Tell me about your mother....
When did being harsh become a 'bad' thing?
When did 'hating moral wrongs' become a bad thing?
When did calling a spade a spade become a bad thing?
In my eyes, it isn't bad. Other's may not like it, and that is fine.
If one believes in the Ten Commandments can I remind you of one thing? Those commandments appear to me to be God's "Top Ten Hated Things"
From all I've read of God's word, God could hate the 'sins' and love the sinner. Even God doesn't let the sinner in, until the sin's are purged.....
It is nothing more then ignorant arrogance to not HATE these Islamic Fundimentalist and their corruptive power. I hate them not only for what they've done to this country and many other countries filled with innocents, but for they're abuses to their own followers....
Harshness is not good enough for the likes of them!
"The less we hate evil and act against it, the less right we have to see ourselves as created in God's image."
If your name wasn't on this quote and you passed it around, people could think it was expressed by a Muslim terrorist. The thinking is identical. Only the understanding of "evil" is slightly different.
Muslim warmakers and American warmakers evoke a similar developmental level in each other. They need each other and feed off each other.
While his advice is seldom heeded, Buddha's dictum in the Dhammapada would be a useful resource: "Hatred is never ended by hatred, but only by love is it overcome. This is an eternal law."
Nice to see you, again. We wondered what happened.
And so it goes- Is this the part where you tell us we are no different than those who would kill us?
I understand myself as a human being among other human beings. I experience myself as similar to other people.
I think if you understand yourself as different from other people then you are lost in confusion. You aren't accurately perceiving yourself and others.
To me, this would be fundamental to the perspective of a psychologist. You would see a client accurately and be able to work effectively with them when you are able to identify with their experience. If you see yourself as fundamentally different from your client, you won't be able to see them accurately. You won't be able to help them.
So, your experience of yourself as different from other people could be a signal to you that aren't seeing things accurately.
My point, instead, is to demonstrate how your projection of your own disowned qualities onto your enemy is instrumental to your disposition to starting wars.
Good grief.
You know, copithorne, Buddha's words are wise, but THEY DON'T APPLY in this case. We're not dealing with Buddhists, fer Chrissakes. They don't just "hate us," they revel in slaughtering us. Handing them flowers and hugs simply IS NOT going to tame them.
Wake the fuck up.
AND, if you think the thinking is identical, then you have a LOT to learn about those terrorists who want to subjugate and/or murder you.
Get off the pipe, kid.
Starting wars hasn't been constructive in "taming them" either. In addition to creating an Islamic state and a better environment for terrorists, starting wars has killed a lot of my fellow citizens and stolen thousands of dollars from my children.
But, I understand eternal laws are usually ignored. They don't seem convenient within relative circumstance.
You talk to me as though you think I should be afraid and that not being afraid would be foolish.
Are you afraid, Beth?
" I understand myself as a human being among other human beings. I experience myself as similar to other people."
We reallize that 'Can't we all get along' is a mantra- but in the end, the answer is no.
Others, smarter than all of us, have tried- and failed.
If freedom can't impact these people, nothing will.
As for not being afraid, copi, well, the things you hold sacred are at risk.
Unless they aren't that important to you, after all.
Whenever I read copithorne's comments, I feel profoundly grateful that I don't "experience myself as similar" to him/her. There's one HECK of a lot of psychobabble soup sloshing around in that poor head.
I say what I mean. So it would be possible to interact with what I say rather than interacting with straw men that you set up.
While I will go on record as saying we shouldn't start wars, I have never asked, "can't we all get along?"
Your statement that "If freedom can't imapct these people, nothing will" is distorted thinking. People, as conditional objects, are impacted by all manner of things, so your statement is plainly false. It serves your intention of not recognizing your enemy as human beings -- of dividing the world into over-people who are affected by things and under-people who are not affected and should be destroyed. This is not accurate seeing.
From my understanding, nothing sacred can be destroyed and anything that can be destroyed is not sacred. I understand you to be saying that you feel objects that you hold to be sacred are threatened and this frightens you and this fear is justification for your violence.
This in line with your assertion that your hatred is sanctioned by God. People make objects sacred and then they engage in violence on behalf of these objects. This is all idolotry whether it is done by Muslims or by Americans.
I remain sincerely interested in whether you are afraid and what that experience of fear is like for you. The way you talk, it seems more like you are using the rhetoric of fear for other purposes, but it is hard for me to tell.
Am I afraid? Not for myself, but for everyone else and for our freedoms. The truth is, we HAVE lost freedoms solely because of THEM. Not because of us. Anyway, fear is the wrong word; it's not even close. If you find the words fearsome, then I submit it must be you who is afraid. We simply state what they--Islamic radicals--say and do themselves. No need to "use rhetoric."
Rather than making ASSumptions about us, maybe you should examine why you think those scum are justified in their violence.
Face it, copi, they're not nice people. They're not Buddhists, who accept all other religions, to say the least, and they're certainly not pacifists.
And you say we shouldn't start wars? We didn't. THEY started the war long before we finally joined in, only after 9/11.
I haven't justified anyone's violence, Beth. Please bring to my attention any sentence which you understand me to be justifying Muslim violence.
There will be circumstances in which it does make sense to respond to someone as an enemy. But it is possible to examine our own responses and whether they are rational without
You started off saying that Muslims "revel in slaughtering us." Then it switched to you seeing them as taking away our freedoms. I remain interested in being very concrete about if you are frightened and what is frightening to you. It is still hard for me to understand what is going on -- what is real communication and what is rhetoric.
I don't doubt that we can find many examples of Muslim radicals seeing America and others as their enemy. That is very confused on their part.
It is still a seperate question whether seeing them as our enemy helps us solve the problem. For example, when my five year old gets angry with me, he'll say that he is going to hurt me. If I were to respond in kind that I was going to hurt him, I would be acting inappropriately. I would have devolved to the level of a five year old rather than resting in my own maturity.
There may be circumstances in which it is appropriate to respond enemy to enemy. But it is not necessarily the case. And in that space, it is possible to examine our own reactions and see if they are constructive.
[I'll have to continue later...]
There is the hateful idea, then there is the person who holds the hateful idea. The difficulty is when someone so identifies with the hateful idea that the hatefulness inculcates and unifies with the person.
No one can say that one has more or less a right to see oneself as created in the image of God. It is not written in the Bible as a perception, but as a fact... and that originating from God's viewpoint, not ours.
The idea that we do something about those who act out wrong against their fellow man -who refuse to separate from hatefulness that leads to hateful acts... that idea is called justice.
There has to be a system of justice for order and right to prevail, but justice must remain neutral, without hatred in its own action. That is why we depend upon law.
It is wrong to advocate hate against people, even hate for abstractions needs a laser focus. It serves neither justice nor corrects wrong thinking or action. It is in danger of stepping over its own line and becoming identifiable with the object of hatred.
While it is emotionally satisfying to some to exact vengence.... God can't invoked by our own efforts to give such satisfaction.
While He can be invoked on the behalf what is just and right.
Why hate the Arab? There are Christian Arabs, you know... and Arabs, being people, can change. And in that I would invoke that the Arab was made in the image of God by God...and like the rest of us has marred that image.... the Islamic system? I think you can use God's Word to prove its evil.
The system I will stand against; the Arab, I cannot negate God's definition.
I wish you would stop trying to invoke Gods support without a scriptural defense.
By trying to erase the persons call upon being formed in the image of God, and thus diminishing the personhood, that is what you have said here.
"No one can say that one has more or less a right to see oneself as created in the image of God. It is not written in the Bible as a perception, but as a fact... and that originating from God's viewpoint, not ours."
Right. Nazis, Stalisn minions and Islamists are all reflective of the will of God.
Congratulations- you have just legitimized evil.
Plus ca change, plus ca reste la meme, Ilona.
No, Ilona is not trying to legitimize evil. She really isn't. We were made with the ability to choose evil over good. It is also possible at any time for one of us to turn away from our evil and receive mercy through grace. That's a right extended by God and not man.
There is a Christian concept of a just war, which is a war against deeds not men. I don't know about Buddhism. However, Minh-Duc is a Buddhist and he obviously doesn't believe that a war against Saddam Hussein is unjust.
What Ilona is saying is that we are what we are, and our deeds are what they are. Ilona perceives the doctrine of the Islamic terrorists to be wrong and believes that it is bringing destruction into the world. If you eliminate the understanding that the individual is not the behavior, you eliminate our ability to make peace eventually.
The reason why free speech is essential to Christians is that we were mandated to teach against sin but not kill for it except in defense.
Now, one can justly initiate a war in defense of innocents. Furthermore, anyone who thinks we started an aggressive war in Iraq is, IMO, a bit demented. Saddam Hussein started that particular war decades ago. Having killed hundreds of thousands of his own citizens, he long ago lost his right to claim any sort of legitimate power.
As far as I understand Copithorne, Copithorne is wrong. Ilona is definitely right here. On the other hand, what your posts were about was not really hating the individual but hating the individual's goals. You two always have to yell at each other's rhetoric and refuse to see your similarities.
Copithorne, if you really believe that war against mass-murdering tyrants is wrong, than I don't know what to say to you. The rights of individuals may be universal, but some individuals devote their lives to do evil and some to trying to do good. Most of us are in between, but there is a stark and real difference between one extreme and the other.
As for your five year-old, if he could actually kill or seriously harm you then you would have to treat him a bit differently, now wouldn't you? I knew a woman with a five year-old who was trying to kill his younger sister. She was an idiot who kept taking him to counseling instead of just saying "No".
I suggested a good sharp whack each time he tried to harm his sister would accomplish a lot more. For one thing, it would have turned his anger away from the baby and towards his mother. He was dominated by his emotions and jealousy, and he simply didn't have the maturity to see his sister as a being similar to himself. The mother needed to exert parental authority to get him over that hurdle until he could grow up enough to control his own emotions.
Who was evil in that circumstance? I would say the mother who wouldn't face the reality of her son's emotions and actions and refused to face the danger her daughter was in. So she exposed them both to real danger. The son had gotten that way because she never censured his behavior. She "understood" him.
The idea that individuals only do harm in response to harm done to them is false.
copithorne:
It is still hard for me to understand what is going on -- what is real communication and what is rhetoric.
"What we have here is a failure to communicate. Some men, you just can't reach. Which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it."
Honestly, I'm not interested in playing rhetorical games with you about your theories. It's a waste of time.
SC&A, Beth, you claim for yourselves the authority to kill people, to steal money from children. But it seems to me you struggle even to take responsibility for your own speech. Such is the tragic way of the world.
MaxedOutMama, I don't believe you have the right to start a war against a tryant any more than you have the right to bomb your neighbor's house if you think the guy next door beats his wife.
If you bomb your neighbor's house, you go to jail. The world sees it as a crime.
And even if you are able to justify it and rationalize starting the war in Iraq, you may understand that the rest of the world will see it as a crime.
That's just a small part of the costs of this disaster.
Anyway, we're off topic from the original thread of SC&A's positing of a religious obligation of hatred.
You changed my words Sig.
I did not say "reflect the will of God". I said that we cannot negate the fact that every human being is made in the image of God. Basic Christian ethics are all based on that fact. Our idea of inaleinable rights of man are based on that same premise.
The will of God is something else entirely. Adam did not fulfill the will of God in the fall... he went his own way, thereby instituting evil within mankind. Yet, God had a remedy.
You, Sir, do not understand basic Christian doctrine...which would not be a problem except you try to declare your opinions as representing God of the Judeo-Christian faith as expressed int the Bible.
I have merely asked that you support what you say by said Bible. Or stop invoking the Lord God as support for what you promote. In this case, the necessity and right of hate.
Just because I do not legitimaize your opinion does not in turn mean I have legitimized evil in any way. Whereas if I chose I could make a case that this is what you are trying to do when you promote hate as something of God's Crusade. God has made a remedy of evil... I advocate that remedy.
He has also set up the concept of justice which has been hammered out by better minds than ours and has resulted in the balance of our system based on the idea of Lex Rex.
=====
Although I wouldn't word it as she does, I do agree with Beth that we don't have the same beliefs in Christianity and Islam. One must look at the outcomes of the two in their respective societies. But the very thing that makes Christian based countries more humane on the whole and capable of supporting the form and freedom environment of our government is Christian doctrines, which includes eschewing vengence and hate.
We rely instead on ideas of justice to deal with evil. That is what the institution of government is for primarily.
copithorne : the duty of a government is to make sure there is equity as far as equity may be instituted by man, it is its duty to provide for justice and order. Sometimes war is forced by evil which will not be stopped any other way. I perceive you are from a pacifist point of view. This is supportable in the life of individuals, but not within the state. Evil as a force does not stop because we are nice to it, accomodating. People band together to create force, either to the good or the evil intent. If they produce enough force for evil they must be forcibly stopped. This is found necessary even in predominately Buddhist countries. This is a function of government.
I think the point of both posts was to remind us that we are called upon to abhor evil. Our kind hosts have spent significant effort illuminating the various evils perpetrated by radical Islamists with the hope of waking us from the long, lazy and complacent slumber of relativism. The call to "hate what is evil" IS biblical. I refer interested readers to Romans 12:9 - "Your love must be real. Hate what is evil and hold on to what is good." We are never directed to hate other people, yet we are certainly charged with resisting evil and, by extension, evildoers.
LOL,MoM! I always said that keeping order with toddlers is the easiest thing in the world... you just pick them up and divert them to another area...can't do that once they get the same size as you.
I see the similarities in some of the basic points with Sig- can't speak for him, but the dispute is more than rhetoric, although his personal attitude toward me also enters in. We do differ strongly on the point of what deserves castigation. I will go so far as to say we should throughly hate and castigate certain ideas, but cannot countenence that spilling over into vilifying human beings.
I must personally fight the strong temptation to do that. That comes from Christian teaching.
If you make someone like Hitler some unexplainable monster you miss the lesson. The lesson is one more horrible than here was a monster... it was that here is a human being who can so degrade that he is capable of mobilizing a whole nation of human beings... even some who might otherwise have lived decently to do the unthinkably devilishly evil. This is the great horror.
And if any human is capable than so are we, and what divides us is the higher standard that rules over our bent to mob together in acts of bloodlust and lowest depravity.
What I think degrades man is what he allows himself to believe, or worship ( consider worthy) if that is an evil thing. So here is the battle for us: the mind and heart of man.
The great power evidenced in Corrie Ten Boom was both her bravery in sacrifice for the sake of persecuted Jews and her ability to later forgive the Nazi who was instrumental in the horrible camp where her sister died.
This was a victorious overcoming transcendent thing.
That never happens when you cultivate hatred of people who oppose you.
anniebird, then you agree that we do not deny that those people were made in the image of God?
copithorne, a question. Are you obligated to physically stop him if you look out your window and SEE your neighbor beating his wife?
Yes, Ilona, I agree that all people are made in the image of God.
Thank you. That ws really my sole point in all this.
Perhaps the meaning of that phrase - "made in the image of God" - is that we are all programmed to love what is good (God). In another discussion of this, I said I thought this meant that humans are programmed to vibrate at God's frequency. By this reckoning, no one - not even the most heinous evildoer - is beyond repair....however, it must be noted that only God does the rehabilitating. Perhaps this is why we view people like Hitler as unredeemable. From our perspective, they really are.
In rereading copithorne's first post, it struck me that the idea of God as the sole redeemer, the only being capable of rehabilitating hate actually fits nicely with Buddha's teaching. People, arrogant as we are, interpret that teaching to mean that human love overcomes evil when perhaps the real meaning is that only divine love heals hate.
Ilona, I am not a pacifist. We shouldn't start wars but we can fight them if someone else starts them. I find the contention that Saddam Hussein or Muslim radicals started the war in Iraq to be a perversion of language and evasion of responsibility.
Anniebird, I don't know about "obligated." I might stop someone who was beating his wife, or I would call the police. If I suspected abuse, I would try to help the family find shelter or services and call the police.
In my analogy. This is like providing asylum, arming opposition within the country or calling on the UN to do sanctions or enforce inspections, all of which are legitimate and all of which have been now proven effective and adequate.
I think the mistake is to think that the United States is like a world police and has the authority to do use whatever violence it wants to shape the world the way it wants to. It is not.
Our current situtation is like bombing the neighhbor's house, killing the father and two of the eight children, leaving the rest of the family homeless. Three of the remaining children blame us, have dedicated their lives to harming us and are now attacking our house and we've been injured and our own house damaged while everybody else on the street thinks I'm getting what's coming.
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