Christian Violence

[McCulloch]

Is that why Christians since St. Augustine have not ever really agreed with each other about Jesus' teachings about violence?

... t is probably because of frustration for evil and violence within so many. But if you use the words of Jesus, there seems to be little fighting one can do in his name. Actually I can't see any. In that I think that the Quakers got it right. You seem to be saying that some Muslims and some atheists are quite as good as other Muslims and atheists. Seems like every human has the same weakness to me. I hope the good ones keep pointing out how to be nice to the bad ones. We Christians do it as a matter of fact, day in and day out. Look at Bush's loudest enemies in the US. Most claim they want their Christianity back. Wierd but true. But there is no jihad in the New Testament anywhere and c'mon jihad does mean war on infidels. That is a fact. [Are] there any wars attributed to Christians fighting to spread Christianity in the last hundred or so years? Islam is still at it.

Which is the correct Christian position? Jesus taught very plainly about violence and the correct reaction to it. Some Christian sects reject violence as a solution to interpersonal or international problems.
On the other hand the practice of many calling themselves Christian involve the practice of war. Augustine and many Christian theologians since have justified violence under certain circumstances. His restrictions are largely ignored by modern Christian soldiers. The same God that the Christians worship appears to have ordered genocide in order that his chosen people could have a homeland.

Question for debate, "Which is the authentic Christian teaching? Just war or Turn the other cheek?"

[Ami]

If that is the reason for their acts, such people not only lack any moral value but they also deserve to be pitied.

Okay then, so what would be the reasons for you to do anything, good or not?

And how do you know it's okay to do it?

So the idea is leave someone else think for you and lead, like sheeps do?

That is simply the extreme. On the other hand there's the "disobediant donkey" who never did what he was told, instead doing the opposite of what his master told him, only to walk off the edge of a cliff when his master told him not to.

It's all very well to think for yourself. But you are going to need to listen to the input of others as well.

[theleftone]

Question for debate, "Which is the authentic Christian teaching? Just war or Turn the other cheek?"

As stated, the question assumes (a) there are only two positions; (b) one position is or should be absolutely applied to all situations; and (c) there is no distinction to be made between the individual and the state. On these grounds, I consider the question to be loaded, and thus invalid for the general audience intended.

[McCulloch]

Question for debate, "Which is the authentic Christian teaching? Just war or Turn the other cheek?"

As stated, the question assumes (a) there are only two positions; (b) one position is or should be absolutely applied to all situations; and (c) there is no distinction to be made between the individual and the state. On these grounds, I consider the question to be loaded, and thus invalid for the general audience intended.

Tselem, you are of course correct. I have committed the logical fallacy called false dilemma.
In twelve pages of debate, no one else has pointed this out. Bravo to you. It is refreshing to see a Christian who does not advocate absolutes in the area of morals.

However, would you please help me to understand how a modern soldier can remain true to the teachings which have been attributed to Jesus and still do all that he or she is expected to do during modern warfare?

[Tilia]

In twelve pages of debate, no one else has pointed this out.

That doesn't mean it was not noticed, McCulloch. It sticks out like a sore thumb.

[theleftone]

I have committed the logical fallacy called false dilemma

That may not be quite accurate. Perhaps I was mistaken for assuming that within the general audience here, there would be more than these two position. As you noted, no one else has pointed the problem out. (Note: And I didn't bother to read all 12 pages to find out.) Hence, given the context, it may well not have been a fallacy.

It is refreshing to see a Christian who does not advocate absolutes in the area of morals.

As my position was not stated, this wouldn't be an accurate reflection based on the knowledge at hand. However, depending on how you mean "absolutes in the area of morals." I may or may not be advocate of them. Would you mind expounding on what you mean by this phrase?

However, would you please help me to understand how a modern soldier can remain true to the teachings which have been attributed to Jesus and still do all that he or she is expected to do during modern warfare?

As I understand the position, the soldier can and should serve in a non-combatant role. Be it a computer technician, medic, or some other role, there are many which they could choose from.

My personal view teeters between full pacifism and the non-combatant position with regards to war. I am not fully convinced on the role of the state within the biblical declaration of Christ (i.e., was Christ's intent for individuals alone or states as well?).

Additionally, I believe this particular matter is at the mercy of the believer. What the believer's conscious and reason tells them is what they will be held accountable for. For this reason, I would not attempt to impose my view on another believer, not make it a requirement for fellowship.

[McCulloch]

It is refreshing to see a Christian who does not advocate absolutes in the area of morals.

As my position was not stated, this wouldn't be an accurate reflection based on the knowledge at hand. However, depending on how you mean "absolutes in the area of morals." I may or may not be advocate of them. Would you mind expounding on what you mean by this phrase?

When you wrote I incorrectly assumed that "... one position is or should be absolutely applied to all situations", I implied from this that you are one of those sensible people who holds that the particular situation in question is relevent to the ethical principles that should be brought to bear. An absolutist would argue that an ethical principle, especially one revealed by God, must apply regardless of situation.

[theleftone]

When you wrote I incorrectly assumed that "... one position is or should be absolutely applied to all situations", I implied from this that you are one of those sensible people who holds that the particular situation in question is relevent to the ethical principles that should be brought to bear. An absolutist would argue that an ethical principle, especially one revealed by God, must apply regardless of situation.

In this respect, I would be as you say, "one of those sensible people." I do not believe the situation can be ignored when dealing with ethics.

[The Persnickety Platypus]

I don't think so. It is the core of it all. If there were not claims about the sacred or divine character of Jesus, we wouldn't even bother ourselves to discuss such picayune individual.

Divine or not, describing him as "picayune" is simply an aberration of reality. Sure, he was Jewish hobo..... a Jewish hobo who defied authority, inspired countless masses with revolutionary teachings, and supposedly started the largest religion on earth, known today as Christianity.

Whether he was God, and whether he even existed is completely irrelevant. Point is, we have an entire book illustrating his teachings and feats. These teachings and feats have led billions into submission. Certainly worthy of discussion.

Maybe he was not perfect. So what? All people converge into hypocracy at one point or another. There is no reason to deny the general wisdom of his principles.

Ghandi, MLK, and Mandela all likewise defied their own principles from time to time.

No. The "questionable" are literal, immovable as rocks.

You have not sufficiently shown them as such.

A couple lines above you stated that "many interpretations can be proposed". Why the reversion back to absolutism?

You are basing on interpretations and pleading context, not acknowledging literal meaning.

Why would I acknowledge literal meaning in figurative scriptures?

In your undying effort to smear this man's moral credibility you have developed the knack for picking and choosing interpretations that best fit your cause, regardless of contextual accuracy. All Greek/Jewish experts agree that the verses in question are metaphorical. If you were to take an unbiased stance on the issue you would probably agree.

You believe that Jesus is not divine, yet you continue to hold him to an impossible ethical standard. Such is the paradox of your position.

As we saw, Jesus himself is portrayed as violent and selfish sometimes, not only in sayings but in acts.

Who of us isn't?

It is deceptive to take a handful of verses to define the man's character while completely ignoring the bulk of his actions and teachings.

Ethics depend on freedom. If your ethics depend on the commands of a divinity, the only ethics derived from that link is the compliment of the commands: you are ethically coherent only by following the command blindly. No cogitation involved. From this point of view, the Bible is an unethical book as a whole, except for the meaning presented.

No one ever did anything moral without choosing to conform to a preset standard, or without the promise of something in return (even if it is just a warm fuzzy feeling).

No. The followers believe the lie and kill in the name of that delusion. Remember Lennon: what if they declare war and nobody go? Then, there's not war.

What does this change? The greed and intolerance is still the basis of the lie.

So a religious war is also limited by the gullibility of it's effectuators? That goes for any war. Case in point- the war in Iraq.

I don't even think religion and instinct are related in the way you suggest.

Then it is a mere coincidence that religion appeared in direct correlation with the formation of independent thought?

The human quest for truth extended into the spiritual when the material world failed to provide answers.

Is it also a coincidence that the concept of "God" was individually formulated by each independent culture at the dawn of modern man? People thousands of miles apart, who could not even attest to each others existance each had their own God(s). The belief is present in every bloodline.

Instinct. An inborn pattern of behavior that is characteristic of a species and is often a response to specific environmental stimuli. God(s) are an inborn characteristic of all human cultures.

[1John2_26]

Quote:
No. The followers believe the lie and kill in the name of that delusion. Remember Lennon: what if they declare war and nobody go? Then, there's not war.

Just strong men owning Lennon's guitars. (He's got no worries about Yoko being taken.) There is war alright. Just a very short one if the people being conquered don't act.

Quote:
I don't think so. It is the core of it all. If there were not claims about the sacred or divine character of Jesus, we wouldn't even bother ourselves to discuss such picayune individual.

Did anyone ever exist? Or is everything some story we're told? How would I know the Pyramids weren't built the week before I get to Egypt?

General Tests for Historicity

Historiography is a branch of study which focuses on the logical, conceptual, and epistemological aspects of what historians do. Critical historiography studies, among other things, the different tests which should be applied to a document to determine whether or not it is historically reliable. [4] When many of these tests are applied to the New Testament documents, they show themselves to be as reliable as, or superior to, most other ancient documents.

For example, apologists have often appealed to three general tests for historicity: the bibliographical test, the internal test, and the external test. The internal test asks whether the document itself claims to be actual history written by eyewitnesses. More will be said about eyewitness testimony later. The external test asks whether material external to the document (in this case, archaeology or the writings of the early church fathers) confirms the reliability of the document. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to delve into the external test. But it should be pointed out that the New Testament has been remarkably confirmed time and again by external evidence. This is not to say there are no problems; but to the unbiased observer, little doubt can be cast on the statement that archaeology has confirmed the historical reliability of the New Testament. [5]

The bibliographical test seeks to determine how many manuscript copies we have of the document and how far removed they are in time from the originals (see table 1).


Table 1
Author When Written Earliest Copy Time Span No. of Copies
Caesar 100-44 900 A.D. 1,000 yrs. 10
Livy 59 B.C.-A.D. 20
Plato (Tetralogies) 427-347 B.C. 900 A.D. 1,200 yrs. 7
Tacitus (Annals) 100 A.D. 1,100 A.D. 1,000 yrs. 20
also minor works 100 A.D. 1,000 A.D. 900 yrs. 1
Puny the Younger
(History) 61-113 A.D. 850 A.D.. 750 yrs. 7
Thucydides
(History) 460-400 B.C. 900 A.D. 1,300 yrs. 8
Suetonius
(De Vita Caesarum) 75-160 A.D. 950 A.D. 800 yrs. 8
Herodotus
(History) 480-425 B.C. 900 A.D. 1,300 yrs. 8
Horace 900 yrs.
Sophocles 430-406 B.C. 1,000 A.D. 1,400 yrs. 100
Lucretius Died 55 or 53 B.C . 1,100 yrs. 2
Catullus 54 B.C. 1,550 A.D. 1,600 yrs. 3
Euripedes 480-406 B.C. 1,100 A.D. 1,500 yrs. 9
Demosthenes 383-322 B.C. 1,100 A.D. 1,300 yrs. 200*
Aristotle 384-322 B.C. 1,100 A.D. 1,400 yrs. 5**
Aristophanes 450-385 B .C. 900 A. D. 1,200 yrs. 10
*All from one copy. **Of any one work.
From Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, rev ed. (San Bernardino, Calif.: Here's Life,1979), p. 42.

A brief perusal of the table indicates that for a representative sample of ancient historical works, we possess only a handful of manuscripts which are, on the average, one thousand years removed from their originals.

In contrast to this, the New Testament documents have a staggering quantity of manuscript attestation. [6] Approximately 5,000 Greek manuscripts, containing all or part of the New Testament, exist. There are 8,000 manuscript copies of the Vulgate (a Latin translation of the Bible done by Jerome from 382-405) and more than 350 copies of Syriac (Christian Aramaic) versions of the New Testament (these originated from 150-250; most of the copies are from the 400x). Besides this, virtually the entire New Testament could be reproduced from citations contained in the works of the early church fathers. There are some thirty-two thousand citations in the writings of the Fathers prior to the Council of Nicea (325).

The dates of the manuscript copies range from early in the second century to the time of the Reformation. Many of the manuscripts are early-for example, the John Rylands manuscript (about 120; it was found in Egypt and contains a few verses from the Gospel of John), the Chester Beatty Papyri (200; it contains major portions of the New Testament), Codex Sinaiticus (350; it contains virtually all of the New Testament), and Codex Vaticanus (325-50; it contains almost the entire Bible).

Too much can be made of this evidence, which alone does not establish the trustworthiness of the New Testament. All it shows is that the text we currently possess is an accurate representation of the original New Testament documents. Most historians accept the textual accuracy of other ancient works on far less adequate manuscript grounds than is available for the New Testament.

In this regard, the following statement about the New Testament by R. Joseph Hoffmann is naive: "What we possess are copies of copies, so far removed from anything that might be called a 'primary' account that it is useless to speculate about what an original version of the gospel would have included.'' [7]

As I have shown, the copies of the New Testament are not far removed from the originals. Furthermore, Hoffmann is using the wrong sense of the term original as it is employed in historical investigation. As Louis Gottschalk points out, "[A primary source] does not, however, need to be original in the legal sense of the word original-that is, the very document (usually the first written draft) whose contents are the subject of discussion-for quite often a later copy or a printed edition will do just as well; and in the case of the Greek and Roman classics seldom are any but later copies available." [8]

Other tests for historicity have been formulated, some of which are these: a document has a high probability of reliability if it is a personal letter, is intended for small audiences, is written in unpolished style, [9] and contains trivia and lists of details. [10] The absence of these features does not necessarily mean the document is unreliable; but their presence makes the prima facie acceptance of the document stronger. Much of the New Testament, especially the apostolic letters and some of the sources behind the Gospels, is made up of personal letters originally intended for individuals and small groups. In addition, much of the New Testament is in unpolished style, and there are several examples of inconsequential detail in the Gospels (see Mark 14:51-52; John 21:2, 11). Further, in 2 Corinthians 12:11-12, Paul writes to a church which is questioning his apostolic authority. To defend himself, he reminds the believers that while he had been with them (approximately four years earlier) he had performed miracles and wonders. If this had not been the case, then Paul would have been a fool to use what everyone knew was a lie to defend himself.

These considerations show that when general tests for historicity are applied to the New Testament documents, they pass them quite well.

[theleftone]

Hey guys, I know this is slightly off-topic, but when you quote someone do you think you could include the username of the individual you're quoting? It'd make it much easier to follow and/or pick up the conversation.