Thursday, July 25, 2019

The real problem with cursing

Ok everyone I am going to phrase this post mostly as questions because I am truly not sure about it.  It has to do with curses and justice.  The thing I am wondering has to do with something Jesus taught people which is to bless others and not to curse them, even if they are our enemies.  And he said to pray for people and love your enemies.  But most people figure out that sometimes you do have to stand up for yourself or others in some way, even just to help keep children safe from each other. There has to be justice in the world, and mercy without it seems meaningless and even dangerous.  Something else Jesus said is that people should not give someone a verbal blessing without backing it up with actions.  Well I am a very verbal person and I like kind words, but the command has more to do with telling people to be blessed but not giving them food if they are hungry.  It becomes hypocritical to say religious things and not help people in need.  So here is the question:  Could the same thing be said about cursing people who harm others but not doing anything to stop them?  Is it also hypocritical to criticize society, or literally say curse words at people, or try to pray a curse for people without taking action as some use of force? I think most army people and cops would see immediately the importance of keeping people safe through justice, but in religious contexts, to say that you should back up curses with actions is pretty crazy.  And yet I believe I am really on to something.  There are curses later in the New Testament, from people like Paul and then an interesting one at the end of Revelation.  And I think the reason they weren’t backed up with obvious violence is because the spiritual power of those making the curses actually is so extreme that the use of force is integrated with the curse.  It is very interesting, and I think for me, the place to start with action is simply to follow Jesus’s command to feed the hungry, and then to remember that there are different types of hunger, and different things that are food, and different ways of intervening when people block food or ruin life.

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