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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Kill the Christians
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Komensky
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# 8675
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Posted
We're coming back to that are we? That Christianity is an inherently peaceful religion? It's way more peaceful than Islam, I'll grant you that.
K.
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"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
I wonder if all those burned by Christians, over, what, a 1000 years, might disagree? I guess it was for their own good, though.
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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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Komensky
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# 8675
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Posted
Again, a fundamental difference is that Christianity—despite many efforts to the contrary—has done a better job of listening to advice and following practices from outside the Bible. Most Christians (in Europe, anyway) have abandoned genital mutilation, death sentences for apostates, alduterers, people of different religions and mouthy children. Christians also accepted heliocentricity. The list could go on and on. That renaissance has yet to happen to Islam—and we don't have 500 years to wait for it to happen.
K.
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"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 1784 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Yes, the Christian West has reached such dizzy heights of civilization as to be able to use 'shock and awe', including incendiary bombs, drones, water-boarding.
Of course, the reply is usually, but they are not Christian attacks. Funny how countries are labelled Christian or not, depending on the context. An admirable degree of moral slipperiness!
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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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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
That renaissance has yet to happen to Islam—and we don't have 500 years to wait for it to happen.
While this holds a lot of truth, we also need to remember where the renaissance came from: not just Arabic and Persian translations of Greek scientist-philosophers, but from Arab and Persian scientists who were simply streets ahead of their European counterparts. The scientific method is widely credited to Francis Bacon, but Al-hazen was there a couple of hundred years beforehand.
A combination of religious, political and geopolitical events ended, and ossified Islamic thought in the 14th-16th centuries, just as the European renaissance was taking off. It's one of those tipping points in history. If only...
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
Personally, I don't label any country as Christian. Where is the sense in that? Countries don't believe, people do.
This isn't a trivial point. The most that can ever be claimed is that a majority of people share the same kind of outlook (moral, spiritual etc) and vision. So far as Christianity is concerned, good luck with that claim so far as e.g. either the US or the UK are concerned. These boards provide interesting evidence that in those countries Christians differ over both outlook and vision.
IME the phrase "I thought this was supposed to be a Christian country" contains the same sort of fallacy as "I thought this was supposed to be a Christian website". In other words, it is a protest from an individual that other people don't share their outlook and vision - and they ought to.
A kind of hardening of the oughteries, but not much connected to the realities of variation in beliefs, outlook and vision which are actually "out there".
[ 23. April 2015, 12:20: 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
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# 368
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Posted
Sorry to disappoint you mr cheesy. That my tone isn't dialectical enough. I trust it's self righteous enough?
Matt Black, shame. No answer for the faith that's in you?
K. If we quantify it, i.e. never mind the theory, then Christianity is still orders of magnitude more violent. Bush was told by God to go to war. And Christian Blair was the most bellicose prime minister since Churchill. And as for theory only a tiny minority of Christians are cheek turners. MLK was. Anyone else of ANY significance?
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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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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Personally, I don't label any country as Christian. Where is the sense in that? Countries don't believe, people do.
This isn't a trivial point. The most that can ever be claimed is that a majority of people share the same kind of outlook (moral, spiritual etc) and vision. So far as Christianity is concerned, good luck with that claim so far as e.g. either the US or the UK are concerned. These boards provide interesting evidence that in those countries Christians differ over both outlook and vision.
IME the phrase "I thought this was supposed to be a Christian country" contains the same sort of fallacy as "I thought this was supposed to be a Christian website". In other words, it is a protest from an individual that other people don't share their outlook and vision - and they ought to.
A kind of hardening of the oughteries, but not much connected to the realities of variation in beliefs, outlook and vision which are actually "out there".
Good answer. I suppose you could also argue that Christianity simply became irrelevant, as secularism advanced. Violence was outsourced to secular authorities; whether this is progress, I don't know.
There is the Bush/Blair argument, I mean that they are Christian warriors, a bit thin, though. They are secular politicians with a varnish of optional faith. But I suppose the people killed by them are not going to argue the toss, although others may want revenge.
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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
quetzcoatl
I think the concept of a "marketplace of ideas" might have something to say. Perhaps some of us need to get used to the fact that our ideas and our ideals are no longer in any kind of majority; rather they are part of an often quite bewildering cultural "smorgasbord".
Personally, I quite like the smorgasbord, find it an interesting, intriguing and sometimes challenging aspect of current UK society. Provided there is space for the particular "open sandwich" I prefer, I don't feel threatened by "other sandwiches". There is something to be said for making the best presentation of "our" particular type of open sandwich, rather than trying to sweep the others off the table because "we" are sure they won't do people any good.
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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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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
quetzcoatl
I think the concept of a "marketplace of ideas" might have something to say. Perhaps some of us need to get used to the fact that our ideas and our ideals are no longer in any kind of majority; rather they are part of an often quite bewildering cultural "smorgasbord".
Personally, I quite like the smorgasbord, find it an interesting, intriguing and sometimes challenging aspect of current UK society. Provided there is space for the particular "open sandwich" I prefer, I don't feel threatened by "other sandwiches". There is something to be said for making the best presentation of "our" particular type of open sandwich, rather than trying to sweep the others off the table because "we" are sure they won't do people any good.
Another good answer, you're on a roll, geezer.
One of the intriguing aspects of watching Wolf Hall was seeing the sheer power of the church, obviously in Wolsey and More, but also our 'Enery wrestling with political/religious issues. One of his wives wrote a couple of books on devotion, maybe the last one.
Something magnificent about it in a way, although cruel. Now where is my copy of Dover Beach?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
Washed out to sea by the retreating tide, perhaps?
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
Apologies for taking so long to respond.
I've had a couple of busy days.
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It is not a fallacy.
Oh yes it is.
No sane person thinks that the Western liberal democracies are perfect, but no sane person thinks they are as bad as IS, either.
And no honest person could claim with a straight face that they didn't care whether they lived in a Western liberal democracy or under IS because "there's no difference between them".
quote:
And I don't like the way you brazenly suggest a whole bunch of things about me that I don't believe here.
I'm no particular fan of Rick Warren, but his famous statement seems apposite here: "It's not about you".
But I do appreciate the retro charm of "brazenly"!
quote:
Explain to me, for a start, how flying drones into innocent homes is not morally equivalent to cutting people's heads off on a beach. Go on, name some differences which makes them worse than us.
Explain to me how killing 70,000 innocent French people in the bombing campaign which preceded the D-Day landings was not morally equivalent to casually shooting Polish, Russian and other East Europeans. Go on, name some differences which made them worse than us.
Sorry, but I simply do not believe that you are incapable of grasping the difference between the deliberate killing of people by tyrannies like IS or Nazism, and the accidental deaths and unofficial atrocities which inevitably accompany opposing them.
The only route out of this dilemma is the intellectual self-indulgence of absolute, doctrinaire pacifism.
quote:
dictator-supporting shit
I've noticed that opponents of the "he's a sonofabitch but he's our sonofabitch"-style "dictator-supporting shit" always go very quiet when the subject of our support for Stalin during WWII is raised.
quote:
Maybe we were not as bad. But that doesn't let us off the hook, we did a lot of bad stuff.
fair enough, but I would add that when it came to those actually affected by communism (as opposed to safe, comfortable middle-class inhabitants of Western countries like ourselves, who enjoy the luxury of merely discussing it), an awful lot voted with their feet and risked their lives to escape communism, while precious few tried to escape the West to reach communist countries.
quote:
]In the early 20 century, the Nazi regime and their sympathisers perpectuated genocide. Clearly the Allies did not. 'We' were therefore not as bad.
If you take into account the stuff we got involved in from the Transatlantic Slave Trade period until the end of the British Empire, it is a hard thing to argue that there is much difference between our behaviour and that of the Nazis other than geography and scale.
Make up your mind.
The West was either as bad as the Nazis because it once engaged in the slave trade, or it was not because it did not engage in genocide.
I think you're starting to grasp at straws.
(And "perpectuated"?)
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
I never supported Stalin (nor would I if I had been alive at the time) and the bombing of innocents is always a war crime.
Drones kill thousands of innocents. On the level of who has killed more random innocents, those launching the drones or IS, there is very little difference.
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arse
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
There is little difference until you raise the question of how many IS would have killed if the drones had not been launched.Decisions like whether to send in drones are always very difficult to make but easy to criticise.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Didn't IS burn that Jordanian pilot, because they said he had been dropping incendiaries? It's revolting logic, but once war begins, it seems inevitable.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
There is little difference until you raise the question of how many IS would have killed if the drones had not been launched.Decisions like whether to send in drones are always very difficult to make but easy to criticise.
Random killing of innocents is easy to criticise because it is immoral. Whoever does it.
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arse
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Komensky
Shipmate
# 8675
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Posted
Martin, I don't think we are in broad disagreement here. I don't recall Blair citing god as his reason for taking the country into war—though Bush clearly did. Blair, by the way, was very quickly taken up right-wing Christians in the UK. Nicky Gumbel, the leading light of the UK Christian Right, invited him to his 'Leadership Conference' at the Royal Albert Hall—an event that has turned into a parade of right-wing evangelicals and like-minded Catholics. Also note how Nicky Gumbel has promoted David Cameron (a fellow Etonian, of course). Evangelicals in the UK used to be more on the Left, but 'leaders' like Nicky Gumbel and many other influential right-wingers are playing no small part in changing that. Ah, let us not forget Justin Welby in that group too.
Now that I've said all that, I don't think we can compare even the most misguided Jesus-inspired campaign of violence from the likes of Bush (and possibly Blair?) with the activities of IS. We can condemn both, but it is foolishness to suggest that the two are even in the same league.
K.
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"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 1784 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2004
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I imagine it probably is his best. And you know what? If it makes one sabre-rattler think twice about pretending that sending young men and women with guns and bombs into an already bloody situation is going to make it better, it's a point well worth making.
I agree with you and Martin that war is ridiculous. See my contributions above.
But if we're going to end up with arguments which appeal to whether or not Jesus would change his mind, then we've got nowhere lower to go.
The thing is it's a trolley decision. There are no good outcomes. Whatever happens people will die. As a good ethical Martin thinks that violence is always bad (you should refuse to divert the trolley, even though there may be a less bad outcome because it would constitute a wilful decision to kill someone) where as Matt, in this instance has come down on the consequentialist side (you should divert the trolley because that will save some lives even though it will kill others).
The difference being that in the original trolley dilemma the outcomes of both courses of action were known, knowns. (The trolley kills several people if not diverted but only one if diverted). Military intervention in the Middle East (or refusal to intervene) is based on a series of known and unknown, unknowns. So there are consequentialist arguments for staying out as well as for going in.
As to what Jesus would have done, I think it is certainly arguable that he was a pacifist and meant for his followers to be in which case, of course, Martin is right. If you think (as I do) that he left open the possibility of violence in extremis, then clearly stopping a political movement based on psychotic levels of violence passes the test but there is still the question whether military intervention will actually achieve the intended aims.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I don't think anyone is arguing otherwise than that the transatlantic slave trade, Stalin's terror, the Holocaust etc were thoroughly bad things. But do they have any bearing on the topic in hand, which is oppression of Christians in the Middle East?
And while on the subject of the transatlantic slave trade. we all now accept that slavery is wrong, and that neither a person nor a company can own a human being. Most of us also think that a state shouldn't. But until Wilberforce and other campaigners in the late eighteenth century, it seems to have occurred rather few groups in history that there was anything fundamentally wrong with this idea.
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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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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
And while on the subject of the transatlantic slave trade. we all now accept that slavery is wrong, and that neither a person nor a company can own a human being. Most of us also think that a state shouldn't. But until Wilberforce and other campaigners in the late eighteenth century, it seems to have occurred rather few groups in history that there was anything fundamentally wrong with this idea.
Utter rubbish. But as you say, we're some way from the topic at hand.
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arse
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Komensky
Shipmate
# 8675
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
As to what Jesus would have done, I think it is certainly arguable that he was a pacifist …
Oh yeah?
Matthew 10:34, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword."
Luke 12:49 (NIV) “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!"
Also, if you believe that Jesus is a co-person of the Trinity then I suggest you have a little flip through the pages of Exodus, Deuteronomy and Leviticus—just for starters.
K.
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"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 1784 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
Martin, I don't think we are in broad disagreement here. I don't recall Blair citing god as his reason for taking the country into war—though Bush clearly did. Blair, by the way, was very quickly taken up right-wing Christians in the UK. Nicky Gumbel, the leading light of the UK Christian Right, invited him to his 'Leadership Conference' at the Royal Albert Hall—an event that has turned into a parade of right-wing evangelicals and like-minded Catholics. Also note how Nicky Gumbel has promoted David Cameron (a fellow Etonian, of course). Evangelicals in the UK used to be more on the Left, but 'leaders' like Nicky Gumbel and many other influential right-wingers are playing no small part in changing that. Ah, let us not forget Justin Welby in that group too.
Now that I've said all that, I don't think we can compare even the most misguided Jesus-inspired campaign of violence from the likes of Bush (and possibly Blair?) with the activities of IS. We can condemn both, but it is foolishness to suggest that the two are even in the same league.
K.
You can argue that they are mirror-images, in the form of a warped idealism allied with enormous violence. Shock and awe meets jihad; they use different weapons, of course, and we tend to prefer our own violence, and see it as morally superior, but then who doesn't?
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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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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
As to what Jesus would have done, I think it is certainly arguable that he was a pacifist …
Oh yeah?
Matthew 10:34, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword."
Luke 12:49 (NIV) “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!"
Also, if you believe that Jesus is a co-person of the Trinity then I suggest you have a little flip through the pages of Exodus, Deuteronomy and Leviticus—just for starters.
K.
Yeah. Arguable, not certain. The Sermon on the Mount would point to such a view (and dispenses, I think, of a Christian ethno-nationalist reading of the OT) as does his conduct in the Garden of Gethsemane. It's not my view but it's not self-evidently absurd and I think that it's quite telling that some Christians get really upset when the subject comes up, almost as if they had pangs of conscience on the matter.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I think that one interesting historical point is that the West have been invading and occupying the Middle East for about 200 years, not exactly sure of the dates, but I think that the French moved into Algeria in the early 19th century.
Of course, you might say that this is irrelevant, and it's notoriously difficult to make historical links of this kind. But there was a recent film of militants erasing the Sykes-Picot line with a bull-dozer, and they seemed to be shouting appropriate slogans. Well, I commend their history teachers.
But maybe finding blame or apportioning moral weight in the scales, is pointless, in any case. 'You started it' generally marks another degeneration in an argument.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Matt Black
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# 2210
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Posted
Algeria doesn't really count as ME IMO, but otherwise, yes: Britain has invaded Iraq four times in the last 100 years (five if you count Winston's gassing of the Kurds in 1920-21). I'm reminded of I think ++Desmond Tutu some 30 years ago who, when asked by a BBC journo why the British government should give a fig about apartheid in South Africa, replied, "Because it is the British government which is responsible for all this crap, my friend."
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Algeria doesn't really count as ME IMO, but otherwise, yes: Britain has invaded Iraq four times in the last 100 years (five if you count Winston's gassing of the Kurds in 1920-21). I'm reminded of I think ++Desmond Tutu some 30 years ago who, when asked by a BBC journo why the British government should give a fig about apartheid in South Africa, replied, "Because it is the British government which is responsible for all this crap, my friend."
Yes, I suppose at some point the responsibility ends, but it's not easy to determine when. I don't really know how much moderate Muslims blame the West, I guess that it varies. Do Egypytians still curse Antony Eden? No idea.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
And while on the subject of the transatlantic slave trade. we all now accept that slavery is wrong, and that neither a person nor a company can own a human being. Most of us also think that a state shouldn't. But until Wilberforce and other campaigners in the late eighteenth century, it seems to have occurred rather few groups in history that there was anything fundamentally wrong with this idea.
Wilberforce is the end of a historical process. Already within medieval Europe slavery was thought to be an evil that needed justification. It may not be an accident that unlike earlier mediterranean societies, the medieval European economy was not based on slave labour (whether serfs thought this was an improvement is another matter). Throughout the eighteenth century there was a growing consensus that slavery ought to be abolished, led to some extent by the Quakers I think. Well before slave trading was abolished, it was illegal to hold slaves on the British mainlands: any slave that set foot on the island of Britain was automatically freed. The same goes for France. The French Revolution abolished slavery within French colonies before the British did, though they un-abolished it shortly afterwards.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I'm not sure it's the case that UK evangelicalism has lurched to the right under the influence of Nicky Gumbel or Justin Welby.
If anything, there's always been a range of views within UK evangelicalism when it comes to politics.
When I were a lad, many, but no means all, of the independent evangelicals and charismatics were vaguely to the right - although there were significant voices pushing towards a more left-leaning position.
I was always mildly left of centre during my full-on evangelical days. I wasn't that unusual to be on the left politically but then there were quite a lot of evangelicals who were Tory too.
Our constituency MP is an evangelical Christian but she doesn't attract the votes of all the evangelical Christians hereabouts any more than she would attract 'liberal Christian' votes if she came from the liberal end of the theological spectrum.
I'm not sure that it's the case at all that evangelicalism in the UK is moving right-wards.
If anything, it seems to be liberalising in its views to certain DH issues - although that's not the case right across the board - and those who are involved with Food Banks and so on are deeply critical of Conservative social policies.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
I agree. And, of course, social class came into t too. For instance "Bash Camp" public-school-educated evangelical Anglicans may well have tended towards Conservatism, while working-class Methodists must surely have been Liberal or Labour. (Or not).
I do wonder though if the modern "prosperity" charismatics - insofar as they engage with politics - might lean towards the right? I don't know.
[ 24. April 2015, 16:07: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
The latter are I think becoming a spent force in the UK. At least I hope so...
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Gumbel and Welby (and also Andrew White, incidentally) come from a very similar space in the quasi-Charismatic Evangelical Anglican spectrum. And I think Welby and Gumbel both went to Eton. I'm not sure where White went to school, but he was once a Tory councillor, FWIW.
All of that said, it is a massive over-generalisation to claim that these are somehow representatives of the Christian Right - using terms borrowed from the USA.
As Gamiliel has indicated, I think there is very little truth in that statement.
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arse
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, I suppose at some point the responsibility ends, but it's not easy to determine when. I don't really know how much moderate Muslims blame the West, I guess that it varies. Do Egypytians still curse Antony Eden? No idea.
Not spent so much time with Egyptians, but in general Arabs from around the region regularly blame the British for things that we've totally forgotten about - because we made such a mess.
One would do well to read up on the Balfour declaration if planning to spend much time in Palestine, for example, because you will certainly be asked about it.
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arse
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Erm, I mean if you are British travelling in the region. I'm not sure whether they'd have the same conversation with other nationalities.
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arse
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
White .. he was once a Tory councillor, FWIW..
In Wandsworth, though I cannot find out on the web if he was a Tory.
According to wikipedia the by-election after his resignation was a 'Tory hold', so yes. That said, it doesn't follow that evangelicals automatically equate to Tory politics (or indeed, that Christians who vote Tory aren't making a contribution to the Kingdom. One of my heroes is my former PCC secretary who was resolutely low church and whose politics are generally indistinguishable from the leading articles in the Daily Telegraph.) Pete173 of this parish was elected to the local authority in the Labour interest and the sadly missed ken would doubtless come back and haunt us if we didn't acknowledge that it's quite possible to be a socialist and an evangelical. Welby may be a Tory, but judging from the sledging he got from the right wing press for the C of E's pre-election "here are some issues you may want to consider" document he's clearly deeply parteigenossen, as far as the Cult of Thatch* are concerned. Personally, I regard devotion to Our Lord And His Blessed Mother, the Sensible Wing of Anglo-Catholicism and the Workers Cause as indivisible but among those strange and idiosyncratic group that sociologists describe as "other people", things are not quite that straight forward.
*The Actually Existing Thatch would have been deeply parteigenossen to the cultists. A competent, female, pro-European leader who won wars and elections would have been deeply anathema to the votaries of Iain Duncan Smith and Nigel Farage. Some of my best friends are on the right of centre, but it's really quite embarrassing to see the political heirs of Peel, Disraeli, Churchill and Thatcher reduced to touting Dave the Rave or The Pound Shop Enoch Powell as the nations salvation.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
As to what Jesus would have done, I think it is certainly arguable that he was a pacifist …
Oh yeah?
Matthew 10:34, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword."
Luke 12:49 (NIV) “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!"
Also, if you believe that Jesus is a co-person of the Trinity then I suggest you have a little flip through the pages of Exodus, Deuteronomy and Leviticus—just for starters.
K.
Komensky, you aren't a Christian fundamentalist and you aren't an atheist are you? So why do you sound like an atheist of the only God of wooden literalism?
It isn't arguable. Jesus was a pacifist. There is no doubt of that. None. No 'debate' is possible. It isn't possible to construct a Jesus in the flesh who wasn't. A Jesus who is the only pure example of the Divine in action we have, of how God behaves through humanity. Everything else is mere culturally mediated words which His actions spoke volumes larger than.
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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 Callan. YOU are amusing. A bit too even handed, but amusing.
Kaplan Corday. WE are the world's WORST fucking nightmare. We really, REALLY believe that we are the good guys. So anything we HAVE to do to the deluded, like nuking them for the 'greater good', is regrettable but righteous. Our hands are tied. Babies must burn to prevent ... worse?
IS should fear us. We will force them to be worse and worse so that we can make them beg for peace unconditionally. Those tiny few who survive. We're just waiting. The Beast has one hooded eye watching. Watching the Libya it casually, righteously, insanely (the way Tony Blair made himself - and me - insane over besieged Iraq: that wasn't good enough, there HAD to be regime change to stop Saddam killing babies which we forced him to do) created. The pendulum will swing for another 'good' war. It ALWAYS does. It takes less than a generation. Far less. It's swinging now. We will stop the flight of the desperate. One way and another. We will not allow half a million a year, every year to threaten our privilege. Our marginal, racist citizens won't allow us to allow it.
Too much Elliot and Yeats? Hmmm. John the Divine has a lot to answer for.
Lord deliver us from WORDS, from the insane beliefs we talk ourselves in to. To peace at ANY price.
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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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Komensky
Shipmate
# 8675
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
[snip]
I do wonder though if the modern "prosperity" charismatics - insofar as they engage with politics - might lean towards the right? I don't know.
They most certainly do. Which is part of my complaint about UK charismania moving to the right. If you don't think that HTB is attempting to lead a move to the Right, you are not paying close enough attention. I'll have to add more on that later. In short, Nicky has gone to very considerable lengths at great expense to get involved (and get on TV) of the US right-wing evangelicals. Just have a look at the speakers of his so-called 'leadership' conference for the part few years.
K.
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"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
Please do elaborate, as I guess that many of us on the Ship are not too familiar with this particular part of the Church. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I wonder if British charismatics move to the right because their theological approach leads them to think that way, and so end up linking with the Americans? Or is it that their theology itself (and their "management" approach to church life) naturally leads them to associate with the Americans, whose political ideology then comes back to influence the Brits? In other words, which is "cause" and which is "effect"?
[ 25. April 2015, 08:31: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
hosting/
If either of you wish to discuss this tangent further, I suggest starting a new thread.
/hosting
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Komensky
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# 8675
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Posted
Agreed. Thanks for keep things on topic.
K.
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"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
(declaration of interest: I'll be at the forthcoming Alpha leaders' conference, although not as a delegate, and this declaration is not an endorsement of it!)
[ 25. April 2015, 08:43: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Komensky
Shipmate
# 8675
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Posted
You'll have a chance to hear at least one speaker who was on the business end of a federal (US) investigation by the US government. Another of the speakers is merely a preacher at another church under investigation—at the notorious barn of crackpots around Joel Osteen.
I wonder if Joyce Meyers will fly there in her own jet?
Enjoy!
K.
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"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Rewind. Ah Callan, there you are. Yeah. Of course Jesus allowed for extremis in the relational, the personal, the communal. Would you have wanted to harm a hair on His mother's head with Him, as fit as a butcher's cat from being a hard walking chippie, around? I'm not off me trolley after all. Neither was He. He took the Mafia on single handed in the temple after all.
Caesar will do what Caesar does. We have to work with that. But when we work with it seamlessly, then Steve Langton's right.
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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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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
hosting/
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Caesar will do what Caesar does. We have to work with that. But when we work with it seamlessly, then Steve Langton's right.
Martin60, you are stepping perilously close to defying a hostly injunction that came soon after an Admin warning.
Constantinianism and its perceived evils are off limits for this thread, as is anything perceived as tempting Steve Langton to return to the subject on it.
/hosting
[ 25. April 2015, 18:37: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Dear me, I'm sorry. I beg your and the other hosts' pardon.
[ 25. April 2015, 23:13: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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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
This couldn't be said of Jesus: You're a Warmonger.
It CAN be said of White, Welby and Bergoglio.
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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
UNLESS, of course, they are being faithful pragmatists, like Paul, invoking their 'rights' as citizens of Rome to a military response. Are they saying, 'Our hands are clean of 2000 years of Roman interference in the region in which Christianity arose, please interfere some more for the right reason: the defense of Christians that your wrong interference has jeopardized.'? I.e. 'Please clean up YOUR mess hurting our voters, using YOUR means.'.?
[ 03. May 2015, 09:45: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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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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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
This couldn't be said of Jesus: You're a Warmonger.
It CAN be said of White, Welby and Bergoglio.
Wow! That's quite a blanket accusation. I'm not sure I can see what it has to do with the OP, or upon what basis it is being made. Nor, for that matter what the link has to do with any of them, though whoever that chap is, he clearly hates his country.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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