I certainly have a right to blame a leader for the conduct of his followers. That what I love about you xtians. You fetishize Jesus to take the attention off your own despicable behavior.

A perfect xtian response: you are morally impervious to the consequences of your own behavior.

From RED DAVE:
From RUMike:
No: I can't stand Jesus' attitudes or yours.

From RED DAVE:
From RUMike:
I was aware of that. I wanted to point out that your were ducking the issue, which was hot when I posted.

RED DAVE

RED DAVE

From RED DAVE:
From Gemara:
I think you just ducked my point. If you are constrained by JC to love your enemies, what explains your own hostility and sarcasm? Or is that what you call love?

From Gemara:
Some people need to study sociology. Monogamy far preceded xtianity.

From Gemara:
Studd and nonsense. You're drunk on our rhetoric.

From Gemara:
You need to study your own history: from the Crusades to the nazis: xtians all.

And let's not forget the world's most famous xtian: George Bush. 40,000+ Iraqis have been the recipients of his xtian love.


From RED DAVEW:
From Gemara:

You just let the cat out of the bag. You "love one another" (sometimes) and have murderous contempt for others.


From RED DAVE:
I mean that a gaze is as good as a fuck. And, by the way, if you think that you're going to get away with "We xtians brought morality into a pagan world," please to recall that I'm a Jew. We hold our morality, whether religious or secular, to be as good as yours. The Inquisition and the Crusades were your idea, not ours.

RED DAVE

Jedi Mind Trick

My original comment was about the majority Christian view on this subject. I know as well as you that there is scant historical evidence for just about everything put in Jesus’ mouth. Everything except hypothetical Q.

Before I comment on the remainder of your reply I want to first point out that what I said, in my original comment about Jesus torturing his enemies, is not changed by the duration of said torture. It is clear from the verses I offered that dire punishments await the enemies of Christ and you can't avoid that.

Yes, I am well aware of that… Hell, Hades, Sheol, the Pit, the Grave was taught by Jesus to be divided into two parts one part paradise, Abraham’s bosom and one part torments, that is, a place of fiery anguish of unceasing pain. Each part was separated by a great expanse which no man could pass. Luke 16:19-31

This fits well, also, with the object lesson of Gehenna. Gehenna was the name given to the valley of the son's of hinnom, a location just outside the walls of Jerusalem. It contained a place called Tophet, so named because the toph (drum) was used to drown out the cries of children being sacrificed to Molech by being burned alive. Gehenna became a garbage dump by the time of Christ and fires were kept burning by sulfur day and night to consume the refuse and the bodies of criminals. It was a place of shame and horror. The worst punishment imaginable to the people of Jerusalem would be to have your corpse thrown into Gehenna when you die. You can see that Gehenna was definitely not something to be desired. Never mind the after death connotations involved, Jesus threatened his enemies, the Pharisees and some others, with Gehenna punishment.

What matter does duration have on the fact that Jesus threatened his enemies with Gehenna fire? BTW, most conservative churches see Gehenna as a type for hell and that the duration suggested by “worm dieing not and fire quenching not” is eternal. Add to this the imagery of the Lake of Fire, into which Hades/Gehenna will be thrown, which is said to be forever the smoke of torment and you really do have problems with your claim.

It doesn’t have to; the image of Gehenna spoke for itself to the mind of the ancient Jewish reader.

It was a resting place for the good and a place of torments for the bad according to Jesus. Luke 16:19-31

It doesn’t have to; the image of Gehenna spoke for itself to the mind of the ancient Jewish reader.

It was too thought to be eternal… Besides what difference does duration make to the fact that Jesus threatened his enemies with Gehenna fire?

Yes, and the smoke of their torment raises up day and night, forever.

1. It doesn’t have to; the image of Gehenna spoke for itself to the mind of the ancient Jewish reader.
2. What difference does duration make to the fact that Jesus threatened his enemies with Gehenna fire?

Therefore Jesus contradicted his own command to love your enemies.

You are sounding more like an apologist than an agnostic.


-John

RUmike

I call Jesus no such thing. I am not Christian.

Sure, you have the right to blame whoever you want. Doesn't mean your making any sense, though.

Again, not Christian.

How am I ducking an issue that was never addressed to me in the first place? I don't even remember what the issue specifically was, and frankly I don't care either. Chances are, I had no problem with what you argued about it, or else I would have responded to counter it.

RUmike

At the time of Jesus, Gehenna spoke for itself as a place of annihilation. Far different from "hell". This connotation was only added much later.

Actually, most of the times Jesus spoke about Gehenna, he was threatening his own disciples, not his enemies. But regardless, I agree that if Jesus did threaten Gehenna fire to someone, it would contradict "love your enemies". But that is precisely why I do not take those statements to be historical statements of Jesus. They do not cohere with Jesus' other teachings, and were simply common motifs not distinctive of Jesus; anyone could have put them on his lips. To say that the historical Jesus contradicted himself in this respect, you would need to offer reasoning as to why these statements of Gehenna fire should be taken as reliable. Talking about the biblical Jesus contradicting himself is pointless, because we all know that Jesus contradicts himself a thousand times. This is why I specifically introduced the word "historical" into this debate.

Oh, is there a particular thing agnostics are supposed to sound like? I must have missed the memo. That's weird, because I don't recall defending Jesus' divinity in any way, shape, or form, which is really the only candidate for making me not an agnostic anymore. Additionally, is it really common for an apologist to attack the traditional picture of hell as being not biblical?

RED DAVE

From RUMike:
Then this exchange makes no sense. Either I have grossly misunderstood your postion, or it isn't clear. In any event, if I have mischaracterized your beliefs and thereby offended you, please forgive me.

RED DAVE

Jedi Mind Trick

What difference does that make to Jesus threatining his enemies?

So he not only threatens his enemies but his own friends?

You do not so take them to mean that, but the majority of Christians do and worse. That was my point it is a hypocrisy of their own teachings on the matter.

Says you… The majority of Christians take these words very seriously despite their lack of coherence. It’s this lack of coherence that I am trying to point out anyway.

No I don’t because I wasn’t concerned with text critical issues just as most Christians who take these words seriously aren’t.

I already conceded that a historical Jesus may not have said this but then again maybe he did, I don’t know one way or the other or even if Jesus existed at all. My point was the hypocrisy of the belief that he said such things. Do you question that the majority of Christians hold some form of punishment awaits the enemies of Christ?

Just an observation. :shrug:

Yes, there was one here not too long ago, he went by the name “Tentmaker.” He is a Christian universalist and defended that view. i.e. he was an apologist. And so was I for a time when I first started posting here. I was a Unie defending Christ against what I saw as horrible slander, but you know what? I realized that the traditional view of hell is no more and no less well defensible from the bible and the original languages.

Fact remains, the words we have in the bible, the textbook of the Christian faith, have him condemning people to Gehenna fire. So when I’m told that the words “Love your enemies” came from Jesus but the words “your in danger of Gehenna fire” didn’t I’m a bit skeptical. Same mouth, same book but you pick and choose what is historical.

RUmike

Yes I agree completely. We basically misunderstood each other then. I was arguing from a purely historical viewpoint, and you were arguing as to what the majority Christian belief is. I agree that the majority Christian belief (hell) is 100% contradictory to "love your enemies". A favorite passage of mine from Robert Ingersoll:

"Why," they say to me, "suppose all this should turn out to be true, and you should come to the day of Judgment and find all these things to be true. What would you do then?" I would walk up like a man, and say, "I was mistaken."

"And suppose God was about to pass judgment upon you, what would you say?" I would say to him, "Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you." Why not?

I am told that I must render good for evil. I am told that if smitten on one cheek I must turn the other. I am told that I must overcome evil with good. I am told that I must love my enemies; and will it do for this God who tells me to love my enemies to damn his? No, it will not do. It will not do.

Understandable. But I have offered some reasons that I view one as historical and the other not, so I hope I don't really count as part of that "pick and choose" group. Ultimately we agree on one issue: the biblical Jesus and thus the millions of Christians who follow him are completely contradictory in their beliefs.