i hope that by delcaring a war on terrorists, we can drop our current and meaningless "war on drugs" as I doubt amerca can bring its collective attention to bear on both of these psudo-fronts. not really a related comment, but I would be overjoyed if this tragic attack results in an overall feeling of american solidarity. Though its arrogent to say, it is lonely at the top, and so we tend to bicker amongst ourselves a lot more than some smaller country would. then again, we have a lot more people (and, by extention, a lot more factions) than any small country would have. accepting the habbits of some of our people in order to make the whole stronger would be a good thing for us.
you know, im only an amature theologest, but I am reasonably certain that Jesus said "if a man hits you, turn to him the other cheek" or something similar. In all honesty, when somebody does an action agenst me personally that dosent physicly harm me, i dont physicly harm them. i attempt to find out what they were doing, and why, and possibly set the situation right. I think this is a good way for me to live. and, initally, i was wondering why it was that america seemed to have revenge on its mind. to me, this hadnt hurt me ir mine physicly and so i didnt see why we should be all up in arms. then, i thought a bit more about it, and decided that many, many people had been hurt by it. i consider this a bit of a conflict whithin myself: while i dont like the use of physical violence at all, i do take karate, and stand ready to beat the living crap about of anybody who wants to cause me or mine physical harm. and so, seeing that there was physical harm, i could see the anger suddently. i still dont think droping bombs on the people who might maybe be ethnicly related to the people who did the attack is going to help the matter, but i can now certainly see the logic.
what i would like to hear back is this: is standing ready to strike back agent those who would attack you a christian value? I think the teachings of Jesus, like the teachings of the budha or (some) of the teachings of the messiah, are a fairly reasonable way to look at life. its a place to start at least. But, should I (or we) really turn the other cheek? Can we? it seems so clear that something must be done, but what? |