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Oct. 26, 2005 Hal Luebbert has taken it upon himself to rescue Jesus from the criticisms of his remarks that I made in a recent article. Unfortunately, his reply is desultory and incoherent. He gives some random examples of meek and merciful people, utters some ill-founded historical dictums, recounts some odd or incredible personal experiences, and takes a patronizing attitude towards me, as if he knows more and has experienced more than I, which I do not believe to be the case, though, I am willing to admit I never made a million dollars in a month, as he boasts he has. However, if I had to prostrate myself before anyone who made a million dollars in a month, I would have all kinds of gurus, like Michael Jackson, Al Capone, Adolf Hitler, Richard Perle, Bill Frist, etc. In regards to my article, “Debunking the Sermon on the Mount”, the question of whether a virgin birth is humanly possible does not matter. The question is not even whether Matthew, writing in the period from 60-85 AD, could have been present during the time of Mary`s pregnancy to monitor her private affairs and attest her immaculacy. He would have had to be 75 to 100 years old when he wrote the Gospel. One thing I feel confident of is that Hal Luebbert was not there either. The question that I was addressing is whether the Sermon on the Mount is true. I did not contend that no merciful person ever receives mercy, as Hal Luebbert makes it sound. I only contended that undoubtedly there have been merciful people who did not receive mercy. The beatitude states, “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.” It does say that they have a chance of receiving mercy, which of course is self-evident, so the beatitude is just an empty promise. It either tells us what we already know, or it tells us nothing at all. Luebbert makes it sounds as if the beatitude, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth,” is something like a paraphrase of the survival of the fittest. The Greek reads, “Makarioi hoi praeis, hoti autoi klкronomкsousin tкn gкn.” The word “praeis” (tender, meek), according to Luebbert, means “adaptable”or “flexible”. It may mean “flexible” in the sense of “pliant” like a woman, but to put a Darwinian interpretation on the beatitude is total nonsense, entirely out of the spirit of the Beatitudes. As I mentioned elsewhere in my articles, the man who came closest to inheriting the Earth was Josef Stalin, and I hardly think we can call him meek. The Beatitudes were written in Greek. It is only a supposition that they were copied from Aramaic, since that was the language that Christ was supposed to have spoken. The Greek of the first beatitude reads, “Makarioi hoi ptфchoi tф pneumati, hoti autфn hк basileia tфn ouranфn..” I would hate to read more into “ptфchoi” (poor) than is there. My belief is that Christ did not exist at all, that the Beatitudes are a mere confection, and do not necessarily mirror any Aramaic prototype. But even if they do, they say nothing to me. What anyway is the Kingdom of Heaven, pray? And what does inheriting it mean? Hal Luebbert states that Frank Tipler has proven that God exists. This Tipler, from what I can gather, has some bizarre theory of how we will all be imaged by computers at some distant point in the future and that the images will reach a singularity, something like an infinitesimal black hole, that will be omnipotent and omniscient. I am sure I have it all wrong to hear Luebbert tell it, but I do not plan to waste any time on such palpably absurd ideas. The majority of physicists consider Tipler`s ideas fallacious. Citing his ideas as proof of anything discredits Luebbert`s whole article. Luebbert also relates some jumbled or unbelievable narratives from his own experiences. My experiences vary quite a bit from his. I do know what it means to be down and out, and if I had had to depend on the graciousness of my fellow man, I would not be here today. Please do not ask me to explain how I survived several years of homelessness, but it was not because people like Luebbert were there giving me a helping hand, I assure you. And the situation grows truly desperate for people in foreign countries. Anyone who has seen the kind of poverty I have seen in Indonesia, China, Egypt, Perъ, Thailand and elsewhere understands that there are not enough helping hands in all the wide world. And this is not even to mention children in countries like Iraq who have been orphaned, maimed or killed. Fortunately, I have not been a personal witness to that. Unfortunately, the Beatitudes are meaningless. They were invented by someone who started from the notion that an omnipotent, all-merciful God exists in the first place. Using this an an axiom, the contriver of the Beatitudes tries to imagine how such a God would treat us. If the presupposition were true, the Beatitudes would make a lot of sense. But the way to explore reality is to see what actually exists, and then to formulate theories on how these facts can be made to cohere in an intelligible whole. If we take that approach we see that the Beatitudes do not reflect reality, and that the presupposition on which they are based is false. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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