Comments on: A Gandhi Quotation

By: grazatt

grazatt — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 19:28:51 +0000

Arkonbey many would say your former church is not really Christian

By: Arkonbey

Arkonbey — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 16:04:56 +0000

Jonathan Blake and Lysander:

Thanks for the info. It’s been years since I’ve been to Sunday school. It could be said, JB, that most Christians read the bible selectively. To defend my former church a little bit, I must say that they read their bibles so selectively that the church council (or whatever they call it) voted last year to not exclude openly gay people from the congregation. What makes it extra nice was that it was only a single nay (who subsequently left the church). It’s a small action of tolerance, but tolerance nevertheless.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 12:10:17 +0000

To be honest, I feep getting Ray Comfort and Edward Curent mixed up. Edward Curent is the commedian who sometiems play-acts like a Ray Comfort-like Christian.

By: Maria

Maria — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:12:26 +0000

as usual, Ray Comfort doesn’t know what he’s talking about

By: Siamang

Siamang — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:26:19 +0000

You should give Ray the exact quote since he seems to use this one from time to time.

It’ll serve his purposes equally well. At least the words sound a bit more Gandhi-esque.

Also give him the correct spelling of the man’s name.

By: cognitive dissident

cognitive dissident — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 05:02:03 +0000

Comfort is actually quite close to correct with that quote; according to Wikisource, Gandhi wrote the following in his introduction to An Autobiography: The Story of my Experiments with Truth:

For it is an unbroken torture to me that I am still so far from Him, who, as I fully know, governs every breath of my life, and whose offspring I am. I know that it is the evil passions within that keep me so far from Him, and yet I cannot get away from them.

Gandhi was referring not to the Christian god, of course, but to "the Absolute Truth, the Eternal Principle, that is God:"

There are innumerable definitions of God, because His manifestations are innumerable. They overwhelm me with wonder and awe and for a moment stun me. But I worship God as Truth only. I have not yet found Him, but I am seeking after Him.

By: Secular Dignity

Secular Dignity — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 04:17:14 +0000

First, no one is like Jesus Christ. He was sinless. If you think you can be like Him, try living like Him for one day…

It does say somewhere in Ephesians that believers should imitate God. I get the feeling from Comfort’s post that he does not think anybody should bother trying to imitate God.

Second, the Bible doesn’t tell us to place our trust in sinful man. In fact, it says not to (see Psalm 146:3).

Thanks for the quote Ray. I will keep it in mind the next time a Christian tells me what to do.

By: QrazyQat

QrazyQat — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 04:11:51 +0000

Wow… If I didn’t know better, I’d be surprised that Gandhi would say something that’s such a lock-and-key fit to Ray Comfort’s very narrow, self-serving worldview.

Back when Gandhi was driving a cab, did he ever pick up a guy named Freidman?

By: anonymouse

anonymouse — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 04:09:36 +0000

I’m currently reading Gandhi’s autobiography, The Story of my Experiments with Truth, and the quote doesn’t surprise me. He was a humble man who held himself up to very high standards. He kept himself aware of his shortcomings so he could better approach perfection. That quote seems to me like it would be at home among the self-deprecating language that can be found it the book. As he says in the introduction “The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should so humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not until then, will he have a glimpse of truth.”
The quote, of course, is presented in a misleading fashion in Comfort’s article. If he did, in fact, say that, he said it because nothing less than perfection would have satisfied him, not because his religion left him unfulfilled. By “wretchedness and wickedness”, it seems to me, he means “humanity”.
I find Gandhi, who, like any of us, had to fight for perfection, and yet would not settle for anything less, a far more inspirational figure than Jesus, a divine being born free of sin.

By: Lysander

Lysander — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 02:47:50 +0000

Arkonbey said:

Aside from the nastiness, I found something troubling. I was raised a Congregationalist, but I don’t remember Jesus threatening hell.

Jonathan Blake replied:

It seems Congregationalists read their New Testament selectively. Read Matthew 5:22, Mark 9:45,47, and Luke 16:19–31. Jesus was big on Hell. In fact, Jesus and Christianity introduced the idea of everlasting burnings into Abrahamic religion. So Comfort is well supported by Jesus’ teachings.

The passages JB mentioned (all prime examples) and other examples of Jesus' (im)morality are among those discussed here. Coincidentally, here is a page (still incomplete) that points to a few of the many reasons Ted Haggard is hellbound (at least, as far as those who take hell and the Bible seriously are concerned).