Comments on: Why “Christians” are so Merciless

By: Rocko

Rocko — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 23:11:17 +0000

I think Bob and joe rorke have missed a crucial point here, and have adopted a sort of “magical” view of Christianity, that somehow the fact that people have been hypocrites in every era and civilized society somehow shows that Christianity is false. That is very poor reasoning.

The Sermon on the Mount is a sermon against hypocrisy. Jesus constantly condemned the leaders of his day as hypocrites. His most important (at least recorded) sermon is focused on that. As Bob has often said, when he figures something out that makes real sense, he realizes Jesus said it better already.

Jesus said “By their fruit ye shall know them”. It is fine to moan about how bad so many “Christians” are, and condemn the whole thing, if you just ignore the plain teaching that Jesus himself pointed out. Why do you think he kept repeating the point? Obviously He knew it would be a big problem.

joe rorke is right, that the warmonger attitude is not a result of what Jesus taught. How does that invalidate Him? Just because Bob’s spelling is poor, that doesn’t invalidate the English language. It is Bob that is at fault, not the language.

Bob uses a phrase, “Old Testament Christians” to say what Jesus said more simply, that is “hypocrites”. Almost everything Jesus said came straight out of the Old Testament, so does that make him an “Old Testament Savior”?

“He is my brother and my sister who does the will of my Father”, said Christ. There it is again. If they don’t do the will of His Father, then what does that mean? It isn’t complicated.

By: joe rorke

joe rorke — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 22:28:43 +0000

It’s absolutely amazing to me what people who call themselves “christians” will do. The thing that did it for me was when I saw so many people who called themselves “christians” wrap their cars in the American flag and do everything they could to support mass murder. Of course, I’m talking about Iraq. I could not then and I cannot now imagine Jesus Christ saying, “lock and load, boys, we’re gonna dust some ragheads today!” I just can’t imagine it. The Divine Physician. The Gentle Jesus. The Bread of Life. The True Vine. I can’t accept it. I’ve lost my religion.

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 16:25:31 +0000

As for the middle class — middle class boys might get to go the university
and get into the priesthood. Middle class folks generally didn’t get to be
monks or nuns until pretty late in the Middle Ages because it took a lot of
money or land to get a monastery or convent to take your small kid and educate
him or her for the several years before they could be a full-fledged member of
the community. Both the middle class and the nobility found convents handy places
to put extra, handicapped, or ugly daughters, or for parents who were REALLY
convinced no man would be good enough for little what’s-her-name.

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 16:18:23 +0000

I lost my comment before I finished, so here’s another try:

There were few differences between life in the Middle Ages in a castle or in a
monastery or convent, and most monks and nuns were children of the nobility. (There
were servants in the monastery and the convent: these weren’t technically monks
or nuns, but they were all under obedience to the abbot or abbess.)

The really strict monasteries and convents didn’t last long: it never took long
for one of these to slip. Most monasteries and convents were closer to a 19th
or early 20th century boarding school or college. (Co-ed education is comparatively new
except here in the U.S.) Being cold and miserable was something everyone in the
Middle Ages could easily experience, and not having enough to eat was pretty routine
in pre-modern Europe. (Having plenty to eat most or all of the time was one of the
early selling points to get Europeans to cross the Atlantic to North America.)