Priests/believers in the army?

[Freethinker]

Then why do they do it? Why claim to have God on their side? It makes even less sense when you explain it like that.

Tormod, the key word in your post is "sense". You are looking for a rational, reasoned, logical approach to a superstition based philosophy. Claiming GOD promotes believers to do horrible things to others and be willing to die for irrational purposes, like killing to end wars.

[infamous]

Freethinker; Your knowledge of scripture is quite outstanding, I'm surprised that you are not preaching somewhere. But then again I quess you are, that is here at Hypography.

[Freethinker]

You'll have to ask another American that question Tormod, I don't have an answer for you. Policies are made by those in authority, I'm sure we common folk are not privilaged to all the information that goes into such decisions...

Ah yes, blind submission to authority. A well brainwashed believer at their best. This is why one of Hitler's first efforts was to defund Public SECULAR schools and promote Christian schools. He stated that he needed "believers". Yes they are far more compliant and willing to do about anything they are asked by their particular invention of a god and it's authorities.

[Freethinker]

Now it seems the dogma is "My god can beat up your god."

Which is almost verbaintum quote from one of Bush's top military people in Iraq.

General Boykin (Deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, one of the top military leaders in Iraq including Abu Ghraib prison) said that a Moslem warlord in Somalia was captured because "I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real god and his was an idol".

[Freethinker]

Very true, serving our own interest. Who's interest should we be serving, Japan's, Germany's, Russia's, what reason would we have to do that. In retrospect however each one of these nations has prospered because of our self serving interest. I'll ask you again, who's interest should we be serving?

How about HUMANITY'S?

 

Not until "believers" are able to drop their irrational concept of deferentiation, based on religious beliefs, invented geographical boundaries, skin color and language, we can not have peace in the world. It is one planet with one human race.

 

THAT should be OUR interest. That IS US!

[Fishteacher73]

I feel that perhaps I was mis-understood when i said: "I can not see a situation that mandates the killing of another person, even for self-preservation."

By this I meant that one should defend oneself, but there is no situation that I can see that requires my defense to be the murder of another. One can use many other methods for protection that do not involve killing your attacker.

[Freethinker]

This is not a product of our government, or even really our society, but of economics. It makes sense, dollarwise, to move manufacturing to places where the labor will work cheaply.

Only to greedy capitalists with no concern about anything but immediate bottom line. Ya strip a company of it's US based manufacturing operations so we can exploit other countries which do not protect either their citizens nor their environment. All for the glory of thge almighty bottom line and shareholders.

 

While ignoring the reality that then the general popuation can no longer afford to BUY these products because they no longer have self sustaining wages.

 

No in the long run it DOES NOT make sense to base corp decisions on one aspect, exploitable cheap labor.

[pgrmdave]

Freethinker, while I agree with many of your posts, I must disagree that all wars are fought because of religion. Most wars are about economics, an attempt to obtain more resources for any given group, and it is not limited to humans.

Insects will fight over resources as well, as is demonstrated in this video:

http://www.pollinator.com/gallery/movies/insect_wars.htm

 

I don't know where to find it, but I once saw a study where they simulated city life with rats, over crowding them in a cage and not giving them enough food - they began to attack each other over the food and space.

 

I think that if we ever got enough resources to allow everybody to live as they want to, there wouldn't be any more wars. I'd be interested to see the relative living conditions of liberals vs. conservatives, republicans vs. democrats, and believers vs. atheists.

[pgrmdave]

Only to greedy capitalists with no concern about anything but immediate bottom line. Ya strip a company of it's US based manufacturing operations so we can exploit other countries which do not protect either their citizens nor their environment. All for the glory of thge almighty bottom line and shareholders.

 

I agree, I was simply explaining that it isn't our government's fault.

[Freethinker]

Once you realize that war is to be with us for a long time, no matter what, then you have to find out what is most important for you, what your options are, and which option you select.[/qoute]

So as long as we blindly accept that there is no other choice...

 

Sorry, not everyone is that blind.

The best service a nation/state can do for its citizens is providing a rich education and the social means for each to be able to do what they select to do. With education, the people are better equipped to sincerely find what is most important to them, either intellectually, socially, spiritually, or emotionally.

 

Once we, as citizens, are confident that we all have received a rich and open-minded education, then we shall respect everyone’s choice.[/qoute]

Which contradicts the claim that war is a requirement. It also completely contradicts the current US admin's efforts and desires.

How could one judge as hypocritical a priest who chooses to give spiritual and moral support to those of us who decided to fight for their country, knowing the horrors our servicemen and women are witnessing and experiencing out there, is beyond me.[/qoute]

Actually it is the only LOGICAL conclussion. If a "preist" (supposed follower of the "Thou shalt not kill" klan) intentionally enters into an effort which requires violation of that Demandment, that IS "hypocritical" by pure definition.

To really make a difference in our war-waging society[/qoute]

we need to stop being blindly obsequious to claims that war is either desirable or required.

While the pacifists are working hard on that aim, other of us will still have to hold guns to protect our sovereignty, because without it, the pacifists won’t have the environment to continue their search for practical peaceful politics.

"War is peace". Ya right! As idiotic as "God is love".

[pgrmdave]

If most of the world was pacifists, there would still be somebody willing to hurt others to get what they want. I think that what the world needs is a strategy for diminishing every country's armed forces to be just large enough to defend the country. I find no fault with self-defense, but there is rarely a reason for offense. I think that there are a few extreme cases in which armed intervention may be necessary. There were diplomatic attempts at making Hitler more humane, none of them worked - he was the only real authority at the time, and there was no other way to stop him except to attack. A country needs to be able to defend itself though, just in the case of an attack.

[infamous]

Ah yes, blind submission to authority. A well brainwashed believer at their best. This is why one of Hitler's first efforts was to defund Public SECULAR schools and promote Christian schools. He stated that he needed "believers". Yes they are far more compliant and willing to do about anything they are asked by their particular invention of a god and it's authorities.

 

Greetijngs Freethinker; It's very flattering that you should pay so much attention to my posts. Even though we disagree on many things, it is pleasing for me to know that you are so interested in what I have to say. Thanks for your undivided attention. infamous

[Fishteacher73]

Humans are animal by nature still. While through rational thought violence and agression are no-longer requirements for survival, we have these traits in our genes. I think one could reasonablly make the claim that if the global wealth/reasorses were more evenly distibuted, for most people this violenet streak could be rationalized out. We are human though and genes are a bit dificult to ignore, so there will be in all likelyhood always the aberant individual that will utilize these traits to gain more than their fair share of stuff until we have successfully maintained the human race peacefully long enough for these traits to have been slowly bred out. Natural selection for eugenics. It is unlikely that this will happen.

This is by no means a call to halt pacifictic actions. I think peace is like the graph of 1/x. We can always get closer to zero war, but it will never fully go away. Very little war is much better than the constant blood-letting of our current times.

[RiverRat]

“There were diplomatic attempts at making Hitler more humane, none of them worked”

 

One must realize that everyone has a different point of reference.

 

To the outside world, Hitler was an absolute evil. To the economically deprived and starving people of post WWI Germany, Hitler was a savior. He was the one that dropped bread on their doorsteps so they would have food in their stomachs. That is far less abstract than… “A 1,000 year empire”.

 

There are so many different points of reference (atheists, Christians, capitalists, communists, etc, etc, etc, …) that it is improbable to reconcile them all as each has their own belief and knowledge sets.

[Fishteacher73]

If perhaps Germany had been treated a bit more justly after WWI, reparations probably would not have spun the country into economic decline.

[RiverRat]

If perhaps Germany had been treated a bit more justly after WWI, reparations probably would not have spun the country into economic decline.

 

If... 'if's' and 'but's' were 'candy' and 'nuts' ... we would all be 'happy' and 'fat' ;)

 

Just a little humor for the Monday morning QB's. ;)

[Freethinker]

Where an outside threat is conserned, a military deterrent is an absolute necessity. Otherwise we may as well through up our hands and surrender.

Sure wouldn't want to start with an assuptiong that there may be a peaceful solution based on common reasoning skills.

 

THis al goes back to the mindset of believers (that I get yelled at for mentioning...)