Iron Man and the Right to Wear Repulser Gloves

Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The Bill of Rights, archives.gov

The movie “Iron Man 2” recently aired last week on FX, and the timing couldn't be more eerily appropriate. In the aftermath of the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting, talk has been fervent across the nation about the question of gun control. This past Wednesday, Obama presented a plan of action for gun control, including a ban on high capacity assault rifles, and some second amendment advocates were not happy with it. It turns out that billionaire Tony Stark (Robert Downey, jr.), also known as Iron Man, was involved in his own second amendment dilemma. So, what's “Iron Man's 2” position on this issue? The film undoubtedly defends the right of the American citizen to possess fire arms, but it also makes the point that not everyone can be trusted with them.

The federal government attempts to confiscate Tony Stark's Iron Man technology, believing that its very existence is a threat to national security, and wanting to use the technology in the military. Stark doesn't like this idea, as one would imagine. He makes it very clear that “[t]he suit and I are one.” In fact, Tony even tells a public hearing, aired on C-SPAN, that he “successfully privatized world peace,” through his heroic actions using the armor. It doesn't take that long, however, before Tony Stark becomes reckless. Throughout the movie, the metal known as palladium, which is in the device that prevents lethal shrapnel in his blood stream from entering his heart, is slowly poisoning him. Faced with his seemingly imminent death, Stark resorts to erratic and dangerous behavior, including playing with his Iron Man armor at his own birthday party while intoxicated. The ominous music in this scene indicates how dangerous Tony Stark has become, even leading his best friend, Colonel James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) to battle Stark in an earlier version of the Iron Man suit, saying, “You don't deserve to wear that armor.”

If Tony can't be trusted with a high-tech suit of armor, then he can't be trusted with an assault rifle, either. So, why should we trust a drunk or a drug addict or anyone with a mental disorder with an assault rifle or any kind of gun?

Fortunately, Tony Stark eventually gets his act together, and just in time, too, since a small platoon of military robots are designed by requisite villain Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) in order to help Tony Stark's big technology rival, Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), to dominate Tony Stark at his own expo. Vanko, unbeknownst to Hammer, remotely controls the drones and wreaks havoc on the expo in an attempt to kill Iron Man, and it was up to Stark and Rhodes to defeat the drones, as well as Vanko himself. The drones represent the U.S. Military, and if they become destructive, then it wouldn't be too hard to ponder what would happen if our own real world military becomes oppressive. It took an average citizen, albeit a genius one, to use his own “arms” or armour to combat this threat. Anyone who believes that the Second Amendment is meant to protect Americans, if the government becomes oppressive, would find an argument in “Iron Man 2” for why the right to carry a gun is so essential.

 However, as a certain red and blue clad web-swinger would say it, “With great power comes great responsibility.

information from imdb.com and archives.gov

My non-Christian Friend is NOT going to the Other Place

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. John 3:17,18

I consider myself to be a Christian. I have a Bible. I go to church every Sunday that I'm able to. I also believe that not only Christians go to Heaven.

A while ago, I got into a debate on Facebook regarding the above bit of scripture from the Bible. Particularly, it was the part of the scripture that said “whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” I initially interpreted this as a form of discrimination. I figured that God punished those who don't accept Christ as the son of God by sending them to Hell. Someone looking in on this Facebook conversation posted a couple lines of scripture, such as the following, that clarified things for me.

8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. Romans 9:8

The way it was explained to me was that all people were born as “children of the flesh” because of the Original Sin in the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve ate the apple containing the knowledge of good and evil. However, if we accept Christ as our savior and become “children of the promise [of Christ's salvation],” then we are “counted as offspring [of God],” and therefore have access to the kingdom of heaven. However, I have a problem with this outline for the path to salvation from death and eternal damnation.

One of my closest friends is of a faith other than Christianity. She's a real sweetheart, and she's basically dedicating her life to saving the entire planet from suffering. Automatically, she seems much more worthy of entering Heaven than I could ever be. Why would God create a system to salvation that automatically excludes people from the Kingdom of Heaven who were not raised Christian, or, further more, have either never heard of never will hear of Jesus in their lifetimes? That doesn't make sense to me.

Now, I understand that one may counter my argument that my friend is more worthy of going to Heaven than I am because of the good works that she does, “8 [f]or by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-10). There are a lot of people who do different works for different reasons. I'm positive that there are many people who do good works not so that they might “boast” that they're getting into the kingdom of Heaven. I think God can see into all our souls, and that He knows who is doing good deeds because they are good, as opposed to simply trying to get a ticket into Heaven.

Although I have my reasons for believing that there are pathways outside of being an official Christian that are available for escaping damnation, I have essentially been accused of denial of the supposed fact that one can only be saved by accepting Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Somebody asked me the question: “Are you willing to say the truth is a lie so that in your mind someone doesn't go to a bad place[?] Is it better that way or another way?”

I am not in denial about the fact that Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). You can't deny something that you know for a fact is not true. I know in my heart that God would not design such an exclusive system. Perhaps there were subtleties to the Message that may have gotten lost in translation. Let's keep in mind that the Old Testament wasn't first written in English, but primarily in Hebrew, with “a few chapters in the prophecies of Ezra and Daniel and one verse in Jeremiah . . . written in a language called Aramaic,” (biblica.com), and the New Testament was written in Greek (biblica.com). So, who is to say that Jesus meant, “if you don't convert to Christianity, you're going to Hell?”

Maybe having a relationship with Jesus can also mean living like Jesus, going out into the world, preaching the message of love, and talking to God, or Allah, or Nirvana, or whatever one might call him. The theologian Karl Rahner proposed the concept of the anonymous Christian, which is someone who has already been saved by Christ, but just don't know it yet.

Firstly, God, who desires all men to be saved, cannot possibly consign all non-Christians to hell. Secondly, Jesus Christ is God’s only means of salvation. This must mean that the non-Christians who end up in heaven must have received the grace of Christ without their realising it.

--Wong Cheong Sou 25

Rahner furthermore said the following:

Is it surprising that in certain circumstances the real situation and the basic self-understanding of a person may be grasped more clearly by someone else than by the person himself, who may in fact strongly resist the other’s interpretation? ³

^{--quoted in Wong Cheong Sou 25}

^{To put it more basically, suppose that someone claims not to believe in Christ's resurrection of the dead, or go to church. Yet, this person volunteers his or her time out of a strong need to do good in the world. Let's say that this person prays a lot as well. That's what Jesus said to do, right?}

^{29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32 And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him.}

^{– Mark 12, 29-32}

^{The text says to love “the Lord your God,” so whoever “your God” is may depend on the religion you belong to. And if this non-Christian chooses to “love your neighbor as yourself,” then that's very Christian as well. Jesus also said “There is no other commandment greater than these.” So, your actions are more important than what you label God as or whether or not you make it to Church every Sunday.}

I'm not creating an alternate reality for myself just to make myself feel better. I know for a fact that not all non-Christians go to Hell. Yes, the Bible tells you a lot about God, but I think it's just as important to listen to what your heart says about what the scripture in your religion tells you. Faith in what your heart says is something deeper than simply believing what your scriptures say alone. If you believe in your heart that what the scriptures say is true, then who am I to say you're wrong? However, nobody will be able to prove anybody wrong until we're all dead. So I'm just going to follow my moral compass, and ask myself, “What would Jesus and Buddha do?'

Works Cited

In what language was the Bible first written? biblica.com

biblegateway.com

Wong Cheong Sou, Reverend Norman. Karl Rahner’s Concept of the ‘Anonymous Christian’ An Inclusivist View of Religions. Church and Society. Volume 4, No 1