Unfollowable Rules in the New Testament

Kitsune · Post by **Kitsune** » 2008-06-09 07:36pm

What rules in the New Testament are literally unfollowable in the New Testament in this groups opinion.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2008-06-09 07:49pm

Surely the "you commit murder/adultery by thinking about murdering/having sex with someone" rule from the Sermon on the Mount counts, since by thinking about it, you commit murder. There's also Luke 19:37 which directly contradicts the golden rule and being a good Samaritan, not to mention any sort of decent set of ethics. Selling the shirt off your back and giving all your money to the poor/buying a sword is absolutely preposterous. Becoming a Eunuch for the Lord is pretty rare. I'm not in the state of mind to go finding those examples, but they are there.

Kitsune · Post by **Kitsune** » 2008-06-09 07:55pm

I think I found another already myself, Matthews 5-33 to 5-36

PainRack · Post by **PainRack** » 2008-06-10 01:09am

I think the Soviet Union amply shows how Luke and his communism wouldn't work for society at large.

God Fearing Atheist · Post by **God Fearing Atheist** » 2008-06-11 03:48am

Zuul wrote:There's also Luke 19:37 which directly contradicts the golden rule and being a good Samaritan, not to mention any sort of decent set of ethics.

You mean 19.27?

That's not a prescription to follow; it's a Lucan addition about eschatological judgement, i.e. when the Kingdom fully arrives, the wicked will be punished.

The Evangelist may have had the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in mind.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2008-06-11 07:41am

God Fearing Atheist wrote:
Zuul wrote:There's also Luke 19:37 which directly contradicts the golden rule and being a good Samaritan, not to mention any sort of decent set of ethics.
You mean 19.27?

Yeah. Was drunk at time of posting.

That's not a prescription to follow; it's a Lucan addition about eschatological judgement, i.e. when the Kingdom fully arrives, the wicked will be punished.

Yeah, we all know eschatological christians are hard to come by.

Nevertheless, even if the eschaton was just around the corner, (or if you just believed it was) it would still be immoral (and, I would hope, impossible) to follow, wouldn't it?

The Evangelist may have had the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in mind.

No doubt.

God Fearing Atheist · Post by **God Fearing Atheist** » 2008-06-11 10:50pm

Zuul wrote:Yeah, we all know eschatological christians are hard to come by. Nevertheless, even if the eschaton was just around the corner, (or if you just believed it was) it would still be immoral (and, I would hope, impossible) to follow, wouldn't it?

What I mean is that the idea is not for Christians to go around killing people but a statement of belief that the wicked will be destroyed when, according to the Evangelist, Jesus returns as king.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2008-06-12 05:26am

God Fearing Atheist wrote: What I mean is that the idea is not for Christians to go around killing people but a statement of belief that the wicked will be destroyed when, according to the Evangelist, Jesus returns as king.

Yeah, and even if we assume the alternative interpretation never came up and was never followed, the christians are complicit in it and view it as a good thing, don't they? If you knew Jesus was going to return and rip shit up, would you be volunteering to bring people to him and slay them/let jesus slay them? If there was a part of Marxism that said "when the revolution comes, kill the bourgeois, the aristocrats and everyone that doesn't want to be ruled over by the proletariat" it'd be morally untenable to subscribe to such a philosophy, and the same applies to Jesus.

God Fearing Atheist · Post by **God Fearing Atheist** » 2008-06-12 03:42pm

But the question posed in the OP was about rules which are supposed to be followed, not aspects of Jewish eschatology our 21st century minds might find distasteful.

That was my point. It is not something Jesus expected his followers to do.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2008-06-12 04:04pm

God Fearing Atheist wrote:But the question posed in the OP was about rules which are supposed to be followed, not aspects of Jewish eschatology our 21st century minds might find distasteful.

That was my point. It is not something Jesus expected his followers to do.

What makes you think that, and what does it matter? He said in multiple places that whole towns would be destroyed for rejecting his message, and the end of the world would be in their lifetimes. "The world is ending and you will kill a shitload of unbelievers" is hardly uninterpretable from Jesus' sayings. Whether Jesus expected his followers to do it at the time is pretty minor in comparison to whether the rules could/should be followed in that given interpretation of the NT and whether the rule or message is fundamentally unethical and thus unfollowable for ethical entities.

God Fearing Atheist · Post by **God Fearing Atheist** » 2008-06-12 04:29pm

Look dude, i'm going to try to make this as clear as I can, and for the last time.

Luke 19.27 is part of a parable. This part of the parable is about the eschatological judgment of wicked. In Luke's view, when the eschaton arrived and Jesus ruled as king, those people who were outside of God's law would be destroyed. There is a good chance that this specifically refers to the Roman rampage in Jerusalem. It is not a prescription to be followed. It is not something the Lucan Jesus expected his followers to do.

You're free to think there is something wrong with a god that would destroy those who did not follow Jewish Law as (the Lucan) Jesus understood it. That's fine. But the question posed in the OP, and your inital response to it, was not asking/saying that.

It does not qualify as a rule that is unfollowable because it is not a rule to be followed. Simple. Easy. The end.