(April 6, 2015 at 9:40 am)Nestor Wrote: Can a person follow the teachings of Christ and seek to violently harm another person at the same time, in the same place, in the same respect? I thought logicians realized that was a contradiction centuries ago. Unless you're saying that Christ advocated violence, which is not a passage I have read. Can a person follow Muhammad and harm another person? Well, you do see what Mohammad allegedly wrote and how he lived. So, it kind of seems like a false equivalency to me.
That's the problem with ambiguity and contradictory ideas. Jesus may advocate non-violence with his words, but Revelations shows he's just as blood-thirsty as Yahweh when it comes to dispensing justice. People will inevitably pick and choose which books of the NT are more important, and if one chooses to focus on Revelations, which seems reasonable given that is supposed to be when Jesus brings righteousness back to earth, it's not hard come to the violent conclusions these people have come to. Actions speak louder than words, and Jesus may talk a big game, but in the end, he's knee-deep in the blood of his victims,
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell