JP Cusick
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Mr Know-it-all, sir.
Posts: 258
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Post by JP Cusick on Dec 10, 2011 11:04:42 GMT -5
I'm not sure why you think that "being a martyr" and "drawing out hostilities" is the best way to get a point across. Usually, someone who is hailed as a martyr is a person who has developed a following of some kind, and has then been repressed by the oppressors. When you draw out hostilities, you actually ruin your chances of being a martyr, since practically no one will follow a person whom they consider to be hostile to themselves. You are trying to aim for the death of a martyr without going through the work of building the following first. It would be nice if people would see and get the point in nice and friendly ways, but when against the evil demands of people then the way to fight against it is by bringing out their hostilities and exposing the evil. I am NOT the one being hostile even if I do draw out their hostilities. This is based on the doctrine told by Jesus Christ who said to " turn the other cheek" per Matthew 5:38-42, because that means to provoke the hostility and escalate the conflict. The person(s) doing the hostilities can always stop the hostilities any time they want so it is not the fault of those who provoke their evil. When some person does the slap or " smite" then that is their violent hostility so "turning thy other cheek" to be slapped again means to draw out their evil by escalating the conflict. As to me being a "martyr" then I do NOT want to die as I want to live on, and being a martyr is based on the evil persons who fail to repent of their violent hostilities. There are other kinds of "martyrs" as like Nelson Mandela who spent 23 years in prison and then to walk out to become the South African President. And even Jesus rose from the dead which means Jesus did not really die the martyr at that time. Having followers or NOT having followers means nothing, because the only things that matter are truth and justice and righteousness which are over seen by God. So this is the reason.
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JP Cusick
New Member
Mr Know-it-all, sir.
Posts: 258
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Post by JP Cusick on Dec 10, 2011 11:17:12 GMT -5
JP, I am not trying to be offensive or insulting here. I have some "character traits" that I have held since childhood and I am constantly trying to rid myself of them. Have been trying for years. I think it is ridiculous that after 57 years they are still an issue for me. I know I could be getting the wrong impression about you from what you just said in your last message, but I can't help thinking of a child who acts out constantly in a negative way in order to get attention or approval from anyone who will respond to the negative behavior. Or that same child can go the other way and overachieve by trying to be the most well behaved offspring in an almost suck up brown nosing sort of way and then decide to rebell against himself and others in the later years. I'm a middle child like you were and I know all about being a middle child lost in the confusion of a large family where the sum total of all the divided attention put together was not even enough to begin with. I don't know how it was for you, but however part one of your story went, part two hasn't really been that good for you as far as I can see. So as to my suggestion to you on what you should do next, I think you ought start with part three now. Make it the best it can be for you and never look back. "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." - Paul McCartney I have one of my younger brothers who often accuses me of being a "middle child" and I do know about the dynamics of birth order affecting our personality traits for better and for worse, but that has nothing to do with me being right or wrong. I was NOT asking for some life-time or life-changing advice - certainly not. I only ask for you (or anyone) to suggest a way of promoting my political campaign and or in spreading the message about the evil Child Support and Custody laws. The election is only a few months away on April 3, 2012, and I want to help make it into an interesting event.
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Post by bookworm on Dec 12, 2011 0:11:18 GMT -5
I am NOT the one being hostile even if I do draw out their hostilities. This is based on the doctrine told by Jesus Christ who said to " turn the other cheek" per Matthew 5:38-42, because that means to provoke the hostility and escalate the conflict. I guess I get a different picture of "turning the other cheek" than what you do. I see it more as a quiet submission to being oppressed due to a realization that God is going to have the ultimate victory in the end. It goes along with another Biblical picture. Sometimes the Roman soldiers forced people to carry their belongings for a mile. Christians were supposed to endure that mile and then willingly travel an extra mile. Such a quiet willingness to endure the oppression is much different from what you are describing as "provoking the hostility" and "escalating the conflict." You seem to look for specific ways to "provoke" and to "escalate conflict" and Jesus never called upon people to do that. Jesus calls upon people to imitate his willingness to live sacrificially for others, even to the point of giving up ALL for others. To relate this to your child support issue - if the government demands that you give up 100 dollars, you should turn the other cheek and willingly give up 200 dollars without provoking or escalating any conflict.
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JP Cusick
New Member
Mr Know-it-all, sir.
Posts: 258
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Post by JP Cusick on Dec 15, 2011 9:51:18 GMT -5
I guess I get a different picture of "turning the other cheek" than what you do. I see it more as a quiet submission to being oppressed due to a realization that God is going to have the ultimate victory in the end. It goes along with another Biblical picture. Sometimes the Roman soldiers forced people to carry their belongings for a mile. Christians were supposed to endure that mile and then willingly travel an extra mile. Such a quiet willingness to endure the oppression is much different from what you are describing as "provoking the hostility" and "escalating the conflict." You seem to look for specific ways to "provoke" and to "escalate conflict" and Jesus never called upon people to do that. Jesus calls upon people to imitate his willingness to live sacrificially for others, even to the point of giving up ALL for others. To relate this to your child support issue - if the government demands that you give up 100 dollars, you should turn the other cheek and willingly give up 200 dollars without provoking or escalating any conflict. I am aware of the perspective you describe as it is very common throughout Christianity, and that perspective turned into reality is why so many people view Christianity as passive people with the worst of insults that Christians are sheep. When Jesus referred to people as "sheep" then it was not really a compliment. In the Gospel as in all scriptures then people are divided into layers, as some are shepherds and Leaders and Priest, while others are sheep and followers and lost ones. The doctrine of turning thy other cheek as like taking up thy own cross are NOT for the weak sheep as those are doctrine for the strong leaders. The Mahatma Gandhi was the best Christian in this world after Jesus. And in that same text, Matthew 5:38-42, as Jesus said to carry it 2 miles when ordered to carry it 1 mile then that is a way of defying the enemy, because carrying it 2 miles is over doing it and it screws up the orders. Where it came to Child Support then we are not to pay double as if giving the thievery a double portion - hell no. It was like the Child Support put me into jail once so I put myself into their jail twice. That is going the extra mile and tuning the other cheek both at the same time. The idea that Jesus was a pacifist and that Jesus teaches pacifism is very incorrect. So if some people or most people are content to be passive sheep then that if fine, but they need to recognize their shepherds.
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Post by bookworm on Dec 15, 2011 13:41:29 GMT -5
When Jesus referred to people as "sheep" then it was not really a compliment. But it wasn't an insult either, not was it an attempt to get people to consider themselves as something other than sheep. It was simply an accurate illustration of us humans, as Spurgeon wrote here: www.biblebb.com/files/spurgeon/0995.htmActually, Gandi was Hindu.
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JP Cusick
New Member
Mr Know-it-all, sir.
Posts: 258
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Post by JP Cusick on Dec 17, 2011 10:14:30 GMT -5
But it wasn't an insult either, not was it an attempt to get people to consider themselves as something other than sheep. It was simply an accurate illustration of us humans, as Spurgeon wrote here: www.biblebb.com/files/spurgeon/0995.htmIt is not an insult to people who view being a sheep as a virtue, while I do NOT view being a sheep as a virtue. Jesus also made references to wolves in sheep clothing, and sheep having no shepherd, and lost sheep, and the sheep scattered, and sheep for the slaughter, and more negative aspects of sheep. It is okay to start out as a sheep which is no insult, but over time a person is to grow into being Kings and Priest, 1 Peter 2:2-10 I agree that calling humanity as "sheep" is indeed an accurate comparison, just as it is to call us as "sinners" which is not a compliment either. Actually, Gandhi was Hindu. That is correct only if you view the followers of Christ as being only Christians as if God recognizes the human divisions of religions. The Mahatma Gandhi was a Hindu, and he was also a Christian and Muslim and a Jew and every other religion too, as there is only one God for all of humanity. I do that too as I embrace the right and best of every religion while rejecting the errors of every religion. What Gandhi did do was that Gandhi showed how turning the other cheek and walking the extra mile and of hating the sin while loving the sinner were all realistically applicable, and as such Gandhi being a Hindu was a better Christian then are the so called Christians. That was the point.
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Post by citygirl on Dec 19, 2011 9:11:12 GMT -5
When those evil doers face up to the truth and consider justice then their evil structure will come crashing down as like "a house built on sand", and rightly so. Therefore I need a new tactic to undermine their structure. I gotcha an idea that you put ads on TV telling the voters how you really feel and let the whole world see how crazy you are.
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JP Cusick
New Member
Mr Know-it-all, sir.
Posts: 258
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Post by JP Cusick on Dec 22, 2011 9:02:16 GMT -5
I gotcha an idea that you put ads on TV telling the voters how you really feel and let the whole world see how crazy you are. I agree that seems to make sense, and I am happy to show people how "crazy" I happen to be, and I have thought hard about running ads in some Newspapers, but it just does not add up right. The strange reality is that I have just as much chance of winning whether I advertise or campaign or if I do not. In fact it is known that often times the ads will backfire by turning people negative against the ad instead of attracting positive results. An example is the "Dr Pepper" company who stopped its "Be a Pepper" ads and THEN its sales started to rise, because the public was turned off by that ad which backfired. And people are still criticizing the Hillary Clinton ad about the "3am phone call". And the first George Bush who's ad claimed that Bill Clinton was just a small time Governor from the small State of Arkansas which was a huge mistake for Bush. I would not want to run a truly negative attack since I am not negative against the guy that I want to replace, but I would want a negative ad against the evil Child Support and Custody laws. Of course I do not have the big money for TV ads, but we do not see any ads from the big rich candidates either, and that is because silence is very golden in the game of political elections.
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JP Cusick
New Member
Mr Know-it-all, sir.
Posts: 258
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Post by JP Cusick on Dec 24, 2011 10:10:59 GMT -5
I guess I get a different picture of "turning the other cheek" than what you do. I see it more as a quiet submission to being oppressed due to a realization that God is going to have the ultimate victory in the end. It goes along with another Biblical picture. Sometimes the Roman soldiers forced people to carry their belongings for a mile. Christians were supposed to endure that mile and then willingly travel an extra mile. Such a quiet willingness to endure the oppression is much different from what you are describing as "provoking the hostility" and "escalating the conflict." You seem to look for specific ways to "provoke" and to "escalate conflict" and Jesus never called upon people to do that. Jesus calls upon people to imitate his willingness to live sacrificially for others, even to the point of giving up ALL for others. To relate this to your child support issue - if the government demands that you give up 100 dollars, you should turn the other cheek and willingly give up 200 dollars without provoking or escalating any conflict. After some thought then now I say you and I are both correct in this, because the word of God is as a "two edged sword" which cuts both ways, link = Hebrews 4:12, and Psalms 149:6. So yes walking an extra mile and turning thy other cheek can be applied in the nice way as you describe, but it can also be applied in the negative way as I explain it - both ways are correct. As to the Child Support then I confess that in some cases it is the right thing to comply even with a thief and with thievery, but in such cases it would be a tactic more so then a virtue.
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