Thanks for your response to my previous post. I asked about the rumors that certain Federal agencies had talked to Mr. Anderson about his comments. You responded with a short defense of the First Amendment. I completely agree with your position.

Never-the-less I worry that this sort of speech may incite real violence against our first African-American president. I am sure that I am not alone in this concern. Even an unsuccesful attempt on the President’s life would unleash an unimaginable torrent of hate and fear.

This is a big request and probably much too unfocused for this site. Will you give me a brief brief (I am sure that only one of these is necessary) on what the statutes and case law say about the First Amendment and the incitement to violence? Is this one of those situations where the violence has to occur first?

I love your site and read it daily.

Thanks.

As to Sassy, my guess is she’s a recent convert and thus uses her verses to protect her from what she’s as impulses from her baser nature.

I used to volunteer with Jews for Judaism and found it really gratifying. developing strategies to protect vulnerable Jews from J4J proselytization and vulnerable college students from Campus Crusade for Christ was incredibly gratifying and helping people learn that Jesus, very simply, is not the jewish messiah in any real or imaginary sense is at the core of our goal to keep Jews Jewish unless and until conversion is their ultimate choice.
I think Sassy and people like Sassy are simply indoctrinated with the recent mandate to christianize Judaism and thereby gain more converts. its easier to do this when the lines between to very exclusive belief systems are blurred enough. many J4J’s have been doing this for decades, but what I know is that they are mostly failing and can go into that in greater detail if anyone is interested.

oh, and for the record, I have no problem with any belief system that captures anyone’s imagination. what gives others hope and joy is none of my business and I’m happy for them if they find comfort in any system of belief or lack thereof.
I just ask that they leave me and my family in peace and respect our privacy.

GWLSM,
There is nothing I can add to this summation of what are also my own feelings on the subject save that I have found myself enraged when approached on the street by some pimply faced “Jews for Jesus” types, Christian proselytizers, or LDS teenagers on a mission. I am not one to quickly lose my temper, but the smug stupidity of their attempts is something I find insufferable.

As to Sassy, my guess is she’s a recent convert and thus uses her verses to protect her from what she’s as impulses from her baser nature.

maybe its time to take a closer and longer look at the history of hate, political hate, social hate. not “I hate New Coke” but “I have blacks and jews and asians and hispanics. I don’t come clean with this in most places, but when I find like-minded folks, we like to talk about these others being inferior and would love to be able to do something about it”
these people don’t run around with pitchforks, faces twisted in wretched emotion. they seem normal and rational most of the time. they go to work and love their kids. they are ordinary people. they are your neighbors. the people who own shops in your town. they may be your kid’s pediatrician or your tax attorney or your pastor. and when they feel that they just can’t take it anymore, the jewish banking conspiracy or illegal hispanics doing all that yard work and charging “white” rates, or uppity blacks in national office they act out. maybe they use words only.
maybe this escalates.
but it is still bigotry and hate and they are very adept at passing their prejudice through the generations until their superstitions and beliefs of inferiority of the “other” are finally granted permission to be acted upon.

what I resent and will continue to resent is the notion that adults with 4 to 6 decades of experience stomping the terra are vulnerable to trading in our entire world view because someone like sassy shows up and pasts a few bible verses on a blog.
evangelists, the worst sort, always think that they have the secret key… the magic sequence of bible verses that will affect the change they seek in others, that will bring our error into sharp relief and compel us to believe as they do, worship as they do.
it isnt like we all have not been given the adult choice to transfer our religious or spiritual beliefs. we are not idiots. we were not reared in the forest by wolves. we know what the church is and who the church claims jesus was. we have the option to to enter any christian house of worship at any time or check into a hotel and open the bible they stash in the drawer for such occasions. the world does not need evangelicals ringing doorbells. maybe this was the only way, the best way to sell their product 1700 years ago. it is isn’t anymore. we have christian tv now. or we can just pop into Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility to check it out for ourselves.
I really dislike being told what I should do, what I need to do and what my current beliefs or lack thereof are doing to anyone else. I don’t ignore. I don’t.

Anyone who tells us all with utter conviction and supreme confidence in their omniscience that God said this or that has narrowed their mind to such a sliver that no prying by your logic is likely to make it budge. Sassy is a mindless reciter of cherry-picked passages hoping for some cache among this crowd. Good luck to her. Her best advice was if you don’t like what she has to mouth, don’t read it. Done and done.

Sassy,
Jews didn’t receive Jesus because his message came from Paul, an admitted Roman Citizen, who had never known Jesus. You are probably unaware of this, though you should be, that the Jews were among the most rebellious of the peoples against the Roman Empire. They hated Rome and they hated Romans. Why do you think James the Just sent Paul to go preach to the “goyim?” Jesus disciples knew Jesus best and knew he believed in Judaism and they also understood Paul was preaching what to them was false truths. If the Gospels have some truth to them then most probably Jesus was a Pharisee Rabbi, who were the ones leading the revolts against Rome.

However, it all got screwed up when after Paul’s success preaching something that had nothing to do with Judaism or the Torah gained converts, when Constantine needed allies to become emperor. He took over Christianity and beginning at the council of Nicaea changed it into a mixture of sun worship, Mithraic legend (the “God” Mithra’s traditional birth date was 12/25) and edited versions of the Torah and Gospels to de-Judaize them. Now that’s admittedly the Jewish point of view so you can take it or leave it, the historical data is fairly valid.

The upshot is that Jews are happy with their religion, thank you and we don’t believe in an afterlife per se. We believe that good should be done on Earth and we don’t believe in original sin. I’m not trying to convert you, or to tell you one way is better than another, merely trying to broaden your outlook and responding to your annoying smugness of belief, which is incidentally of itself one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Believe as you want to believe, but don’t try to take away anyone else’s right to believe as they choose. Also too, if you don’t find Anderson’s Preachings hateful, I suspect that
the afterlife might surprise you.

right back atcha, doll.

depending on which Jew you talk to you will get a different response. some Jews like me think that it is unlikely that jesus ever lived and if he did was not any nominal sort of Jew at all let alone a rabbi.
others believe he was a great man, a teacher and possibly a rabbi.
what this suggests is that there is no consensus in the jewish community and likely never will be.

you asked a question. I gave an answer.
I was not mindreading. I just happen to know people like this pastor.
want another answer? ask a different question.

I was sincere in thanking you. Like I said, you beat me to the punch. You’re preaching to the choir.

The historic Jesus probably would have been a rabbi (assuming the Jesus of the Bible is based roughly off of a person that at one point existed). The mythic Jesus? He probably had his rabbihood de-emphasized and eventually removed throughout the various incarnations of Christian doctrines for a variety of reasons (mostly anti-Jewish sentiment). So the modern incarnation of mythic Jesus? Not a rabbi.

I don’t think the first is particularly relevant to this conversation, and I try to resist any urge to talk theology so don’t really want to get into the second. I use the words “mythic Jesus” so you should be able to figure out why.

yeah, you know? I thought of that. and then I decided because I think for myself, to reject that notion. I decided instead to ask you not to preach here.
do what you will.
the more you preach the more you come off as a hyper religious robaton with no original ideas of your own.

To be fair, Sassy was preaching at me. I’ve never been one to hold a begrudge somebody beating me to the punch, so thank you.

yeah. you know? I don’t really care who Sassy was preaching to.
This stuff comes into my home just like it comes into your home.
I don’t like it.
I get that this is what public means, that you sometimes have to deal with stuff you don’t want to hear or see because it’s public and I know my choices are to stay and take it or leave.
I chose a third choice: to tell Sassy that I don’t care for this style of communication because it has nothing to do with him/her. it isn’t opinion. it isn’t original. it isn’t an idea that stimulates others to have ideas of their own.
it’s just preaching. and its tiresome and tacky.

When is it a person?

28One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

29″The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.[e] 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[f] 31The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[g]There is no commandment greater than these.”

I didn’t include these because Christians feel that salvation comes through faith, not through the law, and Christ came to save. So how could his greatest teaching be the Law? Is He a rabbi, then? Just a thought.

I think they know its hate… they just enjoy it and seek it out more than we do.

I get uncomfortable with mindreading. I know that one does have to look to motives.

My last name is Gugino, not Gugina.
I see all the bible quotes, but how do you apply them to this case? I wasn’t clear what you were driving at. Can you say it in a sentence or two, possibly?

[Psalm 58:8-11]‘As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.’

What this sounds like to me is an explanation, to all our regressive right wing religionist moralizing yahoo friends, that a baby which is unborn melts away like a snail. It is not a person (yet), it has not been killed (murdered), there is no lasting damage to God’s eternal order done by abortion.

I always kind of figured there must be something in the Bible spelling this out, since most of the Jews that I know are very rational people, but I didn’t know where.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you never suppress free speech, even the vile sort that is trying to stir up violence against elected officials.

WWJD?

Forgive them, turn the other cheek, shut the Hell up would be my first guess.

The salvation of the world isn’t YOUR job even by your mythology. That job is God’s as mercy is His to dispense has HE please, not you or indeed any human. It’s also each individual’s job to care for their soul and earn mercy, although that – like a lot in the Bible – contradicts the idea that God loves you. If He loves you salvation should be a given unless God is a hypocrite. But individual responsibility enters into the picture right out of the gate else otherwise we wouldn’t have free will. Free will is a gift from God after all. All have choice. I don’t know about you, but if I were a God, much less a man or THE God, I don’t think I’d like some random stranger telling me how to do my job when they are not my boss and it’s my choice on how to proceed – even if they claim to work for or know the boss. Would you like it if some nutbag came to your job and started telling you what to do because they read it an book somewhere and claim to be on speaking terms with your boss? Hardly. You’d do one of two things if you’re a rational person:

Ignore them or eject them. This is no different.

So you might want to change to Jesus’ tactics. You know, telling the Good News to the willing but leaving the rest of us heathens alone when we want to be left alone. That’s called “polite society” when you don’t butt into other people’s personal business like their souls or sex lives or book shelf or home life. But polite is a word missing from the evangelical lexicon. It has been from Go.

When you preach at the unwilling?

That usually works out well.

For creating division.

Christ was a carpenter. The essence of carpentry is joining, not dividing. When you tell others they are wrong or somehow bad, you are not joining. You are trying to guilt or intimidate compliance with how YOU, a human, interprets the will of a GOD. You create bad will, resentment and forced compliance. A forced virtue is no virtue at all.

hu·bris\ˈhyü-brəs\, n., Gr. – hybris: exaggerated pride or self-confidence.

The very definition of thinking a being as limited as a human is even capable of understanding a God much less a God’s motivation. And the last time I checked, pride was still a sin in most major religions. So think about how proud you are of YOUR God next time you start to preach at people and remember it’s a sin. Then do what Jesus would do: forgive, forget, and shut up.

Why didn’t they receive Jesus? (John-8-33-44) They answered Jesus, we be the seed of Abrahman, and were never in bondage to any man: how say Thou, You shall make us free? Satan used their conceit as Abraham’s seed to deceive them into disbelief, thereby they do not see their Great Need of Jesus that they might be saved, until this very day. Today’s Babylon Religion tells the Jews of unbelief, they are God’s Chosen People, giving them No Reason to seek their Messiah that they too might be saved. (Romans-11-23) They also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be Grafted in: for God is able to graft them in Again. Their only Hope!!! Woe unto False Religious Leaders!

(11Corin-4-3) If our Gospel is hid, it hid to them that are Lost: (4) In whom the god of this world hath Blinded the Minds of them which believe not, lest the Light of the Glorious Gospel of Christ, Who is the image of God, should Shine on them. God then called the Gentile.(Isaiah-49-1-7)He used His Chosen Jews to share the Gospel with the Gentile. Does that mean all Gentile’s are saved? No, because the Jews are the seed of Abraham are they all saved? No. Only through Christ Jesus can any man be saved. (Romans-11-19-25)God warned the Gentile, don’t be highminded but Fear, for if God spared not the natural branches, Take Heed lest He also spare not you.

(Jeremiah-4-1-7) The lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentile is on his way; he is gone from his place to make your land desolate; and your cities shall be laid waste, without inhabititant. (8) For this gird you with sack-cloth, lament and howl: for the fierce anger of the Lord is not turned back from us. (11Thess-2-3-12)Wake up America!

Actually, picking cherries to split hairs. I’m not going to provide the direct quote because the people who care will look it up, but the verse is Mark 12:30-31. I chose that one rather than the one in Lev. it references because we’re talking about what Jesus is reported to have said.

That’s my contributing to a theological argument for the year, I hope you all enjoyed it.

GLSM,

To be fair, Sassy was preaching at me. I’ve never been one to hold a begrudge somebody beating me to the punch, so thank you.

Now with video stupidity . . .

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/08/obama-hating-pastor-prote_n_279253.html

there may be people in your life who like being preached to. I do not.
are you able to engage in conversation without preaching? do try.

while you are certainly welcome to your point of view and accompanying religious beliefs, please try to refrain from telling others what we “must” believe. it’s offensive. its is even more offensive to wish for a gay person to kill pastor anderson. also: typing in all caps is considered to be shouting.

yeah. that’s a pretty optimistic point of view on the part of the Professor. I am not always able to rely on strategies like this but I don’t live anywhere near the ivory tower.
I find myself becoming more discouraged and at times are frightened in a way I have not experienced since the Cuban missile crisis.

I think they know its hate… they just enjoy it and seek it out more than we do. at the end of the day hate is an emotion no better or worse than any other. its what an individual or group does with it that matters.

Today’s Church is taught such as, through God’s Grace, He understands when we sin. A Lie out of Hell! When sinners came unto Jesus to confess their sins, Jesus warned them, SIN NO MORE, less a worse thing come upon you, (Hebrews-10-2-29) God’s Judgment! It would be better to have never known Him, then to have known Him and wilfully sin against Him. Grace is, the Power of His Spirit within us!

(Ephesians-3-16)Riches of His Glory!(Jude-24) Now unto Him that is Able to keep us from falling, and to Present us Faultless before the presence of His Glory with Exceeding Joy.

(Romans-6-1) What shall we say then? Shall we continue in Sin that Grace might abound? (2) GOD FORBID: How shall we, who are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

Is God’s Grace within you? (Galatians-5-16) Walk in His Spirit and you do Not fulfill sinful desires of the flesh. Or, have you been deceived by antichrist? (Ephesians-2-2-3) the ‘spirit’ that now Works in children of disobedience, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and are by nature the children of Wrath, even as others?

(1John-3-5) We know that Jesus was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no Sin. (6) Whosoever abides in Him, Sins Not: whosoever sins, has not seen Him neither known Him. Take Heed:

(Matthew-7-21-23) Not all that say unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into Heaven, but he that does the Will of My Father which is in Heaven. God have Mercy on today’s Church, or no flesh will be saved. (11Thess-2-3-12)(11Peter-3-14-22)

antichrist has control over today’s Church

Is this more than the fallen state of the world reflected in the fallen state of the church? Haven’t the people often thought to themselves Surely this is as bad as it can be. How long …

I am thinking of Christ’s statement “Many are called but few are chosen” just now; thinking it may have applied to his hearers in this way: many are called to be the chosen people, but how many are.

Jesus most important teaching was the “Golden Rule”

Actually, He didn’t say “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. He said “a new commandment I give you: Love one another as I have loved you”. Close, but can you see the difference?

To mespo727272, you say

Like you, I agree the speaker here is filled with hate

Oh, he is? Is hate an emotion? I mean, can one feel it?
My take on hate speech is it is speech that stirs hate in the hearer.

“The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose” — and they do.

“To wish someone to be dead is not very Christian-like.”

*****************

Read above, wishing someone dead is quite Christian-like, based on my reading of the “Sacred Texts.”

*****************

Forget that spoilsport Mike S, Sassy, I like your style and love your interpretation. Let’s apply you rule to this rather grumpy curmudgeon’s take on things:

“I will sweep away everything in all your land,” says the LORD. “I will sweep away both people and animals alike. Even the birds of the air and the fish in the sea will die. I will reduce the wicked to heaps of rubble, along with the rest of humanity,” says the LORD. “I will crush Judah and Jerusalem with my fist and destroy every last trace of their Baal worship. I will put an end to all the idolatrous priests, so that even the memory of them will disappear. For they go up to their roofs and bow to the sun, moon, and stars. They claim to follow the LORD, but then they worship Molech, too. So now I will destroy them! And I will destroy those who used to worship me but now no longer do. They no longer ask for the LORD’s guidance or seek my blessings.” (Zephaniah 1:2-6 NLT)

Like you, I agree the speaker here is filled with hate, and a murderer. Wonder why anyone follows his teachings?

(Malachi-3-16-18)They that Fear the LORD spake often one to another, and the LORD heard it, and a Book of Remembrance was written before Him for them that Feared the LORD, and that thought upon His Name. (17) And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that Day when I make up My Jewels, I will spare them, as a man spares his own son. (18) Then shall you return, and discern between the Righteous and the wicked, between him that serves God and him that serve God Not.

Shortly after reading this, I was reminded of the other aspect of our shared humanity, the ‘Last Lecture’ of Randy Pausch. What a species we are.

It takes a true oracle to predict that men would use religion as an excuse for their fear and hatred of what they view as other.