2015-05-19
Pope Punchup
The Pope recently said that if his friend insulted his mother, he would resort to violence. Only against someone weaker than him of course. He wouldn't dare attack a guy stronger than him.
What a world we live in. Verbal insults require a violent reaction, while Iraqi men having their tongues cut out by Saddam requires no reaction at all. :-(
Christians (which the Pope claims to be) are meant to be following the example of Jesus Christ, ie turn the other cheek, love thy enemy and forgive trespassers even when they're nailing you to a fucking cross. Instead what we see from horrible Christians in places like South America is hatred of the totally innocent USA. This stupid religion needs to be abandoned.
Here is what a Christian SHOULD be doing. The problem in this world isn't a lack of self-reaction to provocations and an over-reaction to provocations to others. It's the exact opposite. People will over-react to provocations against them, ie their human rights are sacrosanct, but when it comes to provocations against others, they just yawn. This is a very bad philosophy creating a very bad world. The yardstick that should be used is that you should never react to a provocation unless you would also react to an identical provocation against a stranger.
There is a rule in computing - be generous in what you will accept, but be strict in what you produce. The same rule applies in human relations. If you want to live in a peaceful world, then start with yourself. Make a decision to allow as much provocation as you can withstand. ie if someone verbally insults you, walk away. Even if someone punches you in the stomach, you will only experience momentary discomfort and you will recover. WALK AWAY. This is your chance to be a Christian martyr! Although you definitely have a right to self-defence, you should not exercise that right, or at least take a long time before you exercise it, and only if other paths fail. But you SHOULD react if someone is about to chop off your hand or nail you to a cross. Why? Because you need that hand in order to defend the innocent. Also don't let anyone steal your money. Why? Because you need that money to help protect the innocent also.
If you want to react against human rights abusers, then act when you see someone else's human rights being abused. See here for an example. The other thing you can do if you are personally attacked is to report the problem to the authorities. You can be sure that the authorities won't over-react. In the case of Iraqi women being raped by their own government (Saddam) the authorities (the UN) just yawned. If you believe the authorities are not reacting to your problem adequately, then you should seek to change the authorities so that the problem is solved for everyone, not just yourself.
When I started Year 11 at school, I was determined that I wasn't going to fight. I hate fighting. I basically had about 1 fight every year at school. People would only leave me alone after I demonstrated I was willing to fight. I wanted to follow Jesus's example and not fight. I got valuable data from this exercise. I generally had a reputation for being a weakling. I didn't mind that. I was trying to be a pacifist, not a boxing champion. This led me to the point where someone smaller than me was trying to take over my locker (at boarding school). We almost came to blows, but I said "stop, you can have it". One of his friends, who I'd never had any dealings with at all, and bigger than me, and also who ludicrously claimed to be a Christian, punched me in the stomach and told me to not tell the teachers. The smaller guy still wouldn't leave me alone though, continually bullying me. Eventually I was talking to a teacher who asked me how things were going and I said I was being bullied. He told me that the natural reaction to that was to fight back, and that's what I needed to do. That is also the advice from prison. About 10 minutes later I returned to class, was bullied by the smaller guy, and I said if he wanted to fight me, he could do it here. He wanted to go to the toilets instead of the classroom so that the fight couldn't be broken up, and possibly so that he could get assistance from his friends. I refused and challenged him to fight right here. He relented and we fought. I was shocked that he managed to duck away from my punch, but as my arm extended, it made contact with his ear, and he complained about being hurt. I wrestled him to the ground and shortly after the fight was broken up. I was unscathed. These people underestimate my ability and think they can prove themselves on me.
Anyway, I resorted to violence after the authorities failed to react properly to my human rights abuses. America and Israel are in the same position. Neither country should need to resort to self-defence. After being attacked, in an ideal world they should have just said to the UN "please fix this problem". But sometimes it is the whole world that is wrong, not you. The US needs to resort to self-help because the authorities are grossly immoral and do not care about human rights abuses. In an ideal world, the US should only have to defend itself if the UN says "I'm sorry, we don't have the required capacity to protect you, could you please help us protect you?".
So that's the ideal path. Be slow to anger when your own human rights are being abused. But be quick to anger when someone else's human rights are being abused. If no-one comes to your aid when it is your human rights being abused, then you should consider the possibility that the abuse is not that great. If it was a great abuse, surely others would come to your aid? They would not allow that travesty to be conducted in their presence. They would take that affront personally, right? Just the same as you take the rape of Iranian girls by their dictator personally. You do, right? As I said, sometimes it is the world that is at fault, not you. But I can tell you that if I heard someone say something nasty to the Pope, I would not react with violence against them. I would just intercede with words, telling this person that they are being nasty. I might bite my tongue if the abuser was physically bigger than me though.
One other thing to note is the saying "for evil to prevail, all that it requires is that good men do nothing". This is the case with a country like Sweden. They are basically saying they don't give a shit what happens to anyone else except them. The Swedes are helping to make the world a nasty place. That is selfish and not what Christianity should be.
There was actually one guy at school, a big guy, who a couple of times interceded on my behalf, saying to one bully "what has he ever done to you?". I was very grateful for that. This guy was better than the authorities. The guy may as well have been called "America".
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What a world we live in. Verbal insults require a violent reaction, while Iraqi men having their tongues cut out by Saddam requires no reaction at all. :-(
Christians (which the Pope claims to be) are meant to be following the example of Jesus Christ, ie turn the other cheek, love thy enemy and forgive trespassers even when they're nailing you to a fucking cross. Instead what we see from horrible Christians in places like South America is hatred of the totally innocent USA. This stupid religion needs to be abandoned.
Here is what a Christian SHOULD be doing. The problem in this world isn't a lack of self-reaction to provocations and an over-reaction to provocations to others. It's the exact opposite. People will over-react to provocations against them, ie their human rights are sacrosanct, but when it comes to provocations against others, they just yawn. This is a very bad philosophy creating a very bad world. The yardstick that should be used is that you should never react to a provocation unless you would also react to an identical provocation against a stranger.
There is a rule in computing - be generous in what you will accept, but be strict in what you produce. The same rule applies in human relations. If you want to live in a peaceful world, then start with yourself. Make a decision to allow as much provocation as you can withstand. ie if someone verbally insults you, walk away. Even if someone punches you in the stomach, you will only experience momentary discomfort and you will recover. WALK AWAY. This is your chance to be a Christian martyr! Although you definitely have a right to self-defence, you should not exercise that right, or at least take a long time before you exercise it, and only if other paths fail. But you SHOULD react if someone is about to chop off your hand or nail you to a cross. Why? Because you need that hand in order to defend the innocent. Also don't let anyone steal your money. Why? Because you need that money to help protect the innocent also.
If you want to react against human rights abusers, then act when you see someone else's human rights being abused. See here for an example. The other thing you can do if you are personally attacked is to report the problem to the authorities. You can be sure that the authorities won't over-react. In the case of Iraqi women being raped by their own government (Saddam) the authorities (the UN) just yawned. If you believe the authorities are not reacting to your problem adequately, then you should seek to change the authorities so that the problem is solved for everyone, not just yourself.
When I started Year 11 at school, I was determined that I wasn't going to fight. I hate fighting. I basically had about 1 fight every year at school. People would only leave me alone after I demonstrated I was willing to fight. I wanted to follow Jesus's example and not fight. I got valuable data from this exercise. I generally had a reputation for being a weakling. I didn't mind that. I was trying to be a pacifist, not a boxing champion. This led me to the point where someone smaller than me was trying to take over my locker (at boarding school). We almost came to blows, but I said "stop, you can have it". One of his friends, who I'd never had any dealings with at all, and bigger than me, and also who ludicrously claimed to be a Christian, punched me in the stomach and told me to not tell the teachers. The smaller guy still wouldn't leave me alone though, continually bullying me. Eventually I was talking to a teacher who asked me how things were going and I said I was being bullied. He told me that the natural reaction to that was to fight back, and that's what I needed to do. That is also the advice from prison. About 10 minutes later I returned to class, was bullied by the smaller guy, and I said if he wanted to fight me, he could do it here. He wanted to go to the toilets instead of the classroom so that the fight couldn't be broken up, and possibly so that he could get assistance from his friends. I refused and challenged him to fight right here. He relented and we fought. I was shocked that he managed to duck away from my punch, but as my arm extended, it made contact with his ear, and he complained about being hurt. I wrestled him to the ground and shortly after the fight was broken up. I was unscathed. These people underestimate my ability and think they can prove themselves on me.
Anyway, I resorted to violence after the authorities failed to react properly to my human rights abuses. America and Israel are in the same position. Neither country should need to resort to self-defence. After being attacked, in an ideal world they should have just said to the UN "please fix this problem". But sometimes it is the whole world that is wrong, not you. The US needs to resort to self-help because the authorities are grossly immoral and do not care about human rights abuses. In an ideal world, the US should only have to defend itself if the UN says "I'm sorry, we don't have the required capacity to protect you, could you please help us protect you?".
So that's the ideal path. Be slow to anger when your own human rights are being abused. But be quick to anger when someone else's human rights are being abused. If no-one comes to your aid when it is your human rights being abused, then you should consider the possibility that the abuse is not that great. If it was a great abuse, surely others would come to your aid? They would not allow that travesty to be conducted in their presence. They would take that affront personally, right? Just the same as you take the rape of Iranian girls by their dictator personally. You do, right? As I said, sometimes it is the world that is at fault, not you. But I can tell you that if I heard someone say something nasty to the Pope, I would not react with violence against them. I would just intercede with words, telling this person that they are being nasty. I might bite my tongue if the abuser was physically bigger than me though.
One other thing to note is the saying "for evil to prevail, all that it requires is that good men do nothing". This is the case with a country like Sweden. They are basically saying they don't give a shit what happens to anyone else except them. The Swedes are helping to make the world a nasty place. That is selfish and not what Christianity should be.
There was actually one guy at school, a big guy, who a couple of times interceded on my behalf, saying to one bully "what has he ever done to you?". I was very grateful for that. This guy was better than the authorities. The guy may as well have been called "America".
# posted by Paul Edwards @ 14:41 
