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The Forum > Article Comments > A perspective on evil > Comments

A perspective on evil : Comments

By John Töns, published 10/10/2008

In developing a system of global justice we need to acknowledge there will always be those who will use the system to their own perverted ends.

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Polycarp wrote:

This is a fulfilment of Jeremiah's prophecy

33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time," declares the LORD.
"I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts."

Failure to understand this is also the reason David F goes wrong when he condemns 'Christianity' for ugly world events. He simply does not understand "Christ-ianity". (nor his own Torah by the looks of it)

Dear Polycarp,

I have not gone wrong. I just don’t have a Christian viewpoint.

Jeremiah is not in the Torah. The Jewish Bible consists of Torah, Prophets and Writings. The Five Books of Moses are the Torah. Jeremiah is in Prophets.

I condemn Christianity for ugly things that it has done because what you do is important not what you believe. In Judaism if you don’t believe but behave righteously you are a righteous person. If you believe but do not behave righteously you are not righteous.

Even the NT says, “By thy fruits shall thee know them.”

From a Christian viewpoint ugly world events may not be important. From a Jewish viewpoint they are what is important. They affect people, and people are important.

Jews do not believe one is saved or forgiven one’s sins because of what one believes. You must behave rightly. From a Christian viewpoint belief is important. From a Jewish viewpoint what one does is much more important.

As far as any messiah is concerned the messiah heralds a messianic age where ‘the lion shall lie down with the lamb’ and other prophesies are fulfilled. As I wrote before the messiah is a consequence of a myth that grew from Jews looking for a person to reunite the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

I think the messiah is myth. However, if one does believe in it, it is obvious that the messiah has not come since the prophecies have not been fulfilled. Any messiah worth his salt should have sufficient competence to get it right the first time. A second coming indicates incompetence.
Posted by david f, Monday, 13 October 2008 8:56:05 PM
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A good article and some intelligent responses. Mine is this - at this point in human history I believe we are ready to embrace the concept of the oneness of mankind; in fact without it, I believe, we cannot move forward. There may be an infinite variety of belief and "non-belief" systems,whether religious or secular, but there is no longer room for excluding any person or group of persons from membership in one common humanity - and all that that implies. This addresses the entire issue of in-group/out-group behaviours.

At the end of the day, legislation can go a long way to directing human behaviour. But at back, legislation itself derives from moral concepts. And these concepts are founded, historically, in revealed religion. Religion has stuffed up in major ways, I agree. At least human beings have stuffed it up. But let's not throw the baby out...

The concept of "progressive revelation" makes a good deal of sense regarding the similarities and differences in religions throughout the ages. It takes away the "I'm right and all the others are wrong" conundrum which has blighted the harmonious co-existence of revealed religions through time. It is a view elaborated in the writings of the Baha'i faith, and I believe, in the bid for one humanity living together harmoniously, is worth investigating.
Posted by nella, Tuesday, 14 October 2008 10:22:02 AM
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Polycarp wrote:

You are blaming all Christians for the holocaust by saying it was "applied Christianity."

I don’t blame all Christians. I recognize the pattern of hatred for Jews by various Christian churches for most of the history of Christianity. The Holocaust conformed to a large part of Christian practice.

Not all Christians are guilty of this hatred. Some of my information regarding Christian behaviour comes from Christians who have examined their own history.

Bishop Spong who I mentioned in my last post cited texts in the New Testament that promoted such hatred.

James Carroll, a Catholic, has written CONSTANTINE'S SWORD which is subtitled The Church and the Jews: A History. He thinks the relationship with the Jews is the central issue in the history of the church. Carroll reflected on the meaning of the cross at Auschwitz. It ignored the fact that most of the victims were Jews. He also had a long reflection titled Christianity's Original Sin which seems to be its treatment of the Jews.

Andrew Sullivan, another Catholic, wrote a review of the book that ends "But it is only by excavating that rubble, by disinterring and facing that destruction, that we can regain a faith that still lives -- and repent, as if repentance were sufficient, for the evil done in its name."

Polycarp wrote:

“In order for something to be "applied" it must be clearly defined.
You would need to support your assertion from the teaching and example of Jesus of Nazareth.”
Try to get out of your Christian box. When 9/11 happened did you think, “What in the teaching and example of Mohammed justified this?” I’ll bet you didn’t. What Christians do affects others. What Jesus supposedly said is another matter. What Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha said is important to Christians, Muslims and Buddhists. What Christians, Muslims and Buddhists do is important to those affected by their acts.
I ask you to learn more about the history of your religion and how it has affected others. To the others what Jesus said really doesn’t matter. They are affected by what Christians have done.
Posted by david f, Tuesday, 14 October 2008 2:51:18 PM
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Fractelle is quite correct...

<<Hitler, like too many before him and too many since, used religion to feed his desire for power.>>

Bingo! exactly.. and I don't have any argument with that statement at all. It is historically correct. What I DO question, is Hitlers own motivation, and.. his misinterpretation of certain key texts which he used to support his cause.

Anyone can use a 1+1=3 logic and if people want to believe that enough, they will.
1 "Jesus chased 'the Jews' out of the Temple"
+
1 "We must do the same"
=3

Hitler forgot to mention that
a) Jesus was a Jew.
b) He loved, healed and reached out to the vast majority of Jews.

David F refers to "Bishop" Spong :) gooooood grief.. one simply needs to compare the teaching of Spong with the Bible on many issues to see how far astray the man is.
Spong simply looks around and asks "Hmmm what is the current state of humanity? aah.. like this and that and such and such.. lets now re-make Christianity in humanities image"

David further says:

<I condemn Christianity for ugly things that it has done because what you do is important not what you believe.>

I suggest that behavior follows belief. If you believe Jews are sub human why would you worry if a few million 'rodents' are killed?
But on the other hand, if you believe that Jews are created in the image of God just like everyone else.. and toward whom the hand of Grace and divine love is unendingly extended....then you would be very concerned if any of them are murdered.

When David juxtaposes 'behavior/belief' he would be well advised to read the Book of James the brother of Jesus where he will find strong support..

James2:18 But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds."
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do"
Posted by Polycarp, Thursday, 16 October 2008 5:55:58 AM
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Polycarp wrote:

“But on the other hand, if you believe that Jews are created in the image of God just like everyone else.. and toward whom the hand of Grace and divine love is unendingly extended....then you would be very concerned if any of them are murdered.”

If that is true why have Christians promoted hate for Jews and murdered so many?

Why did the German Lutheran church and the German Catholic church support Hitler? Why did Christians in the occupied countries notably Ukraine and France support the Nazi extermination? Why did Christian countries outside refuse refuge to most Jews fleeing the Nazis?

Why did the Christian Inquisition burn Jews at the stake?

We can look further back in history. The Christian German Crusaders in 1096 massacred Jews in Speyer, Worms, Metz, Trier, Eller, Neuss, Xanten, Cologne, Wevelingshofen, Prague and Ratisbon.

The Holocaust remains applied Christianity.

Go to http://www.ushmm.org/research/center/church/persecution/ to read about Christian persecution of Jews over the centuries.

From the article:

In the second century and beyond, many of the principal Fathers of the Church began to write of Jews as a "rejected people" who were doomed to a life of marginality and misery. Jews were to wander the world as a "despised people." This image persisted in Christian preaching, art and popular teaching for centuries to come. In certain countries it often led to civil and political discrimination against Jews and in some instances to physical attacks on Jews which resulted in death. While some Popes, bishops and Christian princes stepped up to protect Jews, they were clearly a minority. It was only in the mid-twentieth century that the Catholic Church and many Protestant denominations issued major statements repudiating this anti-Judaic theology and began a process of constructive Christian-Jewish interaction.

….

Scripture scholar and theologian Gerard Sloyan has detailed in chronological fashion the "shadow" on the cross of Christianity. It does not make for pleasant reading. But it is a legacy that must be confronted with honesty and remorse. Knowledge of this history of antisemitism within the Christian churches is indispensable for any full understanding of the Holocaust.
Posted by david f, Thursday, 16 October 2008 9:02:37 AM
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Polycarp wrote:

“… if you believe that Jews are created in the image of God just like everyone else …”

Christian Jew hatred pictured Jews not in the image of God but as the devil. From “The Devil and the Jews: The Medieval Conception of the Jew and Its Relation to Modern Anti-Semitism”

“Talk of the devil and his horns appear, says the proverb. In an age so familiar with Satan’s least feature as the medieval, the portrayer of the horned Jew need not have felt called upon to make his allusion more specific—yet an occasional hyperliteralist, not content with sketching the horned Jew alone, scratches a devil alongside him, for good measure. And in one instance at least, that horned Jew is identified with the legend, in bold face, “This is the Jew Devil.”
Nor were his horns the Jew’s sole physical token of his satanism. The devil’s tail is as characteristic as his horns, and consequently only the least stretch of the imagination was required to perceive the Jew’s diabolic dorsal appendage, even though he managed cunningly to hide it from common view. And in the event we find it difficult to believe that these notions were accepted in all seriousness, it must be pointed out that such beliefs are still prevalent, not only among benighted European peasantries but even in our own enlightened land.
A supposedly characteristic feature of the Jewish physiognomy, which is constantly stressed in the prints and particularly in the folk tales, is the so-called Ziegenbart (goat’s beard, or goatee). This otherwise obscure detail assumes meaning when we consider it in conjunction with the common representation of the Jew in association with the he-goat, either as his favorite domestic animal or as his favorite mount (which he prefers to ride facing backward, to judge from the prints). Or the goat is offered as the symbol of Judaism and the Jewish God.”
Christians traditionally did not think of the Jew in the image of God. This tradition continued in the applied Christianity of the Holocaust.
Posted by david f, Thursday, 16 October 2008 9:33:08 AM
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