To kill or not to kill that is the question

[TG123]

We are to love our personal enemies, but kill the enemies of Jesus.

Unfortunately for you, the Bible does not say that. Better luck next time.

 

[Blackguard_]

I agree. Pacifists who just stay at home and twiddle their thumbs and never try to live out their practices are wimps and losers.

That's true, but I didn't mean who don't do activism and the like, but those who don't object to military or police service, especially as in them personally serving and killing enemy soldiers/criminals. These types don't usually self identify as pacifists, but they preach pacifism in private life.

Actually, it was both. Why do you think He said "those who live by the sword will die by the sword"? If it was only a matter of trying to prevent what Christ came to do, He would have just needed to mention the part about Him having the power to command angels to save Him.

He was pointing out that people have a tendency to die in fights, and that there was no need to fight as it would prevent his mission. It was about not getting killed fighting pointlessly, not a blanket condemnation of violence.

People die by swords who don't even have one all the time, and he never says dying by the sword is a particularily bad thing.

Not mentioned. But they do encounter angry mobs and Roman soldiers, as well as a zealot who arrested whole families and took them away to be killed. How's that for standing up for your wife? Saul arrested and persecuted both men and women. According to your logic, the husbands should have defended their wives, not allowed the whole families to be butchered or their children to become orphans. There is no record of them doing that.

There's a reason I asked about common criminals. Being killed by bandits and the like is not martydom.

If He would have wanted His disciples to use swords to kill enemies, He would have said so

Can you think of a more likely reason he told them to carry swords?

He said earlier on they are to be loved

Now we're back to you loving the assailant more than your family.

Jesus also said to love our neighbors, and he doesn't say to love them less than enemies.

and that the correct response is non-violent resistance like turning the other cheek.

Let's say someone with a knife attacks your wife , how would you suggest she "turn the other cheek"?

There is a difference between what the word of God and says and doesn't say, and what you wish it did or didn't.

Yep. You so desperately want Jesus to have said to carry a deadly weapon carried for personal defense for a purpose other than use as a weapon despite not even a hint of that.

Why didn't Jesus inform Peter and the at least one other armed disciple of this cryptic purpose?

 

[TG123]

That's true, but I didn't mean who don't do activism and the like, but those who don't object to military or police service, especially as in them personally serving and killing enemy soldiers/criminals. These types don't usually self identify as pacifists, but they preach pacifism in private life.

Yeah, another category of wimps are conservatives who back war but would never go to war themselves or send their kids off to war. Like Cheney and the Bushes.

He was pointing out that people have a tendency to die in fights, and that there was no need to fight as it would prevent his mission.

Can you back that up with Scripture?

It was about not getting killed fighting pointlessly, not a blanket condemnation of violence.

He condemned using violence in other parts of the New Testament.

People die by swords who don't even have one all the time, and he never says dying by the sword is a particularily bad thing.

But He did make it clear that we are to turn the other cheek. So using a sword to fight others would be defiance of Him and therefore definitely a bad thing.

There's a reason I asked about common criminals. Being killed by bandits and the like is not martydom.

How do you know that the command to turn the other cheek did not refer to situations involving criminals?

BTW if turning the other cheek only applies to situation involving martyrdom and not turning it only to situations involving ordinary crime, then the war on terror is unBiblical since the fundamdentalists hate us for religious reasons (and the fact we kill and support killing of innocent people across the middle east via wars we wage, proxy wars, dictators).

Can you think of a more likely reason he told them to carry swords?

Fighting off wild animals? I don't know. I know they weren't meant to be used against people.

Now we're back to you loving the assailant more than your family.

Another unsubstantiated claim. Why are you saying I'd love the assailant more than my loved ones? That would be like me saying you are a Nazi because Hitler supported using violence and so do you... equally stupid allegations.

Jesus also said to love our neighbors, and he doesn't say to love them less than enemies.

Actually, Jesus said that it is not OK to love one and hate the other. You need to love them both.

Matthew 5:43-45
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[i] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

Let's say someone with a knife attacks your wife , how would you suggest she "turn the other cheek"?

As her husband I would leap in front of her and try to restrain him or die trying while she would make an escape. I wouldn't allow her to be in that situation.

How can you love your enemy while you are shooting him in the head?

Yep. You so desperately want Jesus to have said to carry a deadly weapon carried for personal defense for a purpose other than use as a weapon despite not even a hint of that.

You so desperately want Jesus to have said to kill your enemies that you will overlook the passages where He says to love them and to turn the other cheek, and will claim He said killing is ok when He never did. Augustine and Luther probably performed similar theological gymnastics to draw their unBiblical conclusions.

Why didn't Jesus inform Peter and the at least one other armed disciple of this cryptic purpose?

When He told Peter to put his sword away I don't know if it could have been any more clear that He does not want violence to be used. Peter got it, in fact there is no record of him or any of the other disciples using violence against people again anywhere in the New Testament. Hundreds of years later, Augustine didn't.

 

[interpreter]

Unfortunately for you, the Bible does not say that. Better luck next time.

It certainly does. Read Mat. 5:44 and Luke 19:27

 

[Blackguard_]

Can you back that up with Scripture?

“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”

-Matthew 26:52-54

He condemned using violence in other parts of the New Testament.

He was condemning revenge. "Turn the other cheek" was his response to people thinking "an eye for an eye".

But He did make it clear that we are to turn the other cheek. So using a sword to fight others would be defiance of Him and therefore definitely a bad thing.....How do you know that the command to turn the other cheek did not refer to situations involving criminals?

I don't think it refers to lethal or severe physical attacks, such as the violence criminals offer.

What Jesus said to turn the other cheek too was a slap, a slap, much more an insult than a physical attack, and the context was personal revenge.

Hardly the same thing as someone intent on carving you up for your wallet.

BTW if turning the other cheek only applies to situation involving martyrdom and not turning it only to situations involving ordinary crime, then the war on terror is unBiblical since the fundamdentalists hate us for religious reasons (and the fact we kill and support killing of innocent people across the middle east via wars we wage, proxy wars, dictators).

No, turning the other cheek doesn't apply to martyrdom. You aren't turning the other cheek by refusing to renounce Christ.

Fighting off wild animals?

That's probably part of it actually.

Another unsubstantiated claim. Why are you saying I'd love the assailant more than my loved ones?

Because you would choose the life of the assailant over the lives of your loved ones.

If you can say I hate the assailant for choosing my loved ones lives over his, how can you not love your loved ones less for choosing the assailant's life over theirs?

Actually, Jesus said that it is not OK to love one and hate the other. You need to love them both.

So why are loving your enemy more than your neighbor? He never says to do that.

As her husband I would leap in front of her and try to restrain him or die trying while she would make an escape. I wouldn't allow her to be in that situation.

I should have been more clear on the sort of scenario I had in mind. She is alone, and running away is not an option. The point is that you don't get to be the hero.

How do you suggest she turns the other cheek? I see from what you posted to Mindflight that you know Jesus was not talking about meek submission or resignation.

How can you love your enemy while you are shooting him in the head?

How can you love your neighbor by not stopping him?

You so desperately want Jesus to have said to kill your enemies that you will overlook the passages where He says to love them and to turn the other cheek,

I don't overlook them. I just seem to understand them very differently than you do, especially turning the other cheek.

When He told Peter to put his sword away I don't know if it could have been any more clear that He does not want violence to be used.

Again, he doesn't tell Peter to get rid of his sword, and he didn't want violence used in that specific situation, he was not saying to never use violence ever.

Peter got it, in fact there is no record of him or any of the other disciples using violence against people again anywhere in the New Testament.

No, but there is also no record of them facing any but a very narrow sort of religiously motivated violence.

There are no recorded "martyrdoms" to bandits.

 

[disciple2011]

Whenever people use that, "a robber's about to kill your family" scenario, why is the attacker always nigh invincible, where only a bullet to the head can stop them? People who get shot don't even die most of the time anyway. It's a fake scenario.

The situation is a bit of fallacious argument known as appeal to fear.

It is often used by people who want to still be ruled by the Law of The Jungle.

It is why I do not answer when it is used. As that only encourages more specious conversation.

 

[Chris81]

I believe that it is alright for you to kill anyone who would dare to question my name!

 

[Blackguard_]

The situation is a bit of fallacious argument known as appeal to fear.

No, it's a reductio ad absurdum argument, taking pacifism to it's logical conclusion of valuing the lives of predators over your loved ones.

To be an appeal to fear would be to assume the pacifist has not considered such a scenario or thinks such a scenario impossible.

It is often used by people who want to still be ruled by the Law of The Jungle.

You're the ones who want the world ruled by the strongest predators.

I'm in favor of the weak having the right and the means to fend off the strong. I hate the Law of the Jungle.

 

[circa02]

What if the intruder whose about to kill your family is wearing a vest that's set to explode if it's shot? Have some compassion for the neighborhood.

 

[Tuddrussell]

What if the killer had a vest that would explode if he WASN'T shot?

 

[circa02]

Ahh, now you get it.