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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: IS have turned me into a hawk
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Laurelin
Shipmate
# 17211
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Barnabas62. Right on 'enemisation'. Wrong on everything else ![[Smile]](smile.gif) There is NOTHING psychopathic about IS any more than there was about Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot. Just ordinary people JUST like us, but for fortune, not brain lesions.
Speak for yourself. I'm capable of many minor cruelties and acts of indifference. This still doesn't put me on the same level as a Mengele. Or a young man callously laughing as he and his mates behead one of their victims. I don't believe I am capable of torturing another human being. Torture, the deliberate infliction of extreme pain, seems far more morally worse to me than killing in self-defence.
I pray for the souls of those young IS men. This doesn't mean I wouldn't support the use of force to stop their deeds.
quote:
I see a third way. The express image of the SON in the Father. That is not the way even of negotiation. It is the way of Islam. Submission to God. S-L-M. Peace.
How would you have proposed dealing with the architects of the Final Solution? You think the Nuremberg Trials were a mistake?
As for submission to God, much of Islam doesn't actually practice this any more than Christendom does. I'm not talking about the many Muslims who only want to live in peace with their Christian neighbours, but pointing out that Islam has a problematic history in the same way that Christianity does.
quote:
I wonder if we'll EVER try it? As He and His followers did once upon a time, long, long ago. How do we evolve back to that eh? Back to IS turning us into harmless doves.
How can people who don't know the way of Jesus, or who are not interested in the way of Jesus, possibly try it?
quote:
Blaming IS for OUR righteous, innocent, feckless, murderous hearts is childish projection.
It is not 'childish projection' to react with utter revulsion to children being beheaded, women being raped, people being driven out of their homes, herded into extermination camps. Etc.
quote:
Keeping Jesus from returning. [/QB]
I don't believe that He is helplessly at our beck and call, or that His returning is all contingent on us.
The emergent, postmodern, postmillenial crowd might well be right and the human race might well evolve into something better before Christ returns, but I honestly doubt it. The evidence is against it. The evidence is all around us. And the idealistic view of the emergent crowd is nothing new - over 100 years ago, as noble things like feminism and social reform began to succeed, people thought exactly the same thing: a brave new world was coming, a more fair, just, peaceful world. That's what they thought, in 1900. They were wrong. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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"I fear that to me Siamese cats belong to the fauna of Mordor." J.R.R. Tolkien
Posts: 545 | From: The Shire | Registered: Jul 2012
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Beeswax Altar
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# 11644
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Martin:
It doesn't matter how we interpret His words used in battle against the culture that spawned them, in its own language. Interpret His ACTIONS which speak infinitely louder than any interpretation of His words.
Oh...Jesus words don't matter. Just his actions matter. And I'm guessing we are supposed to ignore the cleansing of the temple. If you ever become convinced that the Jesus of scripture isn't compatible with your political beliefs, will you drop him like a bad habit?
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
I was surprised by your reaction, Martin. Do you have a problem with the notion that psychopathy is a diseased state of mind?
Of course psychopaths can be rational about many things. The analysis of the causes of political and economic oppression, for example, and the understanding of the effect that has on others. But that's not the point.
The point is the deliberate and systematic killing of the human capacity for mercy, which is closely related to our capacity for empathy.
Psychopaths are inherently merciless. To feel sorrow that any human being is so reduced, to desire change in them for their own sake, is a decent reaction. But what if they will not change because they no longer can change? What is to be done to protect the vulnerable, the innocent, the peaceable?
There is an ongoing debate about the exhortations to love enemies, to turn the other cheek, to seek in so far as we can, to live at peace with all. These are a powerful part of my individual moral code and I see them as a part of the wider exhortation to show mercy because it is an inherent good and I know what it is to have been shown mercy. The question is how do they apply to governmental responsibilities to maintain law and order for the common good? What are the limits?
There's a paradox there of course, but it is not resolved by denying the need for some form of governmental control of the violent and the implacable and their threats to the common good.
[ 06. September 2014, 07:04: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily up the stream:
Barnabas. Why do you ask? If you're using psychopathy in a broad, colloquial sense, fine. But there is NO evidence that Jihad John is a clinical psychopath apart from two instances of extreme, staged violence. Not exactly a full DSM diagnostic.
And yeah, as Brian said, we've got to work it out for ourselves. Along the arc. Is Jesus implied. While SHOWING us the way.
BeeDubbyAy. That's right mate. His words out of context of His actions, His life, DO NOT MATTER. Are meaningless. And is that alllllll you got? Oh I forget, you got 'sacraments' too. Ethics don't matter. That's ALL anyone justifying violence in Jesus' name EVER has. He beat up a few tables. Knocked down some money. Viciously, murderously, psychopathically flogged a few cows with a cat-o-nine-tails in rage to within an inch of their lives. Badmouthed a fig tree TO DEATH!!
I'm already convinced. The Son of Man was more than enough for His time and any time. In His incompatibility then - in the helplessness of His cultural accretion which he nonetheless astoundingly transcended - with my journey now I bow the knee to His full transcendent purpose then. It's the same. The arc is the same. You haven't picked that up yet, let alone dropped it.
Laurelin. God bless you. I take it that they were all rhetorical questions?
[ 06. September 2014, 10:20: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif)
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not
There is NOTHING psychopathic about IS any more than there was about Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot. Just ordinary people JUST like us, but for fortune, not brain lesions.
I have read very extensively about Hitler's life. There is no evidence whatever that he gave a damn about anyone except himself. He was convinced that he was one of the greatest geniuses that ever lived, and he wanted the whole world to acknowledge it. It is very clear that he was a psychopath.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
Seems to me that Matt Black asked the right question:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
if we stand by and do nothing, being possessed of the means to prevent or at least mitigate atrocities, to what extent are we joined in culpability for the deaths ?
Does having the power to prevent some portion of an evil create a moral responsibility to do so ?
And if so, faced with a choice between acquiring the military power to intervene abroad, or spending the money on something else, should we be choosing guns before butter ?
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Seems to me that Matt Black asked the right question:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
if we stand by and do nothing, being possessed of the means to prevent or at least mitigate atrocities, to what extent are we joined in culpability for the deaths ?
Does having the power to prevent some portion of an evil create a moral responsibility to do so ?
The problem that arises is that, even if we have the means to rescue a hostage or two, does that make things worse as a whole? Where's your moral responsibility now? quote:
And if so, faced with a choice between acquiring the military power to intervene abroad, or spending the money on something else, should we be choosing guns before butter ?
Best wishes,
Russ
Pretty much as before, we have to look at the whole situation, which amongst other things means facing down powerful lobby groups (who exhibit no moral responsibility whatsoever). Do dairymen contribute more to the GNP and campaign funds than arms manufacturers?
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
As I recall from Alice Miller's 'For Your Own Good' Hitler's family doctor had never seen such a picture of human grief as Hitler grieving for his mother.
We're all well read Moo. But what do readers and writers and their sources bring to the party?
To this day there is NO consensus on whether Hitler was a psychopath, regardless of what his wartime doctor said in 1918 after he was gassed - a vastly pivotal experience - and the 1943 OSS report, which was remarkably prescient.
I choose to believe he was an average person like me and had a lot of aversive experience. Can that make a psychopath?
We don't know.
And if he were a psycho, what difference does it make? And what's it got to do with IS beheading people? How does their being psychos or not justify us being hawks? That's Christians who profess to put their Christianity first. Unlike good me like Obama and Cameron and soldier Christians. The Waffen SS had those for a start.
And deano mate, keep that up. The wall will get through to you eventually.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Martin:
BeeDubbyAy. That's right mate. His words out of context of His actions, His life, DO NOT MATTER. Are meaningless. And is that alllllll you got? Oh I forget, you got 'sacraments' too. Ethics don't matter. That's ALL anyone justifying violence in Jesus' name EVER has. He beat up a few tables. Knocked down some money. Viciously, murderously, psychopathically flogged a few cows with a cat-o-nine-tails in rage to within an inch of their lives. Badmouthed a fig tree TO DEATH!!
I assume that's me. Don't know why that's me. But...whatever. Saying the words of Jesus don't matter is simply asinine and grasping at straws. You already dismiss the OT. You already dismiss the rest of the NT. Now, you want to dismiss the words of Jesus that don't fit your political belief and focus on the fact that Jesus didn't regularly use violence.
Guess what Martin! If you look at the vast majority of my actions and disregard my actual words, I'm a pacifist! Looking at the life of most people would lead you to believe they are pacifists. Just because Jesus didn't use violence to establish His kingdom in first century Palestine doesn't mean use of force under any circumstances. Reading the actual words of Jesus explains why that is. No wonder you want to ignore them.
Fact is if Jesus wanted to make the political points you want him to have made he had plenty of opportunity to do it but didn't. Why is he walking around with his disciples carrying swords? Why doesn't he call on soldiers to put down their weapons and leave the army? Why does he never address the Roman Empire directly but does the Jewish religious establishment? Why does he walk around with men who carry swords? Why does he use violence imagery when he talks about judgment and establishing the Kingdom of God?
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Because you haven't picked it, Him up yet.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
I am the walrus, goo goo g'joob. ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Chocoholic
Shipmate
# 4655
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Posted
I tend to think Christ advocated passive resistance, and it can be enormously powerful, but I struggle in most situations to know what that would look like. This one especially. I don't think it is doing nothing, or providing aid and doing nothin else, but actually what it is is difficult to know.
Posts: 773 | From: London | Registered: Jun 2003
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
As I recall from Alice Miller's 'For Your Own Good' Hitler's family doctor had never seen such a picture of human grief as Hitler grieving for his mother.
We're all well read Moo.
Hitler's mother adored her son to a startling degree. When she died, his grief was more for his own loss of this adoration than for her.
Have you read anything about Hitler that has been published in the last ten years? Quite a lot of new stuff has come out.
Moo
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I don't buy the argument 'well he/she/they must be (a) psychopath(s) because only a mad person could do such a wicked thing'. It's a cop out. We have moral responsibility for our actions. Hitler did not have to exterminate 6,000,000 Jews. Stalin did not have to despatch unknown numbers to the camps. Nobody has to go 2,500 miles across several countries applying considerable effort to avoid themselves being stopped by border guards, so as to join an organisation that chops people's heads off. Harold Shipman did not have to poison his patients.
Besides, most people love their mothers. Most mothers love their sons. That has no bearing on whether a person wages an aggressive war or is a genocidal racist. It's neither an excuse nor an explanation.
[ 06. September 2014, 22:15: Message edited by: Enoch ]
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Very cool B. What you don't get is the trajectory of the ball given an Almighty kick 2000 years ago.
I'm 50 years familiar with the words of Jesus. More, I used to have to go to Sunday school so my parents could have some afternoon delight.
If we can be grown ups for a minute, what don't I understand from Jesus's words? For 45 years at least I understood that He was going to come back and kick ass. And I was impatient for that. I couldn't wait. So ... I've got to revert to that? Turn the light off? And revert to an insignificant Jesus? A Jesus who makes no difference at all now. A Jesus JUST like us writ large? Like Dexter? A serial killer of serial killers. A Jesus who isn't interested in justice, equality, equity, peace NOW. A Jesus who just conforms to our monkey politics? And doesn't drive politics?
Show me a REAL Jesus superior to the Prince of Peace, the suffering servant, the conqueror of power and privilege with powerlessness and humility and I'll drop that one mate.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
And no Moo I have not. Recommendations please.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
I would recommend Hitler's Vienna and Hitler's First War.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
WWJD?
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Sorry Gwai. On both counts.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Very cool B. What you don't get is the trajectory of the ball given an Almighty kick 2000 years ago.
I'm 50 years familiar with the words of Jesus. More, I used to have to go to Sunday school so my parents could have some afternoon delight.
If we can be grown ups for a minute, what don't I understand from Jesus's words? For 45 years at least I understood that He was going to come back and kick ass. And I was impatient for that. I couldn't wait. So ... I've got to revert to that? Turn the light off? And revert to an insignificant Jesus? A Jesus who makes no difference at all now. A Jesus JUST like us writ large? Like Dexter? A serial killer of serial killers. A Jesus who isn't interested in justice, equality, equity, peace NOW. A Jesus who just conforms to our monkey politics? And doesn't drive politics?
Show me a REAL Jesus superior to the Prince of Peace, the suffering servant, the conqueror of power and privilege with powerlessness and humility and I'll drop that one mate.
You've already created your own Jesus to conform to your own politics. Your view of Jesus requires us to ignore the OT, the rest of the NT, and now it turns out we must also ignore the words of Jesus. We instead must construct a view of Jesus based entirely on the actions of Jesus and even then not on the actions that contradict what you want to believe about Jesus. Why bother with Jesus at all? Invent another figure whose words don't have to be ignored.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
In what way do Jesus' actions in ANY way justify YOU justifying war?
[ 06. September 2014, 23:11: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
One, I make ethical judgments based on all of scripture coupled with tradition and reason not based on some of Jesus actions divorced from all the rest. Two, Jesus wasn't an earthly ruler. So, none of his action or lack of actions say anything about how earthly rulers should handle a threat like ISIS. Now, we do have his words comparing the kingdom of heaven to rulers who use violence. We have the descriptions of judgement that will happen when Jesus comes as a ruler. I know you don't like those. I don't care.
Scripture, tradition, and reason support legitimate rulers fighting just wars for the protection of those they govern. Not every war is just. However, a war against ISIS would be a just war.
WWJD if Jesus were POTUS? Jesus wouldn't be POTUS or hold any similar office. That's the whole freaking point.
[ 07. September 2014, 00:07: Message edited by: Beeswax Altar ]
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Enoch
I'm not denying the existence of evil intentions, or evil actions. I believe in personal responsibility and moral choice.
So I guess my point got lost somewhere along the road. I'll sleep on it, have another go tomorrow.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Two, Jesus wasn't an earthly ruler. So, none of his action or lack of actions say anything about how earthly rulers should handle a threat like ISIS.
No, he wasn't interested in anything earthly or earthy was he now. Some things are just business, or only war, and he had no interest in any earthly at all. Never had, never will. Thus, anything we do on earth to each other is okay. It's all for the best, when we get to heaven we'll be blessed.
quote:
Beeswax
Scripture, tradition, and reason support legitimate rulers fighting just wars for the protection of those they govern. Not every war is just. However, a war against ISIS would be a just war.
It means what we mean Jesus, God and all the good guys and gals in God's service, to mean.
quote:
Beeswax
WWJD if Jesus were POTUS? Jesus wouldn't be POTUS or hold any similar office. That's the whole freaking point.
I suspect he's smoke some pot with us or at least watch our hallucinating. And wouldn't hang out with potus or any associated thereof.
To quote Arnaud Amalric, "Caedite eos, novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius" – (Kill them all, for the Lord knows who are his).
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Laurelin
Shipmate
# 17211
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Posted
They're coming. A triumphant gang roaring down the street towards the house where a terrified Christian family - or Shia Muslim, or Yazidi - are hiding. The young men brandishing their banners and state-of-the-art guns fully intend to a) drive that family out, possibly killing the father and raping the mother in the process or b) just kill all the family anyway.
To Martin and no prophet - What would YOU do, if you had the physical means to stop IS? If you had the means to stop them, would you then choose to stand by and watch as the family are murdered?
Very few wars have ever been moral, hardly any in fact, but doves can turn into hawks when bullies threaten the poor and the oppressed.
This is not about claiming any kind of moral or spiritual authority over anyone else - we're all sinful and flawed and Christ knows it. It's about what YOU would do, in a real, gritty, earthly way, in my horrible hypothetical situation - which is hypothetical for us but all too real for the people currently facing these horrors.
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"I fear that to me Siamese cats belong to the fauna of Mordor." J.R.R. Tolkien
Posts: 545 | From: The Shire | Registered: Jul 2012
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
I really wish people wouldn't use "just war" arguments. They really are a series of terrible rationalisations. All war is an evil, even when we believe it to be the only option left (and sometimes it is) but I wish we wouldn't pretend it's "just" or "moral".
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
The phrase 'a war against IS' is highly ambiguous. If anybody means a full-scale land war, with US and Western troops rampaging through the Sunni tribal areas, that could be very foolish.
However, there are plenty of people there who want to fight IS, e.g. the Kurdish fighters, so the first step is to help them, and conquer those omnipotent wishes for shock and awe again.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
How about necessary?
Faced with Laurelin's all too possible scenario, the WW1 and 2 conscientious objectors would say things like "I would try to interpose my own body". Which was a way of saying "I am prepared to die (or be raped, tortured, etc) for my beliefs". Personally I have no quarrel with that as a moral choice. Conscientious objectors are not in general cowards.
And if that is your Christian conviction, then I honour you. What I am saying is that if anyone has an elected or otherwise chosen responsibility to preserve the peace and the common good, they have a duty to recognise that not all to whom they have a duty of care believe that. Indeed, only a small minority do.
I'm also inclined to agree with Ad Orientem's observation that at best war is a necessary evil; a last resort least bad choice. For example, it kind of overloads the word just to argue in the modern era that "collateral damage" amongst non-combatants is in some way just. The extension of the concept with the 20th and 21st centuries involves massive rationalisation. "Last resort least bad" strikes me as the best we can do by way of description.
But "last resort least bad" is in the end a moral choice that good people may find it necessary to make for the common good. Be grateful that you do not have such issues ending up in your personal in tray, and pray for those who do. They are human too.
Back on the psychopath thing. What I was trying, clearly not very well, to say is that there are brainwashers and the brainwashed and I think the brainwashers are the real enemy, since they do seem to have the capacity to induce behaviour in others which, to my mind, is indistinguishable from psychopathic behaviour.
And I believe that brainwashers must themselves be psychopaths for they care as little for the sacrificial beasts they produce as the victims of the horrible results of their sacrifices. How do we tackle that?
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Does having the power to prevent some portion of an evil create a moral responsibility to do so ?
The problem that arises is that, even if we have the means to rescue a hostage or two, does that make things worse as a whole? Where's your moral responsibility now?
It's certainly true that acting unskilfully can make things worse in the long run.
We're back to the Politician's Syllogism:
- we must do something
- this is something
- therefore we must do this.
The logical flaw there is obvious. But MB's question concerns the first premise - whether or not there is in fact a moral imperative to do something.
Agreed that doing a "something" that causally makes things worse in the long run cannot be a moral obligation.
But it seems to me that the pacifist has to either deny any moral obligation, or affirm as a matter of cause-and-effect that military intervention necessarily in every circumstance makes things worse in the long term.
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
OK Laurelin. It's me, there, now. I'm going to suffer their fate with them. A 60 year old English infidel. It's time to die well. There is NOTHING else I can do. But pray on my knees out loud, sing the 23rd Psalm until they cut my head off and all my sphincters that haven't gone off already, go off.
We can add to the fantasy by making me an Arabic speaker and an expert in Fiq. I would then endeavour to behave and speak as a newly conquered dhimmi and invoke that for the Yazidi. And the rape and murder may be deferred.
We can change the rules of the fantasy all we like. At some point do we get to the point where I'm a fully tooled up special forces operative Christian (note the word order)? If so, and it would make the difference, I could save them, or at least make a Bruce Willis movie out of getting them over Mount Sinjar, then yes we can fantasize about that. The best special forces don't kill anyone, they evade. But we could have a show down as I bring up the rear and I'd die saving the day with uncompromising, cunning lethal force.
If I am to follow Jesus on the arc of His words predicated on His life I can do ANY of these things. It's just a matter of how far down the arc I can go knowing what I know.
I know He wants me, is with me, in my comfy chair a thousand miles from harm (until I put myself on the street on a Friday night), to explore this with you and Beeswax Altar (and I apologize unreservedly to you mate for messing with your name) and Barnabas62 and all of us here with grace, in fellowship. I'm sick of seeing myself descend instantly in to passive aggression. In to child-child transactions.
So, I'll have to come back adult-adult later, after church.
Happy Sunday.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by no prophet:
No, he wasn't interested in anything earthly or earthy was he now. Some things are just business, or only war, and he had no interest in any earthly at all. Never had, never will. Thus, anything we do on earth to each other is okay. It's all for the best, when we get to heaven we'll be blessed.
Not even close to what I said.
quote:
originally posted by no prophet:
It means what we mean Jesus, God and all the good guys and gals in God's service, to mean.
No, it doesn't.
quote:
originally posted by no prophet:
suspect he's smoke some pot with us or at least watch our hallucinating.
Jesus fitting 12 disciples and possibly a few Marys into a VW Bus would certainly be a miracle. Wonder if Jesus would drive. Do you think Jesus and his band of merry pranksters would have bought their own pot from the local drug dealers or would Jesus have turned grass into grass?
[ 07. September 2014, 10:03: Message edited by: Beeswax Altar ]
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Soldiers get carried away. That's what we train them for. Have you ever met a para? Members of the SAS? SBS? I have had the inestimable privilege of many friends in those units. You wouldn't want them as enemies. You wouldn't have them as such for very long. A heartbeat or two.
I wasn't going to post on this thread anymore as the one in Hell is more to my taste.
However I cannot let Martin's quote above go unchallenged.
Properly trained and disciplined soldiers do NOT get carried away. If they do then they are breaking the law. They are TRAINED not to get carried away. They are trained to apply violence in a CONTROLLED way.
Yes, I've met plenty of soldiers, both Special Forces and line regiment soldiers, and in fact the units you mention in your quote Martin are actually the LEAST likely to become carried away during the application of violence. They are amongst the most disciplined units in the armed forces.
You don't get into the SAS or SBS if you get carried away. You will fail selection. Same with the Parachute Regiment and the Royal Marine Commando Regiments.
SOME individual soldiers may well get carried away, but they are very rare in this day and age of the professional military, and even in times of conscription they were rare, and non-existent in the better trained units.
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
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Laurelin
Shipmate
# 17211
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Posted
Martin - I'm not at all interested in vengeful macho Bruce Willis/John Wayne/whatever type fantasies. Or in 'shock and awe'. I am not naturally a hawk, although I'm not a pacifist either. War is a dirty business. The men and women of the WW2 Resistance didn't cast themselves as heroes and heroines in a romantic war fantasy , they simply had important and dangerous jobs to do.
All I care about is the safety and protection of millions of innocent Iraqi and Syrian civilians who are having their lives ripped apart by a deluded gang of murderous thugs - and if their protection means killing IS, so be it.
War is ghastly but I'm a pragmatist.
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"I fear that to me Siamese cats belong to the fauna of Mordor." J.R.R. Tolkien
Posts: 545 | From: The Shire | Registered: Jul 2012
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Who's talking about getting carried away deano? Soldiers are saints as far as I'm concerned.
Laurelin. Fair enough.
Beeswax Altar. My politics didn't come first. My Jesus did. My first politics were Tory and 'real' for over 30 years and my Jesus followed that. I have become more socially liberal with age and with my narrow, Zionist fundamentalist, chilialist, Anglo-Israelite cult imploding in the nineties. I've then been on a journey via neo-orthodoxy and postmodernism and my Jesus followed that - leading me the way - and my politics. And led.
Do you think that your Jesus is the true one shorn of your culture and His?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
I don't try to remove Jesus from His culture. To do so would be heresy. I'm very careful to separate my culture from what I attribute to Jesus. It is one of the reasons that I'm leery of quests for the historical Jesus and novel interpretations of scripture. As to politics, my view of Jesus doesn't directly influence my political opinions. I don't vote for candidates or support policies based on how I think Jesus would do because I don't know how Jesus would vote or what policies Jesus would support.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Laurelin
Shipmate
# 17211
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Posted
What Beeswax Altar said.
We should never try to separate Jesus from His Jewishness and His culture. We will never understand His humanity if we do that.
The idea of Jesus following my politics is plain bizarre and misguided. We should not try to co-opt Him for our own political biases. We can't control Jesus like that, or impose our own 21st century political paradigms and prejudices onto Him.
I'm not saying that being a Christian is irrelevant to my politics. Of course not. My political beliefs include a strong belief in the welfare state as a safety net, for example. But I've never suffered the delusion that Jesus would have voted either Labour or Tory. It's a truly daft notion. Meaningless regarding Jesus in His historical context, and laughable to think that Christ the cosmic Saviour is bound by our biases.
Back to war. War is sinful. War is horrible. Killing people is sinful and horrible. IS delights in killing people, innocent people who've done them no harm; IS is sinful and horrible. If killing an IS thug is also sinful and horrible, I can't believe it's unforgivable either.
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"I fear that to me Siamese cats belong to the fauna of Mordor." J.R.R. Tolkien
Posts: 545 | From: The Shire | Registered: Jul 2012
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Who's talking about getting carried away deano? Soldiers are saints as far as I'm concerned.
Well you did Martin. First sentence of the quote. You said it. Not Jesus, not me, but you.
You said it Martin. You.
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
deano mate, I know they are superbly trained. It's a figure of speech. Sending the paras in, you want them to get carried away and they do. Their 'momentum' is awesome, so much so that in the Falklands two angled waves of them so destroyed the enemy they took casualties from each other. They are shock troops. The SAS have been heavily recruited from Scots paras. And yes, they are even more highly trained. Deadlier. And the deadliest of them all are the SBS. When they have to be. Silently. The best, of the best, the best.
So no, they don't lose control and no, they don't get carried away in that sense. And so yes, I retract that figure of speech and any impression it gave to those who don't know these guys that they lose it. I've been out and about with all of them. It was fun.
[ 07. September 2014, 20:37: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Laurelin:
What Beeswax Altar said.
We should never try to separate Jesus from His Jewishness and His culture. We will never understand His humanity if we do that.
The idea of Jesus following my politics is plain bizarre and misguided. We should not try to co-opt Him for our own political biases. We can't control Jesus like that, or impose our own 21st century political paradigms and prejudices onto Him.
I'm not saying that being a Christian is irrelevant to my politics. Of course not. My political beliefs include a strong belief in the welfare state as a safety net, for example. But I've never suffered the delusion that Jesus would have voted either Labour or Tory. It's a truly daft notion. Meaningless regarding Jesus in His historical context, and laughable to think that Christ the cosmic Saviour is bound by our biases.
Back to war. War is sinful. War is horrible. Killing people is sinful and horrible. IS delights in killing people, innocent people who've done them no harm; IS is sinful and horrible. If killing an IS thug is also sinful and horrible, I can't believe it's unforgivable either.
I agree that Jesus' frame of reference was alien to us. The strongest reconstruction of the historical Jesus by far, Albert Schweitzer's eschatological prophet, thought Adonai was about to end history. Everything he said was premised on that assumption.
In deciding ethics, we must do the best we can, factoring in transferable ideals, but without forgetting their origin or assumptions. Turning the other cheek makes a ton of sense if you believe that paradise on earth is around the corner: a great deal less so 2,000 years down the line.
Violence is horrible, but, loathed as I am to say it, force is morally neutral. A police officer who shoots dead a murderer in the midst of a spree killing hasn't done a necessary evil: they've acted righteously.
Posts: 1112 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
Schweitzer, really, Schweitzer?
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Schweitzer, really, Schweitzer?
Sanders and Allison for the updated version.
Posts: 1112 | Registered: Mar 2010
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
I really wish people wouldn't use "just war" arguments. They really are a series of terrible rationalisations. All war is an evil, even when we believe it to be the only option left (and sometimes it is) but I wish we wouldn't pretend it's "just" or "moral".
Obviously those of us who do don't agree with this--nor would those Christians down through history who believed, and even helped formulate, the notion that some wars are just. We're not "pretending" nor "rationalizing." We just don't agree.
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Schweitzer, really, Schweitzer?
Sanders and Allison for the updated version.
Yeah, I'm with Luke Timothy Johnson. The quest is a fool's errand. I think both Allison and Sanders realize the limit of it. At least, they engage with all the material.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Jonah the Whale
Ship's pet cetacean
# 1244
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Posted
Laurelin, I am so glad you started posting again. It's like you can say what I think without me having to bother putting it into words.
Martin, I think I'd like to agree with you but I don't understand anything you say.
JtW
Posts: 2799 | From: Nether Regions | Registered: Aug 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Laurelin, Beeswax Altar in particular.
NOW we're getting down to it and I'm sorry again for all the ... crap. The child-child rhetoric. My UTTER failure to be irenical in defense of pacifism. The irony has always rankled to say the least. Now it's indefensible, not that it ever WAS defensible. Having been bitten by my sister's Rottweiler Daisy May (bitch!) yesterday must have done me some good. Now if I can't be irenical, I WILL shut my mouth. Hold me to that. To any hint of ... war in my members.
And Jonah the Whale, my apologies to you for my inability to string a thought together.
If Jesus is inextricable from His ancient Jewish context, then we're lost. I can't accept that proposition. But for you - both? - any attempt to do so leaves nothing coherent behind? The baby goes with the bathwater?
Beeswax Altar, I see the consistency of your approach in your refusal to ask WWJD in politics. A position I have held. That implies I think I've got a 'superior' one now. Well, I do and I don't. Like pacifism being further along the arc of the moral universe in ALL situations. As a proposition.
... I've got hot eyes just feeling a total f...lamin' failure in being irenical (now that I understand the word ...) up to this point. I am so sorry, for you are my brother(s) and sister(s) and I certainly love my kin sister unconditionally and would NEVER push back. I still love the sodding Rottweiler, we've played robustly together for a decade. But it'll never be the same again. Time for more ... respect all round. TRUE inclusion.
I know I have MUCH previous on this writhing in repentance.
My proposition is the emergent one. That we can and we must sift the timelessness of God from The Son of Man. Not become pot-smoking fornicating socially irresponsible libruls and creating the left-over, dregs or even original Jesus in that image. I can't do pot, it makes me paranoid.
And not becoming mere armchair pacifists in the face of IS and Putin and Ferguson.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Laurelin
Shipmate
# 17211
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jonah the Whale:
Laurelin, I am so glad you started posting again. It's like you can say what I think without me having to bother putting it into words.
JtW
Thank you!
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
If Jesus is inextricable from His ancient Jewish context, then we're lost. I can't accept that proposition.
I can because the Church's denial of His Jewishness has had catastrophic consequences.
And Marcion was wrong.
Of course Jesus transcends his own culture's rules, Martin. He is Torah-observant and yet often subverts the Torah, thus giving it a yet deeper meaning. He embodies it.
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
But for you - both? - any attempt to do so leaves nothing coherent behind? The baby goes with the bathwater?
It depends on what you think the baby is ... ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
I can't co-opt Jesus for any of our frightful war-mongering. Nor would I attempt to do so. I'm with Ad Orientem on this (his posts on this subject are excellent) - arguments for so-called 'just wars' rarely work for me either.
As you often point out, Christianity has had 1700 years of being a state religion and a world power and the results are ... yeah, often
![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
And yet I'm still left with this quandary: I don't believe that Jesus sanctions killing, but I do believe in using the power of Caesar sometimes if it means defeating an enemy like IS. And they ARE an enemy. They want to be our enemies, they enjoy it.
It's impossible to be completely pure on issues of war and peace. And yet Christ demands purity of us. ![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif)
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"I fear that to me Siamese cats belong to the fauna of Mordor." J.R.R. Tolkien
Posts: 545 | From: The Shire | Registered: Jul 2012
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Seems to me that Matt Black asked the right question:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
if we stand by and do nothing, being possessed of the means to prevent or at least mitigate atrocities, to what extent are we joined in culpability for the deaths ?
Does having the power to prevent some portion of an evil create a moral responsibility to do so ?
The problem that arises is that, even if we have the means to rescue a hostage or two, does that make things worse as a whole? Where's your moral responsibility now? quote:
And if so, faced with a choice between acquiring the military power to intervene abroad, or spending the money on something else, should we be choosing guns before butter ?
Best wishes,
Russ
Pretty much as before, we have to look at the whole situation, which amongst other things means facing down powerful lobby groups (who exhibit no moral responsibility whatsoever). Do dairymen contribute more to the GNP and campaign funds than arms manufacturers?
Firstly, we are not talking about potentially saving 'one or two' hostages but whole communities who have been there thousands of years. Secondly, we can by and large only act as we see best given the limited amount of knowledge we have; we are constrained by our limitations to act, by and large, deontologically rather than teleologically.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Martin:
If Jesus is inextricable from His ancient Jewish context, then we're lost. I can't accept that proposition. But for you - both? - any attempt to do so leaves nothing coherent behind? The baby goes with the bathwater?
Separating Jesus from his culture is impossible. For you, the bits about Jesus that you call the baby are those bits which support a rather broadly political ideology. Thus, you are using what you consider the best ideas of your own culture to judge Jesus. Not only do I think this is a bad way of doing theology. I think it is a potentially dangerous way of doing theology.
Let's try this. You refer to the God of the OT as God the Killer. This God killed thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children all by Himself. He orders the deaths of even more men, women, and children. On multiple occasions, this God orders genocide. If we judge God by human standards, this God is like Hitler and Stalin.
Up thread, you acknowledge that Jesus believed in God the Killer. We can go further than believed in Jesus the Killer. Jesus worshiped God the Killer. Jesus claimed God the Killer was his father.
Are you telling me that if a guy walked around your town calling Hitler or Stalin his father that you would look at him as a shining ethical example? I don't think you or many others would. I don't think it would matter how nonviolent he was or how many good deeds he did. What if that guy talked frequently about establishing his father's kingdom or reich?
quote:
originally posted by Martin:
Beeswax Altar, I see the consistency of your approach in your refusal to ask WWJD in politics. A position I have held. That implies I think I've got a 'superior' one now. Well, I do and I don't. Like pacifism being further along the arc of the moral universe in ALL situations. As a proposition.
For me, scripture and tradition do not teach pacifism. Pacifism doesn't seem reasonable to me. So, I reject it for both political and religious reasons.
Look, if you want to hold political positions because you think Jesus would support those positions, go right ahead. Good luck trying to convince those who don't already agree with those positions that they should hold those positions that they should change their mind because Jesus said so especially since you are willing to ignore stuff Jesus said that you don't like. Personally, I think you are fooling yourself. Other people disagree with your political positions and claim they do so because of what they believe Jesus would support. I think they are fooling themselves too.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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