Thou shalt not kill?

mrzurnaci

Active member
In school, I was talking with an Assyrian woman about how our people need to defend their lands and that we need to be armed, she replied that it'll never happen because most Assyrians are Christian and the bible says "Thou shalt not kill"

I also know that the Bible has verses on war and justified killing but (for some reason) my brain didn't pull it up during the discussion...

in terms of the Assyrian churches, what is the exact verdict on "thou shalt not kill" ?

Does our Church mean it as "never to kill at all" ? or "do not murder" like other churches do?

If our churches mean it as "never to kill at all", wouldn't this ultimately cause our downfall?
 
It's not 'never kill at all' otherwise we wouldn't have stuff like ZOWAA fundraisers taking place in churches to raise funds for NPU 

"Thou shall not murder" is the correct stance
 
Kelba said:
It's not 'never kill at all' otherwise we wouldn't have stuff like ZOWAA fundraisers taking place in churches to raise funds for NPU 

"Thou shall not murder" is the correct stance

well unfortunately, we have religious Assyrians who interpret it as "don't kill" instead of "don't murder". Even in my Assyrian Bible, the Old Testament commandment is translated as "la qaTlet" which is confusing because QaTlah can be used for both murder and killing in general but which sense is it?

the only other root verb we use for killing is "parem/prama" but that's in the sense of cutting.

My Sokoloff dictionary says the other verb is "sareH" which is Semkath, Resh, and Kheth. then, loosely, there's "makhay" which means to hit but in terms of murder, my dictionary still uses QaTlah..
 
It's more about murder rather than killing. According to the Torah, killings can be justified. Even the Quran has a verse or two about not to kill others, although hypocritically Allah and Muhammad orders people to do so.

Jesus has told us not to kill at all and that we should "turn the other cheek". That Assyrian woman should've thought of that than the Torah sayings.
 
Neon said:
It's more about murder rather than killing. According to the Torah, killings can be justified. Even the Quran has a verse or two about not to kill others, although hypocritically Allah and Muhammad orders people to do so.

Jesus has told us not to kill at all and that we should "turn the other cheek". That Assyrian woman should've thought of that than the Torah sayings.

Jesus says if a person hits u, you turn the other cheek. This doesn't have anything to do with killing, how can a dead person turn the other cheek except to go into a death position?
 
mrzurnaci said:
Jesus says if a person hits u, you turn the other cheek. This doesn't have anything to do with killing, how can a dead person turn the other cheek except to go into a death position?
It does imply that you should take a pacifist approach. The message seems clear.

You took my post literally ("dead person giving the other cheek"?).
 
Neon said:
It does imply that you should take a pacifist approach. The message seems clear.

You took my post literally ("dead person giving the other cheek"?).

the last line reminded me of Family Guy's unconscious poses where the victims are facing away from the camera with one hand over their back.

like turning the other (ass) cheek lmao.
 
mrzurnaci said:
the last line reminded me of Family Guy's unconscious poses where the victims are facing away from the camera with one hand over their back.

like turning the other (ass) cheek lmao.
Lol I hate that show.
 
mrzurnaci said:
In school, I was talking with an Assyrian woman about how our people need to defend their lands and that we need to be armed, she replied that it'll never happen because most Assyrians are Christian and the bible says "Thou shalt not kill"

I also know that the Bible has verses on war and justified killing but (for some reason) my brain didn't pull it up during the discussion...

in terms of the Assyrian churches, what is the exact verdict on "thou shalt not kill" ?

Does our Church mean it as "never to kill at all" ? or "do not murder" like other churches do?

If our churches mean it as "never to kill at all", wouldn't this ultimately cause our downfall?

I would say the actions of the man in my avatar would answer it best. Patriach Mar Shimun XXI led many battles against Kurds/Turks/Arabs etc. himself during the seyfo. When survival is at stake and nothing else works it isn't just permitted to attack back but encouraged. It becomes more tricky when it's a situation that many Assyrians are in today in Mesopotamia. I.E. of course killing Isis terrorist is the right thing to do but fighting to have an autonomous region may not, unless again it ensures survival. We should be inspired by other orthodox christians like Serbians, Armenians, Greeks etc. who have been in many wars and because of it they have their nations intact.
 
Joe25 said:
I would say the actions of the man in my avatar would answer it best. Patriach Mar Shimun XXI led many battles against Kurds/Turks/Arabs etc. himself during the seyfo. When survival is at stake and nothing else works it isn't just permitted to attack back but encouraged. It becomes more tricky when it's a situation that many Assyrians are in today in Mesopotamia. I.E. of course killing Isis terrorist is the right thing to do but fighting to have an autonomous region may not, unless again it ensures survival. We should be inspired by other orthodox christians like Serbians, Armenians, Greeks etc. who have been in many wars and because of it they have their nations intact.

thank you Joe. I'm trying to find a reasonable explanation as to why we allowed terrorists to, not only attack and bomb us, but even to invade our last living space without making an official military or militias?
 
mrzurnaci said:
thank you Joe. I'm trying to find a reasonable explanation as to why we allowed terrorists to, not only attack and bomb us, but even to invade our last living space without making an official military or militias?

I believe most of it was due to never recovering from the genocide. With such a sudden, massive population decline we weren't able to 'catch up' with the other ethnicities so to speak. There have been Assyrian military attempts in the 20th century but the backlash from all the muslims(Who all of a sudden set aside their ethnic differences and unite when they can wipe out some non-islamic minorities) was so severe that it contributed to the psychological trauma of the Assyrians. Simele 1933 comes to mind right away. I think that's why in places like Mosul and many villages Assyrians fled very quickly before Isis even got there. So I believe it's a combination of factors stemming mostly from islamic oppression.
 
Joe25 said:
I believe most of it was due to never recovering from the genocide. With such a sudden, massive population decline we weren't able to 'catch up' with the other ethnicities so to speak. There have been Assyrian military attempts in the 20th century but the backlash from all the muslims(Who all of a sudden set aside their ethnic differences and unite when they can wipe out some non-islamic minorities) was so severe that it contributed to the psychological trauma of the Assyrians. Simele 1933 comes to mind right away. I think that's why in places like Mosul and many villages Assyrians fled very quickly before Isis even got there. So I believe it's a combination of factors stemming mostly from islamic oppression.

never recovering from the genocide? We did recover from the genocide... 325,000 people to 5m in under 90 years seems like good recovery to me.

the backlash from Muslims is all the more reason why to have a militia... Muslims backlash on everything, even themselves...
 
mrzurnaci said:
never recovering from the genocide? We did recover from the genocide... 325,000 people to 5m in under 90 years seems like good recovery to me.

the backlash from Muslims is all the more reason why to have a militia... Muslims backlash on everything, even themselves...

I don't think it's a good recovery. It could have been much better lets just put it that way. The 600.000 Assyrians pre-genocide would have doubled the figure of today's 5 million(and that btw is a very generous figure) if not tripled because with a healthy population not stricken with something as devastating as a genocide it would logically grow much more.

And the 600K were all located in the ME mostly in Mesopotamia, whereas many if not most Assyrians today are in the diaspora. In the early 20th century Assyrians were also very much united whereas we've been partitioned over the decades, I theorize that it may not have happened either if it wasn't for that.

There's also another crucial issue of losing the majority of our most influential people during Seyfo. Much like the Armenians and Greeks the muslims first targeted our intellectuals, priests, doctors and anyone in a high, respectable position. Who knows where we could have been if they weren't killed. A nation of people who have their greatest specimens cut off abruptly will find it very difficult to bounce back especially in an oppressed society. Imagine having a career you've worked in for decades, you've got all these skills, connections and accomplishments and then all of a sudden you're fired and have to start all the way over again.

So many of our troubles and adversity is attributed to the disasters we've faced in the previous century. We do deserve some level of criticsm for the militia issue, but we must remember that it's easy for us to talk like this in our cozy homes in the safe western world. Our folks in the homelands are the brave ones who have to deal with this every day. Any move they make they have to remember that they're completely surrounded by islamists everywhere. Lets just hope this NPU force keeps evolving.
 
Joe25 said:
I don't think it's a good recovery. It could have been much better lets just put it that way. The 600.000 Assyrians pre-genocide would have doubled the figure of today's 5 million(and that btw is a very generous figure) if not tripled because with a healthy population not stricken with something as devastating as a genocide it would logically grow much more.

And the 600K were all located in the ME mostly in Mesopotamia, whereas many if not most Assyrians today are in the diaspora. In the early 20th century Assyrians were also very much united whereas we've been partitioned over the decades, I theorize that it may not have happened either if it wasn't for that.

There's also another crucial issue of losing the majority of our most influential people during Seyfo. Much like the Armenians and Greeks the muslims first targeted our intellectuals, priests, doctors and anyone in a high, respectable position. Who knows where we could have been if they weren't killed. A nation of people who have their greatest specimens cut off abruptly will find it very difficult to bounce back especially in an oppressed society. Imagine having a career you've worked in for decades, you've got all these skills, connections and accomplishments and then all of a sudden you're fired and have to start all the way over again.

So many of our troubles and adversity is attributed to the disasters we've faced in the previous century. We do deserve some level of criticsm for the militia issue, but we must remember that it's easy for us to talk like this in our cozy homes in the safe western world. Our folks in the homelands are the brave ones who have to deal with this every day. Any move they make they have to remember that they're completely surrounded by islamists everywhere. Lets just hope this NPU force keeps evolving.

speaking of that, I sent u a copy of my book.
 
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