[extropy-chat] embedded in open hearts

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Olga Bourlin <fauxever at sprynet.com> wrote:
> From: "Mike Lorrey" <mlorrey at yahoo.com>
> > --- Olga Bourlin <fauxever at sprynet.com> wrote:
> 
> >> Is that saying a lot?  And does this justify what the Jews are
> doing
> >> to the Palestinians?
> 
> It comes and goes - but never entirely seems to leave:
> 
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/international/middleeast/10gaza.html?
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-mideast.html
> 
> > It's saying a lot ...
> 
> No, it's not (unless you can explain to me why the pope is lauded for
> something ordinary citizens have already figured out a long time ago
> - i.e., that Jew were victims in the Holocaust, and that Jews did
> not kill any fictional deity character and are therefore not to
> blame; well, okay, so maybe ordinary citizens still believe in the
> fictional deity character, so two steps forward, one step back ...).

It serves a major benefit in that the large number of overt or
subconcious bigots can no longer point to the Church as an excuse for
their bigotry.

> So it's, like, don't be anti-semitic now, but it's NOT a sin or
> anti-semitic (and anti-[insert any other religion] to think that
> Catholics (and some other Christians - or maybe just Catholics?)
> to believe that Jews (and others who are not of the true faith)
> are going to roast in the Lake of Fire forever in the life-after-
> death? 

Of course it isn't. Hell is a prison of one's own creation, and whether
or not a supernatural afterlife hell is real is immaterial to what the
Catholic Church has to say about the matter. I certainly see plenty of
people living in hell on a daily basis because of the choices they have
made in their lives. Thus the idea of a natural and objective physical
punishment for ones wrong acts is not evil, or cruel, or hard to
believe in, it is how the world around us works for the overwhelming
majority of humanity. 

The lesson that christianity teachs about the experience of the Jews is
two fold: a) no matter how special you start out in life (i.e. the
'chosen' people), if you abuse your position or fail to be properly
appreciative of the entity that made you special, you are going to go
down for it, and b) the more special you demand to be treated by
everybody else, the worse the rest of humanity is going to treat you in
resentment of your arrogance (which is a lesson being reiterated in the
current day world opinion of Israel). 

If Church teaching still claims that Jews are going to hell, it is
rationally so within their worldview because in some ways many or most
jews still haven't gotten the point of why they went through the
experiences they have over the centuries, or else they learned the
entirely wrong lessons, from the POV of the church. This therefore
isn't something where the Church is condemning anybody to hell, it just
is, like the ground gets wet because it rains. 

This doesn't mean the Church should hate, dislike, or blame Jews for
how one guy was once treated when he was nailed to a tree. It is
'unchristian' to hate anybody or abuse anybody, particularly for things
they never did themselves as individuals. Loving a person
unconditionally, despite their deeds, just as JP2 did with the fellow
who shot him, is the christian thing to do.

It is fair to hold the church up to its own standard, and it is fair to
demand that it meet its own standards better. Given, however, the
Church's record over the centuries of rationalizing excuses not to do
so in convoluted theology, I think it is incredibly remarkable that one
man brought so much change in his reign. It certainly didn't change
enough for many. Similarly, it can equally be said the Church changed
too much for just as many people (Opus Dei types particularly).
 
> > Whether Jews go to heaven or not is a separate issue for the
> church.
> 
> It may be separate, but it's tied into their inherent and implied
> exclusive 
> status.  Obviously Jews are not going to go to heaven - no one does. 
> But to even think or believe such a thing - even if implicitly
> taught - if that's not all out savagery and self-righteousness and
> as cruel an idea as has been propounded, I don't know what is.

But your demands and claims are self negating within the Catholic
theosphere, because it is impossible for the subjective to judge the
objective. The Creator cannot be judged by its creation unless in
reality it is using that creation as a means of judging itself. It is
the Creator that creates the objective truth by which it judges itself.
If you judge the creator by a different standard, you are simply wrong,
or perhaps more accurately, not as accurate a judge of the creator as
the creator is of itself.

Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com


		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Make Yahoo! your home page 
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs