Thursday, July 27, 2006
On stage: Reinhold Niebuhr, Pat Buchanan, Jesus (cameo), Robert E. Lee, ER and thepoetryman
"Anyone who finds any joy in the fighting in Israel and Lebanon is a fool or a devil."
--ER
(sound of fingers snapping)
"OUR ANGER FOULED"
Let us take steps to confront our butchered age;
Cross the plains of reason, peering over the chasm.
Do not now upon time’s ripeness wait. It is here;
Black and bleeding, pulsing malevolence most foul,
Most ready… Take heed! Take heed! It is near!
Read the entire poem, by thepoetryman (first seen at KEvron's place).
(sound of fingers snapping)
May Israel do what it must do quickly -- and no more! May Israel and the world care for the women, children and other innocents; may none forget the human cost of war as politics by desperate means. Amen.
--ER
(sound of fingers snapping)
"What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world."
--Robert E. Lee
(sound of fingers snapping)
"Any Christian who feels anything but sorrow over the fighting in Lebanon and Israel should think on it some more."
--ER
(sound of fingers snapping)
What Israel is doing is unAmerican and unChristian.
-- Pat Buchanan, paraphrased, but very close.
(sound of fingers snapping)
"War comes for one of two reasons. To acquire something someone else has, or to deprive others of something they have."
--ER
(sound of fingers snapping)
"The rigorism of the gospel ethic and its failure to make concessions to even the most inevitable and 'natural' self-regarding impulses may best be judged by analyzing the attitude of Jesus toward various natural expressions of human life. Every form of self-assertion is scrutinized and condemned in words which allow of no misinterpretation. The very basis of self-love is the natural will to survive. In man the animal impulse to maintain life becomes an immediate temptation to assert the self against the neighbor. Therefore, in the ethic of Jesus, concern for physical existence is prohibited: 'Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat and the body more than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? ... Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithall shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.' The prudent conscience will have an immediately unfavorable reaction to these words. No life can be lived in such unconcern for the physical basis of life. Those who try to make the ethic of Jesus a guide to prudent conduct have, therefore, been anxious to point out that the naïve faith in God's providential care which underlies these injunctions had more relevance in the simple agrarian life of Palestine than in the economic complexities of modern urban existence. But it must be noted that they cannot be followed absolutely even in simple agrarian life. The fact is that this word contains a completely unprudential rigorism in the ethic of Jesus which appears again and again."
-- Reinhold Niebuhr, from Interpretation of Christian Ethics (1935).
(sound of fingers snapping)
"Jesus's way is hard. I confess I'm not even close."
--ER
(sound of silence)
--ER
(sound of fingers snapping)
"OUR ANGER FOULED"
Let us take steps to confront our butchered age;
Cross the plains of reason, peering over the chasm.
Do not now upon time’s ripeness wait. It is here;
Black and bleeding, pulsing malevolence most foul,
Most ready… Take heed! Take heed! It is near!
Read the entire poem, by thepoetryman (first seen at KEvron's place).
(sound of fingers snapping)
May Israel do what it must do quickly -- and no more! May Israel and the world care for the women, children and other innocents; may none forget the human cost of war as politics by desperate means. Amen.
--ER
(sound of fingers snapping)
"What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world."
--Robert E. Lee
(sound of fingers snapping)
"Any Christian who feels anything but sorrow over the fighting in Lebanon and Israel should think on it some more."
--ER
(sound of fingers snapping)
What Israel is doing is unAmerican and unChristian.
-- Pat Buchanan, paraphrased, but very close.
(sound of fingers snapping)
"War comes for one of two reasons. To acquire something someone else has, or to deprive others of something they have."
--ER
(sound of fingers snapping)
"The rigorism of the gospel ethic and its failure to make concessions to even the most inevitable and 'natural' self-regarding impulses may best be judged by analyzing the attitude of Jesus toward various natural expressions of human life. Every form of self-assertion is scrutinized and condemned in words which allow of no misinterpretation. The very basis of self-love is the natural will to survive. In man the animal impulse to maintain life becomes an immediate temptation to assert the self against the neighbor. Therefore, in the ethic of Jesus, concern for physical existence is prohibited: 'Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat and the body more than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? ... Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithall shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.' The prudent conscience will have an immediately unfavorable reaction to these words. No life can be lived in such unconcern for the physical basis of life. Those who try to make the ethic of Jesus a guide to prudent conduct have, therefore, been anxious to point out that the naïve faith in God's providential care which underlies these injunctions had more relevance in the simple agrarian life of Palestine than in the economic complexities of modern urban existence. But it must be noted that they cannot be followed absolutely even in simple agrarian life. The fact is that this word contains a completely unprudential rigorism in the ethic of Jesus which appears again and again."
-- Reinhold Niebuhr, from Interpretation of Christian Ethics (1935).
(sound of fingers snapping)
"Jesus's way is hard. I confess I'm not even close."
--ER
(sound of silence)
Comments:
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it's a trite cliche, but war is a necessary evil sometimes. israel most certainly has the right to defend itself. hezzbollah doesn't give a shit about the civilian casualties in lebanon; in fact, they're counting on them. that's why israel's response must be appropriate and precise.
snaps all around for the gentlemen on stage. maybe sun tzu can make the next show....
KEvron
KEvron
snaps all around for the gentlemen on stage. maybe sun tzu can make the next show....
KEvron
KEvron
Surely, as the Jewish State, it is not surprising when Israel does something Unchristian? :o)
Otherwise, a very good post.
Personally I think Israel has gone too far and is now no better than the terrorists it is trying to destroy.
I also fear that Iarael's Justice Minister is right; if the world community can't agree to say that they should stop the attacks, then we are tacitly condoning the carnage. Shame on all of us!
Otherwise, a very good post.
Personally I think Israel has gone too far and is now no better than the terrorists it is trying to destroy.
I also fear that Iarael's Justice Minister is right; if the world community can't agree to say that they should stop the attacks, then we are tacitly condoning the carnage. Shame on all of us!
Laim, that's why it's amusing! Of *course* what Israel is doing is "unAmerican" and "unChristian" since Israel is neither America nor Christian. :-)
The Guns of August.
The Zimmerman telegram.
Ignoring the Purple Code.
The Gulf of Tonkin incident.
The mis-interpretation of GHB's promise by Sadam.
WMD's
"I'll go to the Mount if I care to!"
And now,
What will the historical key be for WW III?
The Zimmerman telegram.
Ignoring the Purple Code.
The Gulf of Tonkin incident.
The mis-interpretation of GHB's promise by Sadam.
WMD's
"I'll go to the Mount if I care to!"
And now,
What will the historical key be for WW III?
# posted by 
: 12:46 PM
: 12:46 PM
Welcome back, Drlobojo. Sorry we made such a mess of the world while you were away.
The historical key to WW III will be May 14, 1948.
The historical key to WW III will be May 14, 1948.
War in the Middle East is always a touchy subject. But it's also a fact of live for multiple generations living in that part of the world.
Oh, yeah. But this is a Major Turn of History.
9/11? Turn.
War in Iraq? Turn.
Israel-Hezbollah? Turn.
"To everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn ..."
9/11? Turn.
War in Iraq? Turn.
Israel-Hezbollah? Turn.
"To everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn ..."
Hey, ER, Israel may not be America, but are you sure the reverse is true also? I am beginning to have doubts...
As well you should. Israel is the darling nation of red-state fundamentalist Christianity, mainly, I think, because of confusion between an ancient people and a modern state in the Middle East, and because of a fetish for eschatological-apocalyptical-fantastical passages in the Bible.
I am a friend of Israel because everybody but its immediate and second-tier neighbors mostly agrees that it has a right to exist as a nation. And because Israel is a friend of the U.S. in a region where we don't have many.
I am a friend of Israel because everybody but its immediate and second-tier neighbors mostly agrees that it has a right to exist as a nation. And because Israel is a friend of the U.S. in a region where we don't have many.
... and, to be honest, I share some of the proclivities and feelings of some elements of red-state fundamentalism (Jesus, Who Is, *was* a Jew, after all) -- just not the we're-right-y'all-are-wrong-and-y'all-are-all-going-to-hell parts.
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