"You definitely don't speak for the majority of posters on this board."

No kiddin'. Another thing to be thankful for. Luckily, he DOES speak for the majority of the people of Kansas. You know, the ones who elected him and who he works for. The liberal elitist posters on these small college town paper message boards are the "fringe", seeker.

How does anybody that professes to be a Christian, and believe in the whole Bible, support war?

"Thou shalt not kill" seems pretty clear and direct to me - for New Testament, how about "Love your enemies".

It seems to me that Christian belief would lead almost inevitably to pacifism - why doesn't it?

"It seems to me that Christian belief would lead almost inevitably to pacifism - why doesn't it?"

At the risk of sounding trite, it's because there are more than two verses in the Bible. The world is complicated, and therefore the theology that deals with the Christian's actions in that world is complicated as well, far more complicated than taking one verse from its context and universalizing it.

One might argue that if I love my enemy I should never hurt him, yet the command to love my neighbor as myself may require that I protect the innocent from another person*. That in turn may require that I use force to in order to stop them. And as soon as one has agreed to use force against another, one is no longer a pacifist.

That said, there are Christian sects who are and have always been pacifist (Brethren, Mennonites, Quakers and the like). While I think they are incorrect, I certainly respect the position.

• After all, isn't that the argument that "we" (or our army) need to get involved in Kosovo or Darfur or Ivory Coast or wherever...

The commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is pretty blunt and hard to interpret in any other way than as an absolute proscription on killing, it seems to me.

It doesn't say, Thou shalt not kill, except for a, b, c, ...

And, many Christians claim to believe the whole Bible, not just the NT. How on earth can they support war, in that case? The most your comments would allow is for some sort of force to be used to protect others - it wouldn't justify killing, if one follows the commandments.

Look, I'm not going to argue the theology - this is simply not the place. However, I will note that the Hebrew word you reference, ratsach, has a primary meaning of "murder," not kill as you are using it*. The Jews were perfectly aware of the commandment when in the next chapter of Exodus they commanded capital punishment for murderers. Killing and murder are not, in biblical context, morally equivalent.

The fact that you are using kill as you are leads me to two probabilities: Either you are a non-Christian who really doesn't understand and wants an answer to the question, or you are a non-Christian who wants to show that Christians don't understand their own writings as well as you do.

If you want to understand, you have a really nice library in Lawrence and there are 1900 years' worth of theology to peruse - you are not the first person to bring up the topic of Christians and war. If all you're interested in showing that you already know enough, then I'm afraid I can't help you any further.

• Yes, I know, translation issues.

A little pique there, huh?

I am either a Christian or a non-Christian, depending on how one uses the word and what it means. I'm also Jewish by birth and culture.

If you're correct about the original, why on earth haven't we been using the word "murder" rather than "kill" for centuries when referring to the commandment?

Would have made things a bit clearer, don't you think?

You're obviously intelligent, and apparently a Christian of some sort - do you think the Bible is clear and consistent?

"A little pique there, huh?"

Not any more than a biologist would be if some creationist said, "I really don't understand why if people came from monkeys, there are still monkeys." The question demands a book-sized answer or none at all.

The problem is that, insisting on your own wording, you illustrate that you misunderstand the question so badly that it is impossible to answer. For example, a quick look at a parallel bible might have shown you that "murder" is the generally-accepted modern translation: http://bible.cc/exodus/20-13.htm

And nearly every commentary that you might care to read will tell you, in far more words, exactly what I said, and they would understand why the KJV translators chose kill, what effect that has on modern translations, and all the other stuff that's important if you really want an answer.

But what you did, without even realizing it, was to interpret it yourself. You see, the command as you read it is "you shall not kill," but you interpreted it as "you shall not kill people." Without context it could just as easily be interpreted as you shall not kill anything including bugs, you shall not kill time, you shall not kill virtual dragons by rolling a 20-sided die. If you had looked at the context or understood the history, even a little, you would have recognized your mistake very quickly.

I tried to give you a clue that it was more complicated than you were making it, but that did not work. So how do you tell someone, nicely, that they do not even know enough to ask the right question?

Let me see if I can put this an easier way. Let's say that I was talking to a particle physicist and that I know almost nothing about particle physics*. It is going to be perfectly obvious to him from the nature of my questions not only that I know nothing, but what my assumptions are, and probably where they came from. Is there any way that he can 'bring me up to speed' quickly? Probably not - he's going to tell me to pick up a basic book and read it. He may even have recommendations. If I do not expend even that much effort, he is going to assume that I don't consider the question that important.

In the same way, it was perfectly obvious to me as soon as you asked your question the second time that your theology is on par with my particle physics. You don't know what you don't know. You didn't know that "you shall not murder" has been the preferred translation for more than a century and based your question on a false premise. You insisted that this incorrect interpretation is "hard to interpret any other way," when in fact it's astonishingly easy to come up with alternative interpretations.

In short, I concluded that you are a young male from a non-religious background, highly intelligent, a bit of a social savant, attracted to math or law but disinterested in most history, and if I would go out on a limb, I would guess that you have a few close friends, but they do not understand your humor, nor you theirs. I may be wrong on that, but I am probably not wrong in assuming that you cannot understand why what is so clear to you about Christian theology is so opaque to Christians, and it never occurred to you that it's because you have not put forth the effort to understand theology.

You asked whether I "do you think the Bible is clear and consistent," and the answer is "yes and no;" it depends on what you want it for. Like particle physics, there are easy answers for easy questions and hard answers for hard questions. There is a 2nd grade Jesus-loves-me-this-I-know theology and there is a theology for those who want to know - and put forth the effort to know - why a good God allows a Hitler. Adult questions have complicated answers.

I'm taking the effort to answer, not because I think you were initially serious about the question, but because I like you, and I think that you might find a challenge in it. My only hope would be that it's a challenge to learn something you don't know rather than to defeat someone you don't know.

• because it's true.

I was actually serious about the question - my father-in-law, who is a pretty well read Christian, couldn't answer it.

Now, this is fun - almost all of your personal conclusions about me are wrong.

I'm 49, married for 14 years, interested in many things other than math and law, my friends and I understand each other's humor quite well, and in fact I majored in religious studies.

The intelligent part I'll take, though, and thanks.

Glad you like me, though, even though I'm quite different than you seem to think.

After a little research, it appears that you are generally correct about the current translation/understanding of the commandment, although there is at least one source that understands it as a prohibition on killing animals as well, which I sort of like, being a vegetarian.

Having looked it up in our closest to hand Bible, which claims to be based on an Aramaic version, it uses the word "kill".

And, in the pages immediately following, you can find a number of interesting rules involved how one can/should treat a servant one has bought.

In addition, among a list of crimes, one finds that "he who curses his father or his mother" shall be put to death.

It seems to me that believers must pick and choose in order to justify their particular view - apparently they like the ten commandments but not the next page, unless you know of people who think that it's ok to buy servants, and put children to death for cursing their parents.

And, I like talking with you as well generally, although this conversation hasn't been as pleasant as others we've had.

I don't consider this conversation to be unpleasant at all, but I must confess that I'm stumped: how is it that a person who majored in religious studies does not know the answer to your question? I don't mean that to be insulting (and I apologize that I have come off that way), but I am honestly baffled.

Being that I was wrong about your relative youth, I suspect you can understand my position - most people on forums who ask questions like yours have absolutely no interest in an answer, they are interested in showing that people who disagree with them are stupid. That propensity is doubled when it is asked multiple times in quick succession.

So I have to ask myself, is it worth it to try to set this person straight? Or am I just peeing on the fan here? I judged it worth it because, as I mentioned, you seem a good chap.

By the way, although you are clearly a thoughtful Christian, many believers are not, and have little interest in understanding the Bible.

Religion serves different functions for different people.

Will any of his supporters notice that, do you think?

I'll keep mentioning it, of course, on these comments - so far nobody has responded. For those on the right who feel strongly about character, one might think that making such promises and then reneging on them was a sign of a lack thereof.