I believe that a lot of people responded by laughing, which is the most effective response to someone trying to project power. Recall that famous Steve Bannon quote:
This has gotten sidetracked into a discussion about violence, but violence isn’t really the point. It’s not necessary (sousaphone) and, in the examples of the Nazi punch and ten commandments, it’s only incidental to the statement being conveyed. They want us to respond on the basis of feeling threatened or oppressed, and in the three examples I gave someone refuses to give the desired response and instead demonstrates that the power being projected is without force. It’s one party saying “I’m Darth Vader” and another calmly replying “You’re not Darth Vader.”
There’s a kind of jujutsu in that that we need to better understand.
That is cool, I respect pacifism, but please understand that not everyone is. If I could go back in time and murder Hitler, before he had started getting particularly bad, and knock him off? Well, I probably wouldn’t go back in time, but if I did, I wouldn’t immediately wipe the “knock him off” option off my list of possible ideas. I think a lot of people look at this swelling fascist movement (which is global in nature) and feel that yeah, we need to knock this thing on its ass before it gets way more out of control (I mean, more out of control than Donald Trump being President is a little hard to fathom, but Trump sending people to death camps would, technically, be worse).
You may have noticed, but sometimes (usually?) the folks who win are the ones who dominate the other side, not stick daisies in their rifles. Some of us are open to a notion of a “peaceful warrior,” which does not at all necessarily mean you do not use violence, but that on a deeper level you can love your “enemy” by understanding the interconnectedness of all things, but right here and now, they are a dangerous threat that really does need to be overcome.
I’m not sure we’re there yet, but understand how some people see this.
I agree. The ironic and silly thing is, obedience to the Ten Commandments is not demanded in Christianity. They are part of Judaism. The book of Galatians talks about how the Jewish Law is no longer applicable. Or at least it seems to, and “if a trumpet blows an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for battle?”
What God really meant to say to the Children of Israel was “Look, the Egyptians have a barely functioning economy, their personal hygiene and tendency to dispose of waste on dunghills is causing all kinds of health problems, and now they’re trying to exploit your labour. If you take my advice you’ll go somewhere else. It can’t be worse. It might even be a lot better.”
Then Moses spun it his way, which was my point.
It would seem that you have passed over a hundred years of higher and lower criticism and development of church history. Here’s a hint: You cannot hope to understand the Bible by referring only to the Bible as your sourcebook. It’s a collection of documents from various periods and various cultures and it doesn’t have structural integrity, just a degree of common editing.
However, keeping things within the scope of Protestant exegesis (a bit like discussing structural chemistry using phlogiston, but there you go) Jesus tells his hearers that the Torah is a consequence of loving God and your neighbour, and that nothing, not even two small letters, shall be removed from the Torah until the apocalypse. Anyone who has actually studied this stuff knows that Protestants of a certain breed are really Paulians because the Gospel is too much for them to swallow and Paul made it easy for Gentiles.
Personally I think it would be good if Protestants were required to follow all the injunctions of the Bible. Apart from the fact that we’d be spared all their pictures on social media and there would be no churches…except that I suspect soon they’d be as rare as the Hassidim are among Jews.
Gosh, how is one mentally ill man destroying a new, unconstitutional lawn ornament different from a group of religious fundamentalist totalitarians destroying a significant piece of ancient cultural history?
I’m waiting for the punchline…
And this isn’t about sides. This is about decency. It’s not a decent monument. It is as indecent as the folks who put it up will call the Satanist Monument scheduled to go up beside it, there with the same rights but somehow someone will feel that is a violation of THEIR dignity…
and so it goes until we all say stop it with the stupid displays and we will too.
That monument is a stupid display, and it was met in kind. I think the whole thing is a waste of effort on the part of all parties, and taxpayer dollars. One is too many to spend on it,
I’m sure not interested in religious displays on even a square inch of gov’t land. The only reason to do so is to show you have special rules, which is what bullies have. And bullies are the most constant victims you will ever meet.
Also, this was not the 10 commandments being destroyed. Whats his name did that.
No. It’s going to get people to mostly look away, which is what most people do when there is conflict, and not being paid attention to will really pisses off one ‘side’ in this pissing match more than the other.
In all liberal democracies of significance, only two of the Ten Commandments are actually illegal, and those two are universally regarded as things that should be illegal. We’d be using those ones regardless, so the Commandments don’t deserve any credit for including them. (Well, maybe three are illegal, if you decide “bear false witness” applies specifically to perjury in a courtroom, rather than just generally lying about stuff.)
So, no, pretty much every society since Hammurabi does not think the Ten Commandments is an acceptable basis for a legal system, because every civil society currently worthy of the name has explicitly rejected them as such.
Rule One: Worship this one god. If you don’t, you are wrong, period, full stop, no discussion. It’s the worst thing you can do, it’s the very first rule.
Yep, paragon of openness and tolerance, right there.
Yeah, folks who think the 10 commandments make a good basis for law should replace “10 Commandments” with “Sharia” for just a second, and check themselves at the door of that conversation next time. They wouldn’t stand for -sharia-, and the mechanism for that not happening here is because the gov’t has rules against the establishment of a religion!
I’m only talking about what Protestants believe, and teach. The fact that what they teach conflicts with other things they teach, is my point. They simultaneously teach that the Ten Commandments are to be obeyed, but we are not under the Jewish Law.
No. I am saying having them doesn’t equate to intolerance. That isn’t saying it leads to more tolerance. It’s general effect is neutral. But nice strawman. It would be a shame is something happened to it…
You’re right, I should have broken them all down. Like I said, it has 3 main areas, specific to the religion, the two laws that most people abide by, and the laws of how to act to be “good”.
Oh come on now. Show me where it says “you are wrong”. These were the commandments given to the Jews by Moses via God. It was commandments to HIS people. No where in there does it extrapolate into what you are trying to make it. In fact the Jewish and Christian texts are filled with treating non Jews with compassion.
Look, you can point out some sketchy stuff in the Old Testament, New Testament, Quran, and Torha. You can point out some sketchy beliefs by the practitioners for the Abrahamic(?) religions. You can point out some awful things done by those believers.
But to take the 10 Commandments and make it out to be some thing it isn’t is a dishonest argument. You can find other lines of scriptures people have used to justify there evil actions, but I can’t recall the 10 Commandments being used that way.
Placing a set of religious instructions on public property is obnoxious, bullying, and unconstitutional. Will a Ten Commandments monument in the lobby of a courthouse (or wherever) cause someone to harm someone else? I don’t know. I doubt it. But it contributes to a climate of in-group condemnation of nonbelievers. It says, “We belong here. You don’t. This is our country, and the weight of the government is behind us.” To me, that’s intolerance.
The fact that everyone already knows murder is wrong (and no one—or almost no one—thinks you should be punished for working on Sunday) is irrelevant.
Why do you think people are so interested in putting up these monuments on public property? There’s a whole movement dedicated to this. Judge Roy Moore made his bones resisting a court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Supreme Court.
It sounds disingenuous to say, “Who says people think these monuments make a statement about what kind of country this is?”
Of course they think the monuments make a statement: We are a Christian country and Christian principles are perfectly aligned with our legal system.
A tall skinny very heavy chunk of stone that was so poorly secured that knocking it over caused little damage to the vehicle.
Mr. Reed was simply keeping young children tempted to play on / near the dangerous item from being crushed when they accidentally knocked it over. He is a hero twice.
