-
@ David
2025-06-14 12:32:02
the word Lord is used a lot but so is the word Shepherd.
a shepherd protects his flock and does not exploit them outside of the natural context of their life cycle. at least a Good Shepherd does.
he never uses violence against them, only warnings and ultimately, when they stray, he goes out of his way to bring them back because a stray sheep is in danger away from the herd.
a bad shepherd would be one who unnaturally confines his sheep (you don't need a shepherd if you keep them in pens) and who uses violence (the dogs) to keep them in line and because they are confined, they don't subsist by their nature (to wander about in a herd eating grass on green grasslands) with the shepherd tending to them, they are fed hay, and these days, even grains, both of which are contrary to the nature of the beasts.
one of the common accusations made about christianity is that it's an authoritarian cult of conformity, but the reality is that conforming to your own nature is not conforming to any other thing than yourself, and the authority is not manipulating you, but rather protecting and guiding you.
sheep are also quite placid creatures, as well, and depend on rams to defend themselves, as well as clustering in tight packs with the males around the circumference and the ewes and lambs protected behind their boundary, and they don't attack, they are not predators, they simply defend themselves by at most exhausting the energy of the predator with their hard-headed, shielded heads.
sheep were most likely also the first herd animal that humans domesticated, because they are the least dangerous to tangle with. cattle are big and have horns designed to inflict damage on predators, and goats are very loose in their herding behaviour, and tend towards evasion and escape, for which reason they are more agile and have lighter, but more dangerous horns, which they can use like spears by tilting their heads down and running at the predators. so there is also these other aspects of what it means to be a sheep and how it is the right metaphor for the people of God.
the jews rejected jesus, and tend towards authoritarianism, and the muslims are an affinity scam, cloaking their communistic pattern of government, which is very high priority in their teachings. of course some of the sects of both religions tend in the opposite direction, such as the kibbutzim, though i'm not familiar enough with the hole array of factions and their philosophies, when i say "jews are nationalists" and "muslims are communists" i mean that their primary large groups operate under very much these patterns of social structure.