Reflections on the Moon draw angry response.

Just the kind of people the denialist crowd likes.

Nuttier than friggen fruitcakes.

Now, if one really wanted to argue, they could argue that Scripture has a million different interpretations. Could the "lesser light" not still be a light, though only a reflecter, just as Jesus was human, created by God (the sun is created by God), and humans are a reflection of that Sun, or the Son, as it may be? A kind of religious symbol in itsself?

Now I'm not saying that's what it represents, I'm just saying that ANYTHING is open for interpretation.

Have you ever realized that the Religious Right of Jesus Christ's time Killed Jesus Christ. Luke 15 gives a great example. The Prodigal (Father/Sons).
Father = Righteous
Younger Brother= Spend thrift = Lost =sinners
Older Brother = Tight Wad = Self Righteous
Look at the reaction to the Younger Brother's return?
The righteous Father rejoices at the lost Younger Brother's return
The self-righteous Older Brother is indignant "You haven't even given me 1 calf for my birthday!"
Father rebukes the tight wad son, Everything I now own is yours, next time go kill your own calf (tight wad)
The Righteous = eyes on others
The Self-righteous = eyes on themselves = so must maintain their status
Who was the 1st Bleeding Heart Liberal = Jesus Christ!
Who was the first Self-righteous Rear End = Satan!
Corrupt the Righteous through ignorance Satan rejoices.
Lead the lost to the Father's ways = our Heavenly Father/Jesus Rejoices.

Conservatism is destroying our moral fabric.

:-)

Rory,

I think you're confounding concepts and comparing apples with oranges to make an ideological point.

Now, I don't subscribe to any organized religion or sect, and I'm no expert on the Bible, but I'm pretty sure that the various ideas that you tacitly slide into the discussion under the Trojan Horse of the "Bleeding Heart Liberal," are not ideas that are consistent with what the Jesus of the Bible taught.

Seems to me that the Jesus written of in the Bible was squarely opposed to envy and theft, and so would be opposed to the modern-day coercive wealth-redistribution schemes so cherished by the contemporary "liberal" (so-called).
I think Jesus would have wanted our duty to care for our fellow men to take the form of self-sacrifice; not imposing sacrifice on others through the coercive agency of the state.

And then we have the "Tight Wad"/"Spend thrift" dichotomy.
First you seem to be implying that just because one story in the bible has the righteous father doting on the spendthrift son over the tight-wad son, that this should be taken to mean that God approves more of big-spending government than limited government? Am I mistaken in seeing this inference in your comment? (What with your immediate succession into the liberal/conservative dichotomy and all, and your rather naive assertion that the decay of our moral fabric can be attributed solely to "conservatism" as opposed to statism in general.)

All of this points to a kind of narrow, myopic take on political philosophy and the issues of social cooperation. It's as if you can conceive of no relevant distinction between the voluntary acts of free individuals on the one hand and the conditions manifested through initiatory state coercion on the other.

Corrupt the Righteous through ignorance Satan rejoices.

Yeah; I believe it's true. And if it is, then Satan is indeed doing an awful lot of rejoicing these days. Way too much.

Sorry no Trojan's Steve: just a 1950's truth:

First off "Bleeding Heart Liberal" is a Ayn Rand quip. Go ahead and Wiki her. Understand, Jesus not two weeks before raised up Lazarus after being dead for 4 days, so the Pharasee's took to heart when Jesus was saying, "I will raise up this temple up in 3 days," and pointed to himself. The Roman guard didn't just lightly prick Jesus's side with the spear. He RAMPED it up until he knew he pierced completely Jesus's heart! Thus the Bleeding heart reference and the Pharisee didn't put several ton rocks in front of every grave.
My advice is that you start reading the Bible. Matthew 1 is linage. Matthew 2 birth and youth. Matthew 3 is about John the Baptist. Matthew 4 temptation of Christ and gathering the core disciples. You can read it if you want, but Matthew 5 is Jesus's mission statement (Blessed B's) everything afterwards is based on it. So please read and you tell me if he wasn't a little liberal. Can't help but read a little farther and see if he didn't know his future ending, what the self-righteous conservative right was scheming to do to him and to the righteous today. So please read!
Here is a link more towards your thinking even
http://bible.org/seriespage/beatitudes-matthew-51-12

To know a little more about the philos of the Conservative Randian Right
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474980775471

Now go ahead and please read Luke 15, the Father wasn't doting all. He made that perfectly clear, but he got back a child he thought was dead and lost to him forever. If you lost your child what would you do if the child returned? That is the point. Here is a link to Luke 15
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+15&version=NIV

Every business/government needs 3 people

The Capable
Would you shop for car at a place that can't answer your questions?
The Dependable
Would you order on line if you couldn't depend on the products coming to your home?
The innovative
If there wasn't any new then what would you buy tomorrow?

Well, Moral fiber of this world needs the Righteous to be the light of the Earth. Cover the light with self-righteousness and you get only darkness.

The Father enlists the help of the righteous to lead the lost back to him.
Just like any business enlists the help of the first three to make them successful. So you see the fundamentalists are my favorite folks, but their conservative self-righteous shepherds are leading them astray. I am very against that and based on what Jesus actually said I know Jesus is against them, after all they are the ones that paid folks to say,"Crucify Him" And I bet the Father is against that too. Only one church will not be corrupted. In the Bible.

Father's wishes is that Christianity's is to be an inclusive for all religion.
Not an exclusive religion for some.
Thank You

Matthew 5 is Jesus's mission statement (Blessed B's) everything afterwards is based on it. So please read and you tell me if he wasn't a little liberal.

"Liberal" only in the *classical* sense, I suppose.

Just answer me this one question, and we can move on from there: Do you think Jesus believed it was okay for use to use deadly force, or the threat thereof, to compel our brothers and sisters to do what we think they ought to do?
Or do you think Jesus taught that we must lead by example? Do you think he wants us to care for others by self-sacrifice? or do you think he wants us to care for others by threatening to throw our brothers and sisters in a cage, or having them gunned down if they resist being thrown in a cage, to force them to give to the poor?
Do you think Jesus considered it okay to steal from people, as long as what we intended to do with the loot was something Jesus approves of us doing with our own resources?

Okay, that was more than one question. But you see what I'm getting at, right?

I happen to think Jesus was more of a libertarian, than anything else. The core principle of libertarian philosophy is the non-aggression axiom: it is always wrong to invade the person or property of a non-aggressor.
Do you think that is consistent with the teachings of Christ?
Any conceivable alternative to the libertarian philosophy must necessarily involve the initiation of force against the person or property of non-aggressors (including so-called "liberalism" of today).
Do you think Jesus thinks it's okay to make exceptions to the "Golden Rule" on an arbitrary basis?

The Father enlists the help of the righteous to lead the lost back to him.

Okay; I will not argue with that. However, with all due respect, I would caution you that by giving the impression of Divine sanction of statism (persuading people that statist ideology is consistent with the teachings of Christ), you may very well be leading people from one wilderness right into another.

Just think about it, that's all. Take a step back and consider the moral (and Biblical) implications of some of the core assumptions of the political ideas you seem to uncritically accept as valid. And believe me, that is not a harsh indictment, especially coming from me. I was once a staunch self-described "progressive." The tenets of that ideology do appear righteous at face value. But that's the superficial surface. Dig beneath and scrutinize the assumptions that support it; compare them to what the Bible teaches.
Remember that all government is force. Remember that man-made law requires the sanction of force. Remember that force can only be positive or negative; never neutral. The force of law, and hence government, can only have two essential purposes: Either it can be applied negatively, to defend the person and property of all individuals from initiatory force and fraud against persons and property; or else it must necessarily become a vehicle for the positive initiation of force or fraud against people or property itself.

Thank you.

Hum:
Just answer me this one question, and we can move on from there: Do you think Jesus believed it was okay for use to use deadly force, or the threat thereof, to compel our brothers and sisters to do what we think they ought to do?

Why don't you read Matthew he may have your answer?

I was honored by three pasture's gifts: 2 personal Bibles each one fully tabbed for easy referencing and a Strong's Concordance. Sad, 2 died from Alzheimer's, to watch their beautiful minds go. I read their Bibles to them that is how I ended up with them. The sound of the scriptures settled them.
From what you write you may need to read. I promise you won't be hurt.

When I find myself in a storm I often will open one of the four Bibles I have or the copy of the Dead Seas Scrolls I also have. Funny I often find an answer. Sounds like you are looking for answers.

From the New Testament you should read the Matthew. Since Matthew is oldest copy of scripture. Matthew closets verified to being written from the witness period = Jesus' mouth. Matthew is the best place to look.
And you might find the other answers too.
Is Love killing? Humm.
Thank you for your comment!

Potential force would be neutral ...

I already have my answer, Rory. I wasn't looking for spiritual guidance. I was looking for where you stand on the issue.
Stop being so presumptuous.

Do you think Yes, Jesus does approve of deadly force to impose our will upon non-aggressors; or No, Jesus does not.

Jerry,

I think you're getting confused in your attempt at being a smartass.
As in confusing energy and force.

And in any case, even conceding the idea of "potential force," it's either potentially positive or potentially negative.

But the force of law is not potential, it is actual. Even when a gun is not actually being drawn or a jail cell not actually being made to be occupied, the threat is ever-present. People generally obey the decree of the state because they already know ahead of time what's coming their way if they don't. Recalcitrance is not met with frowns or stern advice. It's met with Glock 9 mm. and billy clubs.

The point is that the social apparatus of compulsion and coercion we know of as Law can have one of two possible missions in any case: It can either act negatively, to negate initiatory force or fraud, to defend people and their property from aggressors and thieves; or else it must necessarily act to positively impose force or fraud against persons or property ; i.e., as an actual vehicle of subjugation or plunder itself.
The question is what should be considered proper and just. I say that subjugation and plunder are always wrong; no matter who is imposing it or enforcing it.
It's just as wrong when it is imposed by people called "government" as it is when it is done by people called "gangsters." In fact, I believe it is the act which defines the people, not vice versa; so the former might well be called by the same moniker as the latter, as far as I'm concerned.

This is an interesting thread. It seems to me that the issues raised are being muddied by failure to recognize motive. Robin Hood robbed the rich and gave to the poor. If you get under that, Hood robbed the tax collector as often as the prince. His personal gain was pretty small compared with his "redistribution of wealth." And that is the difference between government coercion and gangster coercion.

By the way, bleeding heart is directly from the crucifixion of Christ. The stab to his side was directed to his heart. That is the origin of "Bleeding Heart Liberal."

It is hard to justify taxation to pay for the needs of the poor, and there probably needs to be some balance in the system that leaves a lot of incentive to earn better than the dole provides. Just a bit of simple observation tells me that is where we are, and compassion says we should not pull back.

I would rather be a smart ass than a dumb ass ...potential anything, energy or force, is neutral until directed for positive or negative ... except for dualists of course, who know no such thing as neutrality.

Just answer me this one question, and we can move on from there: Do you think Jesus believed it was okay for use to use deadly force, or the threat thereof, to compel our brothers and sisters to do what we think they ought to do?
Did you find any OK to use Deadly force in Matthew 5. Maybe that is why Ghandi used non-violent disobedience against the British to gain India's Independence, which made the use of violence by the British look like the Self-Righteous back when we saw the Self-Righteous as the Pharisees. Self-Righteous Religious Conservatives made Jesus Christ the FIRST Bleeding Heart Liberal and the British public understood that. Before the Conservative movement had skewd this view.
In every country in the World except in the US if you asked some-one of faith whether they called themselves Liberal or Conservative 80% would say Liberal, but because of 1970's and 1980's in the US 80% will say that they are Conservatives. The Randian Corporatist ideology take over our banking and financial sector with Marrying of the two under the Reagan Administration and the corruption of the Religious Right who now sends folks into Liberally led churches to break them up. I have seen this happen to a couple Anglican Churches already.

Did you find any OK to use Deadly force in Matthew 5.

Matthew 5 is immaterial to the question at hand. The only instance where the question of coercive force can be said to be dealt with at all is verse 9, "Blessed are the peacemakers..."; which, if anything at all, could only serve to bolster my point.

Of course Jesus taught we should care for the poor, that the meek are blessed, that greed and self-righteousness are abominations, and so forth.
This is not under dispute here. What I want to know is do you think Jesus's teachings are consistent with the idea that it is okay to shoot people in order to secure funds to give to the poor?
Do you not think that when Jesus taught us to care for our brothers and sisters, that he intended this to imply self-sacrifice? or do you think Jesus is okay with us applying to the deadly force of the state to compel people to do what we think they should do?
Simple question.

The Randian Corporatist ideology take over our banking and financial sector with Marrying of the two under the Reagan Administration...

That's a nonsensical misinterpretation. I'm not an Objectivist and I'm certainly no scholar on the works and ideas of Ayn Rand, but I do know for a fact that she was opposed to fractional-reserve central banking and it's "legal tender" monopoly privilege; so it's pretty absurd to attribute the conditions related to the banking and financial sector -- really at any point since 1913 -- to "Randian" ideology.
Alan Greenspan was a charlatan fraud. If he ever had any sympathy or reverence for Ayn Rand's economic philosophy -- or for any free-market-oriented philosophy, for that matter -- then it's pretty clear he had completely abandoned it by the time he started working at the Federal Reserve System.

Jerry,

What exactly is your point?

Not sure if you noticed, but I did elaborate on that initial statement. Did you try reading beyond it, perhaps?
Might I suggest that you do?

Or are you just asserting that you think even actually-exerted government force can be "neutral," as in not either violating someone's rights or protecting the rights of a third party?
If so, can you maybe elaborate on that a bit?

Just like the Conservation Right says we should follow the Constitution, but says the Mission statement of the Constitution at the very beginning, written by George Washington,

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

IS irrelevant, because it goes against their State Right's mantra.

If the South had better Generals and knew the terrain better on most of the battlefields.

Why did the South loose?

The South was a Confederacy (House Divided)
The North was a Federation under our Constitution (House United)
Remember: "To Save the Union!"
No matter how good the individual folks are the divisions will make them weak.
Just like individual sticks are easily broken while the sticks tied together resist the strongest of men. The same is said in Mark 3 I do believe. Lots of wisdom there.
Now the Mission Statement of Jesus put right in the front of Matthew being Irrelevant? Just like the Preamble of our Constitution should be the guiding principle to all that follows it, the same is with Matthew 5 and the New Testament.
Sorry but both are significant in my eyes.

Sounds like I need to post

I didn't say that it was irrelevant as such; just that it was immaterial to the question I am asking you.

Why don't you just say it? Just say "Yes, I believe that Jesus's teachings are consistent with the idea that it is okay to shoot people to secure funds to give to the poor."

And the Preamble to the Constitution does not "go against" states' rights.
To secure justice, tranquility, liberty, etc., does not require that states have their sovereignty usurped.

By chance did you get around to the Bill of Rights while perusing the Constitution? Did you get to Amendments 9 and 10?
Did you notice how the intrinsic, innumerable rights of individuals and the sovereignty of the states are taken as tacitly assumed and pre-existing?
The states created the federal government to serve the needs of the several states, not vice versa.

I didn't got the point if not to "re-wake-up" a sect. I can't imagine something else than such reflection of the sun light.

Oh my.

Sad, responses like this make Christians look stupid, when any low cost telescope can prove this statement wrong. We loose creditability. We loose our ability to lead the lost. This passage was written like 3000 years ago when mankind couldn't tell better. The problem is a problem of ancient person translation.