a timely denial and three affirmations

No to divisive, hateful rhetoric and the fomenting of it.
Yes to public policies that make minorities secure.
Yes to the idea that we are all called to love.
Yes to the idea that God is inclusive love.

openhorizons.org/after-the-s … MQyt3nHgq0

No to divisive hateful rhetoric and the fomenting of it Yes
Yes to public policies that make minorities secure Yes
Yes to the idea that we are all called to love Yes
Yes to the idea that God is inclusive love No

Felix, with all due respect…this sounds like some fake news indoctrination type stuff. Aren’t you aware that everyone is the enemy? They’re genociding white people and trying to take over america with crowds of immigrants, and the poor are trying to take up all the healthcare and houses and they’re refusing to pay their student loans which is basically stealing an education. Minorities want to take over the country and destroy the american values of wall street and basically trump is the only person who can save us all from that.

Silly me. I thought Jesus taught us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, to welcome the foreigner, to share our coat with one has none, to free the oppressed, to extend hospitality to strangers, and to love in truth and action not just with words. My Bible doesn’t say anything about a savior named Trump. Jesus might have been referring to Trump when he said “woe to the rich” and preached against greed and deceitfulness. I guess I need a new Bible so I can go along with the current Evangelical crowd.

When Jesus was young he was a liberal. But then he grew up and now he’s republican Jesus. Just do a quick google search for republican Jesus you’ll see.

There’s a liberal Jesus that can be found on the internet as well. There are libertarian and anarchist Jesuses too. The picture of Jesus in the New Testament is incomplete and complex enough that it acts as a kind of Rorschach test upon which people project their values.

When Jesus was young he was a-political. All he was interested in was fishing, carpentry and learning the will of His father. As he grew into His Self, he took on the skin of a Democrat, always for the people.

I suppose that he may have had Republican leanings when they considered and led to the good of all and not just to the good of some.

That’s the Arcturus Descending Jesus.

Don’t your parents, family, friends, teachers and even strangers teach you these things? I mean really, when you think back to it. If you weren’t told Jesus stories, would you have not learned to do such things? How much input did they really have, and was it more than other moral stories that you came across? Maybe you learned these things from the people in your life and you were just told in retrospect that it was actually Jesus who taught you?

Sure, you might argue that Jesus taught the teachers in your life these lessons, and they simply passed it on, but that extends back in time indefinitely - or at least to when Jesus was supposed to actually be alive. So before that time, did people really have no idea about these lessons? As you’ll probably be aware, many animal species exhibit Jesus-behaviours - not least many other primates, and presumably Jesus wasn’t teaching them?

You might say “the Silhouette Jesus” is the one who is simply the personified tendency for some animals to be better sexually and naturally selected when they’re nice to each other, but don’t you think it’s kind of redundant to add in the mythology to something that’s perfectly well explainable without it?

In short:

Yes.

That made me laugh. Of course it is, Felix.
One may also say that about each person in here who posted his/her view of Christ.
Of course, there are so many different adjectives and descriptions in the bible to paint a picture of Christ.

felix dakat wrote:

No to divisive, hateful rhetoric and the fomenting of it. Aye

Yes to public policies that make minorities secure. Do these policies make ALL secure and are they also practical and for the good of all in the long run?

Yes to the idea that we are all called to love. But to love everyone?

Yes to the idea that God is inclusive love. The idea of it or the evidence for it? Has it been proven?

Felix,

Is all of this really a uniquely Jesus story? Could it possibly be that the Jesus meme is simply an “echo” of humanity’s capacity for empathy and compassion? The golden rule was expressed in many cultures long before Jesus. Perhaps Jesus simply co-opted the sentiment of the wisest forebearers who called upon our better angels.

Mr. Reasonable,

You are a shit stirrer - but I like it.

Yes it’s kind of redundant but it’s not merely redundant. I actually made the point about empathy and compassion being mammalian and not limited to the human species on another thread recently.

Democracy that doesn’t protect minorities might be called an illiberal democracy. Trump seems to be moving his political base that way. If you’re not for all inclusive love who would you exclude?

The opening post was a quotation from a rabbi in response to the anti-semitic killing at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. That should answer your question.

In a battle between Baal and Yahweh, Yahweh tranforms, and wins.

youtube.com/watch?v=dHLOF8HnZfA

I hope my salvation doesn’t depend on accepting that cuz even a 1.5 times the normal speed I found it too boring to watch. Of course, I already knew the Bible stories so there was no suspense.

I lost my taste for highly idealized presentations of Bible stories when I grew up having found them quite entertaining as a child when I also liked monster movies. I wonder if anything like that music sound track was playing in Elijah’s head. I doubt it cuz if there were he wouldn’t have been able to hear the “still small voice.”

Anyway, please don’t take offence if you liked it, which I assume you did. It just isn’t to my taste. A difference of form not substance

felix dax,

What minorities are you speaking about here? Do you have any particular ones in mind?
What do you mean by protect other than its literal meaning? What does it involve?

Well Rabbi Artson said yes to public policies that make minority’s secure after 11 Jews were murdered at the Tree of Life synagogue last week. If we look at domestic terrorism we see other salient examples like the 49 people who were murdered at a gay nightclub in Orlando in 2016. We can also see that in 2015 nine black Christians were murdered at a prayer meeting. So those are three instances of domestic terrorism against minorities. There have been terrorist acts against Sikhs and Muslims in the US as well. But I really wasn’t thinking of a particular minority. I was thinking about the tyranny of the majority and about the government’s duty to protect minorities lest democracy become tyrannical or allow tyranny. Protection begins with the first Amendment to the US Constitution but obviously that isn’t enough in and of itself.

The implication seems to be either these minorities are given less protection than the majority and that this should be rectified or that they should be given special protections not afforded to the majority.

I’d be eager to rectify any instance of the former that could be shown to be true, I’d be terrified to implement the latter.

However much we may wish to safeguard the minority we should take special care never to grant them more rights or privileges than we do the majority.

The tyranny of the majority, as bad as that may be, is preferable to the tyranny of the minority… since the latter would by definition leave behind more victims.

Well, this could have been one of the key moments in the (re)evolution of Yahweh (creation of a different God). He was a pagan tribal god in the beginning, very similar to Baal, also manifesting as similar natural forces, but at some point (900 BC?) there was a push to separate Yahweh from Baal (or rather, to separate the worshippers). Perhaps the tribal priests were concerned with their newly arrived people assimilating into the local Canaanite culture. But how to separate and elevate a more or less a similar god, except to radically transform it? This may have been an epiphany for Elijah, and his main goal may have been the preservation of his tribe (whatever, demographically, it may have been like at the time). But then, wouldnt god’s power no longer be tied to the particular weather patterns of the local land, but rather exclusively to the priests who communicate on behalf of such god? Who has free access to such a god?
evolutionofgod.net/excerpts_chapter5

And what happened to the local Baal worshipping Canaanites who were supposed to be wiped out by the decree of the jealous and more-powerful, yet invisible Yahweh? google.com/amp/s/www.timeso … banon/amp/