[Sosfbay-discuss] Now for something completely spiritual!

JamBoi jamboi at yahoo.com
Fri Aug 18 13:43:45 PDT 2006 

Heya Bob,

Here are some quotes (admittedly taken out of context) from the New
Testament that more acccurately represent Jesus' teachings on Love and
Peace than the one you (Bob) selected.

* Love: The essence of Jesus' teaching is that God is love and we
respond to God's Love by loving one another:

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so
you must love one another."   
" Jesus, The Christ of Nazareth, The book of John, chapter 13, verse
34.   

John chapter 13 in full context: http://tinyurl.com/jb26d

"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him." 
The book of 1st John chapter 3 verse 16 (I mistakenly said it was at 
1st John 1:15 before - my bad).

* Peace: Jesus' teaches a new 'Way of Peace'. 

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peaceto men on whom his
favor rests."Luke 2:14

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God."
Jesus, Matthew 5:9

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as
the world gives." John 14:27

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In
this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the
world." John 16:33

"The God of peace be with you all. Amen". Romans 15:33

-----------

So again Bob, we can easily draw a sentence or two from any lengthy
complex book (or in this case set of books - a library really) and find
something that offends our cultural sensibilities or in my case above
appeals to us.   But if on the other hand we are being intellectually
honest and really trying to understand a particular book (or set of
books) we would want to start by reading the whole work and see what on
balance was the gist, the essence of the work.  That would be the
start.  From there we would want to try and understand more about the
authors, the audience and their respective cultures, the original
language(s) the work was written in, what the meaning of veerious
phrases and cultural allusions hold in these cultures, etc.  

Simply plucking an out of context quote, especially one noted for its
difficulty of interpretation given its sharp contrast with the rest of
the book is not in keeping with the best practices of intellectually
rigorous examination of a complex topic.  As I said before, any fool
can rip a quote out of context from say the Koran or Bagavad-Gita to
'prove' these works are highly dangerous to other foolish people that
read them at face vvalue.   That's a given.  That's why we have too
many people (I characterized before as 'rednecks' - ;-)  ) today making
foolish statements about all Mulims being 'Terrorists'.

The vast proponderance of Jesus' essential teaching and modeled
behavoir is on Love and Peace.  If anyone doesn't believe my assertion
I challenge them to actually pick up and read the four 'Gospels' in the
New Testament and see for yourself.  The problem is that many people
make all kinds of statements and assertions without actually
investigating for themselves.

Love and Peace to y'all,

Drew

--- Bob Alavi <baalavi at yahoo.com> wrote:

> (  MATHEW 10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I
> came not to send peace, but a sword.  )
>    
>   ***  words of Jesus are  very much 'From the Bible' (hello!)  ***
>    
>   ba 
>   I observe that the New Testament and in particular the words of
> Jesus
> are very much 'From the Bible' (hello!) and for a real Christian (not
> so much for Dominionists) of pivitol import and that the inscrutable
> Old Testament passages like the one you plucked out (of context I
> must
> add) take a very, very back seat in importance. It is the New
> Testament (Bible) that asserts "God is Love." I Jn 1:15 and the New
> Testament that is chalk full of this understanding of God. So lets
> not
> create some kind of straw man argument by taking a nonrepresentative
> group (ie/ trying to substitute Dominionists for Christians) and then
> try to pin their craziness on the mainstream and try to pretend that
> is
> some kind of valid argument against the mainstream group or their
> sacred book. This would be every bit as prejudicialy off-base as when
> red-necks try to say that all Muslims are 'Terrorists' and looky here
> at this out of context koran reference to prove it!
> 
> Love and Peace to you all!
> 
> Drew
> 
> --- Bob Alavi wrote:
> 
> > Just a couple of quotes:
> > 
> > From bible:
> > 
> > God Will Kill Everything and Everyone
> > (Zephaniah 1:2)
> > "I will sweep away everything in all your land," says the LORD.
> > "I will sweep away both people and animals alike. Even the birds of
> > the air and the fish in the sea will die... "
> > 
> > From JamBoi: "A Million Votes for Peace!"
> > 
> > Drew Buddy, we all do much better together without the bible than
> > with it.
> > JamBoi wrote:
> > > JamBoi wrote:
> > > While not specifically presented as 'Christian' this has more in
> > > common
> > > with Jesus' The Christ's teachings than any Dominionist
> > > Reconstructionist ever will. Check it out!
> > > 
> > > http://www.positivepause.com/en/
> > 
> > --- Bob Alavi wrote:
> > 
> > > Thank you. 
> > > That reference seems to point to a different source than bible. 
> > > Love and Peace (that the reference seems to promote) were never
> > > even being disputed. They have an innate and eternal power that
> > > stands on its own regardless of "bible". 
> > > The Biblical edicts resulting in "non-loving", non-peaceful", 
> > > violent acts were being depicted.
> > > 
> > > Thanks again,
> > 
> > This goes back to what I was getting at in my discussion about
> > Dominionism. While not directly evoking the words of Jesus (from
> the
> > Bible), the link I shared closely maps to Jesus'(Biblical)
> teachings
> > and its exactly what you will NOT FIND IN DOMINIONISM as I was
> saying
> > earlier. What could possibly be more 'biblical' and 'Christian'
> than
> > the words of Jesus, The Christ himself??? Yet Dominionism though it
> > purports to be 'biblical' and 'Christian' focuses almost all its
> > scriptural energy/authority on the Old Testament and not-Jesus
> parts
> > of
> > the New Testament bible and even then takes an extremely
> > literalistic,
> > cramped and cribbed, out of cultural, historical and even textual
> > context interpretation of biblical proof texts to justify its
> > Anti-Christ (anti-love and anti-peace) doctrine.
> > 
> > If one closely examines the alleged quotes of Jesus in the New
> > Testament Bible one finds the vast proponderance of his teaching is
> > precisely about Love and Peace. This is eminately 'Biblical'.
> Actual
> > Christians (though not true of Dominionists) interpret all of the
> > biblical, scriptural text in the light of these teachings of
> Jesus'. 
> > Jesus' pivotal teaching in the New Testament is that humanity 1)
> Love
> > God w/ all their heart, soul, mind and strength and 2) Love our
> > neighbor as ourselves. A prominent theologian has said that next to
> > that teaching the entire rest of the Bible needs to be seen a
> merely
> > 'footnotes.' So you see that for the Christian, nothing could be
> more
> > 'Biblical' than Jesus The Christ's laser-beam-like focus on Love
> and
> > Peace. This intensely illuminates the vast gulf between the
> followers
> > of Jesus (ie. Christians) and the worshippers of power in recast in
> > twisted 'Biblical' idolatry (what I call bibliolatry or
> Dominionism).
> > 
> > The name 'Christian' actually means 'little Christ' (ie. little
> > messiah
> > or little Jesus) and was first used as a term of derision towards
> > disciples of Jesus who were sharing about Jesus' way of Love and
> > Peace
> > by defenders of the older domination structured society and
> religion
> > who were feeling threatened by this upstart faith. The Way as the
> > followers of Jesus called it before this (originally meant as
> > pejorative) term 'Christian' was embraced by were said to be
> 'turning
> > the world upside down' by their radical acts of Love and Peace.
> Their
> > new faith in Jesus' doctrine of "love God" and "love your neighor
> as
> > you love yourself" as embodied by their new style of 'Servant
> > Leadership' so challenged the societal order (political and
> religious
> > -
> > which were married at the time in a type of what we might call
> > 'theocracy') that the rulers felt the strong need to suppress the
> > faith. Radical Love and Peace. 
> > 
> > So to summarize even though it doesn't directly qute the Bible this
> > link is far more representative of and faithful to the bible,
> Jesus'
> > teachings and Christianity than Dominionism could ever hope to be.
> > 
> > A Million Votes for Peace!
> > 
> > Drew 
> > 
> > JamBoi
> > Jammy The Sacred Cows Slayer
> > 
> > "Live humbly, laugh often and love unconditionally" (anon)
> > http://dailyJam.blogspot.com
> > 
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> 
> 
> JamBoi
> Jammy The Sacred Cows Slayer
> 
> "Live humbly, laugh often and love unconditionally" (anon)
> http://dailyJam.blogspot.com
> 
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JamBoi
Jammy The Sacred Cows Slayer

"Live humbly, laugh often and love unconditionally" (anon)
http://dailyJam.blogspot.com

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