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juneindecember
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Posts: 12
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 1:07 pm

Post by juneindecember »

Hello all. Please forgive me my long hiatus. I had thought I posted a response to CarmelaBear's response to me, but I don not see it, and so, I will begin with the last post I had read.


CarmelaBear wrote:You take things I say out of context. I do not remember attacking you. Point out an attack on you personally so that we might address it directly.
~
For the sake of clarification:
CarmelaBear wrote:Suicide.

I can think of nothing more vehement.

Yet, you are an apologist for it.
The statement that I am an apologist for suicide is a direct attack against me.
CarmelaBear wrote: Your rationalizations are not about faith or admiration of his courage. It is artful and deceptive
Here you accuse me of being artful and deceptive, while I feel, to the depths of my soul, that I am speaking my truth. Moreover, you state that my "rationalizations" are not about the qualities of faith, or admiration of Christ's courage, but about something less than honest. These are personal attacks and they are not taken out of context, if you would but re-read your own posts.

I believe in free speech, dear friends, and like you, CarmelaBear, and like Jesus too, I will not be silenced.
CarmelaBear wrote: Did I ever relate how frightened people have become for my physical safety whenever my outer voice makes sounds that seem to challenge accepted wisdom or authority?

I have sometimes had to go into hiding after speaking up to suggest that "the emperor has no clothes", (so to speak).

During such times, a politically outspoken individual such as myself may be giving full amplitude to that inner voice. The inner and outer voice become one.
Jesus sometimes chose to go into hiding too, maybe He just got tired of it? Or, maybe, the inner and outer voice were no longer distinct, but had become One, in the mystical sense. Life is all that gives voice, and It cannot be silenced! Fear of death has no meaning to Life, only personalities, or forms if you will, die. Life is Here before us and will continue to be Here long after we are gone, and that is the simple Truth. Put in scientific terms, energy never dies, it merely changes form.

I do not mean to pick on any one person here, please understand, I condemn no one, I merely argue their ideas. And I cannot allow the following to go unaddressed:
CarmelaBear wrote: Jesus overturned the tables at the temple in a violent rage, not turning the other cheek. Peter cut off the ear of a Roman soldier. Emperor Constantine went to battle inspired by a vision of Jesus. Crusaders slaughtered and looted in his name. The Spanish Catholics are known more for the Inquisition and for vanquishing the Native American cultures than for making allies and forging friendships among the Native tribes (people are complex and diverse...we do both good deeds and bad). Every Christian President made war to supposedly save America. Nearly every warrior is trying to be a saviour.
1) Yes, He overturned the tables of the moneychangers, just as I argue your assertions; the money changers themselves He left unharmed.

2) Yes, Peter cut off the ear of a Roman soldier, Jesus then told him to put away his sword, and restored the soldiers ear.

3) It was a vision of the cross that inspired Constantine, not a vision of Jesus. The cross inspires violent feelings being a symbol of violence.

4) Man always has, and will continue to use faith to further his own dominion, and as long as we fear the physical death, for so long will we remain enslaved.

5) Politicians motives are as suspect as inquisitions and inquisitors.

6) I cannot speak for nearly every warrior, but I can question the motives they might have for wanting to be saviors, and I suspect they would be as varied as the cultures that populate our planet.

In closing, I would like to put forth the idea, once again, that where anger is uncovered, the shadow is rising. Hating those who do good because they did not choose to go into hiding to preserve their lives assumes that they had a choice. For myself, I can testify to many instances where I wished I would shut up and leave it be, but my voice kept flowing. Maybe Jesus no longer had a choice?

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