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I've heard this kind of clap trap for most of my 73 years.
What's disturbing is that you like the idea.
It's ridiculous.
One breath it's "Satan is running the earth"...
Next breath it's "God's in control"...
When the "Christian" is questioned about this position the response is "God is letting Satan run things for now but Satan is gonna get his in the end".
And at this point I'm reminded of what Bill Mahar asked the Jesus Actor at that now defunct "Jesus Land Theme Park" in his movie Religulous...
Some religions have adopted pacifist tendencies like Buddhism, Quakers, Mennonites, some Hindus like Gandhi, although some in those groups are known to have become police or soldiers.
Wars don't resolve border disputes, Ukraine and Russia have fought for centuries over borders.
Violence does not lead to long term peace.
War destroys lives, causes pain, endangers non-combatants, hurts the economy, pollutes, dehumanizes, and wastes.
New hate can't eliminate old hate.
We have enough technology to destroy the earth for all...we need a shared sense of peace and humanity to prevent ourselves from doing it.
Jesus removes himself from danger, but he never uses violence to defeat danger.
God created us all in his image, we are all a living embodiment of God's image with a divine spark internally within us all, deserving of the miracle of life, equality before God and on earth, and the miracle of free will to live in peace. God then tells us to love and serve our neighbors and welcome travelers as new neighbors. This is why violence against individuals and groups is wrong. When we see the light inside each human, how can we justify killing them?
Nice sentiment - and I agree on most of your points, but pacifism didn't work out very well at all for Jews in Poland/Germany in WWII.
Yes, war is terrible, and even 'peacetime' testing of nuclear bombs - over 1000 detonated by USA (about 1700 worldwide) - has led to millions of cases of cancer & deaths of all ages so far.
Yet all of this is just a trickle compared to the 1.7B lives cut short before even seeing the light of day.
Nice sentiment - and I agree on most of your points, but pacifism didn't work out very well at all for Jews in Poland/Germany in WWII.
Yes, war is terrible, and even 'peacetime' testing of nuclear bombs - over 1000 detonated by USA (about 1700 worldwide) - has led to millions of cases of cancer & deaths of all ages so far.
Yet all of this is just a trickle compared to the 1.7B lives cut short before even seeing the light of day.
According to the Atomic Archive, the US did about half of the 2,000 nuclear tests that have been conducted globally (there have been none of those in this century, except for a half dozen tests done by North Korea).
According to a US government study, 15,000 US cancer deaths have been linked to nuclear testing done by US, UK, France and Russia.
So it seems your numbers are on the high side with regard to cancer deaths. Given the poor cure rate of most cancers, I would imagine total cases would not be even double 15,000.
I am not sure what you're referring to with the 1.7B but if it's abortions there were about 50 million in the US between 1973 and 2011 so it seems unlikely that figure is as high as you state globally (and that's from the Guttmacher Institute, whose figures are somewhat higher than official US government figures because of reporting gaps from some states). These figures are peer-reviewed and cited by both proponents and opponents. The claim of 50 million abortions per year and (highest I could find) 1.5B wordwide in the past 50 years are coming from anti-abortion sites and as far as I can tell come without citations.
This rule has been enforced since the day I became a moderator, over eight years ago:
Quote:
Originally Posted by mensaguy
One thing that needs to be written down is that Abortion is a topic for the Politics and Other Controversies forum and is considered off topic anywhere in the Religion and Spirituality forums. This has been enforced since the day I was asked to become a moderator for this forum. I did not take on this role to moderate political discussions. If you want to discuss this topic, please locate one of the many, many threads in the Politics and Other Controversies forum.
I'm not sure that I would classify Jesus as a pacifist after reading the book of Revelation and seeing what He has in store for unbelievers in the future.
Not everyone understands Revelation to mean THAT, though!
I think some people cling to that interpretation because it excites them to think of the bad guys getting their just desserts.
Not everyone understands Revelation to mean THAT, though!
I think some people cling to that interpretation because it excites them to think of the bad guys getting their just desserts.
True, although one scarcely NEEDS the Revelation to understand the bad guys are getting their just desserts.
Although the Jesus ostensibly dictating those letters to various churches at the start of Revelation seems a rather different person from the one depicted in the gospels, who in fact had very little to say about comeuppance. When they encountered a blind man, his followers in fact gave him an opening: who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind. And Jesus instead said "neither". He's just suffered all these years to be a prop in this little play we're acting out here.
Another reason people like the Revelation is that it represents their desire for the world to conclusively see that Christians were right all long -- in the most graphic possible fashion. It is like one great comeuppance for 2,000 years of skepticism, beginning with Jesus' original claim that at least some of the people in his presence would see him return in glory in their lifetimes.
Some religions have adopted pacifist tendencies like Buddhism, Quakers, Mennonites, some Hindus like Gandhi, although some in those groups are known to have become police or soldiers.
Wars don't resolve border disputes, Ukraine and Russia have fought for centuries over borders.
Violence does not lead to long term peace.
War destroys lives, causes pain, endangers non-combatants, hurts the economy, pollutes, dehumanizes, and wastes.
New hate can't eliminate old hate.
We have enough technology to destroy the earth for all...we need a shared sense of peace and humanity to prevent ourselves from doing it.
Jesus removes himself from danger, but he never uses violence to defeat danger.
God created us all in his image, we are all a living embodiment of God's image with a divine spark internally within us all, deserving of the miracle of life, equality before God and on earth, and the miracle of free will to live in peace. God then tells us to love and serve our neighbors and welcome travelers as new neighbors. This is why violence against individuals and groups is wrong. When we see the light inside each human, how can we justify killing them?
Yes, agree. Often religion is used for the purpose of waging wars, as crusades. How do we break the chain that connects religion as a tool of hate and division and instead as a path towards connections and peace?
I have hope that it will happen. In communities I have lived and live religion connects people to good causes, for justice and equality. One way will be for religion to stop our government from selling arms or wage wars other than as defense.
However, if all religions including the Orthodox Church in Russia pushed pacifism or at least some sort of a non-aggression mindset...then Russia wouldn't/couldn't have attacked.
Many countries, including the US, Russia, and eastern European countries have a war-mindset.
Look at all of the money the US pours into building weapons.
Look at all of the labor hours that the US pours into building weapons.
Look at all of the intelligence that the US pours into building weapons.
All while many problems go unproperly addressed like cancer, mental illness, hunger, the environment, and etc...
What do we do with these weapons? We spread them around the world, which intimidates other countries and encourages them to increase their war-mindset....this includes Russia who in turn must be more aggressive, which makes us more aggressive.
I think this war-mindset is a self-fulfilling prophecy and it leads down a path of doom and destruction.
Yes, agree. Often religion is used for the purpose of waging wars, as crusades. How do we break the chain that connects religion as a tool of hate and division and instead as a path towards connections and peace?
I have hope that it will happen. In communities I have lived and live religion connects people to good causes, for justice and equality. One way will be for religion to stop our government from selling arms or wage wars other than as defense.
It seems to me that you are correct to call wars a chain, in which sometimes religion plays a part. Wars are "linked" together.
Todays wars were a result of violence in the past and the violence today will inspire violence in the future. There are children's minds todays being poisoned with violence.
We should seek to break these chains of violence and war.
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