[Jesus sits on a rock, speaking]
A new command I give you:
Love one another
[an angry character talks back to Jesus]
What if they’re something bad like gay, trans, brown, or communist though?
[Jesus is facepalming on his rock]
I don’t want to be a messiah anymore
Contrariwise, you are also commanded to love racists, homophobes, transphobes, and authoritarians. You can certainly try to convince them away from those stances, but you are still supposed to be kind, even generous, to the persons.
Unconditional love can be heartbeatingly hard.
I’m going with the paradox of tolerance on that.
Yeah. I still think we owe the intolerant subsistence, but because of the Paradox of Tolerance, I think intolerance could be grounds for denial of political power–any of the 4 boxes (soap, ballot, jury, ammo)–at least for the duration of the intolerance. (But also, there should be some method to “rehabilitate” a person’s access to political power after they are no longer intolerant.)
I also think it might be difficult to adjudicate “intolerance” in some cases, but in the most necessary of cases it is quite clear.
don't click if you don't want a little theology. i am just going to shotgun fire off some bullshit.
okay, so: former christian clergy and current head of a pagan cult (i worship the god of convergent evolution, blasphemy, gluttony, and atheism) current membership 4, 5 when my mormon mother is humoring me and comes to the crab shack for lunch. my current job is church musician because the instrument [not gonna say which. ask and i’ll say yes] i play is very very expensive, i can’t afford one (i literally only have ever met one individual who owns one) and churches tend to own them. i can trade my services for an hour a week of practice time and two songs performance time a month unless i can figure out a way to move at least 2500 miles to ply my musical trade for real. or someone wants to give me 76 grand for an instrument.
christianity’s commandment to love people does not conflict with the paradox of tolerance. you’re not just commanded to love your neighbors, you’re commanded to love your enemies.
there’s a lot of cultural bullshit in the turn the other cheek and etc shit in the parables jesus teaches. like, slapping someone on the right cheek was a small insult, but slapping them on the left cheek was a big one. so turning the other cheek doesn’t just mean give them another chance to hurt you, it’s teaching the christians of that time that if someone is insulting you by slapping you in the face, a very culturally specific insult, give them the other cheek and invite them to make it a bigger insult. be like “hey i know i’m a christian and all. show everyone around here how big and tough you are picking on me”. i try to think about it. i’ve tried it. Deescalation through escalation.
like Giles Corey.
I can assure more than half of them are redeemable.
Compassionate love does not require kindness and generosity in the way you mean those words. It does not require making yourself vulnerable to danger, it does not require giving material or emotional support. You should still be able to recognize and respond to the humanity in a flawed person.
I believe if you are following the words of Jesus, then yes, it does require kindness and generosity, with their standard meanings. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” – Jesus
I agree that it doesn’t require sacrificing your safety.
While Jesus is an authority and primary source on a number of things, He is neither of those things for compassionate love. I think in this decontextualized instance, “thy neighour” actually has a specific meaning that is being stripped, possibly referring to the other tribes of Israel, such as in his parable about the good Samaritan that people commonly misunderstand. I wouldn’t be willing to draw much from it without a much deeper reading.
I’m not making a dogmatic argument, I’m making a much more grounded claim about psychology and spirituality. Compassionate love is a real thing that we know stuff about.
“I tell you, love your enemies” – Jesus https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5%3A43-48&version=NIV
I’m engaging in the thread, the leader of which is a meme featuring Jesus, so it is more relevant what Jesus said than “claims about psychology and spirituality”.
I was raised Baptist, but I no longer adhere to it dogmatically.
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Jesus doesn’t offer a realistic model of compassionate love. Christians aren’t really supposed to emulate Jesus. I know that’s the schtick, but it’s not the reality. Jesus exists to give Christians opportunities for moral self-licensing and self-stereotyping, which is the moral candy alternative to actually being a good person. He performs miracles and displays superhuman feats of equanimity (when he’s not cursing figs) not because we are supposed to actually emulate him, which would be impossible, he’s fucking GOD in a fake mustache, but because we are supposed to psychologically transfer his good qualities to ourselves by our association with him. That’s why Jesus stops at telling you what to do, and is silent about how to do it. He knows you’re not really going to do it.
Compassionate love is hard. It’s not just a matter of deciding to do it, you have to know how, and you have to practice. Other religions and creeds that preach and teach you how to practice compassionate love don’t do so for abstract moral reasons. Compassionate love serves the person who practices it.
Christianity offers people a way to feel like a good person without having to do anything, and Jesus doesn’t have very much of meaning to say about compassionate love.
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Good thing I’m not beholden to that religion, then!
Only money lenders (we totally didn’t secretly mean Jews)