My response to lepidopteryx

lepidopteryx said:

Rev Elliot, you're way off base inmore ways than one concerning your perception of Paganism. And quite frankly, I would find it highly amusing that you advise Terra to follow the advice of Ieshua and learn to love her enemies if it weren't so indicative of your inability to truly see any viewpont other than the Christocentric.

While I hate no one, I also am under no obligation to love those who would do me harm.
I am certainly not obligated to love the man who raped me, or the evangelist who grabbed me when I politely refused his offer of a jack Chick tract, or the JW who stuck his foot in my door when I politely refused a copy of The Watchtower and attempted to close my door.
My only obligation toward those who would make themselves my enemy is not to harm them except in self-defense. However, my gods do allow me to defend myself by whatever means are available and necessary.

The Bible and its exhortations and prohibitions are only binding for Christians and Jews.

LEPIDOPTERYX: i grieve with you for your negative experiences, & with you find repulsive the aggressive religious advances made upon you. / As for your idea that self-defense violates Jesus' "Love your enemies," that's an over-reading that no intelligent Christian would agree with. "Love your enemies" is a directive to steady goodwill & the use of smarts to outwit whatever defeats the freeing of the human potential. / How easy, & self-defensive in an unflattering sense, for you to claim that because I disagree with you, I don't understand you! Of course no outsider can understand any POV in the way insiders can. But in teaching the world's religions, I tried to help my students suspend their disbelief long enough to imagine themselves insiders to each sucessive religion as we studied it. Of course I am, as a Christian, Christocentric; but U.Hawaii did not hire me to teach religions with, as one of my qualifications, "inability to see any viewpoint other than" my own. / Finally, I must comment on this sentence of yours: "The Bible and its exhortations and prohibitions are only binding for Christians and Jews." It's true within those two communities. But both religions, as monotheistic, worship a deity who creates & addresses ALL.

By Willis E. Elliott  |  September 15, 2007; 4:59 PM ET
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