Jesus and Thought crime.

[Lorgar-Aurelian]

So in my bible reading I was reminded of a few reasons I'm not a super big fan of some of the things Jesus said. OR well just about any of it really.

27 "You have heard that it was said,
'You shall not commit adultery;'
28 but I tell you that everyone who gazes at a
woman to lust after her has committed
adultery with her already in his heart.

21 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his
brother without a cause shall be in danger of the
judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca,
shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall
say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

These are both from Matthew chapter 5. They make me think of thought crime. I'm not sure if I am the only one who would call this cultist behavior but it seems to me that Jesus is saying (depending on the translation mind you) that thinking about going balls deep into some lady you've seen is just as bad as actually having sex with her and cheating on your wife ect. That is ridiculous on so many levels.

IF I am angry with someone but I don't harm them and I don't actively seek to bring them down then what exactly is the harm there? What is the harm in a man or a woman checking out someone as they go by? So what are you trying to tell me that "being a natural human is a sin unto itself you filthy filthy boy." ?
If that is the case why would anyone want to join a religion that does literally nothing but tell you how **** you are then demand you be better? " Hi I've made you defective and sinful but you should stop that." This all seems rather silly to me.

 

[Lorgar-Aurelian]

Do non-religious theories of morality convict people of ‘thought crime’ in this sense?”
Simply take a moment to think about the following statement:

But maybe there is something special about Jesus and thought crime. The Jesus of much Christian orthodoxy condemns people to hell for having the wrong beliefs. According to large swaths of Christianity, the worst sin in the world is to lack certain propositional beliefs about Jesus and his role in salvation.

Right now, I can’t think of a non-religious system that delivers such condemnation on people for having certain beliefs. Indeed, it’s not clear that beliefs are a matter of choice at all. Think about it. Can you choose, right now, to clap your hands? Yup. Can someone who wants to be a vegetarian train her desires away from wanting to eat meat by watching videos of animals being tortured in food processing plants every day? Yup.

But can you choose, right now, to believe you have a third hand? Nope.

We believe something according to how plausible it seems to us. We can’t choose to believe things that don’t seem plausible to us.

Perhaps it is fair after all to say that the Jesus of much Christian orthodoxy convicts us of thought crime in a way that no secular theory of morality I know of does.

Look I am fine with thought crime, so long as I get to wear a military uniform and do wild hand gestures like a certain Italian dictator I know. But either way saying that just thinking about doing something is the exact same thing as doing it is retarded and just about everyone should know that. Believe it or not I don't tell people that thinking about doing something is the same thing as doing it and they deserve to go to hell for doing so.

 

[RedDragon94]

So in my bible reading I was reminded of a few reasons I'm not a super big fan of some of the things Jesus said. OR well just about any of it really.

27 "You have heard that it was said,
'You shall not commit adultery;'
28 but I tell you that everyone who gazes at a
woman to lust after her has committed
adultery with her already in his heart.

21 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his
brother without a cause shall be in danger of the
judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca,
shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall
say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

I understand verse 21 but not verses 27 & 28. You can't just blow up at people and expect to be considered a nice person. That just doesn't make any sense.

On top of the milkshake of condemnation that is Judeo-Christianity, the whip cream and cherry on top is Jesus' own words. He's the one that made the way narrow and difficult. Some people do deserve wrath and the fact that Jesus would leave a person defenseless tells you a lot about the Judeo-Christian God. He doesn't seem to be on the side of humanity. (Matthew 7:13-14)

 

[fi11222]

So in my bible reading I was reminded of a few reasons I'm not a super big fan of some of the things Jesus said. OR well just about any of it really.

27 "You have heard that it was said,
'You shall not commit adultery;'
28 but I tell you that everyone who gazes at a
woman to lust after her has committed
adultery with her already in his heart.

21 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his
brother without a cause shall be in danger of the
judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca,
shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall
say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

These are both from Matthew chapter 5. They make me think of thought crime.

First, a disclaimer: I am not a Christian and, to be honest, "atheist" is probably the word which best describes my religious outlook.

However, I believe that there is much more to this passage that what we usually read into it. First of all, why does it talk about lust and anger? It could have mentioned greed or any other negative emotion. Many people have noticed that the Old Testament talks a lot about idolatry while it is almost absent in the New. In the Gospels, in particular, it seems that sin is more about personal morality than religion. Here, for example, it seems that what we are talking about is precisely about moral issues (lust/adultery, anger/murder). But is it? Maybe it is the case, but not only. The choice of lust and anger may be a way to hint at what idolatry is about on an internal level. Maybe it is worth remembering that Inanna/Ishtar (known in the Bible as Astarte) was the goddess of love and war or, in other words, of lust and anger. Astarte is often mentioned in the Old Testament as the epitome of everything that is wrong with idolatry and it is quite probable that the "whore of Babylon" is also an allusion to the same goddess (Inanna/Ishtar was primarily worshipped in Babylonia).

So we have Inanna/Ishtar, goddess of desire and chaotic violence and we have a teaching about lust/adultery + anger/murder (i.e. violence). Now what can we say about this pair of emotions in more modern terms. Actually, it so happens that we do encounter them quite often in contemporary analogues of idolatry:

• Sports fandom. Fascination for the team or sportsman one supports / scorn and possibly violence towards the fans of the opposite team (hooliganism)
• Nationalism : Unbriddled enthusiasm and devotion for one's country / scorn and aggressiveness (possibly to the point of war) towards the "enemies".
• Snobism : fascination for a given person or social set / scorn for all those not part of it.

There are many other examples, more or less easy to spot. One case in point is the rap/hip-hop subculture (bling/violence, etc).

Were the writers of the New Testament consciously encoding a reference to idolatry in this passage? Maybe, maybe not. But the parallel is worth noting because it is well known that Jewish culture had always established a link between idolatry (religious sin) and morality (secular sin). And this habit of thinking may have produced connections that the writers of Biblical texts were not necessarily fully aware of on a conscious level.

In any case, as the modern example show, this is not an obsolete problem. There is a link between desire/lust/fascination and anger/violence/scorn.

 

[fi11222]

So in my bible reading I was reminded of a few reasons I'm not a super big fan of some of the things Jesus said. OR well just about any of it really....

No answer ?

 

[Lorgar-Aurelian]

No answer ?

I'm sorry , for what exactly?

 

[fi11222]

I'm sorry , for what exactly?

My post above, answering your own post at the top of this thread.

 

[Fool]

So in my bible reading I was reminded of a few reasons I'm not a super big fan of some of the things Jesus said. OR well just about any of it really.

27 "You have heard that it was said,
'You shall not commit adultery;'
28 but I tell you that everyone who gazes at a
woman to lust after her has committed
adultery with her already in his heart.

21 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his
brother without a cause shall be in danger of the
judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca,
shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall
say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

These are both from Matthew chapter 5. They make me think of thought crime. I'm not sure if I am the only one who would call this cultist behavior but it seems to me that Jesus is saying (depending on the translation mind you) that thinking about going balls deep into some lady you've seen is just as bad as actually having sex with her and cheating on your wife ect. That is ridiculous on so many levels.

IF I am angry with someone but I don't harm them and I don't actively seek to bring them down then what exactly is the harm there? What is the harm in a man or a woman checking out someone as they go by? So what are you trying to tell me that "being a natural human is a sin unto itself you filthy filthy boy." ?
If that is the case why would anyone want to join a religion that does literally nothing but tell you how **** you are then demand you be better? " Hi I've made you defective and sinful but you should stop that." This all seems rather silly to me.

an action cannot be preceded without a motive of the consciousness.


A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.

the only exception is at the autonomic level.

 

[fi11222]

I'm sorry , for what exactly?

Still no answer?