[MD] Social Level- Catholic Social Teaching

[skutvik at online.no]

Krimel von Case

On 2 Aug. you wrote: 

> > [Bo]
> > Moses came down from the mountain with commandments, among those one of
> > not killing, but once his people (their cause) were threatened killing
> > became the first commandment. Still is, and one aspect of MOQ's immense
> > explanatory power is how murder can be hailed in one instance and
> > condemned the next. This enigma NO metaphysics has solved before it.

> [Krimel]
> The Mosaic Law provides and injunction against murder. The idea that
> killing an enemy in battle can be in anyway equated with murder is a
> relatively modern notion and certainly not universally held among Jews
> or Christians.

The Mosaic and (original) Christian and Muslim religions are 
variants of the same social value pattern (according to the MOQ) 
and on that level killing of enemies (of their respective faiths/ 
causes) isn't murder. Killing the Jews was extermination of vermin 
according to Nazism (another social pattern) 

But the intellectual level has been established and dominates the 
Western world as SOM. (The Orient may have entered and 
transcended it) WW2 was social value's last stand in Europe 
according to Pirsig, and people  (including Christians) are 
supposed to look OBJECTIVELY on existence and killing cannot - 
objectively seen - be murder in one instant and heroism the next. 

I said "no metaphysics has solved... etc.",  by this I mean that 
because Intellect=SOM - and we only know SOM - it can't 
reconcile this quandary. The western democracies train soldiers 
and there are some who can't reconcile themselves with this 
inconsistency (conscientious objecters) The MOQ, however, says 
that when the bell tolls we will revert to the next safe latch - the 
social - where killing of enemies is highest value, so only now is 
this sorted out, by the SOL interpretation that is.         

[Bo]
> > Don't get me wrong, Catholicism is of course intellect-influenced, yet
> > Christendom has its root in the social pattern known as Judaism. My idea
> > is that Jesus was a sensitive antenna who picked up the Greek
> > intellectual (SOM) signals through the Romans and his words about the
> > (Mosaic) Law existing for mankind's sake - not the other way round - is
> > intellectual value taking leave of social value, In Judaism and Islam
> > humans only have value to the degree they accept the (respective) holy
> > Law books, and because this is God (-given), Jesus' really took leave of
> > this Semitic kind of god as well. Not directly, but this rebellion came
> > to be modern Christendom's nucleus and the moment a holy text/law
> > becomes subject to scientific or interpreted in light of the times its
> > back is broken.  

> [Krimel]
> Why do you keep spouting this kind of nonsense. Jesus was no doubt
> familiar with Greek culture as it was expressed in the culture of the
> occupying Romans. But the Jews had a long standing antipathy toward
> the Greeks as a result of the Maccabean Revolt against the Greek
> occupiers in 167 BC. Jesus was no friend of the Romans and did nothing
> to reconcile Jews and Romans. He was involved in a general uprising in
> Jerusalem during the Passover that resulted in his execution. Little
> is available about the events of his death outside of the Christian
> scriptures but his execution in the early 30s AD was part of a general
> culture clash that culminated in the near extermination of the Jews.
> The Jewish War of 70 AD resulted in the scattering of the Jews out of
> Israel and across the globe. Both Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism
> grew out of and resulted from that disaster. 

I appreciate your information, but it doesn't apply. You know, 
various utterings by Jesus (or any great figure) are highlighted as 
various theories are applied to them. Before Intellect - as SOM - 
took over the European scene  Jesus' godhead role was the 
central thing, after the said shift his humane role became the 
focus, this because it emphasized Christendom's break with its 
Jewish roots. But only through the MOQ glasses can we see the 
total picture, namely the Social-Intellectual turning point (in our 
culture)      

> There is nothing to suggest that Jesus was at odds with "Judaism" He
> did seem to have a beef with the priests who managed the temple but
> this was mainly because the priest were appointed by and under the
> thumb of the Romans. There is almost nothing that can be
> authoritatively attributed to Jesus that is at odds with or outside of
> the mainstream of Judaism at his time. 

Jesus did not know the MOQ and that Judaism represented social 
value or that the Romans by proxy served intellectual value (which 
was to become interrupted by Medieval Times) This is a far 
greater picture that leaves these undoubtedly correct observations 
by you irrelevant. 
 
> By the way, the interpretation of scripture in light of the present is
> a technique known s pesher. Some of the first examples of this are to
> be found among the Dead Sea scrolls in a commentary on Obadiah.

Yes, it proves my point ...and that being a scholar doesn't help. 
 
> You keep repeating the same incorrect views over and over again. I
> could recommend a few books to correct these deficiencies in your
> accounts of early Christian history if you like. Otherwise find some
> other example. The Zuni brujo was equally misrepresented by Pirsig but
> at least that bit of history is less well documented.

About the Brujo I agree, at least it's grossly misinterpreted by DMB 
who speaks about a social vs intellect conflict. According to Pirsig 
it was what put him on to the dynamic/static dichotomy of the MOQ 

Bo