Do not resist an evil person

Jenyar, you said this awhile back, but I'm surprised no one contradicted it:
The law that condemns the rapist is the same one that will watch the victim's actions. Forgiveness is only possible if you leave "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" up to God. And without forgiveness, all sinners would be equally lost.
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WRONG!

Forgiveness is ALWAYS possible, no matter how heinous the offense, as long as the sinner REPENTS. I thought this was basic Christian knowledge.

Anyhow, in light of that fact, I'd do my best to kill the sick fuck who was raping me and then say, "Sorry God, shouldn'ta killed that fucker." Except I'd be sincere, of course, 'cause that way God would forgive me. (heh heh)

(If you didn't notice, I'm not a Christian.)

Anyways, I think a far more interesting direction for this thread is to explore the apparent futility of leading a barren, difficult, pious life (e.g. not fighting back at the rapist) when God's forgiveness is always close at hand?
(Ever seen Boondock Saints?)

And you don't have to tell me that the devout life isn't barren, because that's just my opinion.
 
That's the problem with ideology, it's not flexible enough to be realistically effective. Not resisting is a good strategy that Buddhists have known forever, even the ones that practice martial arts.
 
spidergoat said:
Not resisting is a good strategy that Buddhists have known forever, even the ones that practice martial arts.
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Nonsense. Do you even know what "martial" means? Here's a hint: It means just about the opposite of "not resisting".


Edit: OK, that may have come a bit harsh. It's just that you can resist a sideways glance, but not an lethal threat. Martial arts were developed just in order to resist and neutralize threats. Now that's a good strategy. As in "don't just stand there and let them beat you to death" good.

Did that still sound harsh? Oh well, I'm sorry (and slightlly drunk,truth be told)
 
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That's what I'm talking about. Not resisting can be a subtle strategy, such as avoiding blows until the attacker gets tired, then attacking with one blow in the right spot. That's non-resistance in action. My friend is an expert in Hapkido, and he describes the technique with the analogy of water. It doesn't resist directly, but uses the attacker's own force, and redirects the energy against them. In the same way, sometimes it is best to not actively resist evil people. It lets them know you are their enemy, whereas if you let them think you are no threat at all, you can retain your strategic advantage, and perhaps attack when it's absolutely necessary. So, if you can be flexible in your interpretation, it can work well, but if you are too literal about it, it sometimes works, sometimes not.

So, jesus said "turn the other cheek", I think that implies more than not resisting evil. It eludes to a lack of ego, or rather, self-identification with the whole human race instead of just this particular body. There might just be a part of the evil person that is not evil, but if you resist, and treat them as totally evil, they might never redeem themselves.
 
It's like if I said, you drunk asshole, you don't know shit, then a verbal fight ensues. We might never realize that there are similarities in our position. Instead, I redirect your comment towards what I'm trying to get across, and in doing so, find common ground.
 
spidergoat said:
It's like if I said, you drunk asshole, you don't know shit, then a verbal fight ensues. We might never realize that there are similarities in our position. Instead, I redirect your comment towards what I'm trying to get across, and in doing so, find common ground.
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Heh. The fact is, I'm a drunk asshole, and I don't know shit. You have me pegged.

Obviously, we just have very different concepts of what "not resisting" is.
I mean, avoiding blows blows until the attacker gets tired? then attacking with one blow in the right spot?
That, for me, is the definition of "resisting". You know, as an opposite of "taking blows blows until the attacker gets tired" and "never once attacking".

Oh, and we don't have to find common ground. We can just disagree, man. No big deal. I still love you.
 
Yes, that's why a fixed, rigid ideology will always have occaisions where it is the wrong thing to do, but if one is flexible, and smart enough to apply a principle where it is appropriate, you can always find the right thing to do.
 
Silas: No, M*W, seriously. You get a life. I'm fully on board with the idea that Jesus and Magdalen were married. But the idea that the bloodline of this peasant couple from Judaea was somehow maintained in secret even as long as Constantine's recognition of Christianity (which was when Christianity first achieved any kind of genuine authority) 250 years after the death of Jesus, let alone the two hundred more years before the Frankish Empire and the Merovingians were established in Gaul, is evident nonsense.
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M*W: From all the reading I've done, I just don't find anything alluding to Jesus and MM being a "peasant couple." Quite the contrary. MM was from the royal house of Benjamin, a woman of great wealth, probably in the shipping business, who funded Jesus's mission.
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Silas: In the 1st Century, Gaul was a semi-barbarian land entirely a fiefdom of the pagan Roman Empire. And Judaea had its own problems, what with the revolt in 66 and the destruction of the Temple in 70. The Franks were Germanic tribes who invaded in the 5th Century.
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M*W: I will agree with your history; however, there was commercial shipping trade going on between Jerusalem and parts beyond to the East to Gaul in years BC. Southern Gaul, Spain, Italy (whatever it was called, I forgot), was populated with Jews from Jerusalem as well as the Moors who didn't get pushed back by Charles Martel. Even Pontius Pilate and the Herodian family retired to Southern Gaul (France). I maintain that Jesus was not crucified due to MM's family connections with Herod's family. Even Jesus's mother was related to the Herodian Family, so there were many opportunities for Jesus to be let go.
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Silas: In addition to the inconceivably low probability of the bloodline of the most famous person in the world to have been maintained without break for 2,000 years in secret, that whole Priory of Sion thing was just a hoax anyway!
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M*W: Please provide other references to the hoax theory. Here's the genealogy of Jesus, taken from Bloodline of the Holy Grail: The Secret Genealogy of Jesus, by Laurence Gardner, starting with the first century AD, even though Gardner has traced backward into BC dates, I'll start with Jesus's and MM's lineage:

Jesus & MM - (1) Daughter named Tamar born 33AD in Jerusalem
b.7BC & 3AD (2) Son named Jesus II Justus born 37AD in Bethany?
married 30AD (3) Son named Josephes born 44AD in Gaul

Tamar & Clodomir (1) Son named Antenor
(1) Grandson named Ratherius
(1) GGSon named Richemer
(1) GGGSson named Odomar
(1) GGGGS named Marcomer
Marcomer & Athildis (1) GGGGGS named Clodomir
Clodomir & Basilda (1) GGGGGGS named Farabert
(1) GGGGGGGS named Sunno
(1) GGGGGGGGS named Hilderic
(1) GGGGGGGGGS named Bartherius
(1) GGGGGGGGGGS named Clodius
(1) GGGGGGGGGGS named Walter
(1) GGGGGGGGGGGS DagobertI
(1) G12S Dagobert II
(1) G13S Frotmund
(1) G14S Faramund
Faramund & Argotta (1) G15S Clodion
Clodion & Basina I (1) G16S Meroveus
Meroveus & Menira (1) G17S Childeric
Childeric & Basina II (1) G18S Clovis
Clovis & Clothilde (1) G19S & beyond Merovingian Dyn.

I hope this is somewhat accurate. The Merovingian Dynasty can easily be found online. So, considering a generation to be about 20 years, these folks were about 20 generations removed from Jesus and MM. Also, the children of Joseph of Arimathea also married into the royal houses of Europe. JofA was an uncle to Jesus and MM, from the royal Benjamins of Jerusalem. I believe he was a brother to Jesus's mother. The sons of Jesus & MM may have assumed other names as did many dynastic peoples.
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Silas: The Priory of Sion was established in 1956 by some anti-semitic extreme right wingers who happened to take the name of a monastic order which never had any influence and ceased to exist in 1617. All the supposed documentation making Leonardo and Isaac Newton members, was forged by them.
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M*W: But Leonardo's art holds secret clues about the genealogy of Jesus and MM, and he was able to slither them by the RCC who had commissioned most of them without penalty. I do believe the Priory of Sion was named by the Knights Templar, although I shall stand corrected on this. There are just too many clues not to lead anywhere significant, and I believe when they finally put them all together, it will destroy Christianity because they will either find Jesus's bones or the fact that he didn't die on the cross.

If you have any further information on this subject, I'd be interested in hearing it.
 
So if I find myself attacked, and the man is trying to rape me, and I can't run away, I should just give in and not defend myself?
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Although Jesus did say to turn the other cheek, he didn't say to bow in submission. Each situation demands a different response. It's usually best to turn the cheek when only material is at stake, but sometimes it's not just material. Also, self-defence is really the protection of non-violence. You're stopping someone from committing violence against you.
 
fadeaway humper said:
I mean, avoiding blows blows until the attacker gets tired? then attacking with one blow in the right spot?
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Simple. Don't resist while being raped. A meditation might help during the period. When the attacker gets tired, rape him back. :p
 
water said:
*She* is *in effect* the bad one.
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Morally bad? Many raped women actually come to the same conclusion as you. They blame themselves because they feel they somehow deserved it, or that they have been irreparably defiled by this evil. It's called "survivor's guilt", and it's usually the second thing cousellors have to address. The psychological effects of rape, or even of attempted rape, is the actual harm inflicted. That goes on long after any physical wounds have healed. (The first thing is the victim's fear of not being believed, that their experience was "not important").
"Some women say that they feel as though there is something wrong with them, something bad about them, which caused the rape to happen to them.

Almost all women who have been raped feel some guilt about it. They think of things they 'should' have done to stop the attack, such as 'if only I had screamed', 'if only I had locked the door', 'if only I hadn't accepted a lift from him'." (Myths about rape)

"While you would expect guilt and shame from women who were raped, it is amazing to discover even more guilt and shame in women who avoided being raped."​
Only the rapist causes the rape. The woman is innocent because she is innocent.
 
Back on topic, I think it might help for everyone interested to read this website: Escape from rape.
To hit or not to hit
Hitting someone is not in and of itself bad.

However, the problem is that you should never hit someone with any other purpose than to knock him out.

In other words: If you aren't striking to "deck him," don't hit him.

...

If you ask most police officers who they would rather face a criminal attempting to climb over them to escape or a drunk who wants to fight them, they will almost all say "the fighter." That's because someone who is attempting to fight you is going to do far less damage to you than someone who is dedicated to climbing over your face in order to escape. Also someone who is trying to fight you is predictable and easily overwhelmed.​
 
Absolutely defend yourself. There is most definitely precedence to defend oneself if attacked. There is certainly precendence to accept suffering as it comes, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with defending oneself when attacked. I am Christian, and I have been asked to speak about this. This is what I believe, and this is what my religion also believes.
 
Should Jesus have defended Himself when the priests and the guards pounced on Him in the garden, or when they crucified Him at Golgotha?

WWJD?

That's what we should do too.
 
Well, we have what Jesus said. We all say things, don't we.

Then we have what Jesus does. Jesus was angry with the Moneychangers for not packing up their tables simply because he made the request, and so he waded into them with a whip and smashed their tabltes.

Nice guy, huh?

Then we have the story about how the Pharisees had whipped this one small town into a hate-Jesus frenzy and they grabbed him and the mob was going to toss him over the side of a cliff. But Jesus, somehow, got away.

Okay.... how? How, if he did not in someways 'resist'.

Then we have Jesus on the way to being Crucified, and he lays a curse of destruction upon Jerusalem. Jesus was not beyond being a bit vindictive.

And then we have the Parables, and even the Sermon of the Mount which speak of Judgment. We need to remember that the Christian Notion of Universal Forgiveness began with Paul, and for probably no better reason then such an easy doctrine was easy to sell to the Greeks -- Paul did not care so much about Spiritual and Religious Truths as he was concerned about successful membership drives. More than one Parable speaks of Holy Retribution.

And regarding what Christ did have to say... turning the other cheak and all of that. Well, we must be careful about applying momentary tactics universally. When one's group is entirely outnumbered, then of course the order of the day is to bow down and show submission and to sneak quietly away, when to put up a fight would be to invite an inevitable slaughter. But what happens when the table turns, and the Christians suddenly outnumber the lions? Do you suppose that once a Community is primarily Christian that it still must put up with Secular and Atheisitic abuses? Certainly not! What does it mean for Christ to be King of Kings if Christ is not permitted to give the Orders?
 
Well if you die from an attack you didn't resist, you get to meet jesus sooner right?
 
water said:
Do not resist an evil person


So I am told here:





Now, let's cut the theoretical BS, talking about religious principles is talking about YOU AND ME, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.


So if I find myself attacked, and the man is trying to rape me, and I can't run away, I should just give in and not defend myself?

And, as it is in the nature of violent men, if they could get something once, they will come back for more.

According to you, Christians, I should let this man go on raping me whenever he pleases -- for I am not to resist an evil person?


YOU, Christians, ADSTAR, OKINRUS, JENYAR, LORI 7, CYPERIUM, BEYONDTIMEANDSPACE, MARC AC AND OTHERS, I don't know you all by name -- you are telling me that if I am to be a Christian, I am to let a man rape me and not defend myself?
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Melted Ice,

It should be quite evident to you by now. 'God' doesn't exist.
 
God's existence as an idea(l) is more than sufficient for many of our fellow humans to... do what they do with the notion.
 
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