Oct 27, 2015 By John Lucas 5 min read

For the life of me, I can’t figure out how Fayette County can have such a high rate of unemployed and underemployed people. It seems that we have more preachers, priests, clerics, biblical scholars and theologians than … .

Here, let’s look at it another way. Some people call our county “Fayette-Nam” and I think that’s funny, but it’s a misnomer. It’s more like “Vatican City West,” to me. If you read the editorial pages regularly like I do, it seems that everyone is a member of the clergy. My God, you got me doing it too.

Ego prevents me from calling myself a pastor, or a priest. Ah, but I can play the game too. Since a lot of us have shown that we’re totally “full of ourselves,” allowing fantasies of self-righteousness to set the tone of what we write, than I want to be: “Pope Lucas the Last.”

Now did I just write something that’s “blasphemous,” or “iconoclastic?” I would hope that I wrote something that’s kind of funny. Granted, I’m going to make a point with this dribble, and I want to give people something to think and hopefully laugh about, but really … .

Recently, someone from Hopwood wrote a piece where he addresses something that I mentioned in a “salute” I wrote for the Rev.  and Mrs. Marietta. After reading this gentleman’s issues he has with my earlier piece (and snippets he mistakenly attributed to me that were written by Mr. Nicholson), if I had it to do over again, I would write mine verbatim to how I wrote it.

If that makes me the “Edgar Snyder of Blasphemers,” then so be it. The gentleman from Hopwood accused the late reverend of blasphemy, for his choice of a word that is sometimes a noun and sometimes a verb, depending on how you use it in a sentence.

The guy is correct that the word chosen by the late reverend: “murder,” holds a specificity that the word: “kill,” doesn’t. The word: murder, as a noun, specifies “intent.”

It would seem to me that God is intelligent enough to take into account a sinner’s (and we all are sinners) intent to break a commandment, before condemning us for doing it.

The Ten Commandments were originally given to Moses and the Jews who were escaping Egypt. Chances are when “God’s own hand” cut them into stone, he wrote them in Hebrew. They were kept in the Arc of the Covenant that people have been trying to find for thousands of years, so what were all these theological scholars my critic mentioned, interpreting? Weren’t they interpreting an interpretation?

Hebrew doesn’t have as many words as English. For example: in Hebrew the word for the number “18” and “life” is the same. Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath, yet Christians consider Sunday the Sabbath. Using the logic of the gentleman from Hopwood, wouldn’t that make all Christians blasphemers?

Of course it doesn’t. It’s merely a question of semantics, syntax and pragmatics.

The same argument can be made relating to the choice of the word”murder,” over the word “kill.” Any sin, or wrong, is dependent on “intent.” To think otherwise is nonsensical.

If one inadvertently breaks any of the Ten Commandments (and I wager to bet we all have) without the intent to do it, are we really guilty of breaking it?

My critic from Hopwood implies that the killing of someone in self-defense, or an act of war, violates the Sixth Commandment. Relying on his logic, the commandment requires we allow others to kill us, rather than defend ourselves. Does the world “nonsensical” come to mind again? Why would I need redemption for not permitting someone to kill me, or mine?

In two consecutive sentences he writes: “Suicide cannot be forgiven because the person responsible for taking their own life cannot redeem themselves. Jesus, in Matthew, said the only sin that is unforgivable is blasphemy.” (He strategically omits: “…against the Holy Ghost.”)

Well then, which one is it? The gentleman from Hopwood says suicide cannot be forgiven. Jesus says the only unforgivable sin is blasphemy (against the Holy Ghost). The only way to make sense out of his consecutive sentences is to believe blasphemy (against the Holy Ghost) and suicide mean the same thing. Maybe they do and maybe they don’t. If you’re smart enough to read my “stuff,” you know. If you don’t believe me, read Matthew 12:31 (KJV).

Then there’s the matter of Jesus’ political persuasion. The guy from Hopwood says that Jesus is a liberal. I feel confident a preacher from some local chapel might think he’s a conservative. I would prefer to think Jesus was and is correct!

I can’t imagine Jesus being liberal, or conservative, by today’s standards. Is Jesus “pro-choice, or pro-life?” Does he want healthcare for everyone, or only for those that can afford it? I think I know what he is and feel confident you do too. I figure he’s more concerned with what is “right” as opposed to what might be politically correct, or popular with the “have, or the have-nots.” You guys can individually figure that one out. I already did.

In closing, let’s revisit “intent” one more time. It’s true. I have been trolling for the ultra-liberal member of the Fourth Estate from Hopwood, just like I troll for his ultra-conservative counterparts in this newspaper. When they’re wrong, I won’t hesitate in “checking” them. This is what I do. I keep calling him a “gentleman,” because; in this debate, that’s what he’s shown himself to be in his disagreement with me. So I’ve elected to respond in kind.

However, I’m not the guy to argue with over “words.” As you can see, this is my game.

John Lucas is a resident of Vanderbilt