Reply #71: Partially.

[ChadwickHenryWard]

The admonition that we should consider those that are most wronged by society ("least of my brothers," I believe the Gospels have it) is very important. It meshes nicely with the modern labor precept of "solidarity." Consider Debs's statement "While there is a lower class I am in it; while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison I am not free."

Other than that, I find Jesus's moral pronouncements to be very problematic. It has been noted that the afterlife is for the most part absent from the Old Testament - the worst punishment one can receive is death. In the New Testament, however, we see the arise of eternal punishment after death. In this way the morality of the New Testament is even harsher than that of the Old (contrary to popular conception.) The contention that only those who worship him/Yahweh can get to heaven can be viewed as religious intolerance. Likewise, when Jesus orders us to cut off our hand or put out our eye if it induces us to sin, it is not uncharitable to characterize him as a religious fanatic. Ditto for the assertion that feeling anger is morally equivalent to murder, or that feeling lust is morally equivalent to adultery. This is thought crime, and Jesus comes off as somewhat of an extremist. Most problematic of all is the admonition to "resist not an evil man." There is quite simply nothing moral about going willingly with a man who kidnaps you, giving more than he would take to a thief, and inviting a man who has just physically accosted you to do so again. While "turn the other cheek" is on some level better than "an eye for an eye," it is still at base a morally flawed formulation.