Do not resist an evil person
- Thread starter water
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As you once said... meme supreme.
water said:
Kick him in the nuts, and ask for forgiveness later -- just kidding.
Just use common sense.
I can only imagine what would have happened in Sodom, if one of those "overly friendly street people" got a hold of one of the "men" angels at Lot's house -- like having sex with a wall socket.
Jenyar said:
That's not a meme, it's reality.
I agree, but someone's common sense depends a lot on the person they are, and the result will depend on what the circumstances dictate.Woody said:Kick him in the nuts, and ask for forgiveness later -- just kidding.
Just use common sense.
In Matt. 5:39, "do not resist an evil person" refers to someone who has already asserted power over you - when the eye or the tooth has already been taken, or the cheek has already been slapped, not to repay his evil with more evil, and reproducing the problem. Before you can do that, you will have to be governed by a commitment to non-violence and peaceful resolution, and any initial resistance should be towards that goal, not away from it. Someone who retaliates rather than defends seems more committed to violence than averting it. But defense or avoidance is not necessarily the same as retaliation or even conflict-causing resistance. After all, isn't turning the other cheek just a form of resistance designed to absorb violence instead of escalating it?
Studies in rape show that a "shared commitment to violence and a shared concept of aggressive masculinity" (Deming & Eppy, "The Sociology of Rape" Sociology and Social Research, 65(4) 1981:364) is characteristic of a culture of violence where rape is prevalent. Not to further such a culture means not to share its commitment to violent means and aggressive assertions of power. Especially since in rape the outcome of violent resistance is far from certain.
It emerges from this study that active resistance is unlikely to be effective in rape locations which are private, or with rapists who are extremely violent from the start of the rape. In these situations, psychological tactics may be more successful. However, in more public locations, active resistance may scare the rapist, who wishes to avoid detection. - Study by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation
But during rape, the victim is not in control of the situation anymore, and their personal preferences, about everything from sexual purity to non-violence, cease to have bearing (for the worse). "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone" (Rom. 12:18). But when the outcome ceases to depend on someone, whether they resist violently or are frozen in fear makes little difference to the rapist - as Deut. 22:26 says: it's like murder, and people should attempt to escape that. There is no other cheek to turn, and there's no point in arguing about what someone does or doesn't do under such circumstances, unless it means committing an equal or worse crime. Focusing on the victim's "will" in circumstances where that will was suppressed is a red herring, because it puts the emphasis on the victim's subjective state rather than on the criminal actions of the perpetrator.Either way, I think it's safe to say that there's no danger of the victim raping the rapist in resistance. We do have courts to recognize any injustice done by either party.
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Jenyar said:
If some guy tries to put his willie up my rear end, we're fighting to the death, because I'm putting my faith on the line. I'm a guy by the way. My famous last words, "Just treat me like you would treat Jesus." OK so he kills me with a bullet. Then I become a martyr like Rachel Scott in the Columbine High School Massacre. Rachel was asked at gunpoint if she believed in God. She said "yes", then she was killed.
You're right -- I'm not in control anymore, but God is. But if I let God be in control, the rape probably wouldn't happen to start with. I've never heard of a ministry for recovering christian rape victims that were letting God be in control when they were victimized. If God can protect Daniel in a den of lions, or Schadrech, Meshech, and Abidnigo in a fiery furnace, or Lot from a street full of sodomites, then he can protect me or anyone else as well that has faith in him. If he decides my time is up, like with Rachel Scott, then let it be.
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If some guy tries to put his willie up my rear end, we're fighting to the death, because I'm putting my faith on the line. I'm a guy by the way. My famous last words, "Just treat me like you would treat Jesus." OK so he kills me with a bullet. Then I become a martyr like Rachel Scott in the Columbine High School Massacre. Rachel was asked at gunpoint if she believed in God. She said "yes", then she was killed.
You're right -- I'm not in control anymore, but God is. But if I let God be in control, the rape probably wouldn't happen to start with. I've never heard of a ministry for recovering christian rape victims that were letting God be in control when they were victimized. If God can protect Daniel in a den of lions, or Schadrech, Meshech, and Abidnigo in a fiery furnace, or Lot from a street full of sodomites, then he can protect me or anyone else as well that has faith in him. If he decides my time is up, like with Rachel Scott, then let it be.
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Keep in mind that for every Daniel there were hundreds of Christians who were killed by wild animals in the collosseums because of their belief in God. God never promised to take us out of suffering, just to take the suffering out of us. While we're in the world, we will face the same storms that everybody else suffer from, and this "calls for patient endurance and faithfulness" (Rev. 13:10). Sin affects everyone equally.
John 16:33
"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
Reality isn't a cultural unit of information that propogates through people like a virus; thus, it's not a meme. Reality-based claims differ from 'God' based claims in one key element. Evidence.
You mean reproduceable evidence, observed from one particular perspective: the empirical one. And even such evidence had to be reinterpreted and re-evaulated throughout history - or people would have gotten everything right from the first observation. If the premises are wrong, so are the theories and the conclusions drawn from them. Contrary to the popular adage, evidence never speaks for itself, people interpret what they observe.
There would be no discernable difference between a "meme" passed on through generations of people who believe in a certain scientific theory or approach, or the meme passed on through generations of people who fervently hold to any other belief system. You have people sitting with what they believe to be the best explanation for what they have observed in both cases, and passing it on.
There would be no discernable difference between a "meme" passed on through generations of people who believe in a certain scientific theory or approach, or the meme passed on through generations of people who fervently hold to any other belief system. You have people sitting with what they believe to be the best explanation for what they have observed in both cases, and passing it on.
Jenyar said:
I do mean empirical evidence and not necessarily reproducible evidence. Take the background radiation of the cosmos. Certainly not reproducible, but very observable.
Jenyar said:
Yes, people do misinterpret evidence. That is why it's important to ask reality questions. Take some observations, model a theory, and test some predictions of the theory. If reality disagrees with the predictions then those predictons are incorrect; hence, the model is incorrect and has to be re-done.
Jenyar said:
You are absolutely correct in that any information can be meme-able and scientific theory is no exception. Religious beliefs are ALWAYS a meme; whereas, scientific theory are not always a meme; although, I don't know what their meme to non-meme ration might be.
Theories aren't absolute truths and anyone whom understands theories knows this. They are flexible and can be discarded / remodeled as new evidence surfaces. Let's look at M-Theory for example. In my opinion its a great model and I WANT it to be true; however, to date it has been virtually untestable. That changes in 2007 with the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) in Geneva. If LHC experiments falsify the theory's predictions then it might be back to the drawing board. If they agree with and falsify some predictions then the theory can be remodeled. At some point a really good theory may have so much supportive evidence that the core idea behind it can be considered definitively true, but the details may be under constant remodeling.
Either way, a belief doesn't share that flexibility. It's is a claim of absolute truth and is bound to a person's sense of self so tightly that to contradict it threatens the life / self-worth of the individual. I suspect thats why they are so prone to meming.
Jenyar said:
Really? They were killed because of their belief in God? You think the Romans went and checked each one of them whether he believed in God, before they threw him to the lions?
And how could the Romans (who weren't Christians) be able to tell who is a Christian by Christian criteria?
(Note that, as per you, a Christian is a Christian only by Christian criteria, the criteria proposed by Christians. The Romans didn't subscribe to that criteria, did they?)
Those who were thrown to the lions for being Christians directly confronted the empire by openly claiming to be Christians and denying the state gods. This means that anyone thrown to the lions for being a Christian either was actually Christian or had a death wish.
If only firsthand experience of the topic at hand qualifies someone to discuss it on this board, then we aren't having very many qualified discussions.
water said:
Sounds like you have a different perception of yourself... a frozen victim perhaps?
water said:
You are right on both accounts. The 'God' I am referring to is any religion's claim of 'God'. Thousands of years (and longer) of claim with no supportiing evidence and a steady influx of contradictive evidence as a whole definitively contradicts any religion's claim of 'God'; hence, they are all false.
Are you just disagreeing for the sake of disagreement? Haven't you read Pliny's letter to Trajan, for example? His test was simple enough: he tested the strength of their allegiance to God. You don't have to be a Christian to read the Bible, which explains what is expected of them. Jesus said: "Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven", so Pliny dictates a prayer to the Emperor and the Roman gods, asks them to curse Christ, and lets them decide for themselves whether they're really Christian as it was defined by the person who put the "Christ" in "Christian".water said:
What kind of question is that? You haven't experienced x so you're not qualified to talk about x... that's a bit childish, isn't it? If experience is so required, I might ask in return "have you ever raped anyone, to know what a rapist thinks of resistance and violence"? Because that was my topic. The information in the study I cited comes mostly from rapists, and examines evidence from actual cases.
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Crunchy Cat,
I was referring more to the reproducability of the observations. That's what prevents someone from reverifying eye-witness accounts. Suppose that the evidence described in the Bible was witnessed by those who claimed to witness it, then there was evidence, and it would be rational to believe it (and important to carry it down to future generations). I know you don't believe in the trustworthiness of those laymen as you believe in the trustworthiness of our cosmologists and physicists, but that's the only reason you don't think there's any evidence.
I was referring more to the reproducability of the observations. That's what prevents someone from reverifying eye-witness accounts. Suppose that the evidence described in the Bible was witnessed by those who claimed to witness it, then there was evidence, and it would be rational to believe it (and important to carry it down to future generations). I know you don't believe in the trustworthiness of those laymen as you believe in the trustworthiness of our cosmologists and physicists, but that's the only reason you don't think there's any evidence.