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.
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/
I agree with you in the abstract. But let’s look at the situation in terms of religious groups in the US. According to the Pew Research Center 70.6% of Americans are Christians. 1.9% Jewish .9% Muslim .7% Buddhist .7% Hindu. 22.8% or unaffiliated including 3.1% atheist 4.0% agnostic and 15.8% nothing in particular. Among the Christians the Evangelical Protestants make up 25.4% of the population. The latter folks overwhelmingly supported demagogue Donald Trump for president. Trump frequently voices conspiracy theories to stir up his political base. Recently belief in those theories lead to two terrorists taking action to send pipe bombs civilians and to shoot innocent Jewish worshipers in a synagogue. So, given your concern about not granting more rights and privileges to minorities, what would you propose?
Sorry I didn’t get all that from watching the previous video that you posted. The evolution of the god concept from tribal god to the national God of Israel is fascinating from a historical perspective. How exactly is it related to the inclusive god of love proposed in the OP?
I was trying to place your view of god on a historical timeline. Originally, both Baal and Yahweh were condidered fearsome warrior gods as well. Even when ideas of compassion (cohesion) were manifesting, they were first very selective about it, reserved for those loyal to them (love for our kind only), so rites of covenenat were very important, if not more so in ancient times, (and considering that real genocides at that time were common, it is understandable; and that, btw, applies to other peoples as well, such as Assyrians).
We are still selective about who gets our love and compassion. Why don’t we talk about the suffering of Yemeni children, for example? They need our love and compassion too. There are sufferings and calamities all over the world happening all the time, yet we pick and choose which ones we should concentrate on. Are we not being calculating and selfish, even as we speak of love? It seems that our god of love,at times, is very selective too.
My guess is that the first ideas of so called love, in either religious or moral understandings, were reserved for own kind, as the very first most grievous crimes seem to have been of own kind against own kind (gods, family, clan, tribe), which was a threat against the stability of the social unit and perceived order, and maybe even seen as one of the primary sources of evil in the world.
My “view of God”. I no longer have one. I have a bunch of propositions in search of coherence.
The opening post entertains the idea that God is calling us to all inclusive love. The critical variable there seems to be the need to widen our concern for the well-being of living beings.
Whether or not that concern is conceptualized as God may not be important. Indeed there are cases in which the concept of God is a positive hindrance to inclusive love as for example those Christians who view people who believe differently than them as of the devil.
It’s true as you say we are selective about who actually gets our love and compassion. The demographics of suffering are not enough. We need a face and a compelling story to evoke our compassion.
But let’s not let our primate limitations cause us to despair. Inclusive love is the ideal. Moving toward the ideal by acts of kindness and compassion is progress. We all have to start somewhere. And we all fall along the way. But there are so many lives that need our love. Where there’s life, there’s hope.
Yes that’s right man. Pray to the Zionists and they will save you from all the monsters they created. Lol.
American values: Wall street. Zionism. Split mind psychosis. Fried hamburgers, BHT, partially hydrogenated oils and Yellow #5. Prostate cancer. Obesity. Broke college students. Sex-hating feminists. Buses full of smelly ghetto people. Whiny millennials who listen to Justin Bieber songs. Rich gated communities you’re not usually welcome in. Bought out politicians. Shitty movies. It’s so great.
So far as I’m aware, no one, neither minority nor majority, have the right to murder… I doubt I would need to make any change to the legal system or any existing policy in order to justify wanting to bring the culprits to justice and make every attempt to minimize such crimes in the future. But humans being humans living in a society that allows them some basic form of freedom I would expect such crimes to continue to some (preferably lesser) extent. So using such tragedies to underline the “need” for some dangerously naive or destructively stupid change in policy, while commonplace, is nevertheless idiotic…
In other words, this shit is to be expected, it is not indicative of some major malfunction in the system… it’s indicative of a malfunction in some human beings, which is why we have a police force.
So what would I recommend?
Identify the problem before proposing solutions…
That… and start teaching kids critical thinking skills from an early age. They might be less likely to fall prey to such murderous ideas and other ideological death traps.