[alexvoda]

Who is that "just man willing to make a real sacrifice going against its grain in a sorely needed fashion" threatening to overturn social order?

Also, hand washing is a matter of cleanliness period. Not spiritual cleanliness, not ritual cleanliness, not karmic cleanliness, not any other kind of something cleanliness. It is simple, ordinary, banal cleanliness.

[alehander42]

If you totally ignore the context of a text and read it in a way almost no one ever read it, you can give it any meaning you want

[alexvoda]

I am not ignoring context at all. The context was:

> The modern day godless neo-pharisees ...... want to maintain the social order they're scared of having overturned by a just man willing to make a real sacrifice .......

Who is this modern day man? JetAlone, who are you talking about? And who are his opponents?

[alehander42]

Just to clarify my comment, I was answering your second paragraph: it seemed to ignore to me the context of the original related Bible sections that started the discussion.

[alexvoda]

And that paragraph of mine was in response to this paragraph by JetAlone:

> You can wash your hands if you think it is wise to, but don't make it a matter of spiritual, ritual cleanliness that you place trust in the performance of above God as the pharisees did. As you say, God can make the water a worse poison to you.

That paragraph is very much refering to the present, not to biblical times. For some reason, contrary to what most Christians belive, JetAlone seems to doubt the usefulness of hand washing, because why bother, God can make the water into poison.

JetAlone, do you believe in a malevolent God?

In a way, I can understand it. If you have ultimate unshakable faith in God: a) You believe God will not let any harm befall you no matter how irresponsible your behaviour. b) You also believe that should harm befall you, it is inevitable, because it is God's will. But is this not called tempting God and against Christian dogma?