Hate the sin? Thats a theological concept. For society it would hate the crime. Sin is a matter of Religious point of view not related the same as crime. Even christians should not hate someone for their sexual preference, only actions that harm others or people who knowingly and willingly do harm to others regardless of what people say Jesus said.
LOVE your ENEMIES: where Jesus goes wrong
by Terry 127 Replies latest watchtower bible
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PSacramento
I know we get the hate the sin, love the sinner thing a lot in trying to undestand the whoel "love they enemy" teaching of Jesus.
And I am sure that on some level it works for some and thatis good.
Anything that gets us to loving each other is NOT a bad thing.
The issue seems to be one of deserving, does our enemy deserve for us to love "him"? what has he done to deserve our love?
Nothing, nothing at all.
So why do it, why did Jesus ask us to do the one thing that is hardest for us to do?
By our very nature it is almost impossible for us to love like that, heck itis hard enough for us to love those that deserve it !
But that is the thing though, isn't it?
Our "nature" is screwed up, we are indeed CAPABLE of love like that, it's not unimaginable to love someone that doesn't deserve our love, to love someone that deserves to be hated, we all can imagine a situation where that would even be a good thing ( as in the case of a child for example).
So, if we CAN do it, why don't we?
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not a captive
If we ALL as a society learn to do good to our RACE, ALL THE LIVING THINGS, AND THE WORLD then we start creating a loving environment. A respectful environment. A society were the enemy is selfishness and not the individuals. There are some countries where Jails are not locked. Because the individuals understood their wrong and accept the punishment. They are ENEMIES of society we could love them but not their actions. In such countries crime is less and punishment is minor compared to selfish countries. Any harm done to any individual is a harm done to all of us a society event to the person committing the crime.
Dear cyber,
You mention "selfish countries", increasingly these countries dominate the world. They infect the gentle societies of the earth--they infect and kill them.
Let's say individuals from a selfish country invade a society of a gentle people. The gentle people may come to the radical conclusion that they must defend themselves. But how? A plan for self defense usually involves mortal combat. A Just War.
If I, as one of the gentle people, help defeat the invaders through violence then I myself am defeated. I cannot go back to my previous state of mind. When I, of my own volition, participate in actions I hate I have let myself be converted. I have surrendered already. I have accepted the enemy's terms.
Cyber, a gentle person has no hope. The world is increasingly dominated by violence to man, beast and planet.
But I do hope in this: Lacking documents of Jesus, I still have to deal with a statement attributed to him that is the substance of everything the gospels say about him and runs contrary to everything the world teaches." Just as I have loved you so you are to love one another. By this all will know you are my disciples, if you have this love among yourselves." and "Love your enemies"
This is the only way I have seen gentle people prevail against evil. Do not go to the dark side or not even our children can live in kindness afterward.
I believe that God did send Jesus to save us from ourselves. I have less and less theology. I know that I have experienced God through the "crude" agency of the Bible. Whether crude or not, it was effective in changing my life for the better. It seems to have gentled some lives around me, too.
Maeve
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Terry
Everything and everybody is MORALLY EQUIVALENT under God. Not with God. God is not subject to moral law. You want to be God or be like God.
God, in my view (the only view I'm qualified to give) is a moral coward. The reason? God refuses to create peers.
What does that mean? I'm a parent. I have seven kids. I want them to be better than I am and at least as good. Jehovah, on the other hand, wants inferiors. He doesn't want equals. God wants dependant and obsequious lackeys and not self-sufficient and healthy individuals.
The universe is vast and yet God will not share an inch of it.
God conceives himself a RULER which only leaves vassals, peasants and prostrate slaves.
God deigns to "test" humanity as though they had made themselves in some factory workshop.
God only proved He couldn't make what He himself wanted. Who is to blame for that? Somehow--flabbergastingly: we are!
It is troubling to me that we pathetic and ephemeral nothings have little more to do with our vanishingly brief lives than croak praises as we tremble on our faces in the mud.
Defend the moral coward in heaven if you like, but, there is something lunatic about an entity who cannot die, cannot change, cannot be diminished and who has everything always---but who MUST be given what little we have too!!
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not a captive
I want them to be better than I am or at least as good.
Terry,
I think the same but my kids (I have seven, too!) have not always listened to me when I have tried to teach them. Not that I am a perfect teacher. But I used to tell them that humans don't just slither away like lizard babies after they hatch. They have to be raised. It takes a long time to raise a human. If they don't listen sometime things go really really wrong.
I think God does want us to be his friend. That sounds childish, I know. But after leaving (and still making tracks away from) the wretched Organization I feel more impowered and healthier. I feel certain that God wants us to feel this way.
Maeve
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Terry
I think God does want us to be his friend. That sounds childish, I know. But after leaving (and still making tracks away from) the wretched Organization I feel more impowered and healthier. I feel certain that God wants us to feel this wa
If we have to "feel" what God wants it is because we do not (and cannot) know what God wants.
How is it, anyway, that God (who has everything) also has wants?
Our entire base of thought pertaining to deity is imagination, hearsay, stories, peer pressure, hysterical rumination, conjecture, word-of-mouth with a gooey smile attached to a deadly intimidation.
That book! That Bible! What does it "say"?
Whatever you want to make it say is what it says. It speaks like any puppet speaks with some person's hand up its ass in a ventrilo-voice!
We are all children on a playground being bullied for our lunch money and prayers.
And what are our marching orders?
Love the creeps of the world. Embrace the slimey toads who feel up the little girls and gush your goodwill into their greedy coffers.
We are all worse than God, after all, who are we to think we are better than a Hitler or an anal rapist with a mitre and purple robes?
God squatted in the Garden of Eden and we sorry steaming lot of brown worshippers are His handiwork. Hallelujah! Praise Jehovah or be damned!
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myelaine
dear cyberjesus...
you said, "Hate the sin? Thats a theological concept. For society it would hate the crime. Sin is a matter of Religious point of view not related the same as crime."
the fact of sin is very closely tied in with the notion of dignity and individual human rights...otherwise it is a fact that adultry doesn't really "hurt" anyone and all cases of compensation to the "injured" parties(spouse and children) are based on what?...greed?...after all, adultry isn't a crime according to society.
love michelle
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myelaine
dear Terry...
what if we never, ever, looked into a mirror? we would never see ourselves the way others see us...
the ten commandments are said to be a mirror that we look into to see our true state and most would agree that we can't/don't keep those basic ten (as Jesus said even looking at a women with lust is breaking one of them)...rubbing the ten commandments all over your body won't remove the stain of breaking even one of them any more than rubbing a mirror all over your body will.
Jesus said He came to fulfil the law and that His blood shed on our behalf removes the stain...and in Christ we are new creations...NOT God but peers...you refuse to see that God has created peers...and He wantstoshare the vast universe with them.
love michelle
p.s. please don't die forever...I'll miss you...xo
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Terry
the ten commandments are said to be a mirror that we look into to see our true state and most would agree that we can't/don't keep those basic ten (as Jesus said even looking at a women with lust is breaking one of them)...rubbing the ten commandments all over your body won't remove the stain of breaking even one of them any more than rubbing a mirror all over your body will.
We are born without being asked if we want to be born.
We are plopped all gooey with blood half blind into a world where we may be short, fat, harelipped and poor.
Ignorant people instruct us.
Somebody wags his bible in our face like a mugger with a pistol and are told "Your belief or your life!"
We reach deep into our pockets and hand over our paltry coin of hope and the mugger pulls off his mask to reveal: GOD.
He then kills us anyway.
Sigh. What a lovely life for the children of God.
Jesus said He came to fulfil the law and that His blood shed on our behalf removes the stain...and in Christ we are new creations...NOT God but peers...you refuse to see that God has created peers...and He wantstoshare the vast universe with them.
If only He had gotten it right the FIRST TIME!
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moshe
Christians have one hand tied behind their back. We can't get tough with illegal aliens, because they deserve our mercy, they're the down trodden poor and we have to help them- even if it ruins our own economy in the process.