The king in Matt 18v34 acts most cruelly by sending servant X to torture chambers. Servant X only sent servant Y to prison. The king failed to follow the advice of Matt 18v22 to forgive 70 * 7. The King failed to heed the advice in Matt 5v22 anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgement.
In any case the King does not do the most clever thing which would be something like looking at the reasons for the debt crises and trying to find solutions. The king should have sent in a business expert and trained up both X & Y into how to run a profitable company. The king should have restructured the debt so that they could both keep working and paying. Maybe Y could have done some work for X to repay what was due.
In the end the King, V34 commits a crime against humanity by torturing X. Why did the King let the debt of X get so large ? Why did the king not investigate the case and find out the Y owed X. Maybe there were other people who owed X. Maybe X & Y were suffering ill health or a downturn inthe economy?
The passage is only an example in poor management of a difficult situation. However maybe prison is a valid option to try to influence people into paying proper taxes. But if you believe that people should be treated well then the kings use of torture must be condemned
Monday, 28 November 2011
Sunday, 27 November 2011
Parable of the cruel, unmerciful king Matt 18v21-35
Parable of the unmerciful King Matt 18v21-35
You have a king who forgives the debts of a servant X, then that servant X went and demanded payment from servant Y who owed little and then put him in prison when Y couldn’t pay. The king then was furious when he found out about what X had done and put X in torture chambers until he could repay. The king ended up acting more cruelly than X-he had X tortured, but X only put Y in prison ( which even today is, in appropriate circumstances, viewed as acceptable )
Both servant X and king did not do the most intelligent, pragmatic thing because how is anyone going to be able to repay if they are in prison? The king should have looked at the reasons for the debt crises. He should have asked for a list of debtors to X and found Y owed money and investigated why Y couldn't pay. He could have been like the dragons den dragons and studied the businesses of X & Y to see why they were failing and what could be done to turn them around & make them successful. The king did have a justice system where friends could report the injustice & the king ordered Y released. In a modern world if someone can’t repay then you would have to restructure their repayments- less over a longer time or just accept that it is bad debt. Would a king who had been forgiving in the first place really turn and do the worst possible thing of torturing servant X? To what end? Maybe the torture would so traumatise X that he would never be able to work again and so repay the debt. Maybe the king knew that his demands were a bit on the high side so felt at ease with writing off some of the debt. The King needed to look into the reasons that X & Y couldn't pay. Ill health? A clever King would have looked for solutions to the debt crisis of both X & Y. Would X have been pushing his luck to ask for a loan to meet short term living costs? If servant X had been earning way more than enough then it wouldn’t have seemed necessary to act against Y. It is a problem in society if too many people refuse to pay their taxes or repay their loans; taxes pay for public services. There are issues about fairtrade. There are also issues about viability of the business. The passage reveals failure by each of the people mentioned to think fully & constructively. The Matt 18v21- story is monstrous. Maybe it can be a test to see if the reader would spot that the King was acting more cruelly than servant X and since that was preposterous and not in keeping with a king who at first forgave then you are supposed to realise that a loving Heavenly Father god would never act in that way? The king should have realised that it would take more than just writing off the debts of X & Y but they would also need living costs. Y could have worked for X to repay the money. There needs to be a way of getting the money off the debtor without resorting to prison and
You have a king who forgives the debts of a servant X, then that servant X went and demanded payment from servant Y who owed little and then put him in prison when Y couldn’t pay. The king then was furious when he found out about what X had done and put X in torture chambers until he could repay. The king ended up acting more cruelly than X-he had X tortured, but X only put Y in prison ( which even today is, in appropriate circumstances, viewed as acceptable )
Both servant X and king did not do the most intelligent, pragmatic thing because how is anyone going to be able to repay if they are in prison? The king should have looked at the reasons for the debt crises. He should have asked for a list of debtors to X and found Y owed money and investigated why Y couldn't pay. He could have been like the dragons den dragons and studied the businesses of X & Y to see why they were failing and what could be done to turn them around & make them successful. The king did have a justice system where friends could report the injustice & the king ordered Y released. In a modern world if someone can’t repay then you would have to restructure their repayments- less over a longer time or just accept that it is bad debt. Would a king who had been forgiving in the first place really turn and do the worst possible thing of torturing servant X? To what end? Maybe the torture would so traumatise X that he would never be able to work again and so repay the debt. Maybe the king knew that his demands were a bit on the high side so felt at ease with writing off some of the debt. The King needed to look into the reasons that X & Y couldn't pay. Ill health? A clever King would have looked for solutions to the debt crisis of both X & Y. Would X have been pushing his luck to ask for a loan to meet short term living costs? If servant X had been earning way more than enough then it wouldn’t have seemed necessary to act against Y. It is a problem in society if too many people refuse to pay their taxes or repay their loans; taxes pay for public services. There are issues about fairtrade. There are also issues about viability of the business. The passage reveals failure by each of the people mentioned to think fully & constructively. The Matt 18v21- story is monstrous. Maybe it can be a test to see if the reader would spot that the King was acting more cruelly than servant X and since that was preposterous and not in keeping with a king who at first forgave then you are supposed to realise that a loving Heavenly Father god would never act in that way? The king should have realised that it would take more than just writing off the debts of X & Y but they would also need living costs. Y could have worked for X to repay the money. There needs to be a way of getting the money off the debtor without resorting to prison and
Saturday, 19 November 2011
THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE
Zytigon |
Acts 23v8 & Matt 22v23 says that the Sadducees wisely thought there were no angels or spirits & no resurrection. It looks to me like the supernatural realm is a failed hypothesis but if I am mistaken then I trust that the grace of a loving good God would be sufficient for me and I have faith that nothing shall separate me from the Love that is god, neither threats written by ancient priests who thought a heaven was just above the sky Acts 1v9, nor mini dystopia, will convince me that a good God would ever ask for a human sacrifice or act more cruelly than any human is capable of. For I am convinced that in order to scale the heights of love it is necessary to jettison the damnable doctrine of hell, which is a clanging cymbal & resounding gong to religion and surely represents only the darkest imaginings generated by mans fears. Surely it would be preferable for the likes of Hitler to suffer a heart attack before committing dreadful atrocities and not at all fitting to do worse than him and send him & me to an eternal concentration camp.It is the zeitgeist of civilized nations to want to play a part in cultivating a society that protects one another from abuse and equips the vulnerable with the skills & resources to prevent it. The Bible is a collection of nightmares & dreams by people who saw through a glass darkly. There are greater concepts. (god)
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The great Herod scam.
Matt 2v2-12. Magi: "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?" Herod the Great:"I have no new baby sons, What can you be thinking of? Wait! A thought has just been placed in my head, could this be The Christ? Advisors, do you know anything of The Christ?" Advisors: "Would that be Jesus Christ of Nazareth who was crucified under the rule of your son Herod Antipas, 34 years after you died?" Herod: "Yes, that very one",
Advisors:" Follow the road to Bethlehem, there you will find him, just round the bend, at '3 Christ was born here St.' in the stable of 'Time for a quickie? Inn'. Herod to Magi;"Did you hear that? Now when you find Christ, return at once & tell me where he is, that I may do something that vaguely fits with a random verse of Septuagint".So off they set, fortunately there were cats eyes to follow as the star mentioned on the plans was bust & they'd also forgotten to note which constellation it was in.
When they arrived at the Inn they asked "Where is Jesus the miracle worker?" Innkeeper:" Sorry, you missed him, they had an appointment to fit in a random verse about Egypt", Magi: "Oh grief, I hope history will be kind to us" Innkeeper, "Yes slip me some prutah & I'll see that you get a glowing write up anyhow, but how you can call yourself wise or even astrologer , let alone astronomers & not mention which constellation the star was in is a mystery, you seem more like Roaming priests"
The people who made up Matt ch 2v9 forgot that following a real star would lead the Magi in a spiral path due to Earth turning [maybe that is why they gave up & asked the nearest King], but then they thought Earth was flat & stationary. They thought it was possible for a star to stay stationary but for that the planet would need to stop. Bethlehem is 6 miles south of Jerusalem. Why would they need a star to lead them there? Actually Matt 2v2 just says ' They saw his star in the east ' . Why would they think that a star in the sky signified a Jewish king being born ? V2 doesn't say they followed it to Israel, they just went to the captial because they thought that is where they would find a baby king. How come no one else in the world noticed the star? How come Herod & co didn't go outside and try to see the star or ask the Magi to point it out?
For a star to hover over a specific house it would need to have been in geostationary orbit round earth and very low. But more probably it needed to be a helicopter or angel but easiest to be fiction.
Advisors:" Follow the road to Bethlehem, there you will find him, just round the bend, at '3 Christ was born here St.' in the stable of 'Time for a quickie? Inn'. Herod to Magi;"Did you hear that? Now when you find Christ, return at once & tell me where he is, that I may do something that vaguely fits with a random verse of Septuagint".So off they set, fortunately there were cats eyes to follow as the star mentioned on the plans was bust & they'd also forgotten to note which constellation it was in.
When they arrived at the Inn they asked "Where is Jesus the miracle worker?" Innkeeper:" Sorry, you missed him, they had an appointment to fit in a random verse about Egypt", Magi: "Oh grief, I hope history will be kind to us" Innkeeper, "Yes slip me some prutah & I'll see that you get a glowing write up anyhow, but how you can call yourself wise or even astrologer , let alone astronomers & not mention which constellation the star was in is a mystery, you seem more like Roaming priests"
The people who made up Matt ch 2v9 forgot that following a real star would lead the Magi in a spiral path due to Earth turning [maybe that is why they gave up & asked the nearest King], but then they thought Earth was flat & stationary. They thought it was possible for a star to stay stationary but for that the planet would need to stop. Bethlehem is 6 miles south of Jerusalem. Why would they need a star to lead them there? Actually Matt 2v2 just says ' They saw his star in the east ' . Why would they think that a star in the sky signified a Jewish king being born ? V2 doesn't say they followed it to Israel, they just went to the captial because they thought that is where they would find a baby king. How come no one else in the world noticed the star? How come Herod & co didn't go outside and try to see the star or ask the Magi to point it out?
For a star to hover over a specific house it would need to have been in geostationary orbit round earth and very low. But more probably it needed to be a helicopter or angel but easiest to be fiction.
November 16, 2011 - 05:22 PM That will be shining right |
We three kings of orient are, Travelling in spirals as we follow a star, Why have we been led to Herod's home? That seems to us rather dim Oh star of wonder, star of night,Is anything in the Bible right? Read the book of Ken Humphreys And you will become, far more bright Also follow the wise words of astronomer Victor J. Stenger, to see the light. Matt 2v2 If the Magi came from Persia they would have needed a star in the west (not east,just wait til dawn?) for it to guide them to Jerusalem. Maybe the Magi were from Rome & looked toward Israel in evening & saw Jupiter in the east hanging over Jerusalem? The star had been so vague that they gave up & asked the nearest king for directions.Oddly Herod told them where to find Christ, then asked them to return to tell him were Christ was. Then the star became lazer guided and swung from low in the west to low in the south to lead them 6 miles south down the road to Bethlehem. So was it an angel or a satellite sucked back in time from 2011 or a bright idea? If an angel, then why did they say it rose? Were Magi in the habit of travelling at night?
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Friday, 4 November 2011
The Goddess of universalist atheism
, If there is a good Goddess, and if there is a heaven we will all be there. So see you there then ? If I find myself before some pearly gates then I expect that the unknown Goddess will greet us thus, " Welcome my poor darlings, I'm so terribly sorry for all the suffering you've had. Things just got out of control, I never intended it to end up like that, of course it's all my fault, do forgive me. Now if you all come along in, I've tell you the whole story. Don't worry, the nightmare is over, everything is going to be ok now. You see I was a bit bored so I asked my husband to get out and make a universe for our retirement. So there he is out pottering about one minute & the next he only just goes & blows himself up. Well, imagine my amazement at the unfolding of the universe & life on earth. Of course i was horrified at the suffering on earth but had to stand at the edge aghast & frustrated that I couldn't do anything due to not knowing how to enter that dimension. I have been absolutely appalled by some of the things people imagined we might have been like. It was one big accident you know, entirely unintentional. I would never have done hell. No, no, The people like Billy Graham who went stomping around declaring that damnable doctrine was a certainty were committing grave psycho logical abuse. Those who preached it were the ones most worthy of it. They should have been forgiving & non condemning. However it has been a very confusing experience for you, so hardly surprising that various daft theories developed. Oh well, thank god that is all behind you now.
The yes men of the doctrine of hell will possibly spend Aeons on the next planet as monkeys and we can throw bananas at them, or maybe they'll be donkeys and we'll ride them along the beach or maybe they'll be non poisonous snakes in the grass to avoid. Or maybe they'll be mice preaching sermons to each other: "Blessed are they who squeak for they shall inherit the cheese". Meanwhile those who recognize a higher morality,a more loving caring way than the Bible offers will reign as Queens & kings
The yes men of the doctrine of hell will possibly spend Aeons on the next planet as monkeys and we can throw bananas at them, or maybe they'll be donkeys and we'll ride them along the beach or maybe they'll be non poisonous snakes in the grass to avoid. Or maybe they'll be mice preaching sermons to each other: "Blessed are they who squeak for they shall inherit the cheese". Meanwhile those who recognize a higher morality,a more loving caring way than the Bible offers will reign as Queens & kings
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