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Just went back to work yesterday after being off for 9 days. Keith and I were on vacation…sort of….very busy. His dad was here for the week…his annual late summer visit during the Little League World Series here in Williamsport (the town’s claim to fame) That involved some day trips here and there…and we took Emily off to college…..a bittersweet day.
I thought I would get all kinds of posts written. Not. I have pondered starting a weekly series kind of thing…one a round up of interesting websites….another a round up of interesting quotes that I’ve come across in my web journeys. I take a lot of web journeys and find all kinds of really interesting stuff buried in cyber space. So…today, perhaps marks the beginning of the quotes of the week round up. Notable Quotables? Notes, Quotes and Anecdotes (stole that title idea from Keith) Whatever. Following are a few quotes I came across. Since I’ve been frequenting peacekeeping websites these past few weeks, the quotes have a nonviolent peacekeeping tone…..
The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations. ~David Friedman
All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
-Voltaire
"Only in America can you be pro-death penalty, pro-war, pro-unmanned drone bombs, pro-nuclear weapons, pro-guns, pro-torture, pro-land mines, and still call yourself 'pro-life.'” ~ John Fugelsang
If you're a Christian who supports killing your enemies and torture, you have to come up with a new name for yourself.
...Christians have been lawyering the bible to try to figure out how "love thy neighbor" can mean "hate thy neighbor" and how "turn the other cheek" can mean "s***w you, I'm buying space lasers". Martin Luther King gets to call himself a Christian because he actually practiced loving his enemies.
...Jesus lays on that hippy stuff pretty thick. He has lines like "Do not repay evil with evil" and "Do not take revenge on someone who wrongs you." Really. It's in that book you hold up when you scream at gay people. And not to put too fine a point on it, but "non-violence" was kinda Jesus' trademark. Kinda his big thing. To not follow that part of it is like joining Greenpeace and hating whales. Bill Maher
4 comments:
Great quotes Cindi!
I love quotes....they encapsulate so much meaning in so few words....
Cindi....
What about the beat down Jesus laid down on the temple money changers? Seriously, what was that about?
Brian...
That subject would make a great blog post or two. I've listened to and read several alternate versions of the oft repeated Jesus and the Moneychangers story. Like a lot of the stories in the Bible...what it actually says and what we think it says are two different things. Our version is tainted/influenced by movies and art and the retelling of the event in many a zealous sermon.
None of the Gospels declare that Jesus hurt anyone in the Temple Cleansing. Only in one Gospel (John) is a whip mentioned. It doesn't say he hit anyone with the whip. It doesn't even say he hit any of the livestock with the whip. It also doesn't say he was angry.
Jesus is often described as a pacifist but Jesus promoted active non violence...what Walter Wink refers to as a "third way." As opposed to returning violence for violence...or running away. He teaches...and models.... an alternative to "fight or flight."
A google search will bring up a whole lot of articles that discuss this event, which is important to understand because it is recorded in all four of the Gospels. I found the following link offers a credible alternative to the popular conception of Jesus in a rage in the temple beating the crap out of the money changers with his whip and fists.
http://bit.ly/oste4X
Cindi....
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