Turn the Other Cheek – What Could Jesus Have Meant?

  • Thread starter Thread starter HarryStotle
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I was responding to the OP and the hot button term “activists”.
 
goout said:
40.png
HarryStotle:
40.png
goout:
How do you arrive at the conclusion of the golden rule being subjective?
It’s not subjective at all. It ties the dignity of the human person to objective good. His use of personal awareness is to awaken a dulled conscience. In effect, “you and I are both children of the same God”.
The morality of the golden rule is not subjective. He Himself objectively embodies it.
Click to expand...
Sure, that is your working assumption, but that isn’t necessarily everyone’s assumption who uses the golden rule to determine their own outlook on how others ought to be treated.

Someone who tends to excuse their own behaviour and avoid just retribution will have a tendency to excuse the behaviour of others if they were to invoke the golden rule in a way consistent with their moral outlook or lack of it, will they not?
Click to expand...
I seriously have no idea what you are saying I’m sorry.
You are tying yourself into knots to prove a POV.
Click to expand...
Hmmm. I thought I was in the process of untying knots.

Sometimes, when the knots are thick and many, where a person’s fingers start or end in the midst of those knots is difficult to discern.

I am reasonably certain I have the knots in hand, so to speak.
 
TheLittleLady said:
I was responding to the OP and the hot button term “activists”.
Click to expand...
So you don’t think there are activists, politically speaking?

No “omnipotent moral busybodies” engaged in politics?

None worth giving a second thought as to their motivations?

Let me guess…

Outta here, once again. 😉
 
Annie said:
No, I was referring to the infernal busybodies… I was just amused by the conjunction of not fighting against those trying to harm others and fighting against those who are trying to do good,. Basically, I thought it showed I was wrong.

Just ignore my flight into absurdity, please :o
Click to expand...
Not to worry, I am not easily triggered.

And mature enough to give people space to speculate without holding their feet to the fire, so to speak.

You are free to think aloud without the ceiling or the sky falling on you. 😱
 
Do you attend a Catholic church ?
Of what faith or belief system are you ?
 
Annie said:
Hmmm. Which leads to the conclusion that we should only fight against those who are trying to do good, so maybe not a good answer to the problem!
Click to expand...
Another reading of Lewis might lead us to evaluate our own place as “moral busybodies” and redirect our attention to where the battle really lies.

This also might stave off from a personal perspective our desire to be “activists” or our proclivity to “fight” against others.

I found it rather providential that Bishop Barron just now posted a video on Jordan Peterson’s book 12 Rules for Life.

The reason I say providential was that my Part 1 in this thread addressed Bishop Barron’s views on "turn the other cheek, while my last Part 5, focused on Jordan Peterson’s view.

Bishop Barron’s video does properly, I would suggest, point out that the historicity of Jesus ought to be central to our theologizing, just as our own historicity or actual place in the world ought to be central to our thinking about our own role in that world – including our penchant for viewing others as the causes of grief, to the exclusion of any consideration of our own role in that grief.

So the central question perhaps ought to be “are we ourselves being truly just” BEFORE we consider how we are to treat others as we do ourselves.

This is where political activists get it entirely wrong, I would suggest.

Here is Bishop Barron’s video:

 
Last edited:
Yes, and you know, your idea was immediately activists, and I agree to some extent, but I think Lewis might have been thinking of actual busybodies as there was not so much of what is happening now politically happening then (as far as I know in England. In the US, social workers did check the homes of women on welfare to make sure there were no men living with them.). I myself think of some parents, or some teens’ view of parents as well.
 
TheLittleLady said:
40.png
HarryStotle:
That would imply any sense of true justice would be off the table and all justice be placed in the hands of God in some kind of final judgement. Is that the tone Jesus intended for us?
Click to expand...
Yes.

“Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord”
Click to expand...
Except I wasn’t speaking of vengeance, I was speaking of justice.

So no hope for real justice on earth at all, ever?

Nor are we to work to promote justice or speak of it at all?
 
Annie said:
Yes, and you know, your idea was immediately activists, and I agree to some extent, but I think Lewis might have been thinking of actual busybodies as there was not so much of what is happening now politically happening then (as far as I know in England. In the US, social workers did check the homes of women on welfare to make sure there were no men living with them.). I myself think of some parents, or some teens’ view of parents as well.
Click to expand...
Except there is a good case to be made that by referring to of “all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims” he was specifically – though not exclusively – speaking of the communist and fascists regimes that were ostensibly working on behalf of the people but left in their wake a huge number of victims.
 
Last edited:
I’ve found that this strategy works best if wearing a hockey mask.
 
HarryStotle said:
40.png
goout:
40.png
HarryStotle:
40.png
goout:
How do you arrive at the conclusion of the golden rule being subjective?
It’s not subjective at all. It ties the dignity of the human person to objective good. His use of personal awareness is to awaken a dulled conscience. In effect, “you and I are both children of the same God”.
The morality of the golden rule is not subjective. He Himself objectively embodies it.
Click to expand...
Sure, that is your working assumption, but that isn’t necessarily everyone’s assumption who uses the golden rule to determine their own outlook on how others ought to be treated.

Someone who tends to excuse their own behaviour and avoid just retribution will have a tendency to excuse the behaviour of others if they were to invoke the golden rule in a way consistent with their moral outlook or lack of it, will they not?
Click to expand...
I seriously have no idea what you are saying I’m sorry.
You are tying yourself into knots to prove a POV.
Click to expand...
Hmmm. I thought I was in the process of untying knots.

Sometimes, when the knots are thick and many, where a person’s fingers start or end in the midst of those knots is difficult to discern.

I am reasonably certain I have the knots in hand, so to speak.
Click to expand...
The god of the philosophers is impossible to know.
 
Do you attend a Catholic church ?

Of what faith or belief system are you ?
 
Just my gut was telling me this was going to be a politics thread, and I ignored my gut.

We activists are Christians too 🙂
 
littlebird said:
Do you attend a Catholic church ?
Click to expand...
At least three times a week. I have also been involved with adult Scripture and Church history studies in my parish for the past 6 years, have post secondary degrees and additional education in philosophy and theology, have in the past served on Pastoral Councils for over 12 years, have been involved in a number of ministries over the years, been involved with the local St. Vincent DePaul Society, was an educator for over 30 years, and I haven’t killed anybody. 😇

Name an orthodox, magisterially defined, dogma of the Church – the divinity of Christ, transubstantiation, the Trinitarian Godhead, Papal Infallibility, Apostolic Succession, etc., etc., and I am on board – almost universally for the reason that I’ve delved deeply into the matter and am convinced that the Church is correct on the matter.

You seem a bit preoccupied with this question.
Of what faith or belief system are you ?
Click to expand...
I’m not certain that stating in one or several words the name of a “faith or belief system” necessarily entails that what I mean by that word is precisely what you mean by that word. I suspect that what Nancy Pelosi or Tim Kaine mean when they use the word “Catholic” isn’t what I mean, so it isn’t clear to me that merely stating a “faith” will be all that helpful.

Most “Catholics,” for example wouldn’t assent to many of the dogmas of the Church, yet they still call themselves “Catholic.”

So, anyone claiming they are “Catholic” ought to be taken with a grain of salt, especially on an Internet forum.

I am pretty certain not a few on CAF are merely posing as Catholic with the intention of muddying impressions of Catholicism.
 
Last edited:
angelic06 said:
I am glad somebody brought up the actual historical context of this, rather than the usual nonsense which some of us learned from childhood to be pacifist, accepting evil, to see everyone, even the perpetrator, “as Jesus”.
Click to expand...
I regularly confront violence in a passive way, and it helps to look for the good in all people. I have been a Street Pastor for the last ten years, we go out in the town until 3 -4 am when all the drunks come out the pubs. I am 68 and the people I feel safest with in our team, are ladies who are over 60 years old, our oldest lady is almost eighty. We go out prepared to turn the other cheek.

We saw a group of about a dozen people suddenly start fighting, all you can see is a bunch of angry hooligans. We have policies, risk assessments and police radios, and we do not have to intervene. Or we can pray as we go.

As we approached the fight, I saw one man punched to the ground, another was being kicked, and I saw a man swing round and punch a lady in the face. We walked in the middle of all this drunken angry violence, and the most we can do is stand between people to try and keep them apart.

I can only say that I experience a profound sense of peace that is beyond my understanding. The peace is stronger than anger, it almost seems that they absorb my peace, and I soak up their anger. The ladies I am with, say they experience a similar feeling.

Eventually the fighting stopped; we stayed with them for a time, and they started to talk to us more civilly. We could now see the better side of all these people we had first perceived to be hooligans. When it was time to go, we had so many handshakes and hugs from all the fighters.

This has happened so many times, it is beyond my understanding that passive confrontation should work, We are always the weakest people in the mix. So far, none of us have been hurt.

God is good, and we have to keep giving thanks.
 
You said>
“You seem a bit preoccupied with this question.” > ( Do you attend a Catholic church ?)

My reply>
You didnt respond so I wasnt sure if you didnt see my question or if you are simply not being forthright.

You have previously stated>
It isn’t clear to me what it means to be “Catholic.”
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top