>>149041>If it's strictly pacifist then why didn't Jesus just say that?We get it from "Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword" and "But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."
Also it pretty much rejects Augustine's muh just war since day 1.
>We don't even know what Jesus said necessarily, let alone read it in the original language, let alone understand that language the way it was understood when it was written.We don't. The thing is, it can be applicated to everything. We don't know if Shakespeare really wrote what is published as "Hamlet" today - someone could edit the whole plot and no one knew about it. We don't know if Homer wrote both Iliad and Odyssey. Everything that we read is based on faith alone.
>I think this makes it necessary to allow for different interpretations. Nothing wrong with that, the thing is - sometimes that interpretation is outright wrong. We have something that COULD be unchanged and be literal word of God and nothing else, so at least we should try to not make a mess of it - some time ago """""Christian""""" Catholics on /pol/ tried to make Crusades justified by using the "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword" which is obviously a wrong interpretation by comparing it to the context and the rest of New Testament.
>After all, is our allegiance to God a matter of following elaborate rules or is it a spiritual connection?You can't have spiritual connection without following the rules. You can be a Christian as in "believing in JHWH and believing Jesus died for our sins" but if you honestly support genocide of a whole race you can't really consider you have spiritual connection to God. No one is perfect, and Jesus said no one is even a good man. But when you sin you should regret it, not justify it.
