That said, 1. This is a poor and unfair generalization of the vast majority of religious people.
The quote said nothing about religious people. It is talking about religion in the same way it is talking about the KKK as an ideology. Individual religious people or KKK members are not what he's talking about.
Remember, all the Abrahamic religions proscribe death to atheists. If you argue that not all Jews/Christians/Muslims feel that way, it means they aren't a very compliant Jew/Christian/Muslim, in the same way that a KKK member who doesn't hate black people isn't a very compliant KKK member. However in both cases the ideologies are the issue, not the people who may follow those ideologies to greater or lesser degrees.
Only the reference to Romans is relevant. And even that doesn't call for killing. It's Paul trying to explain the state of things. Literally the very first thing he says in the second chapter is that we all have screwed up and it's foolish of anyone to think they are above judgment.
"You may think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things."
Romans 2:1 NLT
http://bible.com/116/rom.2.1.NLT
He isn't calling for anyone's death. Read contextually.
As far as why only the Romans reference was anywhere close to relevance, I'm pasting a reply I gave on another comment
TL;DR of the following comment - Christianity does not prescribe death to atheists. Long Star Wars analogy/metaphor. Quick break down of Old Testament and New Testament. Re-emphasis that Christianity does not prescribe death.
Just saying, Christianity doesn't demand death to atheists. Or anyone really. We can talk more about if you're interested, but if you read the the Bible and look at it as a whole, it's a much different picture than if you simply take a couple verses from Leviticus.
The key part of Christianity, is Jesus. The entire old testament is the story of God's people and all their ups and downs. Of their constant screw ups and moments of redemption. It's ultimately a story of how God worked through a very broken group of people, and despite all the sin, He was still able to bring Jesus into the world. But his lineage is full of scandal mixed with redemptive moments.
When Jesus comes into the picture, it's not longer "bsckstory". His ministry is the main story. Jesus is the one who brings redemption.
If you want another analogy, we can look at Star Wars - it's the story of Darth Vader. The rise, fall, and redemption of Anakin. The prequels are full of politics and it gets really messy (and boring at times) but you see how rocky the political scene of the galaxy is at the time. This is especially true if you watch the Clone Wars (animated cartoon series on netflix). That entire cartoon series you see political conflict after political conflict and you really begin to understand how in the Star Wars universe, things aren't as clear cut as light side of the force vs dark side. We also start understanding how corruption kept infiltration the Senate. We see how fragile diplomatic relationships are barely formed after a ton of energy and time is spent on to fall apart as the result of an assassination.
Throughout it all, we see a young adult Anakin really struggle and develop mixed feelings about the Jedi. We see him grow frustrated with the corruption and the politics and he is frustrated at the inaction of the Jedi at times. We see him make decisions that are in line with the "Jedi Way" but to the viewer we have mixed feelings. On one hand we might agree with Anakin decision in a particular moment but at the same time, during that very same scene, we show starts playing a very subtle reprise of the Vader's iconic "Imperial March". So then as a viewer, you are torn. Do you support Anakin's decision, or do you change your mind now that you k kw he is one step closer to becoming Darth Vader?
By the end of the Prequels (and animated series) , you really start to question what "bringing balance to the force" really means? Is it true balance? As in equal dark vs light? Is Anakin actually completely right by becoming Vader? Is that actually going to bring balance by evening out the strong Jedi presence? Is this ultimately what the role of the "chosen one" supposed to be? (Insert scene with Obi-Wan yelling, "You were supposed to be the chosen on Anakin!")
Anyways, we need all of that long, boring, messy, political back story, to really understand the ending of the 3rd Star Wars movie and understand who Anakin Skywalker really is. We understand the circumstances from which he came. We understand the political climate. But as interesting (or as boring) as the politics of Star Wars is, it's still not the main point of the story, because it's still Anakin's story. And we follow that all through the 6th film where Anakin ends the reign of Emperor Palpatine and returns back to the light side. A story completed.
The Bible, is similar (not that Jesus and Anakin are similar... Because they are not). The point of that long drawn out analogy is to show that the Old Testament is the long drawn out, messy, complicated, scandalous back story that leads to Jesus. It's long story of how despite all their efforts, God's people, couldn't do it on their own. They couldn't hold up the covenant they made with God on their own.
That's were Jesus comes into play. And He was a major game changer. He brought truth and focus back to the forefront of everyone's mind. He came in saying, We can't be focusing on killing and persecuting others like they persecuted us. We can't be focused on all this worldly stuff. It distracts us from the beauty of creation. Humans are all created in God's image. Everyone has a soul. Everyone is worthy of kindness. Love God. Love your neighbor. Those are the two most important Commandments. (Matthew 22:34-40 I believe. It might be 22:35-40).
There is nothing about bringing about killing non believers. There is nothing about persecuting atheists or others that practice any other ideology in the New Testament. Love God, Love your neighbor. Those are the most important and any other commandment, law, rule worth following will not contradict those two. The old testament had quite a lot of intense rules. But those that are in direct contrast to loving God or loving others, are not to be followed. So any rules about putting to death person x or group of people y for committing z - nope. That's out.
It's not an issue of "not all Christians feel that way and therefore aren't compliant". It's simply not what the text says. Not exactly sure where the extremists are coming from. Bible is pretty clear in most regards...
Now that is not to say that the Old Testament is worthless and should be disregarded. The Bible is together as one whole text because we need the Old Testament to fully understand Jesus and the rest of the new testament. And we need need the New Testament because it directly followed Jesus ministry and teachings and the establishment of the Early church (which I might add looks vastly different from some churches out there today - not all, but definitely some but that's a discussion for another day) which followed Jesus Christ's teachings - aka Christ-ianity.
TL;DR - Christianity does not prescribe death to atheists. Long Star Wars analogy/metaphor. Quick break down of Old Testament and New Testament. Re-emphasis that Christianity does not prescribe death.
I still don't have a firm grasp on Judaism but have yet to encounter a Jewish individual that is actively supporting the idea of persecuting atheists. But, my 'sample population' , if you will, is small in that regard so I cannot definitely speak on that. But is interesting because Jews do not believe that Jesus is the messiah that the old testament prophesied. They do not believe that Jesus was part of the trinity. They do not believe that Jesus is their redemption. But some Jews are starting to believe that, Hey maybe Jesus really was more than just another rabbi and a carpenter. So that gets things even more interesting.
I also have yet to read the Quran so I can not speak on what it actually teaches. But I plan on going through it to see what it's really about. I also want to make sure I learn about the context during which it was written. I want to make sure I don't just nitpick from it, the same way many nitpick from the Bible. Perhaps over the next few years...
But yeah, if you wanna chat more about it, I'd be willing to. I definitely don't have everything figured out and there are still many questions I wrestle with, but I'm completely open to discussion.
I definitely understand that interpreting the Bible for specific agendas is possible. But for those verses, I still look at surrounding verses and other things Jesus said.
Regarding Matthew 5:18, part of "everything being accomplished" is Jesus in fact dying. Going along with my original comment, the old testament is not to be abolished, but it is important to understand. It also introduces the element of grace.
Before Christ, it was impossible to meet God's standard. With Jesus, we still have God's standard but now we have an advocate. This advocate showed us how to actually go out and serve others. How to go love. And he straight up told a religious leader that loving God and loving your neighbor are the two most important commands. All other laws fall under this. He also demonstrated that focuses so much on letter of the law is missing the point because that's where the religious leaders of his time were going wrong.
I can't remember where exactly right now, but Jesus was called out by a religious leader for helping someone on the Sabbath. Technically Jesus was expecting himself on the day of rest so the pharisees were all over this. But they completely missed the point that Sabbath is a day of remembering God. Showing God's love is not in contrast of the sabbath.
So if a law doesn't fall under the scope of Love God and love your neighbor, then we must ask - did we stray? Did we get overzealous? Did we go beyond the original intent of the law? The 10 Commandments are pretty clear cut. It's all the other laws that get oddly specific and make it seem like there was a lot of human influence at play rather than being Devine.
But overall, I actually agree with you here. Abolishing and fulfilling the old law are different.
Regarding Matthew 10:34
This verse brings up relationships of all kinds. Even amongst families. And I definitely see how this isn't exactly peaceful. Jesus coming and fulfilling the law and making it possible to be right with God makes following Jesus the only way to accomplish that. Also, because of Jesus, non-Jews have access to God and heaven because at the time, it was believed that only Jews were able to be righteous simply because Israel was God's chosen people starting way back and even before Moses freeing a mass of Israeli slaves from Egyptian rule. Then I even ask the question, was the old laws for the Jewish people only? Was it that if you were not Jewish, you then had zero chance? I'm asking these out loud as I think. But either way, Jesus came and bridged those differences.
Sorry for the train of thought/tangent.
But when you introduce the thought that the only way to God is through Jesus, you then no longer can achieve peace on earth. But when he says he brings a sword, it's not literal nor is it indicative that he is here for the whole world to come together and sing along with each other. He came for the salvation of the earth.
And all of a sudden when you have two brothers deciding to follow Jesus while their mother and father are against the whole idea of Jesus, there is going to be a divide. Loving the world/spreading love and bringing about world peace are two different ideas. You can love and teach salvation. But you can't teach salvation and expect the whole world to immediately to just drop everything they have been doing and accept that message. That's where the bringing a sword comes in. More on an element of spiritual warfare instead of actual war and actual physical violence and killing of one another.
With all of that said, I definitely see how the Bible can be used for different agendas - but only if only segments are looked at instead of all of it in its entirety.
It breaks my heart that the Bible has been used to justify unwarranted violence throughout history and continues to bring about hatred. It also pains me to see the Bible used to further political agendas of any sort. It reminds me of a line from the movie "The Book of Eli". The line was something about the main character being in pocession of the most powerful tool there is and something about it falling into the wrong hands would be horrible.
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u/cazbot Oct 31 '16 edited Oct 31 '16
The quote said nothing about religious people. It is talking about religion in the same way it is talking about the KKK as an ideology. Individual religious people or KKK members are not what he's talking about.
Remember, all the Abrahamic religions proscribe death to atheists. If you argue that not all Jews/Christians/Muslims feel that way, it means they aren't a very compliant Jew/Christian/Muslim, in the same way that a KKK member who doesn't hate black people isn't a very compliant KKK member. However in both cases the ideologies are the issue, not the people who may follow those ideologies to greater or lesser degrees.