Agreed, but the better role models for the civil rights activists were George and Eliza.
Howard
Welcome to Straight Dope. It is three chapters (5, 6, and 7) in the book of Matthew. I think “teachings” is a fine descriptor.
I hadn’t really given it much thought before, but after reading the thread…I think it ties in with the later “store up your treasures in heaven” verse. If someone is mourning, they’ve realized that “moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal” in this world. And they’re lucky because, having realized that, they can start storing up treasures in heaven.
Sort of like in Buddhism, where the first Truth you need to accept is that suffering exists and is universal; once you’ve got that down, then we can start to talk about how to end suffering.
Your explanation contradicts the text selected by Libertarian.
“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.”
So, a man can divorce if their wife commits adultery and not be an adulterer. However, if the wife does not commit adultery and he divorces her, she becomes an adulteress and he does not.
This gives males the power to premeditate sending a female to eternal damnation for ‘nothing’, while they can still appreciate the gifts of heaven. What does a Judeist sect have to do with the NT anyways Zev? I wasn’t aware that any Judeism was Christian.
I musty have thought that this passage was part of the sermon in the OP. It seems to me that it was. shrug
-Justhink
“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.”
Also, a Satanic sect can pre-meditate eternal damnation for an unsuspecting male…
First: Marry a female and diverce her, causing her eternal damnation.
Second: Make sure that she doesn’t tell a male that marries her afterwards, and he too is eternally damned.
Third: It’s not stated directly, but I wonder if this would effectively make all of these children bastards by default.
-Justhink
Excellent point here. This “sermon on the mount” and its ideas embody everything that, IMHO, is wrong about Christianity. These are the reasons Christianity is impractical, and doomed either to fail or to lose its essence over time, and the reasons I disfavor it’s ideals.
Christianity looks constantly to the life “after” this one. Jesus is saying “hunger for righteousness…but let’s face it, you aren’t going to get it here on Earth because you’re powerless villagers, so just keep on being meek.” That was a pretty good message for people occupied by a foreign empire, and for the common people whose lives wouldn’t much improve even were the Romans tossed out of Judea. Then during the middle ages, when things were absolutely awful for pretty much everyone, and nobody had much hope of ever seeing their life change for the better during its course, this was a very powerful message that people would latch onto. Naturally Christianity flourished during that period.
Today, people in much of the world have pretty good lives. Note how quickly Christianity is growing in those parts where people live in poverty (Africa especially, where the number of bishops has skyrocketed to meet the growing Catholic population, and Christianity is still in hold of South America.) Then see how rapidly Christianity has faded from the wealthy and comfortable countries of Europe. In the U.S., many people who yet consider themselves Christian have abandoned much of it’s philosophy for a more humanistic one. Perhaps this fixation on the afterlife is one reason why Christianity just doesn’t strike a chord anymore with people who pretty much like their lives on Earth.
C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, describes our lives on Earth as being merely a preparation for the time in which we go to join god. The attitude of Jesus in that speech is similiar.
After visiting both heaven and hell, the character in Jethro Tull’s rock concept album A Passion Play laments: “I’d give up my halo for a horn, and the horn for the hat I once had.” I agree. To me, an afterlife is just not that appealing even if it exists. I love life, I love the Earth, and I love mankind. I want to focus on the here-and-now, not waste my life thinking about another to come.
Just one atheist’s opinion,
RexDart
Great thread, Lib. When I was a Christian teenager, the Sermon on the Mount was the Bible passage that I read most often, and most carefully and thoughtfully. I’m sure I read it many hundreds of times, and not just the words–it really spoke to me, and I took it to heart. I considered it expressive of the essence of Christianity, or rather the essence of “Christlikeness.” I would say that while I was never as merciful and pure as the Sermon exhorted me to be, this passage played a key role in the formation of my personality, such as it is.
Now, as an atheist adult, I still see the passage as fairly sound advice, if taken in context. As others have said, the context was occupation by Roman soldiers who might hack you to death with a sword if you get too uppity–therefore meekness was pretty good advice, in the survival sense. There are times today when meekness is good advice; there are other times when meekness gets you ignored and left behind. I now believe that the Beatitudes being such a central part of my thinking during my formative years helped to make me a kind of a loser. Let others win, let others get the attention, let others get the good jobs. Be humble, be meek, don’t seek too much success. That’s the way I thought.
The advice about not storing up treasures here on earth seems to me a way to comfort those who had virtually no hope of ever laying up any treasures anywhere. It wasn’t meant as investment advice. I grew up with a perfect hatred of wealth, and sought out jobs and professions that were guaranteed to keep it far away from me (carpentry–yes, partly because that’s what Jesus is said to have done–factory work, truck driving, firefighting, and now teaching). Now, at 45, thinking about retirement in the not too distant future, I’m starting to think that having some treasures laid up here on earth might not have been such a bad idea. I actively chose not to pursue a possibly lucrative career (Law is what I considered, but I couldn’t reconcile it with my “blessed are the meek” mindset), largely because of the Sermon.
I would agree that being obsessed with wealth is a bad thing. The love of money, not money, is the root of evil. Knowing where your next meal is coming from is not a bad thing, the fowls of the air notwithstanding.
I suspect that Jesus knew the hopelessness of the people he was addressing, and that comfort is what they needed the most. Much of the Sermon is just that. I don’t see it as an exhortation to mourn or to be “poor in spirit,” but since it was a pretty sure bet that the audience was hungering and thirsting after righteousness, the Sermon offered them some comforting words. Blessed are the sat upon, the spat upon, the ratted on. True or not, it feels good for the sat upon to hear that.
Some of the advice in the sermon (be meek, be merciful, be humble) is excellent, a recipe for a peaceful, kind, gentle world–if it had caught on. Unfortunately, in reality, meekness and humility are often often not rewarded. I have a personal distaste for aggression in general, but those who know when and how to be appropriately aggressive now seem to me more blessed than the meek.
Not a line-by-line exegesis, I know. More of an eisegesis from someone who grew up loving the Sermon on the Mount perhaps a little more than was healthy.
This brings to mind something else that Jesus said:
Of course, rich and comfortable people are troubled by this. Fortunately…
But Joe_Cool, can’t you see? The rich and comfortable would simply not care. They don’t need religion, their lives are pretty good. They really have no reason to want Christianity, since it tells them to look to a time after their own life, but because their lives are pretty good they don’t really feel the need to do that. Heck, I’m hardly a rich man, but I’m sure comfortable with life. I think life’s pretty darn good, even if it is rough in spots, that just adds to the experience. If you didn’t have to overcome an obstacle once and awhile, you’d never grow, and you’d be eternally mediocre. An afterlife with no rough spots to overcome? Perhaps then it would be true as the saying goes, that Heaven is the last refuge of mediocrity. You can surely see how, for those of us who enjoy the challenge and rewards of our lives, have no need to turn to a religion that promises an eternity of mediocrity in exchange for a lifetime of meek serfdom.
Thanks for the links. This is amazing:
“Verily no crime is committed by one man or one woman. All crimes are committed by all. And he who pays the penalty may be breaking a link in the chain that hangs upon your own ankles. Perhaps he is paying with his sorrow the price for your passing joy.” – Kahlil Gibran
Interesting, Rex, the second last paragraph of your post describes how I, as an agnostic, approach the text in question. And yet we hold such different views of it.
Rex, I think what you said is exactly the point Jesus was making when he said that. The difference is that he considered living for the moment with no concern for the eternal to be a bad thing, whereas you don’t.
Christians may feel free to participate, but please yield to nonchristians, and respect that their views might (or might not) differ drastically from ours. As many of you know, the Atheists for Jesus consider the Sermon on the Mount to be sound moral teaching. Do other atheists? Do Jews? Muslims? Others?
+1
excellent post and helpful to the polarisation of sound doctrine
2tim3:16 is a universal verse imho
and btw…i yield. in love.
been on the mount and its a perfect natural acoutic slope right down to the main road
if you sit under the trees on the little cluster of rocks you can hear noises from the countryside from a good distance off.
i think the university from jerusalem did a sound check here once.
Jesus was fond of hyperbole. How many Christians out there have gouged out their eyes and cut off their hands to keep from sinning? I have a problem with some of his sayings taken as literal rules to live by. How should I love my enemies? Jesus had a point, in that love is better than hate, but how should I literally love my enemies? I love my wife and son. Do I have to treat my enemies the way I treat them? Do I have to invite them to move in with me? What if they became my enemies because they stole my stuff the last time they came over? I can be fair to enemies, friends and neutrals, and not plot their downfall, but there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to even act towards all humanity the way I act towards those I love, let alone the impossibility of turning a feeling like love on and off at will. “Judge not” can’t be taken literally either. It’s not good to be too preachy and judgemental, but society would fall apart without courtrooms and job interviews. The best we can do is judge carefully and with compassion.
Taken the right way, the Sermon on the Mount, and Christianity, can produce some beautiful people. Taken the wrong way, it is like the Broccoli and Sawdust Diet: If you eat nothing but broccoli and sawdust for a year, you’ll lose weight. The problem is no one can, and people who try are apt to snap and gorge themselves on those sinful Oreos more than someone who never bothered.
—Is there a specific reason why Jesus wanted people to mourn?—
I don’t think that is what is meant. The idea is not that people should, all other things equal, mourn, but that people who are mourning are blessed. This makes even more sense when you look more closely at Talmudic concept of mourning, especially for death (which, because of contact with the dying or diseased, makes people ritually unclean).
—The rich and comfortable would simply not care. They don’t need religion, their lives are pretty good.—
Jesus seems to think they should care. The basic take of many is that, sure, no one can be saved, but people that hoard wealth and focus on worldly goods are pretty much missing the point.
Interesting sidebar: Jesus seems to be encouraging a strategy of Never-Tit for Tat. But variations of Tit-for-Tat (especially Tit-for-Two Tats) not only seem to do better on average against all strategies that people have so far thought up, but they also do better than almost anything else at teaching learning strategies to cooperate. Tit-for-Tat is willing to give everyone a first chance, and thereafter is both fairly easy to provoke, and easy to win forgiveness from: it’s clear and predictable, but even so it’s impossible to really get the better of in the long run.
Obliviously I am a Catholic (I have that big “Catholic here, watch your valuabels and children” sign above my 'ead) May I post some responses? Oh yeah? Ha! I will anyway.
Remember that he still opposed evil and evil men. However, he did not come to destroy nor to teach destruction. Hate is an illusion. Its predicated on the self-delusion that thine enemy is everything you despise. In loving even the peolpe you don’t like and who may do you harm, you realize that we are always part fo the human community. Even the Nazis were often good family men when they weren’t killing people. Evil is real, but it is never pure in humanity.
Justthink, I must say your… comments focus FAR too mcuh on the English language. There are limits to translation, and you appear to regard each statement as absolute and infinite in scope. Moreove,r you take each one to its most illogical end, ignoring everyting else in favro of a single line. I don’t think this is quite the correct way to go about it.
Justhink wrote:
I’m afraid Jesus already thwarted your evil plan. 
When an adultress was brought to Him for judgment, he forgave her and sent her on her way.
Fatwater wrote:
That is amazing indeed. Gibran’s book has been at least as important to me as the Bible.
MrO wrote:
And yet, in hardly a blink, it will all be over.
Remember that Jesus taught about morality. Be meek with God. Mourn because you love goodness and see so much evil. Judge mercifully so that your own conscience will be clear.
It is a mistake to muse over whether His teachings are for this life or the next. It misses the point. His teachings are for eternity.
**RexDart wrote:
Originally posted by Freyr
IMHO, if you want to distill Christianity down to its essential message, this is the text to use.
I would also comment that at the time of Jesus, Palestine was under Roman occupation. Therefore, looking at the text in that context you can see Jesus giving hope to the underdog, the downtrodden people. Telling them there is hope and that their situation may be sorrowful now, it will improve, if not in this life, then in the next.
Excellent point here. This “sermon on the mount” and its ideas embody everything that, IMHO, is wrong about Christianity. These are the reasons Christianity is impractical, and doomed either to fail or to lose its essence over time, and the reasons I disfavor it’s ideals.**
I need to clarify my intent here.
The Gospel of Matthew was written after the desctruction of the Second Temple, after 70CE. I believe whoever wrote Matthew was writing to the circumstances of the people of the time rather than trying to accurately portray Jesus’s words from some 40 years ago.
When considering those words, you need to think of their context. Consider the circumstances of the time, the economic and political upheaval after the Romans sacked Jerusalem.
Yes, they’re comforting, but they’re as much a product of the time as they are the accurately rendered words of Jesus.
One of C.S. Lewis’s most famous sermons was on what he called, “The Weight of Glory”. It was about the ideas of ‘storing up treasures’ and preparing for the next life while living in this one. One thing he said is that we are not behaving well in order to get a reward like mercenaries, but that our actions are to be such that we become the people who can in fact live in heaven. The ‘weight’ is the weight of the immortal soul. Recognizing that not only will we live forever, but everyone we know will live far beyond the lifespan of any material object in this world means that we are to be desperately concerned for our fellow man, and for the way things are. Eternity starts now.
This is of course a Christian viewpoint; I understand why there will be criticism from those who don’t accept Christianity or even the basic metaphysical assumptions it rests on (like the eternal soul, for one). But it is the reason that Jesus gave a speech that seems so idealistic. As Lib said, it is for eternity. It is both a guideline and a vision of life that should be.
Absolutely. Bad people are stlll people. That’s more like, “Respect your enemy’s moral dignity,” though. I’m still free to believe the world would be better off if he were dead.