Oh, I agree He wasn't angry about a personal slight. I can't quite tell, due to slashdot's comment system, what you are responding to... but I'm not, again, arguing that He was angry because of His pride getting hurt or something like that. Far from it, He was willing to die for the very people that DID personally and publically insult... and crucify Him.
But again... you're dealing with issues much deeper. The point of my original post (which, again, I can't tell if you're replying to that or a later one... silly Slashdot!) was simply to combat the idea that Jesus was a man who taught us that we should love each other. That's not only incomplete, it's missing some pretty important details and gives a false picture.
Jesus really was the ultimate picture of love, but the only way one can understand that picture is by seeing what He actually did on the cross, and how profound our sins are - profound and deep enough to warrant a perfect sacrifice (the Christ).
Christ's message was one that requires a change of character, a change of the well-springs of the heart so that what we once accepted as normal and unavoidable we now reject and long to become like Him in character and action.
Precisely... and that made a lot of people uncomfortable - more than just the religious leaders. He wasn't crucified by the Pharisees alone, the entire population (basically) rejected Him.
But, you see, I'm not arguing that He didn't. I'm arguing that He said a lot, lot more than just that... I'm arguing against boiling down Jesus to "love each other," because that's missing a huge part of His message... and by far the more important part of His message, and even the reason He showed up on earth in the first place.
Perhaps a better metric, though, would be... how many right-biased news channels are there, how many left, and how many center (if any!). Add up the left, add up the right, and then you'll get a better picture. Simply comparing Fox vs. CNN isn't an accurate picture of the cable news landscape if there are multiple left-leaning (or, say, Democrat-leaning) channels and only one right-leaning/Republican-leaning.
I'm not saying He DIDN'T answer that way about the greatest commandment. I'm not arguing against Jesus talking about love. I'm arguing against only taking those statements and ignoring everything else in order to believe what you want about Jesus.
In fact, Jesus uses one particular phrase six times in Matthew alone: wailing and gnashing of teeth. Jesus also talks about going and sinning no more. He also talks about forgiving sins. He also talks about the coming judgment. And He talked about love within all of these things, with the greatest love being that of one who lays down His life for a friend.
I could go on for a while about this... but the point is pretty simple. Picking certain things that the Gospels say Jesus did/said and ignoring others in order to "prove" a certain view/belief of Jesus is not very intellectually consistent... nor, apparently, historically accurate.
And just to be extra clear, I'm not at all disputing that Jesus stated and showed a very high standard of behavior towards one's "neighbor." It was very high. And the reason it was so high, according to Jesus, is that it is God's standard. And part of Jesus' point is that it should show that nobody actually meets that standard; thus the extreme criticism of the hypocritical Pharisees/other religious leaders of the day, perhaps best seen in the parable of the Pharisee and tax collector...
The Pharisee, self-righteous and thinking he has earned favor with God through good works, prays loudly and thanks God that he's not like the tax collector.
The tax collector realizes his shortcoming and sin, and will not even lift his eyes toward heaven in his humility, but beats his chest and asks God to be merciful to him, and admits his guilt as a sinner.
Jesus clearly says that the tax collector is the one who has found favor with God, because he has trusted God to be merciful, not trusted himself to be perfect.
And also Hell and the punishment for sin and God's love in sending Jesus.
Jesus was not a "social" figure, nor a "political" figure. Jesus did not come for that, and didn't claim to be that. He was not a "cool" guy. In fact, most people eventually wanted to kill him and release a murderer instead. He offended a lot of people by telling them they were sinning. He made people uncomfortable. He claimed to be a lot of things, He preached some pretty hard messages.
The only way you can get the "Jesus just wanted us to all love each other" message from the Biblical account is if you take what supports that opinion and disregard the rest...
39% of Americans say they regularly get news from a cable channel.
Only 40% of Republicans regularly watch Fox News.
I'm sure you were just trying to make a point... but when your point hinges on more than 50% of Americans getting their news from FN and thus are stupid, and it's not even close to 50%... the point seems to kinda fall apart?:)
Mmmm I didn't say idea necessarily. I meant software. Here's an example: Microsoft directly and unabashedly and openly copies a Linux distro (say, Ubuntu), rebrands, and sells. Is that ok?
I think we're arguing about different things. I'm arguing about very specific "ripping off" of someone by a huge company with lots of cash and power. Learning and communicating is a lot different than copying a significant amount of work and monetizing.
It may be that you have a solution for this. Perhaps not allowing the monetizing part. I don't know. Elvis "stealing" the blues is not the same thing. Elvis taking one particular person's song, copying it exactly, substituting his name, and singing it... without said composer's permission? That's what I'm talking about. Not style, not little bits and pieces. Out-and-out "copying."
Basically, this: what is your plan for encouraging innovation if no plan to protect any sort of monetary reward from an innovation is in place?
And again, I'm not necessarily arguing that the current model works well or even works at all... but that, in my slashdot time, I don't recall seeing very many actual plans for how it will really work going forward.
So, I understand the problem with the way it currently works. The question is, how should we replace it. That's the indecision part.
For example, let's say I write some useful software (HA! hehe...). How can we prevent Big Company from simply stealing it and marketing it as theirs? It's already a "Big Company" run show because of the lawyer thing, but if Big Company can simply steal it without even worrying about the law, that doesn't seem to be any better.
From wikipedia, it looks to me like most European nations, at any rate, accept software patents. With some more strict qualifications, it looks like, but they don't repudiate all software patents. Unless you're referring to India, China, etc., with most every advanced nation"...:)
Yes, I know it's not on the L-R axis... it's on the "Authoritarian"/"Libertarian" axis on the graph. I was referring to the graph, which puts Obama/Biden and most Democrats closer to Libertarian ("down" on the graph) than most Republicans on there, including McCain.
Point is that high economic growth with extreme debt accumulation seems like it's not quite a fair comparison. Granted, the US has a pretty large debt, too, but the US is actually below a lot of countries as far as debt as a percentage of GDP. A LOT of countries are above the US, including Norway, Netherlends, Brazil, UK, Germany, Canada, France, Portugal, Greece, Italy, France, and Japan.
As for the states going bankrupt, I'm not sure if they would or not. They would be able to do things that the state governments aren't allowed to do if they were their own countries, too. (I'm not defending the states, by the way. heh.)
My point is: if all those European-"centric" countries are doing so well economically, why are they running such a high debt? We always hear about the huge US debt, but it seems to be smaller than most European debts. Maybe that's why some people in the US are so against certain European political methods?
(and, incidentally, a lot of people in the US are decrying the *US* debt right now...
Mmmm, ok, anarchist vs. libertarian would make more sense... except that I don't see how Obama is more anarchistic? Obama seems to favor more restrictions in certain ways, and less in others. Say, for example, legislative morality - Republicans tend to like it. But with other issues... say, parenting or social services or mandated [insert something here], Republicans tend to be more against it...
I ended up one point towards Libertarian though, which is a word I'd use to describe myself to some extent, so that's kinda weird. I wouldn't call myself anarchistic though.
But it does. You really can't judge my political position based on whether or not I want my private school to instill religious values, can you? For all you know, my child's school is a homeschool. How does that factor in to what I think should be done in the government? I don't think public government-funded schools should instill religious values, in fact.
Unless, of course, somehow being religious or non-religious fits into that spectrum, too?
I live in the US as well, and occasionally get the right-wing/corporatist[/religious] troll mod as well.
And I also agree with your questioning their available options. There were some where I would have wanted to separate it - for example, the question about what I would want my child's school to do. Well, I had to agree with that, but I assume they probably took that to mean "public" school. I wouldn't expect a public school to do it, but the question asked what I wanted for my child's school... which could be private OR public.
And the amount of questions on sex seemed a little out of place. Would have been more appropriate to ask about corporations, it seems?
Slashdot Mirror
how do i NEVER get this add-on?
Use IE 6. ;)
Oh, I agree He wasn't angry about a personal slight. I can't quite tell, due to slashdot's comment system, what you are responding to ... but I'm not, again, arguing that He was angry because of His pride getting hurt or something like that. Far from it, He was willing to die for the very people that DID personally and publically insult ... and crucify Him.
But again... you're dealing with issues much deeper. The point of my original post (which, again, I can't tell if you're replying to that or a later one ... silly Slashdot!) was simply to combat the idea that Jesus was a man who taught us that we should love each other. That's not only incomplete, it's missing some pretty important details and gives a false picture.
Jesus really was the ultimate picture of love, but the only way one can understand that picture is by seeing what He actually did on the cross, and how profound our sins are - profound and deep enough to warrant a perfect sacrifice (the Christ).
Christ's message was one that requires a change of character, a change of the well-springs of the heart so that what we once accepted as normal and unavoidable we now reject and long to become like Him in character and action.
Precisely ... and that made a lot of people uncomfortable - more than just the religious leaders. He wasn't crucified by the Pharisees alone, the entire population (basically) rejected Him.
(and I basically agree.)
Interesting... but... also interesting: we've had several nuclear power plant problems. Have we ever had an accidental nuclear bomb explosion?
(I actually support nuclear power, by the way.)
But, you see, I'm not arguing that He didn't. I'm arguing that He said a lot, lot more than just that... I'm arguing against boiling down Jesus to "love each other," because that's missing a huge part of His message... and by far the more important part of His message, and even the reason He showed up on earth in the first place.
Or at least, I hope they run good protection software.
Like ... Search and Destroy. Or Avast! Nothing like pirates for protecting nuclear warheads.
[note: this was an attempt at comedy.]
You're plugging it in wrong.
Perhaps a better metric, though, would be ... how many right-biased news channels are there, how many left, and how many center (if any!). Add up the left, add up the right, and then you'll get a better picture. Simply comparing Fox vs. CNN isn't an accurate picture of the cable news landscape if there are multiple left-leaning (or, say, Democrat-leaning) channels and only one right-leaning/Republican-leaning.
Did I say anything about Him being angry?
I'm not saying He DIDN'T answer that way about the greatest commandment. I'm not arguing against Jesus talking about love. I'm arguing against only taking those statements and ignoring everything else in order to believe what you want about Jesus.
In fact, Jesus uses one particular phrase six times in Matthew alone: wailing and gnashing of teeth. Jesus also talks about going and sinning no more. He also talks about forgiving sins. He also talks about the coming judgment. And He talked about love within all of these things, with the greatest love being that of one who lays down His life for a friend.
I could go on for a while about this... but the point is pretty simple. Picking certain things that the Gospels say Jesus did/said and ignoring others in order to "prove" a certain view/belief of Jesus is not very intellectually consistent ... nor, apparently, historically accurate.
And just to be extra clear, I'm not at all disputing that Jesus stated and showed a very high standard of behavior towards one's "neighbor." It was very high. And the reason it was so high, according to Jesus, is that it is God's standard. And part of Jesus' point is that it should show that nobody actually meets that standard; thus the extreme criticism of the hypocritical Pharisees/other religious leaders of the day, perhaps best seen in the parable of the Pharisee and tax collector...
The Pharisee, self-righteous and thinking he has earned favor with God through good works, prays loudly and thanks God that he's not like the tax collector.
The tax collector realizes his shortcoming and sin, and will not even lift his eyes toward heaven in his humility, but beats his chest and asks God to be merciful to him, and admits his guilt as a sinner.
Jesus clearly says that the tax collector is the one who has found favor with God, because he has trusted God to be merciful, not trusted himself to be perfect.
The President says the Republicans are blocking everything.
The President says a lot.
Love...
And also Hell and the punishment for sin and God's love in sending Jesus.
Jesus was not a "social" figure, nor a "political" figure. Jesus did not come for that, and didn't claim to be that. He was not a "cool" guy. In fact, most people eventually wanted to kill him and release a murderer instead. He offended a lot of people by telling them they were sinning. He made people uncomfortable. He claimed to be a lot of things, He preached some pretty hard messages.
The only way you can get the "Jesus just wanted us to all love each other" message from the Biblical account is if you take what supports that opinion and disregard the rest...
Hmmm. Interesting. Thanks for the discussion, I will have to do some thinking...
What?
39% of Americans say they regularly get news from a cable channel.
Only 40% of Republicans regularly watch Fox News.
I'm sure you were just trying to make a point... but when your point hinges on more than 50% of Americans getting their news from FN and thus are stupid, and it's not even close to 50% ... the point seems to kinda fall apart? :)
Mmmm I didn't say idea necessarily. I meant software. Here's an example: Microsoft directly and unabashedly and openly copies a Linux distro (say, Ubuntu), rebrands, and sells. Is that ok?
I think we're arguing about different things. I'm arguing about very specific "ripping off" of someone by a huge company with lots of cash and power. Learning and communicating is a lot different than copying a significant amount of work and monetizing.
It may be that you have a solution for this. Perhaps not allowing the monetizing part. I don't know. Elvis "stealing" the blues is not the same thing. Elvis taking one particular person's song, copying it exactly, substituting his name, and singing it... without said composer's permission? That's what I'm talking about. Not style, not little bits and pieces. Out-and-out "copying."
Basically, this: what is your plan for encouraging innovation if no plan to protect any sort of monetary reward from an innovation is in place?
And again, I'm not necessarily arguing that the current model works well or even works at all... but that, in my slashdot time, I don't recall seeing very many actual plans for how it will really work going forward.
So, I understand the problem with the way it currently works. The question is, how should we replace it. That's the indecision part.
For example, let's say I write some useful software (HA! hehe...). How can we prevent Big Company from simply stealing it and marketing it as theirs? It's already a "Big Company" run show because of the lawyer thing, but if Big Company can simply steal it without even worrying about the law, that doesn't seem to be any better.
It seems like, to be politically incorrect, it's most "Eastern" countries that are doing it. US and EU and UK make up quite a few countries.
(I am not attempting to defend or attack the software patent policy, btw, I'm somewhat undecided :) )
Most every advanced nation? Citation?
From wikipedia, it looks to me like most European nations, at any rate, accept software patents. With some more strict qualifications, it looks like, but they don't repudiate all software patents. Unless you're referring to India, China, etc., with most every advanced nation" ... :)
Yes, I know it's not on the L-R axis... it's on the "Authoritarian"/"Libertarian" axis on the graph. I was referring to the graph, which puts Obama/Biden and most Democrats closer to Libertarian ("down" on the graph) than most Republicans on there, including McCain.
As for the states going bankrupt, I'm not sure if they would or not. They would be able to do things that the state governments aren't allowed to do if they were their own countries, too. (I'm not defending the states, by the way. heh.)
My point is: if all those European-"centric" countries are doing so well economically, why are they running such a high debt? We always hear about the huge US debt, but it seems to be smaller than most European debts. Maybe that's why some people in the US are so against certain European political methods?
(and, incidentally, a lot of people in the US are decrying the *US* debt right now...
Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland ... very high economic growth. So high, they're going bankrupt?
Mmmm, ok, anarchist vs. libertarian would make more sense... except that I don't see how Obama is more anarchistic? Obama seems to favor more restrictions in certain ways, and less in others. Say, for example, legislative morality - Republicans tend to like it. But with other issues ... say, parenting or social services or mandated [insert something here], Republicans tend to be more against it...
I ended up one point towards Libertarian though, which is a word I'd use to describe myself to some extent, so that's kinda weird. I wouldn't call myself anarchistic though.
But it does. You really can't judge my political position based on whether or not I want my private school to instill religious values, can you? For all you know, my child's school is a homeschool. How does that factor in to what I think should be done in the government? I don't think public government-funded schools should instill religious values, in fact.
Unless, of course, somehow being religious or non-religious fits into that spectrum, too?
So some claim Obama is leftist, some claim he is centrist, and some claim he's far right.
Clearly, we have defined our political spectrum terms very specifically, and they are obviously great tools to use in political debates.
[/sarcasm]
I live in the US as well, and occasionally get the right-wing/corporatist[/religious] troll mod as well.
And I also agree with your questioning their available options. There were some where I would have wanted to separate it - for example, the question about what I would want my child's school to do. Well, I had to agree with that, but I assume they probably took that to mean "public" school. I wouldn't expect a public school to do it, but the question asked what I wanted for my child's school... which could be private OR public.
And the amount of questions on sex seemed a little out of place. Would have been more appropriate to ask about corporations, it seems?
But a politician breaking a campaign promise is simply unthinkable
We agree there, anyways.
:P :)