Yes, words have power. Saying “the Mormons/econuts/shuffleboard team is going to go ballistic and shoot people up” is a cheap way to paint 'em as unhinged. Yet we all know that it’s highly unlikely that a member of any individual group will go all Lee Harvey Oswald, we don’t lower our respect for someone who says that when the prediction falls short.
So what I am proposing is a simple way to hold accountable those who are pointing at the Evil Other. You can choose how serious you want to present the threat as being, but you’re on the record if your prediction does not pan out.
Obviously Jesus was with the whole idea of Hell since Jesus had his encounters with Satan.
Judgment in the afterlife was one thing and Jesus was ok with those judgments. Thing is Jesus made it clear how to get to heaven and I a missing the parts where he opined or suggested one of those was killing other people. Seems to me (apart from belief in him) he espoused forgiveness and acceptance as the proper route. Love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek, let he who is without sin cast the first stone and so on.
I would be willing to bet if we truly could get a WWJD answer on this topic Jesus would not be ok with it.
I agree. But I did not suggest Jesus would be OK with people committing violent acts. When I said, “Jesus preached Hell and damnation,” I meant that he believed in that as part of divine justice. Which, when you think about it, is way, way harsher than all the OT smiting and flooding and curses unto the tenth generation. At least the OT has nothing to say about Hell.
Dude, it has already panned out; see post #7. Yes, a measurable increase in assassination threats and foiled plots counts. So does a marked rise in membership in militias and hate groups just as the first African-American POTUS takes office – I think post hoc ergo propter hoc is a defensible analysis here.
So if I believe that the actual threat to Obama from wingnuttery religious and otherwise is considerable, even extraordinary, and frightening to me as a citizen, then I should somehow be held accountable for my belief?
And if the Secret Service through diligence and duty plus perhaps the calling in of additional resources manages to fulfil their mission and keep the Chief Executive safe, then I somehow lose credibility?
It is not I or others who fear crackpots who should be held accountable. It is the crackpots themselves, and their apologists, who must be. It is their quite real threats of violence that endanger our country, not our pointing them out.
PS 109 is about David being falsely accused and having his friends driven away from him because of those false accusations, and David’s faith that God will justify and glorify him. It is David’s call out to God for the justice that was denied him. As such it doesn’t fit the Obama situation unless someone has been anointed by God to be king and is personally held back by Obama.
As such it appears to be misuse of the Word of God to try to get God to answer, so in that respect it really doesn’t make much sense. There are other things about that that seem to counter the Word of God, such as respect authorities and the NT instruction to bless not curse.
I find it difficult to believe that any rational person could cite this verse and not notice the ones that follow it. They’re right there.
That said, I don’t think these people are likely to take it upon themselves to be the next Osward. They’re merely expressing a sentiment, not one they intend to personally act on. And there’s nothing wrong with merely praying for another man’s death, after all.
Oi. It’s just a joke, and it only means verse 8. Otherwise, it wouldn’t say 109:8. It would say 109:8-12 or something like that. Find me another place in the Bible where we could make such a perfect political joke like “let another take his office” and maybe you’ll have an argument. The statement is clearly saying that the speaker wants Obama out of office. You’re reading into it.
Pretty sure you have that backwards. We’re the ones that are tough on law and order, remember? Conservatives will call for the assassin’s head while the liberals will just cry “He’s a victim of his upbringing! It’s those damn public schools!” Conservatives will be flipping the switch while the liberals protest outside. Personally, my response to an assassination would be “Who the fuck does that guy think he is?” But I know you don’t care about any of that. If it sounds bad, you’re sure conservatives do it, huh?
:dubious: Remember Timothy McVeigh? Some liberals might have protested his execution on general anti-death-penalty principles, but none called him a victim of his upbringing. The only people I’ve ever known to defend him were radical RWs.
Add in George Tiller’s murderer (Scott Roeder). Not seeing any liberals running to his defense. I am seeing radical RW’s actively defending him and holding him out as a hero rather than condemning him.
But hey…why let facts get in the way here? :rolleyes:
The meaning I’m reading into it is the reading in the original text. I’m not inventing anything - a plain read of the scripture is, “Please God kill this man.” The political “joke” reading is the deformation of the reading of the text, as I’m sure you’ll agree.
So. What sort of person would make this joke? I maintain that there is nobody who is unaware of the real meaning of the text. It’s simply not plausible. Which means that the only people who would make this joke are at the very least not repelled by the idea of their words being taken the “wrong way” (in scare quotes because the murderous reading is actually the correct reading of the text). Any person who was concerned about that would never make the joke, for the same reason politicians avoid saying “niggardly” (with the main difference being that “niggardly” is actually innocent and has to be misread to be offensive, unlike the scripture in question which is offensive by default).
So what does this mean? It means that people who put forth this “joke” aren’t actually joking, and don’t actually mean the “joke” meaning. They’re just saying they do as a cover so they can claim to be decent people. But if they were decent people, they wouldn’t make the “joke” at all.
Well, yes, repeat, no. Its a bit difficult to imagine that the people who put this forth were aware only of the innocent first verse, and managed to remain wholly ignorant of the rest. And even if they were for the moment, it couldn’t have lasted long, somebody would have pointed it out.
This way, they get the best of both: they get to pander to the assholes who do, in fact, want Obama smitten with Herod’s Evil, and they get to bat big brown innocent eyes and say “Who? Me? Why, no, I just meant that first part, there…”
Bonus: the crazies can imagine that everybody who bought the thing agrees with them on the whole magilla.
“Before of them that come to you in sheep’s clothing, and inside they are ravening vulvas!”
Well, not exactly . . . Whoever came up with this “joke” must know the whole of Psalm 109. But I’m sure a lot of people will buy the t-shirts without knowing it and without bothering to look it up.
It’s a page that only lists that one verse. So I’d say the majority of people who purchase one of those bumper stickers are probably unaware of the subtext. Remember that the vast majority of Christians are utterly clueless about the bible.
The picture of the shirt I saw didn’t have the text on it at all - in order to have any clue what it meant, the person buying the shirt would have to refer to the text. You know, the text that has the other lines immediately following it.
But supposing for a moment that they bought the shirt after the seller explained it by only telling them the single line, “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.” (Edit: or just clicked that one link.) Look at that line for a moment. Can a sentient human being read that and not immidiately parse the first clause as “let his days be numbered” - which means, “let him die soon”? I think not. Plus of course the fact that there are only* two ways to leave presidential office, and nobody’s trying to impeach Obama at the moment.
Seriously, as a ‘cover’, it’s not even a good cover. If I didn’t know the rest of the psalm and just saw the single line I would still read it as calling for his death. There is just no way to credibly paint this in a good light.
I think so. My first thought on seeing that line out of context is that “let his days be few” refers to just getting him out of office, whether by resignation, impeachment, or simply defeating him in the 2012 election. Death was not the first thing that came to mind until I read the subsequent lines.
