to fear the lord is to hate evil
 

I saw this messgae on a church billboard. I was amazed that somebody (or a group of people?) thought that this messgae made any sense whatsoever.

Off the top of my head, I first wondered whether fear or hate are useful states of mind. Next, I wondered whether evil even exists. Then, I wondered...the connection? :::baffled:::

I am impressed that they managed to get absolutely nothing right in this message. And yet there it is, out there on the roadside, advertising: this is what we stand for. Join us.

Fear leads to anger, and anger leads to hate. So to fear the Lord is to hate the Lord. Therefore, the Lord is evil. QED.

I'm e-mailing that to my wife! ha ha ha (she saw it with me)

It's a direct quote from the Bible. Proverbs 8:13:

"To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech."

it's good to bear in mind that "fear" is a pretty thin word for what is a pretty thick concept in hebraic literature. Don't assume that what we see on quick read, 3,000 years later, is what was meant by the writer.

For my part, I don't assume anything. But I am interested specifically in that this is what is being marketted to the masses.

Meanings of words change with time.

In King James Version terms, to 'Fear', when talking about God, is synonymous with 'respect', 'reverence', 'piety', 'awe toward a supreme power', rather than 'afraid of.'

I think we had a discussion of when gay used to mean happy, somewhere ...

I've seen a lot worse things...advertised on billboards...things that are portrayed to the mass media. Is it because it's a church? Or is it because the wording didn't seem to make sense?

Because the wording doesn't make sense, compounded by the fact that people presume to "live by" these words.
IE, how can you "live by" something that doesn't make any sense? It's like voluntary insanity.

When I read signs like that I think it means if you are afraid of god sending to hell you will hate evil. Evil meaning anything that church finds unacceptable.
It could be anything. Gold earrings, body peircings, tatoos, rock and roll music Well those examples are on the extreme end but you get the idea.

I think the word 'fear' is suppose to mean what wolf said but people are sheep with grown up sheep leaders leading them. Regurgitating the same ole spin.

Fear and hate are not useful states of mind.
If there is a thing as evil then I am pretty sure it's my brother and we should seek to understand how it operates in us?

By "Church Billboard", I'm thinking the signs they put out at the church....on the building or free standing on the lawn? The sign wasn't meant for you, it was meant for people who belong and understand.

Those signs aren't recruiting posters, they're notices for those that have already enlisted....or been drafted. Mostly for the enlisted that have been derelict in their duties.

That sign makes as much sense to you, as your tech manuals make to the janitor.....the words are familiar but the sentence doesn't make sense.

You seem to think these "billboard" messages are some king of prophetic or profound ideologies. No, they're gimmicks to catch the attention of the recruits.....to get them thinking about the church....prod them to feel guilty about their dereliction of duty.

You also seem to think the recruits take the tricks of the trade, seriously.
Silly bunny...tricks are for kids.:lol:

All I know is that I find it fun driving through the boonies of Alabama and seeing all the church billboards... both the ones outside the churches and the big advertising boards along the highway.

Very insightful. It's obvious in hindsight, but it never would have occurred to me.

I was thinking he meant an actual advertising billboard. They're very common down here in Texas.

Here in Central FL we get a lot of nutty church billboards.
As for me, don't believe in evil and hate is poison to be avoided at all cost.

I don't know what to call them. The signs right in front of the church, out by the road, with plastic letters that are changed every week. Everybody that drives by sees the clever catch-phrase of the week.

Ah, I'd call that a marquee.

The ones that piss me off are the puns. "We pray on the weak and defenseless" and crap like that.

*grin*

Argh.. You beat me to it...

My favorite: "Is God Patriotic Enough?" from the Simpsons.

C'mon, post your own...

oops!

Just because you're a sinner doesn't meant that you're going to hell. We're all sinners ya know.

Not really sure why, but this really tickled me.

This is exactly the problem I have with anybody who uses such rhetoric. They are ENCOURAGING people to hate. Hate what? Hate WHAT I TELL YOU TO. The minute a person, group, or government gets to make the rules about what you are supposed to hate and reject, you get charming social exercises like the Holocaust and Rwanda. You also get silly perversions of religious philosophy and produce stuff like the Shakers or the Mormons. And eventually you get Dubya, who by the same logic can tell an entire country that if you do not agree with his agenda then you are "Against Freedom/Pro Terrorist" and must be hated by Real Americans.

Usually Catholics avoid such things as the movable letter signboard. Unfortunately the Catholic Church up the street from me is trying to be hip, perhaps to attract more Protestants, since nobody listens to the Pope on that no birth control thing anymore. Two recent signboard notices have been ...

"If God had a wallet would your picture be in it?" and "The best vitamin for a Christian is B-1."

I would love to sneak up in the middle of the night and add "E_4_EFFORT" . . .

What? You mean every word in the Bible isn't supposed to be taken literally as the divinely inspired word of God?

Oh, great. And here I went and became Pagan for nothing. I thought I had to buy all of that stuff verbatim, and I just couldn't do that. :neutral:

It's the wool that tickles you. :D

.

Well now, don't you feel silly? :rolleyes:

I know and like several pagans, but I just don't see the point of going pagan. Ethical monotheism (viz., Dennis Prager) seems to me a step up.

The point, I think, is that we have a different direct experience of diety, and also a sense of the web of interactions between all things that is sometimes referred to as the Life Force.

What she said. That, and not having your dogma handed to you in a package.

I think monotheism is lazy. :)

Sounds like a couple people here have no experience with the Unitarians. With that lot, you have to order the components separately, which demands that you have to have enough sense to choose good ones.

Now, for a different approach, the Episcopalians would hand you a package, but you're rather expected to open it, take out the contents, and fiddle with them your entire conscious life, examining them closely and intelligently -- the popular Episcopalian metaphor of the stool with three legs applies here: tradition, reason, and Scripture, and that it doesn't work too well as something that would support you if one of the legs is lost. Thinking is not merely allowed, it is downright encouraged, and getting rigidly dogmatic about anything is not the via media the Episcopalians and the rest of the Anglican Community so cherish, and so frequently find the way forward in. This does, however, often produce the effect that for any three Episcopalians there are four opinions, or so.

In my opinion, the best Christians credit dinosaurs and the dumb ones don't, and the poor bastards miss out on the vaster picture of creation thereby. The anti-evolutionists seem all to be wasting their time trying to use Darwin as a straw man. It comes of thinking that science is just another belief, which happens to somebody when they are educated only in belief systems. Science itself is not a thing of beliefs, of faith -- what science is, pace Stephen Jay Gould, is a way of knowing. Yet even the least spiritual of scientists is no stranger to faith -- faith in the integrity of his colleagues, that they are speaking such truth as they know.

If you've an ambition to create, and literally all the time there is, where's the problem with taking thirteen billion years to get it done right? Certain people should stop trying to nail God into a crate built to human specification.

Monotheism has a virtue of being nice and clear: it's binary; there is God and there is not-God. "On this hangs all the law and the prophets." It's as simple and as not-simple as chess. And that's my smiling remark.

Well well well, how did it happen that UG and I discover something ELSE we have in common? First it was the solo gourmet cooking and now I find out we both read Steven Jay Gould and were raised in the same denomination. I still remember the Confirmation classes where they told us what he just summarized. So true, that. QED

........or do away with dogma altogether.

nutty church billboards?

Redundant?

Should be simple given that hate doesn't exist any more than evil. Well, that depends on your definition of evil I guess, but I'm sure it can be rationalized away.

Evil is debatable, but not hate. The World is full of hate, often irrational, but it's there. :(

I don't think I understand exactly what you mean.
Could you expand on that a little?

In front of a Catholic church, I once saw "boys wanted for sex with preists". Ok, not really :D

I don't see any possibility of a rational argument that hate doesn't exist. Maybe that it shouldn't, or that it's not logical, but to deny it exists is whistling in the dark. :confused:

I was saying more that both hate and evil do exist in this world, but the sarcasm didn't come through correctly. Just as you said "hey, wait a minute there" when presented with the idea that hate doesn't exist, the same reaction is appropriate when someone tries to tell you evil doesn't exist. The difference in how we react stems directly from what we are told to think in school and by the media, the rationalizing and explaining any evils done by parties protected under PC law is pervasive and acceptable by most in our society. However, it's just as rediculous as saying that nobody hates anyone else.

I think what people mean, when they say "evil doesn't exist" is that "evil" is subjective (defined by the shifting sands of perception) - therefore "evil" is something that cannot be said to "exist" in the same say things defined by objective terms exist. In other words, when you state that "evil exists" - what exactly are you stating exists? There isn't a discrete class described by the term "evil" - a suggestion made by the rhetoric of monotheism. This is the specific rebuttal I think people are usually making when they say "evil doesn't exist"...

This isn't a very productive analysis, to simply chalk up any difference in opinion to the influence of over-simplified outside forces. It's like telling somebody "you voted for <certain politician> because you watch <certain cable news network> and you can't think for yourself." The possibility exists that people have well-reasoned opinions to support almost any position.

So...I'm curious: what is your definition of the word "evil" . . . ?

I think that evil is a scale that runs alongside of wrong. Wrong is used more in conjunction with law whereas evil has to be something more universal. I also think it is intertwined in some way with suffering on a bit of a primal level. It's far easier to cite examples than give a definition but I think this is a start. 'An action that is motivated by the desire to cause the suffering of another for personal enjoyment is evil'. It's a scale, so a child breaking another child's favorite toy might not be evil enough to be intuitive, but don't you think that gathering a deep personal satisfaction from the pain of others has a different air to it no matter how trivial?
I know that's not entirely clear, but it's the general direction.

That's a good definition. It reminds me of the one "rule" of Paganism: simply to "do no harm" . . .

One problem with defining "evil" is this: everything that is good for somebody is bad for somebody else. There is a see-saw of karma in the universe that intertwines everything - even things we don't know about or understand. But defining "evil" requires us to claim an understanding of this fantastically complex web of interactions. That is why "evil" can't be pinned down by one subjective observer. Thusly, alot of the definitions of "evil" we have are claimed to be handed down from an omnipotent deity - in effect, claiming a loophole to the subjective nature of the idea. However, the problem with that is: every group has a dogma that is biased to define "evil" as the actions of a group of outsiders. Consequently, the three major monotheistic religions can't get past their differences for long enough to realize that the core of their beliefs are identical. Because of man's need to define "evil" the world is plagued by "justified" violence. The "us vs. them" system never allows any group to recognize the "evil" of their own actions.

Edit: And if "evil" can't be properly defined, then what can be insisted upon as existing? What doesn't exist is, specifically, an objective evil.

Everything? I can think of lots of examples that would prove this statement to be false. I think it's sometimes the case that things that are good for one person are bad for another, but it's not always the case. Probably not even usually the case.

You're right. I should have said "something can be good for somebody, and bad for somebody else."
This narrow statement alone demonstrates that objective "evil' is a logical contradiction.

Evil will vary with the eye of the beholder.

Evil is what I think is bad. I'm not required to explain why because it doesn't matter why. It only matters you understand what I mean, not why I feel that way, unless I wish to expound. If I say all snakes are evil, you know I'm not fond of snakes but it's not a complete description of the critter.

Evil, like any other word, is used for communicating a thought. It's legitimate because it conveys my opinion or feeling about what I'm calling evil. Evil doesn't have to have an exact definition like mile or apple. Evil is descriptive like high or big.

Everyone can make a list of what they feel is evil, but everyones list will be different. You could substitute the word bad for evil, but I'd put it on a different rung of the ladder.....badder than bad.

Oh...wait...these days bad might be good.....or bad. :nuts:

I agree, Bruce, there is no such thing as objective "evil" . . .

...and further, this is despite our constant attempts to establish a concrete definition. Look at the history of mankind. Every culture, even ones that commit horrible atrocities, consider themselves to be the "good guys" - nobody ever thinks they are in the wrong. Nobody. This can't possibly be accurate. Every culture tries to define "evil" and fails because of their own skewed persepctive. Occam's Razor dictates that our culture is no different. On the basis of pure logic, I can't possibly believe that right now, in the country where I live, in the century that I live in, we have finally, after all of history, achieved the one true knowledge of good and evil, and can now point our finger in any direction and say, with 100% accuracy "this is evil" or "this isn't evil" . . . The very idea is ludicrous. I won't delude myself that way.

I like it when smart people talk simple so much that it illuminates the mind. ( well my cob dusty dim mind anyway-dosn't take much)

Does it make you...wet, skysidhe? ;)

I read this a couple days ago. A half a dozen emoticons came to mind. Too risky to be left up to an individuals interpretation I left it alone.

It begs for a response so I chose a quote from my other favorite pervert. I changed IS to IT of course.

"That depends on what your definition of "IT" is"


Now as I look and think about it I am quite sure that it is Fint who has ejaculations of the brain and not me. Mine only quivers like jello :p

Hehe