I can tell you that personally, I will always subordinate Christianity to reason and rationality. I believe (as many other Christians do), that rationality is derived from God, so to the extent that rationality and our understanding of God through the Bible come into conflict, we must reach a new understanding of God, as opposed to taking the easy route and simply becoming atheists.

Kaltes, you most certainly do not speak for me on the points you attempt to make in your post. In fact, you make a worse error than you accuse AP of committing. You believe there is a gap between Christianity and rationality, and YOU know where the difference lies. Nothing could be further from the truth. Christianity IS rational.

Rational people can dispense with edicts that would appear to be irrational if applied literally and absolutely in today’s world by looking at the context of the statement and adopting an interpretation that does not lead to an irrational result. You demean this approach as ‘wiggle room’.

Please, offer one example of a commandment or expectation from the Bible that fits this description.

I approve of self-sacrifice, but I can’t condone a god’s sacrificing himself for just anyone and everyone. That’s backwards to a striking degree.

Kralizec, I might agree with you if this world we can see with our eyes were the end of all things. Christ’s sacrifice makes it possible for ANYONE, who comes to a realization that they are sinful and unable to to be worthy of God on their own, to be redeemed. And exactly where would a human draw the line between those for whom the Cross is a reachable source of salvation and those for whom it is not? There is no distinction from one person to the next, whether they are Mother Teresa or Charles Manson, that in the power of their own works they are not worthy of Heaven. ONLY the blood of Christ pays the penalty that each of us deserves.

The real question then becomes what you want, justice or mercy? Imagine a murderer caught red-handed standing at trial demanding justice. That’s us before God if we reject the sacrifice of His Son. Whether you condone it or not.

I was struck that even the media seemed to be somewhat restrained in their reporting. Seems even the media can be inspired by profound goodness.

Of course, there’s mercy, and there’s justice. Justice would have been teachers packing heat and killing this guy before he could have done what he did (like, say, Israeli teachers do).

I don’t understand forgiving those who don’t even ask for it, and definitely not for those who don’t even show they’re sorry. And just because one has forgiven doesn’t mean one can’t seek justice as well. This is my self-interest speaking, as I was a plaintiff in a medical malpractice lawsuit (where my dad ended up dying due to a horrible misdiagnosis). I would like to say I forgave those guys, but it’s been more like I “let go” of any obsession over it though never forgiving the principal actors.

One can “let go” of the issue, but not forgive. Just because you haven’t forgiven doesn’t mean you’ve got hate eating you up on the inside.

Being Catholic, I’m a believer that no one is beyond salvation, that God’s mercy can save anybody, no matter how horrible their sins. That said, I also believe in Purgatory. No cheap grace here.

Forgiveness, and holding a grudge, both have a place and a usefulness where warranted. When I forgive someone for something bad they do, it is not for them that I do this … it is for me. It does not absolve them of their wrongdoing, they may not even know of my forgiveness and that does not matter. Where it matters is within my soul and in how much negative emotional energy I hold onto. To forgive is to release that and let go of the toxic emotions. This is how the Amish achieve and maintain their awesome state of Grace. You cannot have Grace while anger, hatred, jealousy and wrath inhabit the soul.

I am not Amish, I’m not even much of a Christian, and I do see the need sometimes to hold onto the anger and hatred, for a purpose, to achieve a goal. Anger, while toxic to the soul, in small doses can be motivating. It is what kept me going after a horrible divorce in which I lost my children. Hatred of my Ex enabled me to move on, to create my own life. When it was time, forgiveness allowed me to let go of the anger and hatred and to heal my soul. The strength of my soul then allowed me to stand up for the rights of my children and fight for their right to be with me. The Grace I have earned now allows me to cherish every moment I have with them, and appreciate the miracle that they are, even when they do drive me crazy. I even find that to be enjoyable.

There are some things, though, that I cannot let go of. Ten years on and I still am filled with rage when I think about my brother’s murder, the man who got away with it and the “justice” system that allowed that to happen. I suppose this would be understandable if I had turned that anger into the energy needed to change the system, or join the fight against youth gangs or something. But no, the most I have done is bitch very loudly about how unfair it was. I am just not ready to let that go. I may never be.

On the other hand, my parents, born-again Christians, forgave their son’s killer, and they went further than that … they became involved in youth-at-risk outreach programs that sought to turn those kids away from gangs and toward Christ. How much good it did for those kids, I don’t know. But I do know it allowed my parents to heal and move on, to be able to say my brother did not die in vain.

I didn’t mean to ramble on so much, I could have just said that forgiving is a selfish (in a good way) thing, it heals the forgiver. The forgivee usually doesn’t give much of a shit.

Besides, as Christians we’re told that if we expect God to forgive us for our sins, sins that caused Jesus to sacrifice Himself on a cross, then we had better forgive others who sin against us.

I approve of self-sacrifice, but I can’t condone a god’s sacrificing himself for just anyone and everyone. That’s backwards to a striking degree.

Of course, Jesus said “turn the other cheek,” not “hit back, then forgive.” But we needn’t rehash that.

Yes, let’s rehash it daily. Machiavelli said the Christians give the world over to tyrants. The Lord Christ should rebut that charge or, if not, then Christians should do it on His behalf.

There's a very interesting thread over at Hot Air which deserves thoughtful consideration. I wish I could comment, but their registration is closed, so I'll have to settle for sending a trackback.
In reference to the murderer of the Amish sch…

There’s a very interesting thread over at Hot Air which deserves thoughtful consideration. I wish I could comment, but their registration is closed, so I’ll have to settle for sending a trackback. In reference to the murderer of the Amish……

There’s a very interesting thread over at Hot Air which deserves thoughtful consideration. I wish I could comment, but their registration is closed, so I’ll have to settle for sending a trackback. In reference to the murderer of the Amish…

My suspicion is that most Christians (but not all) responded to 9/11 without a thought at all for what their religion has to say. They perceived a threat, they perceived it had to be dealt with, and they perceived that Jesus’s golden rule had very little to offer. So they turned the other cheek — to Jesus — and did the rational thing.

AP, you assume that it is irrational to follow what Jesus said, so you put Christians in between a rock and a hard place: either they are irrational (Quakers) or they are bad Christians (Christian hawks). A lot of Christians responded to you, falling into your trap, by trying and failing to reconcile what you felt was a contradiction. Your reasoning is flawed, because you are making flawed assumptions.

The postulate to your reasoning is that a person is either a fundamentalist Christian or not at all. Either the person follows everything in the Bible literally and absolutely, or why bother? This is ridiculous. The problem with Islam is with people who follow your approach: people who believe they must try to follow the Koran literally to the letter without regard for what is rational. These people are terrorists and terrorist supporters. The ‘moderate’ Muslims are those Muslims who read the suras that call for jihad and striking off heads and choose not to follow them. Religion has vast grey areas of people who are Muslim, or Christian, or something else, who do not accept every single part of their Holy Book as literal religious law which ought to be applied today as an absolute. Some people do follow literal interpretations to the extreme, and this results in Christian Quakers and Muslim Terrorists. Both groups are wrong, though one is dangerous and the other benign.

Rational people can dispense with edicts that would appear to be irrational if applied literally and absolutely in today’s world by looking at the context of the statement and adopting an interpretation that does not lead to an irrational result. You demean this approach as ‘wiggle room’. It is not an attempt to weasel out of conflicts between irrational religion and the rational human mind, it is instead a process by which to determine how to interpret and apply the passages of a Holy Book to today’s world. You assume religion is irrational, and see this as Christian attempts to constantly wiggle out of contradictions. Christians like me, on the other hand, see faith in God as inherently rational, and see this as adopting the RIGHT interpretation that is consistent with God’s gift of reason. The difference is one of faith: we have it, you don’t.

Your problem, AP, is that you see this issue as black and white. Either a person agrees to reduce themselves to irrationality for the sake of religion, or they become an athiest. You obviously felt this was the choice left to you at some point in the past, and you chose to become an atheist. Most of us Christians have faced this same choice, and have dealt with it in a different fashion than you have. Most of us reconciled faith with rationality rather than simply deem faith to be irrational and throw the baby out with the bathwater as you have.

I can tell you that personally, I will always subordinate Christianity to reason and rationality. I believe (as many other Christians do), that rationality is derived from God, so to the extent that rationality and our understanding of God through the Bible come into conflict, we must reach a new understanding of God, as opposed to taking the easy route and simply becoming atheists.

The world would be a lot better off if more Muslims adopted an approach to the Koran similar to the Christian hawk’s approach to the Bible. The collary to your argument, AP, is that moderate Muslims ought to either start striking off heads or admit that the Koran is irreconcilable with reason and become atheists.

I admire the Amish and Mennonites immensely, but they couldn’t survive if there weren’t good people willing to do violence on evil in their behalf. The gentlest of sheep need the tougest of sheepdogs to keep the wolves out.

I would disagree that “technological achievement” is necessarily the best thing mankind has to offer. To me, having the wisdom to use these technological achievements would be the better gift.

I suspect the Amish are far wiser and a better gift to Mankind than we give them credit.

.

I guess I am in Allahs camp on this one. If forgiveness is all it is cracked up to be the Israelis would be paying the families of homicide bombers instead of the Iranians. You want to commit suicide fine, just leave everybody else out of it.

LakeRuins, please avoid confusing forgiveness with suicidal behavior. Asking or inviting a crime to be done against you is not love, meekness, or forgiving, it is insanity. The text of Eccleliastes 3 posted by Lawrence is very useful in this concept. However, the 20th verse which is highlighted there is oftimes used by non-believers in the Bible to say “See, we return to dust, there’s no Heaven”. Those verses are speaking only of the earthly body, which returns to the dust. The point is that any actions or emotions which are centered around the temporal flesh are unprofitable compared with concerns of the spirit, which is eternal.

It is that very fact that makes it possible for a Christian (or practicing Jew) to forgive as God expects. That whatever happens to me here on Earth is temporary, but the afterlife is eternal. “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment”.

It is not in the hands of anyone commenting here to forgive or unforgive the murderer of the amish girls. You are responsible to forgive those who harm you, not strangers in another state. But the forgiveness which God expects of us is far less for the sake of the “forgiven” person as for our own emotional well being. Hatred and bitterness make it extremely difficult for God to use a person do go anything special.

And as I stated in that thread, there’s no value in me saying I forgive or don’t forgive that man, nor is there value in praying for him. The moment his life ended he was in God’s hand, in the spiritual condition he held at the time. Assuming he was in a state of rejection of God’s grace, his eternity will be punishment. Supposing the nearly impossible-to-imagine event that he truly repented before pulling the trigger on himself, all things are possible with God. I am not his judge, nor is any other mortal.

That logic reminds me of how a vet once told me he finds it worrisome when the troops are admired too much. Not because it indicates a martial impulse in society but the opposite: treating the bravery of soldiers as superhuman puts it safely beyond the ken of what should be expected of us ordinary citizens. Is that what’s happening here with the Amish? I.e., “I wish I could be like them. Too bad I can’t.”

Yes. You can.

Treating the bravery of soldiers as superhuman is exactly the right thing to do. It sets the example of what we are all capable of achieving. In thinking that we average citizens (believers) are unable to attain what others attain we hobble ourselves against our own potential.

Or, more appropriately, the temptation to see ourselves as less then we are hobbles us against the potential given to us by God.

If you can’t forgive someone, you carry that anger your entire life. Then who is being punished?

For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven

There is a time for anger, a time for working through anger, and a time for letting go of it.
Forgiveness? I’m with Misha

I can and should strive to forgive those who have done ME wrong, because that is within my power.
Thus, I can learn to forgive the murdering scumbag in PA for making me angry.
But I can NEVER, EVER forgive him for what he did.
Only G-d can do that.

Also agree w/ Misha re “turn the other cheek” thing.
This ‘pacifist Jesus’ is an egghead creation.

He cheated them out of justice, and since there can be no justice, they have to mourn in peace, so they forgive, because it is the only thing they can do.

DakRoland on October 9, 2006 at 4:29 PM

It is not for us to make the final judgement. That is what the Amish understand. It doesn’t matter whether or not they personally judge him.

In forgiving him, they are seeking his salvation. Which is too late now that he is dead. But there is also no reason to allow this episode to propagate more hatred.

It is a good thing that these little girls where raised faithfully and will be judged themselves appropriately, and go to Heaven. And that is what we must be happy about right now.