Good idea :) Here's my last post....

"You call this justifying that they are the same thing?" No, I wasn't trying to do that. I was taking each of your thoughts and telling you where i agree with your interpretation and where we differ.

"You are teaching your kids things that are impossible...." One of my favourite theologians, NT Wright says something like "The revolutionary way of Jesus has not so much been tried and found wanting, but has been found difficult and largely left untried."

Love for enemies is one of these types of things. In regards to racial "enemies" (like the Jews and Samaritans in Jesus' time, or the Jews and Romans, or the Jews and the Greeks), the New Testament authors challenge believers to get rid of those racist tendencies, some of which were centuries old. This is one of the themes of the Good Samaritan parable. And to love your neighbour, whoever they are, whatever gender, whatever race, whatever their beliefs.

In regards to more direct enemies (like your example of suicide bombers) it's bloody difficult, but forgiveness makes it possible. We have quite a few amazing stories of families who have ended up forgiving the people who murdered their family members, even going so far as to make sure their "enemy" is treated fairly. Theres a book called "The girl in the picture" or something that tells the story of a girl whose village was brutally destroyed in a war. She lost all of her family and friends, and was horribly burned. But years later she searched for the man who destroyed her town and publicly forgave him. I just watched a movie recently called "The Railway Men" which told a similar story, of a man who was tortured for years by Japanese enemies in war, and then he searched out the man who'd tortured him and they eventually became friends and worked together to bring peace and hope. I heard a story once of a town where a shooter went on a rampage, killing a lot of young people and then committing suicide. But the town didn't allow hate and revenge to consume them, or bitterness to govern their lives for the next decades. They worked through the issues and gradually came to a place of forgiveness, and then they took in the shooter's family, showed them a lot of love and made sure they were well looked after. This is the kind of thing Jesus was talking about. Not impossible, but very difficult. "Forgiving the Dead Man Walking" is another one.

Without forgiveness, you're still being controlled by your enemy. Forgiving them frees you from the hate, anger and bitterness. This is not just from Christianity. It's right through secular psychology as well.

And please do not mix kindness with love, because I feel you will say something like this in your next post.

You can be kind to many people but you only love people you know, how can you love people you do not even know well enough?
You might think you love them but you are LIKING a biased image of them since you do not really know their character.
It takes time to get to love someone, your enemy tends to be distant from you so it is not possible to truly love him.

Hope this is enough to show you how impossible it is to love your enemy no matter what.

Admit that reason and Jesus do not agree with each other with regards to love your enemy so we can move on.

Well, first off, before a religion completely decays a new one will be sent. This is why Christianity came into the decaying Roman Empire, or Islam was sent to the decadent pagan Arabs who had fallen to idle worship. It is absolutely true that the current batch of religions, across the planet, are in a state of decay. The fact that this is happening everywhere is a clue to our being at the tail end of 'this world'...renewal will come soon, as predicted in all the faiths.

Anyways...I am already a minority. There is no one else my age in the church I go to...well, I suppose one person but even she is a few years older and married with kids, whereas I am a bachelor.

It doesn't bother me...I am 32, and one gets a very different perspective on things talking with the elderly who attend. I enjoy it.

I think part of our problem today is we are often so segregated by age. Starting from school, where you are surrounded each day with vast numbers of people the same age as you, through work, to death. Too many people remain mostly within a social group that is relatively the same age; thus, you only see the world the way your age cohort happens to.