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March 27, 2008

Fundamentalism is Islam and Christianity

The bible's got some really nasty verses, too: even some coming straight out of Jesus mouth[Luke 19:26-27]:

"He replied, 'I will tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away.But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them -- bring them here and kill them in front of me.' "

Christians ~ and not just American/European Christians ~ have a bad habit of thinking that Jesus was a non-Jewish hippy, with an easy going attitude and a great soul insurance plan.

In the end however, fundamentalist Christians don't actively pull the Hitler "I must kill everybody" button out like the charming Islamic sects do. Actually, fundamentalist Christians talk a lot of shit and then go back home most of the time.

Posted by Ebola at March 27, 2008 06:04 PM

Comments

Darling ebola, just to give a little context, the verses you cite are actually the last 2 verses of a parable that begins in Luke 19:12, so it was not Jesus telling them to bring people before him and kill them, but the nobleman turned king in the parable who was ordering his people (in the parable) to do this. Your point is valid, but the cited verse is not.

Posted by: Crusader at March 27, 2008 07:58 PM

More accurately, Ebola, a minority of fundamentalist Christians talk a lot of shit, and then go back home. And most of the time, the rest of the Christians generally views said minority as ignorant bigots, and say as much.

And the few fundamentalist Christians* who don't talk shit and go back home generally get chased by law enforcement agencies in a secular fashion, until they are caught or killed. Or both, in a few cases. In support of secular laws over religious laws.

It's not just a matter of religion, you see. It's a matter of religious versus secular government.

And, by and large, secular governments tend to spring from Christian cultures, while religious governments tend to be from Islamic roots.

Not always, of course, but enough to make me suspicious of the relationship.


=================
*: Or at least claim to be.....I've often thought that those who claim to follow Christ in his teachings by bombing abortion clinics are either deluded or just lying.

Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at March 27, 2008 08:00 PM

(A spank?!?!?)

Posted by: tree hugging sister at March 27, 2008 08:01 PM

I'm not sure what you mean by "Fundamentalism is Islam and Christianity." "Fundamentalist" in Christianity covers the swath from the Maranatha/Jed Smock-all-girls-are-whores crowd to pacifist sects; people who are extremely tolerant to those who are extremely intolerant can cherry pick "fundamental" parts of the Bible that they want to focus on. I don't get the impression that the same diversity of interpretation exists in the muslim world. And, as you correctly allude to, the weightier part of fundamentalist christians separate the godly realm from the earthly realm in their lives and social interactions; again, contrast with the muslim world.

So I'm still at loss somewhat with what you are implying. However, I do thank you for posting that film, as you saved me from posting it!

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at March 27, 2008 08:42 PM

Oh, and people who claim to follow christ by bombing abortion clinics are simply murderous assholes.

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at March 27, 2008 08:43 PM

That too, Mr. Bingley. My apologies, I should have said that.

Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at March 27, 2008 09:07 PM

I think the major difference is that Christianity
has forgiveness trumping every other law. The
New Testament is confusing in its message,but
the main message is everything can be forgiven,
except denial of the Holy Spirit.
I don't want to get to 'heavy' ,but its true.

Posted by: greg newson at March 28, 2008 09:01 PM

I see it has already been pointed out-- but it bears repeating: The two verses you cite were the tail end of a parable, and quoted quite grossly out of context. Besides which the parable expressly references a judgement passed By God Himself after the Second Coming of Christ and the beginning of the millenial reign. To put those verses out as a parallel to the ones in the Koran advocating violence against the unbeliever requires a scriptural illiteracy on a par with the man who, seeking divine guidance for the day, picked out two verses at random--- and got "Judas went and hanged himself.... go and do thou likewise."

Posted by: RHJunior at March 29, 2008 12:37 PM

"The New Testament is confusing in its message..."

No it isn't. It's fairly straightforward, especially compared to the convoluted, repetitive, often just-plain-incomprehensible stuff in the Koran. You may not like the message in the NT, but that's different from it being "confusing." (I am of the opinion that people who profess not to understand Christianity actually mean they can't find justifications for their own favorite ideas/behaviors in it.)

Posted by: Andrea Harris at March 30, 2008 06:53 PM

Hmm, let's see, yes it is a quote from a parable, but let's throw it into context, eh? Really doesn't change it at all in my mind. Luke 19 starts off with a poor schmoo tax collector names Zacchaeus who wants to meet Jesus. Zach is told by Jesus that the uberprophet will be spending the day at his house. Go figure, his followers start talking about how Jesus is off to stay with a "sinner". Somehow talking shit like that seems already contrary to what Jesus is espousing, but whatever I guess. Already off to a good start in the "acting" rather than "being" roll of residency in the "follower of Christ" positions.

Zach is so happy he gets to have the son of god as a guest, he promptly says he'll give half his fortune to the poor, and pay anyone he might have cheated back four times the amount they were toasted outta.

Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, to, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."
This is cute and all that, and like a Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon, leads into a parable about the man that would be king.

Now, as for the parable: There's a noble that wants to be a king, and apparently all he has to do is go somewhere and they hand ya a kingship. Okeday. He gathers ten of his servants and gives each of ten minas and tells them "Put this money to work until I come back". Great and nifty, right? Well, his people hate his ass, so they send a delegation after him to tell whoever is giving the kingships out, 'Err, we don't want this shithead for a king.' This is another hallmark of NT style, no one likes the powerful. In fact it's a primary espousal that "the meek" will get everything; ain't mob mentality fun? Anyhow, they really should have read Machiavelli, albeit they needed a time machine, because the man is elevated in the face of their public attempt at dethroning him before his royal toush touched the throne.

Old boy comes back, understandably irate. So he checks on who did what with his money. One servant earns ten on top of his original ten...and gets ten cities to run. Good trade off. Another gets +5, and gets five cities to run. Seems like what we're getting at so far is that if you handle what you are entrusted with wisely, you will reap exceptional benefits.

So, where's the negative side? Well, one servant doesn't make anything with the money, because he hid, for fear that if he lost any in the attempt, he'd lose his hide. And he was stupid enough not to deposit it, to garner interest either, just flat hid it. Our parable king orders those ten minas be taken from him and given to the man who made the additional ten minas. Impending moral? When given options don't be so afraid of possible outcomes that you fail to take a chance with any of them. And if you fail to take those chances, someone else with larger testicles will no doubt reap the benefits of said chances.

Thus we come to:

"He replied, "I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away. But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them -- bring them here and kill them before me."
This is pretty straight forward. We've established our first two morals and landed at the feet of anyone that betrays you. I find this hugely amusing, because this moral, which was indeed the lay point for my post, is this: For those who would publicly defy you, crush them. Notice the servant who made no profit was not sentenced to death, although he's already admitted that he hid the money for fear of the man. Why the catch? Because he didn't do it publicly!

Now, all this talk is coming from a man who didn't declare himself as the son of god to the masses until later in life, and is referred to as the king of kings...talking about a man who went from being noble to a king in the eyes of his fellow man. Read between the lines and think about that.

Also keep in mind the Luke (the guy who wrote this, if you're having trouble following this) was a friend of Paul (the apostle) but was not an eyewitness of Christ. The book of Luke, along with Acts, was written by Luke circa 60 A.D. following Peter around up until his martyrdom. And that's actually one of the earlier gospels.

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