Because Jesus would totally support manufacturing high-powered rifles:
Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.
The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.
U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious “Crusade” in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.
I wonder what the verse is… “Turn the other cheek”? “Those who live by the sword die by the sword”?
Or maybe it’s “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
Damnit, I own a Trijicon for my G3. I checked the serial, no bible codes, but its 3 years old and a commercial version.
I might just have to switch to EOtech on principal.
From the news article: One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
Other references include citations from the books of Revelation, Matthew and John dealing with Jesus as “the light of the world.” John 8:12, referred to on the gun sights as JN8:12, reads, “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Could these be references to light mean that you get enough illumination from the muzzle blast, to read your bible?
“2COR4:6″ is the best a fundie can do to “codify” a reference to a bible passage? Wow! Some of their neurones must have died from the effort
Without memorizing the bible, you’d have no idea what that little code means. I surely would have no idea.
Google 2cor4:6. Yeah, very hard to decode. It is the usual way to reference the bible.
Of course reading those numbers in a weapon, I could not have understanded them
If I was to receive one I would probably just assume its something like serial#, model# etc. and wouldn’t even bother to look it up.
I just want to say that 2COR4:6′s passage makes NO FUCKING SENSE.
“God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness”, light representing good and darkness representing evil. “Hath shined in our hearts”, God’s love and grace and everything about how good He is, the people feel that love in their hearts. His “light” or his holiness and goodness won over all evil in their hearts. “To give the light of knowledge of the glory of God”, This goodness won over in their hearts by God, is to enlighten them of his divine glory, or to bring them to an enlightenment of the goodness and peace of God. “In the face of Jesus Christ”, That is, that they might obtain the knowledge of the divine glory as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ; or as it is reflected on the face, or the person of the Redeemer. Jesus is the savior of the world, he is God manifested on earth to save us from sin and death. Since Christ was equal to God, God’s glory and righteousness and peace was shown through him. (Hebrews 1:3) I encourage you to be open to God and Jesus Christ. All you have to do is believe in him and that he saved you from your sins. The bible says, whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Pray to God, talk to him and ask him to forgive you from all your sins, and to send his Holy Spirit to come into your life. I promise you this will change your life, I got saved and now I am happy all the day and I get to have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ which is better than anything else this world has to offer. I hope I helped you to understand. God bless you.
So obviously, this verse is used way out of context when put on a gun. That is an oxymoron. The light that is being talked about is to stop evil like violence and killing that happens in war. The maker of this gun is severely deceived by what the message of the Gospel and Jesus Christ really is. It isn’t to be used for killing “enemies”. Jesus said love your enemies and pray for them. I don’t think that means to kill them. We have the wrong idea of Christianity because of what the Catholic church did. The whole true message of Christianity is to bring love and life to the world and to destroy the works of the devil, or to destroy all evil. Read the New Testament for yourself and pray while you read it, you will find the truth, love!
Thanks for telling us the “True” Message.
LOL
Just like everyone else who has a “True”, yet completely different message.
Clearly YOU are not firing a TRUE, SCOTTISH rifle, Sunny.
Maybe the meaning is not clear ’cause of the translation. A better one — in this case — is the NASB, which is:
For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Paul’s quotation here is an inexact rendition of Genesis 1:3. (And yes, in the original Greek, it’s also inexact when compared to the Septuagint, which is the version of Genesis that Paul likely would have known.)
That said, even the NASB rendition of this passage is still a mouthful, and in the original Greek it’s an even worse construction than that.
FWIW the New Living Translation version of 2 Cor 4:6 happens to be more sensible to a modern reader of English, however, it takes some small liberties with the original Greek; if you want to know what that is, it’s:
For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.
Generally I advise against anyone talking the NLT or any related translation too seriously. But in this one case it might actually help.
If I were writing a horror novel – or a piece of Christian-inspired fantasy – this type of thing would be part of a Satanic ritual attempting to give Satan power by using the Word of God to perform mass sacrifices. It would be a kind of symbolic “magic” practice where the bullet gets ritually transformed into the Word of God as it passes through the gun, and every time a sacrifice is performed in God’s name Satan gets a little bit stronger. (I should file that away for the next time I need a plot for a horror RPG session…)
In the real world it’s less interesting. This just looks like a gun manufacturer with a fetish who gets off on the idea that he’s killing Muslims with the Word of God. I’d say it’s appalling, but I guarantee I know at least one Christian who would say something like “hell yeah” to this idea and wish they’d thought of it first.
That would be sweet for postapocalyptic fiction *nod*
I wonder if there’s any scopes with Matthew 10:34?
I know they limited it to the New Testament, but Judges 1:19 seems appropriate…
Why would a Defense Contractor act this irrisponsibly? And yes, I can confirm that these numbers are on the military version.
The reason I see this as irrisponsible is because it is a great propeganda tool for Al Queda and whoever else. Now that it’s well known, they can hold it up as further evidence of Jihad or whatever religious war they think is being fought (forgetting the whole god told W to do it). Are these people just to blithely stupid they can’t comprehend the reprucussions from their actions?
Wait, never mind, I know the answer.
I believe that the manufacturers of the sight also believe that it is a holy war. They think that by doing this, they probably get a favor from god and that he will ensure that the US will win. They probably won’t care if it plays in the hands of the terrorists because they are to mindless to care about that. the problem is that both sides think that they have some divine right over power. otherwise they wouldn’t have done it would they?
I wouldn’t be suprised if this turns out to be something someone just snuck in there, rather then an official policy of the company. I do recall contriving things so that on the clasification for issues the code for user was 10 and ‘Needs more training’ was T. So that an issue so coded would end up with ID: 10T .
No, the company readily admits that these are bible verse references. It’s not accidental.
You know something? I am totally not shocked.
I am disappointed with the verse selection. They could have gone with Deuteronomy 13:13-15. God is pretty direct there about how killing people is the right thing to do. Or they could have started to mess with the soldiers’ heads and put Matthew 5:39 on the sights, in which God is pretty clear that even defending yourself is wrong.
I don’t really understand the theology behind putting the quotes on the rifle sights but then again I have never asked “WKGSWJUKEHY”? (What kind of gun site would Jesus use to kill an enemy at a hundred yards.) (The answer is none. Jesus would have done with his bare hands, like how he fights fire-breathing dinosaurs.)
We have solders in countries that are predominantly Muslim, there are already many Muslims who thing that we are there to kill Muslim or convert Muslims. This will only harm the situation.
this is a prime example of what is wrong with religious thinking. These idiots can’t see past their own religion to the real world consistences of this.
I loved this particular part of the article:
Munson said the issue was being raised by a group that is “not Christian.”
Therefore Trijicon is sure it’s doing nothing wrong. The criticism comes from those horrible non-Christians, therefore it must be dismissed.
What if I were to do the converse, and say that what they’re doing is wrong, and I refuse to accept their defense of it, because it comes from Christians? If one would consider that an unreasonable position — i.e. to refuse to believe anything a Christian says because s/he is a Christian — why then would it be fine for Trijicon to refuse to believe something a non-Christian group says because it’s made up of non-Christians?
This is the kind of reasoning that makes sense only to those immersed in the religious mindset. It’s illogical, if not totally absurd and delusional, to the rest of us.
My Super Soaker has Amos 5:24 inscribed on the sight:
“But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”
I also quote that whenever I’m peeing. Works either way.
Heretic!
I’m surprised nobody thought to inscribe Ezekiel 25:17 onto their weapon.
Super Soaker chose the Amos passage for the reference to water, much like the bald pate I bought last year at the costume shop had 2 Kings 2:23-25 inscribed on it. I also try to inscribe Leviticus 11:10 – 12 under the tables at Red Lobster whenever I can.
Sorry, Ezekiel 25:17 beats all other scriptures.
It’s a Bad Motherfucker.
It’s no doubt the most Terminator-like of all passages but for pure cocksmanship you can’t beat this one.
Okay, “cocksmanship” is now a part of my lexicon!
Close but it’s still no Samuel Jackson.
Ezekiel was definitely a weird dude.
There’s no way this is legal. I’m sitting back with popcorn, waiting for the firings and loss of contracts.
Can’t wait to hear Sarah Palin’s thoughts on this one !! Wonder if the last moose she bagged saw the light shine out of the darkness and into his heart?
Sarah Palin and thoughts in the same sentence just doesn’t add up.
Well, I’m sure she could at least for the sake of this great nation, ask that the Department of Law there in the White House look into it all and defend the governments very pro-american, you know, ummm, right to…
Obviously the article claiming that there are scriptures printed on military weapons is a complete lie. As many diverse cultures, and people coming from diverse cultures, this would have been a well known and debated fact long before now. Some one went to great lenths to make this one up – rofl
I don’t think so. It’s a pretty legitimate source. Further, I’ve been in the military, it’s Jesus enough to make you gag sometimes. I never looked at the serial numbers on my rifles though. Things like this slip through the cracks all of the time.
You must have been in a different military then me. Every man in the unit knew their serial number by heart. It is tough not to notice all the letters and numbers on them when you are cleaning them also.
Um… The company that MAKES those sights are completely upfront about it – it’s deliberate. Not made up. Seriously.
Fundies always complain about subliminal messages, until they create their own.
[copy/paste repost of comment from another thread deleted. don't do that, Mr. Roman Numerial.]
Miniature apocalypse seems a bit of an oxymoron.
And the point of your post is???
MSNBC said apocalyptic.
The III
And if some reporter at MSNBC said it, it must be true! ZOMG THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!
What? These things happen all the time, and have happened all throughout history? Oh well, back to work. Maybe Jesus will come back and slaughter me some other time.
And if some reporter at MSNBC said it, it must be true! ZOMG THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!
It was written to be taken as a joke, not as a serious statement. Sorry for not being clearer. From know on I will post (joke) out from them. I was shocked they would even use the word. That’ s something to be expected of Fox News.
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“When you look back and only see one set of footprints on the beach, it’s because Jesus blew your legs off.”
Steven Colbert
You gotta love Colbert.
Interestingly this story made on of the big broadsheet UK newspapers today
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/21/gunsights-military-code-biblical-reference
With picture of one of the sights, so it looks legit.
So it’s finally happened…the US Army is now becoming the Adeptus Mechanicus.
…or they’ve been taking lessons from Monty Python.