I think this gent radically misunderstands the moral teachings of Jesus. I don’t have time to go all the way through the videos, but here are my thoughts on the first five minutes.
(I think a good start for understanding the ethics of the New Testament is Richard Hays’s text, “The Moral Vision of the New Testament.”)
1. He is right to view Jesus as teaching a form of nonresistance, but he is wrong about the nature of that nonresistance, as well as the scope of its application. The “nonresistance” spoken of in Mt. 5 isn’t a passivity, but a subversive refusal to return evil in kind. (The Greek term translated “do not resist” is anthisteimi, is reflexive and necessarily proportional in scope.) Jesus makes this clear by the examples he chooses: to turn the other cheek wasn’t, at the time, a cliche, as it has now become. It referred to being struck on the right cheek (meaning, in the culture, a backhand blow, such as a master would issue to a slave, or a father a child), and told the one struck to “turn the other cheek,” which would force the one doing the insult and upholding the social order to either stop hitting you, or hit you a blow as an equal. It’s as much about asserting your own personhood as it is about refusing to kill the guy. The gent in the video is also wrong in the scope of the teaching, for it is not meant to apply to “everyone,” so that America would not enter WWII over it, but to the discipleship community only. The world isn’t going to fall apart because members of one religion, even a culturally significant religion, refuse to utilize violence in the attempt to fix the world. Most of the violence in the world comes from small groups who try to do exactly that.
2. Forgiveness in the teachings of Jesus is not an issue of personal “guilt” (a psychological concept that far post-dates the New Testament), but of concrete rightness of relationship between people. Forgiveness, for Jesus, cannot exist without the attempt at reconciliation. An example of a justice-system structured on Jesus’ ethic of forgiveness would be the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-apartheid South Africa. He is right, however, that atonement theology falls apart of Jesus was just a man and not one with God.
3. Jesus didn’t consider “Love your neighbor as yourself” his teaching, nor did he claim it to be original to him. He was explicitly citing Deuteronomy.
4. The idea that love for all destroys the idea of love is interesting, but lacks nuance. Everyone knows that there are different kinds of love, and that I love my wife, my pets and my family in totally different ways. As for self-hating people hating others, I think Mr. Breitbart is misunderstanding the implicit command, which is (as Augustine pointed out 1800 years ago; Mr. Breitbart is late to the party) to love yourself in a healthy way, and then extend that love.
Okay, here’s a little bit more.
5. For Jesus to “usher in a utopia” he has to become a political-military leader, because changes like women’s suffrage have to be instituted somehow. Ironically, the criticism here is that Jesus is being criticized for not being a tyrant.
6. It seems Mr. Breitbart has been reading a summary of Christian theology and not the actual texts. The foundation of our atonement theology is found in Anselm, who does not emphasize that Jesus’ death was significant because it was death, but that it was significant because it was the result of a life lived faithfully under God, as Adam and Even did not and subsequent people could not. It would not be “more impressive” if Jesus were just a man, because dying isn’t the point. At least not in mainstream Christian thought.
A guy who wanted to could make a full-length documentary exposing the evil of the words attributed to that Nazarene who may never have existed. Not that it would do any good — presenting evidence to a true bleever redoubles his commitment to his bleefs.
The title: “Madman or Something Worse”, is a false choice and while I find no evidence the man Jesus ever existed, I think this title sets the wrong tone and shows a bias from the start. I suspected he wasn’t going to be balanced in his arguments, even though I find it rather laughable people believe in gods, that they have sons or squeeze a bit off themselves to send to Earth as men (myths can drive you nuts!). And that candle holder and candles rearing up behind him really looks like someone giving the finger – at least that was my impression! lol He made the claim of himself; who would follow a man today who stood up and say: I am the son of god, follow me! He’d end up in a psych ward. Christ is more like a job title than a unique position; there were many christs (saviors) at the same time as Jesus is supposed to have lived. Morals: they are fluid and situational; we can’t really hold up what was moral in Jesus’ time to what we now consider to be moral/immoral which shows more that if the morals of the Christian bible come from an all-knowing perfect god, they’d be as pertinent today as they were two thousand years ago and they aren’t. We can’t judge Jesus by our moral standards today and that Brietbart makes this attempt goes against what he, himself, said in that the morals then are different than the morals today. Turn the other cheek can be seen as not so much about taking abuse without resistance but to not seek revenge … turn and walk away, don’t engage. Sins are the invention of religion and have no real meaning or power except that which we give it. Guilt may appear to be the flip side of the coin with sin but guilt is the name we give to a feeling of regret and that has nothing to do with gods or religion. The act of forgiveness, as the judge in Brietbart’s story, is the state forgiving the crime and doesn’t address the personal act of a victim forgiving. It’s tempting to meld the two but the court doesn’t speak for an individual in this manner; a judge speaks only for the state. Forgiving is the act of letting go and that’s not something we legislate. Brietbart also mixes up sin with crime; forgiving a ‘sin’ isn’t the same as forgiving a ‘crime’ though I suppose in the religious sense sins are crimes but we, as a society today, don’t haul into court before a judge people who have committed sins (and let’s hope we NEVER do). Love neighbors as self. I really don’t like pulling apart an argument that attempts to disprove god and/or Jesus but I can’t agree with Breitbart when he’s wrong. He’s again trying to make love homogenous then, he does a twist and has love the same as hate. We love food, people, songs … we don’t hold it out for just a special and fantastic few. He talks of love in one context then tries to apply that love (a deep abiding love for parent, spouse or child) to lobster. True, to require we love the one who murdered our mother as we would our mother is rather sick but I suspect there is a distinction made in what kind of love being asked for … but I can’t see or say it in any way that doesn’t come out as he said, vile. I know of no love, not brotherly love even, that I can extend to the person who killed my mother. My personal morals and ethics may dictate that this killer not be tortured because that would make me no different than him – I would, admittedly, entertain thoughts of killing this person who took from me someone I loved. Love is a very versatile word but when someone loathes themselves they aren’t exhibiting love; Breitbart does that twist whereby someone who hates themselves must hate others, according to the ‘love they neighbor as you would yourself’. He’s really violated logic with this one. Pain and suffering. I’m with Breitbart on this one but that’s because we aren’t god-believers and the good book points out that whole messy bit about free will (which is another subject for debate: if you believe in the Christian god you can’t also believe there is free will). So people made their choices and suffered or benefited from the consequences and god in no way was required to impart knowledge to his creations about how to prevent infections let alone how to alleviate pain (other than a good, stiff drink of wine!). Also have to agree with him on sex. Religion, though, seems to be all about almost hating sex. This isn’t the attitude of a god, but of mankind (or rather, a few who made vital choices in regard to what would and would not be allowed in the realm of sexuality). I rather like his view on Jesus’ death; and that Jesus was just a pinched off bit of the god then it wasn’t a sacrifice at all; more like when you and I trim our fingernails. Life after death came after it became glaringly obvious that no human could live forever (such as pharaohs who declared themselves gods and immortal) so instead of never dying here on Earth our bodies do stop but our souls go on forever: who can disprove we don’t go to heaven after death? Handy, isn’t it. As for the cancer patient; he painted just one reaction to being told of imminent death and he had the music to support that. But there are many other ways people can react to a death sentence … anger is one and if I’m going to die the what more do I care about your life or property. I could start a life of crime, brief as it might be. Or I could take out my angst on the doctor and throttle him right there. I could lose my sense of duty to family and spend every last dime on me … happy and free to experience the glorious few breaths in a way of my own choosing is just one response and I kind of doubt most people react that way. At least initially, but the point is there are many choices, not just the two he presents which are quite clear cut – black or white / comfort or truth … you CAN have truth AND comfort. Brietbart’s arguments fail for the most part because he continues through the entire program the false choice he sets at the start in the title. Torture after death for those who didn’t live for god … that’s a manmade state because people were like, Okay, I don’t’ believe in your god and won’t worship and I’ll die and that’ll be it: I’m okay with that. Well, can’t have people doing that! Enter: eternal torture: Hell. What a horrible thing to do to people in the name of god and, as he became to be known, a loving god at that (god was originally a vengeful god, love came later). Brietbart, I know no gods exist but your explanations fall way short of convincing … and I began watching agreeing with the statement that Jesus was just a man, if he ever existed at all, and that gods are created by man, not the other way around!
I do not agree with your guy; but there are plenty of other things about which we can talk. I hope you are having a good 4th of July holiday.
Comments (6)
Not a mad man but a very misunderstood man.
I think this gent radically misunderstands the moral teachings of Jesus. I don’t have time to go all the way through the videos, but here are my thoughts on the first five minutes.
(I think a good start for understanding the ethics of the New Testament is Richard Hays’s text, “The Moral Vision of the New Testament.”)
1. He is right to view Jesus as teaching a form of nonresistance, but he is wrong about the nature of that nonresistance, as well as the scope of its application. The “nonresistance” spoken of in Mt. 5 isn’t a passivity, but a subversive refusal to return evil in kind. (The Greek term translated “do not resist” is anthisteimi, is reflexive and necessarily proportional in scope.) Jesus makes this clear by the examples he chooses: to turn the other cheek wasn’t, at the time, a cliche, as it has now become. It referred to being struck on the right cheek (meaning, in the culture, a backhand blow, such as a master would issue to a slave, or a father a child), and told the one struck to “turn the other cheek,” which would force the one doing the insult and upholding the social order to either stop hitting you, or hit you a blow as an equal. It’s as much about asserting your own personhood as it is about refusing to kill the guy. The gent in the video is also wrong in the scope of the teaching, for it is not meant to apply to “everyone,” so that America would not enter WWII over it, but to the discipleship community only. The world isn’t going to fall apart because members of one religion, even a culturally significant religion, refuse to utilize violence in the attempt to fix the world. Most of the violence in the world comes from small groups who try to do exactly that.
2. Forgiveness in the teachings of Jesus is not an issue of personal “guilt” (a psychological concept that far post-dates the New Testament), but of concrete rightness of relationship between people. Forgiveness, for Jesus, cannot exist without the attempt at reconciliation. An example of a justice-system structured on Jesus’ ethic of forgiveness would be the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-apartheid South Africa. He is right, however, that atonement theology falls apart of Jesus was just a man and not one with God.
3. Jesus didn’t consider “Love your neighbor as yourself” his teaching, nor did he claim it to be original to him. He was explicitly citing Deuteronomy.
4. The idea that love for all destroys the idea of love is interesting, but lacks nuance. Everyone knows that there are different kinds of love, and that I love my wife, my pets and my family in totally different ways. As for self-hating people hating others, I think Mr. Breitbart is misunderstanding the implicit command, which is (as Augustine pointed out 1800 years ago; Mr. Breitbart is late to the party) to love yourself in a healthy way, and then extend that love.
Okay, here’s a little bit more.
5. For Jesus to “usher in a utopia” he has to become a political-military leader, because changes like women’s suffrage have to be instituted somehow. Ironically, the criticism here is that Jesus is being criticized for not being a tyrant.
6. It seems Mr. Breitbart has been reading a summary of Christian theology and not the actual texts. The foundation of our atonement theology is found in Anselm, who does not emphasize that Jesus’ death was significant because it was death, but that it was significant because it was the result of a life lived faithfully under God, as Adam and Even did not and subsequent people could not. It would not be “more impressive” if Jesus were just a man, because dying isn’t the point. At least not in mainstream Christian thought.
A guy who wanted to could make a full-length documentary exposing the evil of the words attributed to that Nazarene who may never have existed. Not that it would do any good — presenting evidence to a true bleever redoubles his commitment to his bleefs.
The title: “Madman or Something Worse”, is a false choice and while I find no evidence the man Jesus ever existed, I think this title sets the wrong tone and shows a bias from the start. I suspected he wasn’t going to be balanced in his arguments, even though I find it rather laughable people believe in gods, that they have sons or squeeze a bit off themselves to send to Earth as men (myths can drive you nuts!). And that candle holder and candles rearing up behind him really looks like someone giving the finger – at least that was my impression! lol
He made the claim of himself; who would follow a man today who stood up and say: I am the son of god, follow me! He’d end up in a psych ward. Christ is more like a job title than a unique position; there were many christs (saviors) at the same time as Jesus is supposed to have lived.
Morals: they are fluid and situational; we can’t really hold up what was moral in Jesus’ time to what we now consider to be moral/immoral which shows more that if the morals of the Christian bible come from an all-knowing perfect god, they’d be as pertinent today as they were two thousand years ago and they aren’t. We can’t judge Jesus by our moral standards today and that Brietbart makes this attempt goes against what he, himself, said in that the morals then are different than the morals today.
Turn the other cheek can be seen as not so much about taking abuse without resistance but to not seek revenge … turn and walk away, don’t engage.
Sins are the invention of religion and have no real meaning or power except that which we give it. Guilt may appear to be the flip side of the coin with sin but guilt is the name we give to a feeling of regret and that has nothing to do with gods or religion.
The act of forgiveness, as the judge in Brietbart’s story, is the state forgiving the crime and doesn’t address the personal act of a victim forgiving. It’s tempting to meld the two but the court doesn’t speak for an individual in this manner; a judge speaks only for the state. Forgiving is the act of letting go and that’s not something we legislate. Brietbart also mixes up sin with crime; forgiving a ‘sin’ isn’t the same as forgiving a ‘crime’ though I suppose in the religious sense sins are crimes but we, as a society today, don’t haul into court before a judge people who have committed sins (and let’s hope we NEVER do).
Love neighbors as self. I really don’t like pulling apart an argument that attempts to disprove god and/or Jesus but I can’t agree with Breitbart when he’s wrong. He’s again trying to make love homogenous then, he does a twist and has love the same as hate. We love food, people, songs … we don’t hold it out for just a special and fantastic few. He talks of love in one context then tries to apply that love (a deep abiding love for parent, spouse or child) to lobster. True, to require we love the one who murdered our mother as we would our mother is rather sick but I suspect there is a distinction made in what kind of love being asked for … but I can’t see or say it in any way that doesn’t come out as he said, vile. I know of no love, not brotherly love even, that I can extend to the person who killed my mother. My personal morals and ethics may dictate that this killer not be tortured because that would make me no different than him – I would, admittedly, entertain thoughts of killing this person who took from me someone I loved. Love is a very versatile word but when someone loathes themselves they aren’t exhibiting love; Breitbart does that twist whereby someone who hates themselves must hate others, according to the ‘love they neighbor as you would yourself’. He’s really violated logic with this one.
Pain and suffering. I’m with Breitbart on this one but that’s because we aren’t god-believers and the good book points out that whole messy bit about free will (which is another subject for debate: if you believe in the Christian god you can’t also believe there is free will). So people made their choices and suffered or benefited from the consequences and god in no way was required to impart knowledge to his creations about how to prevent infections let alone how to alleviate pain (other than a good, stiff drink of wine!).
Also have to agree with him on sex. Religion, though, seems to be all about almost hating sex. This isn’t the attitude of a god, but of mankind (or rather, a few who made vital choices in regard to what would and would not be allowed in the realm of sexuality).
I rather like his view on Jesus’ death; and that Jesus was just a pinched off bit of the god then it wasn’t a sacrifice at all; more like when you and I trim our fingernails.
Life after death came after it became glaringly obvious that no human could live forever (such as pharaohs who declared themselves gods and immortal) so instead of never dying here on Earth our bodies do stop but our souls go on forever: who can disprove we don’t go to heaven after death? Handy, isn’t it.
As for the cancer patient; he painted just one reaction to being told of imminent death and he had the music to support that. But there are many other ways people can react to a death sentence … anger is one and if I’m going to die the what more do I care about your life or property. I could start a life of crime, brief as it might be. Or I could take out my angst on the doctor and throttle him right there. I could lose my sense of duty to family and spend every last dime on me … happy and free to experience the glorious few breaths in a way of my own choosing is just one response and I kind of doubt most people react that way. At least initially, but the point is there are many choices, not just the two he presents which are quite clear cut – black or white / comfort or truth … you CAN have truth AND comfort. Brietbart’s arguments fail for the most part because he continues through the entire program the false choice he sets at the start in the title.
Torture after death for those who didn’t live for god … that’s a manmade state because people were like, Okay, I don’t’ believe in your god and won’t worship and I’ll die and that’ll be it: I’m okay with that. Well, can’t have people doing that! Enter: eternal torture: Hell. What a horrible thing to do to people in the name of god and, as he became to be known, a loving god at that (god was originally a vengeful god, love came later).
Brietbart, I know no gods exist but your explanations fall way short of convincing … and I began watching agreeing with the statement that Jesus was just a man, if he ever existed at all, and that gods are created by man, not the other way around!
I do not agree with your guy; but there are plenty of other things about which we can talk. I hope you are having a good 4th of July holiday.