The Truth thousands of years old is still the Truth, and a lie thousands of years old is still a lie. How do we separate which is which?
The recent scandal in the Catholic Church of priests abusing children, as horrible as that is, is just the tip of the iceberg in regard to the misrepresentations that are made by people of the cloth. People are not what they seem under the clothes they wear, in all walks of life. When Al-Zaqwari was killed recently by American forces, the tipster said to follow his spiritual advisor. So al-Zaqwari is dead, but his spiritual advisor keeps promoting the same lies as before.
In Newton, Massachusetts, this week a synagogue had a rally in support of the state of Israel and its attacks on Lebanon. Both the Catholic and Protestant churches in America have all given blessing to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
So what do we have? Almost every spiritual body in the world is engaged in promoting the idea of war and the right of self-defense. You don't have to be a genius to figure out that if everyone thinks war is righteous, then war will be common. Nobody is actually afraid of God, but everyone is afraid of each other. The atheists and the humanists are no different. They weigh the expediency of killing on a scale and then come to a "rational" choice which is just as irrational as everyone else's choice. War is crazy; only peace makes sense.
Is the world really so full of morons? Evidently, yes. I used to be a moron, too. Like everyone else, I was force fed the crap that George Washington was a hero, and that killing served a noble purpose. While the killing of 600,000 Americans in the Civil War was regrettable, it was "worth it" because the slaves were freed and the Union was "preserved." What "unity" was that? It is the same old story: Kill anyone who disagrees. And if they defend themselves, then that is justification for killing them. This circular logic is not Orwellian, it's mainstream. It isn't a mythical fascism, it is in your newspaper everyday. You agree with it in most cases. It is so close that it's in your mirror when you wake up everyday.
Most thinkers in history have claimed that the sword is mightier than the pen. Locke, Jefferson, Marx etc., what a buch of pathetic writers and thinkers. They have all repeated the same lie: the best way to stop people from abusing you is to kill them. It is the perfect philosophy for both the rebel and the authority figure to justify their attacks on each other. Blame somebody else for the problems you create. Bankrupt your treasury for revenge to redeem a penny.
It is a mixed up world when pacifists are called troublemakers and UN troops are called peacemakers. Liberals are as dumb as a stone thinking government is the solution, when they already know it is the problem. Progressives are regressive and they want to tax the working man to death while they measure whatever they measure. And conservatives are equally busy counting, only it is their hoard of wealth. They never think about anyone else. The only exception to that is when they can have a parade for themselves when they do a charitable act. No parade, no charity.
But it is the men of cloth that really send the system into a disarray. They teach lies and claim they are the truth. No wonder Jesus complained about them. Generations come and go and the same lies get passed down. The commandment "Do not Kill" was rewritten to "Do not shoot until you see the whites of their eyes."
There is only one path to progress, and that is to reject the past. Liberals, conservatives, progressives, Islamists, Zionists, Christians, communists and humanists all need to reject the idea that killing someone will solve a problem. Killing is the problem. We don't want to preserve the past or correct it, we want to learn from it and abandon it, as quickly as possible. (Peacefully, of course.)
All the heroes of the past are false heroes. Every war and every battle is won by the most ruthless. Do you think Hitler was bad? The Allies were worse, otherwise they couldn't have won. While Hitler was wasting time building inefficient ovens, we dropped two from the sky. Who was the most ruthless?
Were the Redcoats heavy-handed? They were not as ruthless as the colonists. The Buddhists in Vietnam protested by killing themselves. They were angry but not ruthless. It was the communists that were both angry and ruthless, that is why they won.
Similarly, the terrorists are angry and ruthless. The only way we can defeat them is to be more ruthless, or be more wise. You condemn yourself to the same fate that you choose for others. Live by the sword and die by the sword.
Are you ready to love your enemy? All your hopes and dreams will be consumed by your fear, hate, anger and desire for revenge if you won't. Don't expect the world to change until you see a new you in the mirror. You don't need a spiritual advisor, you need to be honest with yourself.
You have written so much, and addressed so may different issues in your article, I cannot even begin to respond......and whenever I feel that is the case, including with many of my own thoughts, I usually find validation in a quote or two.
The following two quotes I find relevant to your text...and I hope are helpful.
'The devil never comes offering you something evil. The devil comes offering you a larger audience'. Murray Kempton
'The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, but rather a condition of it'. Friedrich Nietzsche
by
Katrin R. (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 514 comments)
on Friday, July 21, 2006 at 3:39:28 AM
1 comments
How would you rate this?
You must be logged in (if signed up) to do ratings.
It's free to signup! And easy. And takes just a minute or two....
Must Read (
Well Said (
News (
Touching (
Funny (
Supported (
Interesting (
Inspiring (
Valuable (
