Validating consent without virtualizing consent or encrypting the evidence of consent into the unknown. The impossibility of corruption or slavery or consent violation. Complete decision making power without the necessity to violate ones consent in the process.
I find it to be quite clear that Gods power rests on His lack of providing a choice for non-existence; rather He has either eternal heaven or eternal damnation… He doesn’t provide any outlet for dissent, nothing with which to even have the pressure with which to observe that He may actually be accountable for His creations and/or his behavior in general, and/or his belief of self-perfection and superiority.
I find that if consent is not considered the marker for truth, then truth itself is meaningless and everything is by necessity absurd and pointless with regards to belief and attainment - all things are acausal and ultimately pointless. I think that my religion is about as true as any statement about existence can be. To that degree, I don’t consider it a religion.
Purpose is either rational or not rational. One either acts in accordance with one idea of purpose or the other by default (unless there is no default and rationality is ultimately absurd).
One part of the Sermon on the Mount that I left out was Jesus teaching people how to pray. He gave what’s known as “The Lord’s Prayer” as a template. It was not a prayer per se.
The actual prayers of Jesus that we know about are as follows:
(1) Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. — Mark 1:35
(2) Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. — Mark 14:35 (This was while all the disciples were asleep at Gethsemane.)
(3) Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. — Mark 14:39 (Still alone.)
(4) But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. — Luke 5:16
The sole exception was at the Last Supper, just after the disciples ate His body and drank His blood, and just before He was arrested. He prayed in front of His disciples, first for Himself, then for them, and then for all others who would come to believe. It’s the whole chapter of John 17.
As a Christian, I’ll refrain from lengthy comments since this thread is working well as intended. I’ll just add a few points.
The word ‘blessed’ (Greek makarioi ) has (somewhat rarely) been translated as ‘happy’ (In the KJV, it does get rendered that way in other places). Still, our meaning of the word ‘blessed’ is the best fit. I just feel it’s more of a statement on their condition rather than a bestowing, as of a blessing from God. I imagine it as ‘you should think of these people as blessed, and here’s why’.
The mote/log thing has brought some comments, and Lib’s explained it well. In Luke[sup]*[/sup], those statements come shortly after he says, “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?” (Luke 6:39). The emphasis is that everyone should be working on reducing each other’s faults, but it’s a better start if each works on their own first.
Howard Juneau, you may be familiar with it, but if not, check out Luke 6:24-26 - these are ‘woes’ which parallel the preceding ‘blesseds’.
[sup]*[/sup] the sermon starting at Luke 6:17 is known as the Sermon on the Plain. The bulk is similar to the SoM in Matthew. Some of the parts recorded in Matthew also appear in different contexts in Luke. It’s a moot point whether there were several different sermons, or if Matthew collated various teachings into a single sermon. For those seeing it for the first time, the OP contains the meat of the Sermon. I just thought I’d throw in a few extras.
One of the many unique things about Jesus’ ministry was that women played a vital role in it. There were prostitutes, divorced women, married women, wives of statesmen, spinsters, women related to Jesus, women who were outcasts, and foreign women. It was almost completely women among His followers who attended Jesus’ crucifixion. And a woman was the first person to see the resurrected Jesus.
In those days, women leaving their homes or travelling with men was positively scandalous.
I suggest people READ Uncle Tom’s Cabin, instead of just taking all their knowledge from the epithet “Uncle Tom.” The character of Tom is NOT just a guy who knuckles under to everything the white man demands of him, and is indeed much more complex than that.
zev_steinhardt, I think the key to many of these categories, and the key to the historical importance of the Sermon in a Jewish context, is that it is inverting many of the common ideas of purity, and they have to been seen in that context to be appreciated as radical. While one can go so far with Nietzsche as to make a harsh critique of the Sermon from this perspective, I don’t think he or many other commentators were essentially wrong when they (to put it very simply and crudely) observed that Jesus was saying to the people who were in general considered habitually unclean and screwed “actually, you’re not screwed.” He was rejecting the grounds on which righteousness was normally seen in a later-day Talmudic context, post temple-state.
Of course, depending on what Jesus means by “Do not even unbelievers do that?” I’m a little insulted to be slandered so.
Actually, the word used is derived from [symbol]telonhs[/symbol] and means a Roman equestrian, a tax gatherer or collector, or a collector of tolls. It has been translated variously as publican, unbeliever, and pagan. I used unbeliever merely to vary the phrasing, even though the NIV uses pagan. If I offended anyone, I take personal responsibility.
I’m an agnostic who was raised in a fundamentalist christian home.
I read this as the poor being blessed in spirit because theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Or that if a person can be joyful and exhuberant in life even when the question of where the next meal may be coming from lurks in the background, then they have found a measure of peace and serenity.
A person who does not reject grief but opens up to it and lets it run its course is a person willing and able to achieve self-knowledge. Again, a road to peace and serenity.
I don’t know the connotations of the word translated as meek, but for me the english word is related to humble. And to my way of thinking humility is at the core of the Beatitudes; a truly humble person has no illusions about what they are – and the ability to clearly see their flaws and strengths is their greatest strength.
What is righteousness but the ability to question your moral or ethical condition, and to act in ways which improve it? See above comments.
Be compassionate, you are not alone in the world. Help when you can. See meek.
The closer you come to full awareness of yourself, the closer you come to peace.
Give comfort where you can, it will comfort you.
If you know yourself well enough, and are attacked for doing what you believe is right, the serenity you have gained will carry you through.
We are all human. The universe does not hold a bias for or against individuals, or for or against humanity, or for or against anything else. Try to achieve this in yourself.
I think the spirit of this is also humility. Especially if I equate prayer with helping others. A bumper sticker I saw once expresses it best, “Practise random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” Don’t brag about how good you are, just do what you can.
Again, peace and serenity are what this means to me.
Examine your own actions, and make right your own wrongs. Then, if you can help another who would like to do the same, do so.
This is a rhetorical summation of the preceding passages, and an exhortation to people to examine the ideas contained in the sermon and to examine themselves in the light of those ideas. Know thyself …
It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery. — Matthew 5:31-32
—If I offended anyone, I take personal responsibility.—
Uh, why? They aren’t your words, and you aren’t, at least in this thread, even endorsing them.
I just don’t being lumped in with a group that supposedly practices the bear minimum of concern for only their own tribe, when as far as I can tell, I’m more tolerant and loving than the speaker in many respects (except in tolerance of tyrrany, he’s got me beat there) and with far fewer psychological resources to work with.
What I believe you are thinking of is the Jewish law that states that a woman who commits adultery becomes forbidden to remain with her husband. She is also not allowed to marry the man with whom she has committed adultery. She is not, however, forbidden from marrying at all.
A man, however, while not being allowed to have extra-marital sex, does not face this restriction, simply because of the nature of Biblical law in that a man can have more than one wife anyway. (Note: This was later prohibited among Ashkenazic Jews by Rabbinical decree). Since a man (unlike a woman) could have more than one spouse at a time, he wasn’t penalized in that sense (since he could always end up marrying the woman anyway).
What does this have to do with the Sermon on the Mount?
There is, actually, a book entitled “A Rabbi Talks with Jesus” by Neusner, which covers this very subject, from a Jewish perspective. I recommend it, even if it can be a bit of a frustrating read.
—Actually, I did read it (about 15 years ago) and I thought that his “turning the check and forgiving those that do me harm” went a little too far.—
Perhaps, but Uncle Tom was no Uncle Tom. He refused to fight back when beaten, sure, but he also definately refused to apologize for things he was not guilty of. And he was finally beaten to death because he refused to give up his friends to recapture and further slavery!
Say what you will about other strategies he might have adopted: he in no way was simply a compliant rollover.
So his forgiving of his tormentors was part of his faith, not a sign that he wasn’t willing to stand up for what he thought was right.
While we’re all thinking…
Why do they call it the “sermon” on the mount rather than the “teachings” on the mount? When I think “sermon” I think of expounding on an existing text – something that provides an overall context. No one overarching text is quoted (although several may touch on different points).
Would Psalm 1 fill the bill as the basic springboard?
I guess what I’m getting at is, “Is this one message or a bunch of little ones?” If it’s a bunch of teachings, let’s call it the “Bunch of Teachings on the Mount!”
I’m glad you seized the chance. I must have read your post twenty times already. Your take on Jesus is strikingly similar Kahlil Gibran’s in Jesus the Son of Man, and very much like my own. Here is Gibran’s own poetic version of the Sermon on the Mount. Enjoy!
