Re: [OT] Iraq

"Charles Hottel" <chottel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I am tired of wars. I am tired of our leaders coming to us and saying "here is why we have to go to war, and here is why it is
righteous, and will be different this time from all those other times when it didn't work out". I see war as a lose-lose
proposition. No side wins, they may lose less, but they still lose and government reframes it as winning because they need people
to support the next war, and the next.... Without knowing what the dead could have accomplished it is impossible to really know
what was lost. How many potentially great contributors have been lost to war? Why can't nations stop acting like little children
and act more like adults? Why can't we talk to each other and be as aggressive at preventing war as we are at fighting wars?

Given what happened in WWII it is difficult to see how all war could be abolished. Would Ghandi's method have worked against the
nazis? I think not given their willingness to kill all who opposed them. If we must have war than I think it should only be for
the purpose of saving lives. Only if more people will be killed by not going to war than by going to war. Maybe that is naive.
Maybe we have to fight for things like freedom. I don't have and don't know all the answers, but I know I am sick of war and
historically it does not seem to worked out well. We need to somehow evolve beyond it before our technology has eached the point
where we cause our own extinction, and I think that time is approaching faster than we might like to think.

Thou shall not kill. Some say that is a mistranslation and should be thou shall not murder. I wouldn't like to bet my soul on it.
I think God is sad when any human kills another for any reason, even if they are killing inorder to save lives. Life is precious
and we should not be so willing to waste it. Perhaps I am predjudiced because of recent events in my life. I hope I can live my
life without ever having to kill another person.

God specifically instructs us to kill those who murder. This was commanded
to Noah after he came off the ark, and many times later. Don't want to get into
a Bible discussion here, because it rankles a lot of people. But it is made very
clear, many times, that there are valid, God sanctioned reasons to take lives,
though never for revenge. In fact, when you read the contexts, the often
misquoted and misapplied phrase "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" is
*always in every instance* talking about unbiased judicial justice, and never
personal vengeance. I'll be happy to supply plenty of Scripture references,
if anybody wants them. But it is absolutely impossible to justify a "killing is
*always* wrong" position from the Bible, unless you throw out large parts
of it.
--
Judson McClendon judmc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (remove zero)
Sun Valley Systems http://sunvaley.com
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."


.

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