An Excerpt From
Suffer the Aged to Come
by Jeff Carrol
Peace is an illusion. It is a mad dream propagated by those who refuse to awaken to the reality that so long as man exists, so will war. The brief peaces that give these dreamers their false hope are just that: brief peaces; short intervals between bloodshed; a moment to catch one's breath before plunging back into the fray. Are the ones who advocate a world at peace blind? Can they not see that our world, the real world, is a world of conflict? Are they deaf to the sounds of war that rage unchecked day after day? A fool's dream, this world peace. Oh, a noble aspiration, to be sure, but unattainable. Why? The chief problem is man. We are creatures of emotion; driven by them. It is not cold reason or logic that we answer to, but the volatile heart of man. Anger, ambition, fear, these are the spurs that drive us to conflict; these are the sparks that light war's flame. These emotions are ingrained in every human being. They are universal; inescapable. The day you can stop our emotions is the day you can stop war.
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4 comments:
this sounds Post-Modernist, rage against the dying of the light man, don't surrender to the war and insanity.
To me, it sounds more pessimistic. A counter-point to the author's position is that people CAN curb their emotions. It's just that people either do not know how, or do not wish to curb the emotions that lead to war. Therefore, the way to end war is to educate the people in morality, which will give them the know-how to avoid war. And as Socrates said, "if the people know the good, they will choose the good."
As a firm believer in the totally depraved state of man's nature, I tend to agree with the author; however, I also think that educating the people in morality can greatly diminish the amount of wars.
Anyway, just some thoughts your post sparked.
Yes nomos, but what is moral to you is not moral to everyone. If you assume the Christian Morals or Ten Commandments then you must expect the Muslims to do the same which they might or might not. Or the Buddhists who think it is immoral and evil to kill any creature...are you going to accept those morals? There will always be wars because there is always difference. As long as you have a better car than me I will always no matter how hard I try envy your better car....envy beget strife, strife the sword...and a war.
I present the duality of men, just as we Christians invest all of our being into the hope of Jesus Christ and the ressurrection as being our drive to thrive and help...This dream of world peace is the hope for the hopeless. People who resign not to hope in our Lord chose to invest their hope in things like world peace, combating global warming, seeking the next stage of evolution. And they will invest all their time and money into it. When the truth is there is only one hope, Jesus Christ, and until the end there will always be envy, strife, and wars. Unavoidable, and inevitable.
For before the end, there first must be a falling away.
And the day of the end will be like the days of Noah.
I completely agree that wars are impossible to eleminate. I'm not arguing against the author's position - I'm just saying that some people could counter with ___ (what I said in the last comment).
My conclusion is the same as yours in that regard, but if you are arguing that moral education does not affect the amount of wars, then I think you are seriously mistaken. Of course, as you note, standards of morality change with the culture. There will always be culture clashes, but if tolerance and peace are taught (I sound like hippy, don't I?) we can decrease the culture clashes.
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