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Originally Posted by blueskywalker
O.K. Thank you for your thoughtful post. (I like the phrase from that country song, "Jesus take the wheel". That kind of surrender however doesn't come easily / readily to most whether they're Christians or not).
Anyway, speaking generally / broadly, i think the only instance of democrats / liberals being less concerned about the preservation of human life is when it comes to abortion. You can use that to argue that Republicans value life more than democrats / liberals but no. It's not so. And that's a whole other complex issue. And don't forget that it tends to be Republicans who favor the death penalty.
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In Orthodox Judaism, because it's based on the Torah, several crimes carried the death penalty. Jesus never actually spoke against the death penalty and neither did his apostles insofar as we are aware. The Bible in it's entirety seems to be pro-capital punishment and not against. The Talmud tends to discourage the overuse of capital punishment, but the Talmud is also the very collection of tradition that Jesus contemptuously rejected.
Getting to the point: Is Jesus Christ pro-capital punishment for crimes such as first degree murder? Yes he probably would be. Would he favor the practice of abortion and it's legality? No he probably wouldn't.
Can't speak in absolutes though. Jesus isn't likely to post in this thread anytime soon to weigh in on where he actually stands on these matters.
Just bear in mind that while any Orthodox Judaism would view capital punishment, war and such as the God-given exception, they otherwise view the preservation of
human life to be paramount.
That means nothing else matters more. Kinda seals the deal, though he certainly disapproves of many of the positions taken by both parties.
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And Republicans who are less inclined to support programs for the poor, for children, for the mentally ill, etc..
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Yes I already pointed that out. It's one of the great puzzles of the Republican Party. They're supposed to be the political party of Christianity, yet they're kinda lousy at doing the sorts of things that Jesus told us to do. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoners in prison, help those the sick and anyone else in need, etc.
I do think that greater effort can and should be undertaken to stamp out fraud in programs that are in place to help people -- and just try to keep welfare recipients honest across the board. To me, that means pushing them down to the state and local level. I think that the feds are getting ripped of to the tune of at least $100 billion per year and that really bothers me. But it is puzzling to see Republican rhetoric about completely abolishing social programs, abolishing minimum wage, protecting the wealthy, etc. Not exactly following the teachings of Jesus.
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I'm pro-choice/anti-abortion btw ... unless it's medically necessary or the woman is a victim of rape or incest. I wish women would stop having unprotected sex! If you don't know how to not get pregnant and you don't want to get pregnant, then don't have sex. People tend to be irresponsible. I was. And i had an abortion many years ago and i still regret it. But that's me. And i'm as left as you can get. Abortion is all too often used as a form of birth control as i see it. And yet, it just has to be a woman's choice ... imo.
Other than abortion though there isn't any other arena where you can say that Republicans (again, speaking broadly and generally) display more concern for life ... human or otherwise not to mention the life of the planet. You don't see liberals denying climate change or denying the fact that humans have contributed to said change ... big time. And to deny the need of the planet is to deny the sacredness of life on this planet. All life.
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I have my opinion on abortion but that's kinda irrelevant to this discussion. I'm trying to establish how Jesus -- a man who lived his life as an Orthodox Jew and who advocated for living an even higher moral standard across the board -- would view abortion. I cannot begin to fathom the notion that Jesus would approve nor enable the practice of abortions as birth control (which is about 97% of all abortions presently) in any way shape or form. He'd want to stop it ASAP.
I think your personal opinion is a decent approximation of where Jesus would stand on the matter. If a woman is raped or if her life is in danger, then allowances would probably make sense to Jesus Christ. Otherwise, in the interests of preserving human life, Jesus wouldn't want it to be legal and the sentencing for abortion would be pretty harsh. And because it is a preservation of human life issue, I expect that'd supercede all other considerations for Jesus.
If you have a compelling reason to believe otherwise, then that might be very interesting. I just have no idea how you'd get there based on the historical Jesus of Nazareth and what we know about him.
Put Jesus in charge and you'd see a whole lot of the good from each side upheld and improved. A whole lot of the nonsense on each side would get stamped out. Getting rid of Republican notions of not helping the poor and needy would be just one of many items he'd do away with. I'm a member of neither party for good reason. They're both incredibly flawed in their own ways. Neither party accurately represents my worldview. Both are extremely corrupt and full of crap.
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) to doing no harm.
