It’s okay to backhand inferiors with your right hand, but not really your left, because you wipe your ass with it. So if someone turns the other cheek, you’re forced to either open hand slap them, punch them, or switch to your toilet hand. If you slap them or punch them, that’s an act of aggression that somewhat validates them as an equal.
The spiritual interpretation I like, as a discordian that treats Christianity like a terrible Chinese buffet, is that “turn the other cheek” is to recognize that people treating you poorly is a mark of their character, not yours. Your goal is to take suffering with the kind of grace and dignity that forces them to look at themselves for the way that they treat you. Perhaps the cops who set the dogs or turned the hoses on little black children who just wanted to go to school are brought to that moment where they are brought to see the humanity in those that they hate.
It works as a somewhat sadistic solution for the problem of evil - that some of us suffer to benefit the souls of others. But at least it gives meaning to suffering.
Much like the line about turning the other cheek when someone strikes you. So many people take it as a submissive thing. No.
Look the jerk in the eye and dare them to do it again.
See how much it did to me last time? I was barely inconvenienced.
There’s a bunch of different interpretations and arguments that have been made, but I think the most reasonable one to think would have been intended by the writers/historical Jesus is about forcing someone to acknowledge you as an equal.
It’s okay to backhand inferiors with your right hand, but not really your left, because you wipe your ass with it. So if someone turns the other cheek, you’re forced to either open hand slap them, punch them, or switch to your toilet hand. If you slap them or punch them, that’s an act of aggression that somewhat validates them as an equal.
The spiritual interpretation I like, as a discordian that treats Christianity like a terrible Chinese buffet, is that “turn the other cheek” is to recognize that people treating you poorly is a mark of their character, not yours. Your goal is to take suffering with the kind of grace and dignity that forces them to look at themselves for the way that they treat you. Perhaps the cops who set the dogs or turned the hoses on little black children who just wanted to go to school are brought to that moment where they are brought to see the humanity in those that they hate.
It works as a somewhat sadistic solution for the problem of evil - that some of us suffer to benefit the souls of others. But at least it gives meaning to suffering.
“If you touch me again, I’ll kill ya.”
He calls me Joseph.
Everything bad is good, and everything good is bad, slave morality in a nutshell.