WHAT ABOUT "JUST WAR" - ?

Today President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace price and he gave the appropriate speech there in Norway. But to peace lovers the speech was kind of a contradictory obscenity and smacked of the Orwellian “War is Peace”. The President used the opportunity to justify the war in Afghanistan. He also threw in the obligatory remarks about how he really didn’t deserve this prize. But I didn’t see him doing a John Lennon and giving it back. Ronald Reagan had a guest on his show this afternoon and they discussed the ethics of war in general. Clearly this Afghan is a “war of choice” and not of necessity. You know, when Mark Bove was at our church for those few months in early1978, Mom used to complain that Mark used the word “Just” too often. He would always say things like “We just want you to bless everyone here” or “We just want healing for our bodies”. Well, today President Obama talked about “Just war”. And that’s what we have been getting this whole decade from our leadership “Just war”. It’s the all war all the time TV station. You know that some would say that man wars because of his sinful nature. If you read my last posting you know that I question this view. I would say there is an element of “sin” in that a lot of wars just aren’t “smart” to conduct, and the US has engaged in a lot of counter productive wars lately. But really I wonder how far removed we are from Arlo Guthrie’s “I want to kill!” statement to the Army psychiatrist. People everywhere want to defeat what they perceive as Evil. But if you’ve read my writings about the Federation you know there is a state of often uneasy peace between the various Federations, Empires and Star Systems. Those not at war would like to be if they thought they could win. It’s innate man’s nature to want to remove sources of Trouble from his life. But really according to Ron Reagan the US has not been “smart” in that through the CIA we encouraged various Wahabiest sects from Saudi Arabia that made their way through the mideas in the 1980’s. We supported these extremists giving them aid and covert support. And now the chickens have come home to roost and our deeds have come back to bite us in the butt. Why doesn’t Obama give a speech on that? There are other peaceful sects of Islam such as the Sufis and the Bahai, which is a mixture of things. Why couldn’t we encourage these religions rather than violent factions of the Sunis? I do not believe that the majority of Moslems would embrace in their own lives the violent morays of their spiritual leaders.

But Christianity has its legacy of violence. There are the Crusades, of course. Then there is all the violence, both verbal and otherwise, against the Jews. I can’t for the life of me figure out why Jewish people are so resigned to believe anything Christians tell them about their faith. Why aren’t they out picketing that Christianity is a dirty religion that spouts nothing but viscious lies about the Jewish people? People believe Jesus’ words saying the trouble with the Jews and the Romans is that the Jews didn’t LOVE the Romans enough, and if they did they would have peace. But the Christians were not at all coy about wanting to take back the Holy Land from the Moslems, or when they conducted the inquisition or burned heretics and witches at the stake. And there were a lot of “good people” who “just weren’t sure about how they felt” about Hitler’s actions against the Jews. But even in their Holy books, like the book of Revelation, this blood lust goes on, wishing not blessings on their enemies, but rather eternal torment in the Lake of Fire. Jesus on KFI has spoken often of the justness of eternal Hell Fire. And his reasoning is that since God is such a GOOD god, then anyone who would “refuse his gracious atonement” is deserving no less than eternal torment for ever and ever. Back in 1995 I raised the example of a dog, that bites President Bush or someone important and another dog that bites a homeless pickpocket, who engages in seedy con schemes and in generally is just a shiftless, worthless fellow. Jesus would say that the first dog needs to suffer eternal torment in Hell because of who he bit. But you say, “It’s just a dog, stupid, he doesn’t know any better”. Well, that is just my point. At the end of the book of Jonah God reminds Jonah of all the people “There are 120,000 people of Nineveh who don’t know their right hand from their left” or to use the vernacular, “Theologically, don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground”. (Selah)

I want to return to the Special Relativity again. The message of this paragraph is that God built in ego-centeredness into every living entity. The question is how we deal with this reality. Some of you might relate to me the following example to try and stump proponents of the theory, along the lines of the Saducee in the New Testament who asked Jesus about the man who had been married seven times (sequentially) and in the after life which one would be his wife. Here is the example. Suppose you have a space station that is “all stop” in space as they say. This big craft launches a ship to the right, and one to its left each going 9/10^th the speed of light. Now the craft going left in turn launches a smaller craft going in turn 9/10^th the speed of light in reference to this ship. And this smaller craft in turn launches a shuttle craft that is in turn going 9/10^th the speed of light. Now flying in front of this lead shuttle on thousand yards in front is another shuttle craft. And this craft shines a bright light. Now the question is, how can the light from this beacon be measured at 186,000 miles per second by each and every one of the ships behind it? If you think you have the answer - now picture a space ship a thousand yards in front of the ship at the other end of this “train” also shining a very bright beacon. How can the light from both beacons be measured at 186,000 by each and every one of these space crafts? The answer lies in the saying of the “old umpire” in that baseball example, “They are what I call them”. In this case they ARE as you see them, and you SEE them differently depending on which end of the train you are viewing. Because remember- - - objects (meaning measuring devices such as tape measures, yard sticks, or whatever you are using) shorten if they are headed away from you. They LOOK shorter (we’ve proved that) therefore they MUST BE shorter. And with a shorter inch, you measure differently. And you can Jerry-rig the figures to make it all come out right because the smallest “foot” or whatever - -will be at opposite ends of this train depending on which direction you are looking. Of course remember “If it’s reciprocal” than how objective can it be? Human beings view everything from their own perspective. Or as Dylan says “Seems everyone’s been having those (post Holocaust) dreams. “Each sees themselves walking around with nobody else. Some of the people can be right some of the time but all of the people can’t be right all of the time.” And then Dylan closes the song with this hopeful sentiment, “I’ll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours”.