The Black Vault

A war in which no person is considered innocent leads me to one conclusion: genocide.
Was it Jesus who said "an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind"?
Rick Santorum has recently criticized Obama's beliefs as not being based in the Bible which, to me, seems like classic-case pandering on Santorum's part but I do wonder what nightmares might result of a president implementing Jesus' teachings into his domestic and especially foreign policies.

at1with0 wrote:A war in which no person is considered innocent leads me to one conclusion: genocide.
Was it Jesus who said "an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind"?
Rick Santorum has recently criticized Obama's beliefs as not being based in the Bible which, to me, seems like classic-case pandering on Santorum's part but I do wonder what nightmares might result of a president implementing Jesus' teachings into his domestic and especially foreign policies.

I'm opposed to running on a religious platform altogether and this is a big part of why. The church can't impose it's will on me so why should politicians be allowed to do it for them? The things they place emphasis on are absurd. They should be getting America back to work, fixing the damn deficit, taking care of infastructure, bringing our troops home and helping our troops once they get back. Getting them therapy for PTSD, job training and not giving them the finger or a hard time when they need to see a doctor. Education is also a huge issue.

at1with0 wrote:Was it Jesus who said "an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind"?

No, that was Gandhi that said that. He was wrong of course. An eye for an eye has been the law of most cultures throughout history. There has never been a time in history when everyone was blind. The law works. People like Gandhi do not understand the law, nor the reasons for it. They tend to live in a fantasy world where life is perfect for everyone. That ain't going to happen as long as man is running the world.

How do you reconcile that with the concept of forgiveness?

What does taking an eye for an eye accomplish? Matthew 5:39 seems to fly in the face of that but I'm sure I'll be told that I'm misunderstanding it

frrostedman wrote:Just days before my transformation--when my handle here was enki66--I had a startling and powerful dream. No reason to delve into the many details, but there is one part which somehow I was just reminded of today in my thoughts.

In that dream the book of 2 Timothy was part of a discussion. Interesting sidenote: When I had the dream, I wasn't even aware of the existence of such a book.

So today as I meditated on some things that are going on in my life, I was reminded of 2 Timothy and decided to reread it.

I came across this verse and it resonated in my mind. I thought I would share. People outside the ecclesia are ceaselessly trying to drag us into their myriad pursuits, debates, arguments, etc. So read this verse and envision the metaphor in your mind so that it sinks in completely.

No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.

Indeed!!! And soldiers we are, and as soldiers, we are admonished to put on the full armor of God.

How did I miss this thread? You know, this actually speaks to something I am dealing with. When you think about it, when a soldier "gets entangled in civilian pursuits", he loses his focus and effectiveness.

at1with0 wrote:How do you reconcile that with the concept of forgiveness?

What does taking an eye for an eye accomplish? Matthew 5:39 seems to fly in the face of that but I'm sure I'll be told that I'm misunderstanding it

No, you're not misunderstanding it at all. But, you have to remember that Mat5:39 is talking about when someone does something to you personally. By all means, when someone does something to you personally, you should forgive them to the best of your ability. As should I. But, the laws of the society we live in do not take into account how we react to wrongs done to us. The laws have to protect everyone equally.

The laws of the society we live in, all have prescribed punishments for breaking those laws. And our legal system cannot just forgive someone. They have to meet out the punishment appropriate to the law if the person is found guilty. What an eye for an eye does concerning the law, is keep the judicial system from giving a punishment that is overly harsh for the crime committed. If someone gouges out your eye, the courts can't take his head for it. Removing one of his eyes would be an appropriate punishment for the crime. Of course most punishment now is by imprisonment or fines but, it still has the same effect. If the criminals were not punished, they would continue their behavior unchecked. That would be far worse than an eye for an eye.

If you don't turn the other cheek, you wind up perpetuating a bad cycle. Yet that has to be balanced with the fact that a lot of offenders will go on to be repeat offenders. Based on someone's penchant for crime, the purpose of prison for me is not punishment but to sequester the offender from society so as to limit the risk of them causing more suffering in society. Of course, by that rationale, every criminal would be serving a life sentence so some reality needs to come into play.

I do find it interesting that you mention overly harsh punishments when you ascribe to a paradigm in which eternal torment is a punishment for being skeptical that Jesus had the ability to, ironically enough, do something to get our crimes forgiven.

I believe an eye for an eye was not literal but equal compensation for the times.

so, the victim in many ways as opposed to today, can accept or disregard .

thus , providing a great sense of justice; through revenge and punishment.

many ways superior to witness impact statements. see: code of hammurabi .

qmark wrote:

frrostedman wrote:Just days before my transformation--when my handle here was enki66--I had a startling and powerful dream. No reason to delve into the many details, but there is one part which somehow I was just reminded of today in my thoughts.

In that dream the book of 2 Timothy was part of a discussion. Interesting sidenote: When I had the dream, I wasn't even aware of the existence of such a book.

So today as I meditated on some things that are going on in my life, I was reminded of 2 Timothy and decided to reread it.

I came across this verse and it resonated in my mind. I thought I would share. People outside the ecclesia are ceaselessly trying to drag us into their myriad pursuits, debates, arguments, etc. So read this verse and envision the metaphor in your mind so that it sinks in completely.

No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.

Indeed!!! And soldiers we are, and as soldiers, we are admonished to put on the full armor of God.

How did I miss this thread? You know, this actually speaks to something I am dealing with. When you think about it, when a soldier "gets entangled in civilian pursuits", he loses his focus and effectiveness.

Hah, it speaks exactly to something I'm dealing with to, although in this thread I simply applied it to the debates we are having. The reason it resonated with me so strong is it hit the nail on the head regarding a major issue I'm having.

Did you like the "red glow" I put on the text? Kinda cool feature. The bv's got lots of cool stuff we can do to our messages that I haven't even tried yet.

Good to hear from you brother!

I'm seeing that a few folks are talking about completely different things and seem to think the other is contradicting them. Halfabo is talking about the effectiveness of punishment fitting the crime, when it comes to laws governing society. What others are talking about is the need for forgiveness.

Let's be clear. Jesus spoke of an eye for an eye because He was specifically raising a point about the Old Testament, Mosaic Law. The initial reason the law was established was to instruct the Israelite leaders on how to dole out punishment for crimes. However, the result was, the Israelites themselves started using that law as "justification" to pay someone back for what they deemed as the other doing them wrong. Then the recipient of said payback, would claim they were the one being wronged, and return the favor. And back and forth it went, in an endless, escalating cycle until finally (if I may take the liberty of supposing), what started as a neighbor kicking the other neighbor's dog, ended up in both parties slaughtering each other's entire family and burning their house down.

The only way to end it once and for all, is to nip it in the bud at the very beginning and forgive. But that in no way is a command for the secular lawmakers to practice forgiveness. The law governing general groups of people is to be impartial, blind, and not favoring one religion over another. The only way that works is for everyone to be punished according to their crimes. If the law forgives at1 but then punishes qmark for the same crime, that is completely unfair, so an eye for an eye applied to everyone, is the only way to go. Christ expects the Christian family to rise above all that and just forgive straight away.