Israel Declares War For The First Time Since 1973.

It is hard to be optimistic. No one knows the depth of evil in the human heart.

Let's extend that quote a bit.

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Matthew 12:30 “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
31 And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.
32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
33 “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.
34 You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
35 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.

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When you read further it isn't about what we give intellectual assent to. It is about what we base our life on. Do we live our life on the message of the Holy Spirit, which is at it's core is the Golden Rule, or do we live a life that focuses on the self even at the expense of others.You are doing what a lot of fundamentalists do by pulling one verse out of the Bible without context and using as a proof text.

I see it this way The passage is about rejecting the message of the Holy Spirit which is essentially about the love of the other. When we focus on the self, whether it is about acquiring wealth or power then we live lives that can never be fulfilled and we create a life for ourselves that is very often hellish.For example how may movie or rock star can we name who when they get to the point that they wanted to achieve find that it is not enough and escape through drugs or relationships that ultimately fail. Sure thereIn other words we create our own hell.

I essentially disagree with this characterisation. Even in the Bible there were those who converted to Judaism. I have a cousin, raised in a Christian home, who married a Jewish man and converted. In one real sense Christians are simply part of a Jewish sect that differed from the others on the messianic issue.
Yes there are many Jews who are cultural Jews based on ethnicity but the same is true of Christians, although I agree that is a lot less true that it was not very long ago.As far as the issue of the war goes, I would say that after having travelled fairly extensively in Israel, I have considerable sympathy with both points of view. I would add though that nearly all members of Hamas in Gaza are Palestinian but not all Palestinians in Gaza are members of Hamas. There are both Palestinians and Jews that are arguing for a cease fire, and for a path of peaceful co-existence.

If you read on further in that passgae it says this.

quote:

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For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
35 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.

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So it really is talking about the message of the heart. This is a problem it comes from cherry picking verses as the so-called literalists often do. We all choose the path we take. If we choose to benefit the self at the expense of the other then it becomes the choice that we ultimately pick for our lives, and it is a life that can never be fulfilled because we can never have enough, or a hell on earth.

You tell me then what it means to blaspheme the Spirit. You disregard my reading of it in context but you don't explain how you understand it except to put an expletive in front of Holy Spirit.