Literary Discussions

Several of your reactions were basically the "tit for tat" "eye for a tooth" mentality (i.e. if someone tells you to go to hell the you tell them to go to hell and everyone is even Steven, etc.) which I totally understand and perhaps share, but as a value the "tit for tat" attitude totally misses the Christian message of repaying evil with kindness and remaining unspotted from the world. I rejected Christianity not because I think it is false but because I know I cannot be what it demands and I reject the post Reformation piety of salvation by grace alone. I suspect outside of monasteries and convents the vast majority of the Christian world totally misses the point of Christianity. Gandhi got the point but Gandhi rejected Christianity for his personal religion because he did not desire to simply escape the consequences of his wrong doing but to stop wrong doing at its source (if possible).  Now as for "fixing" the world so that there is no more poverty, illness, iniquity, abortion, addiction, I think that too misses the point IF what Moses and Jesus said is true, namely, that "the poor shall always be with us" and if the New Testament is true that until the end there shall always be wars and rumors of war. If an apokatastasis or tikkun olam is meaningful I suspect it comes after the general resurrection. Of course peacemakers will be blessed but there shall never be peace. Easing the suffering of the poor will be blessed but there shall always be poor.