Where is the war best fought?
Muslims and Christians
If a tree grows in a greenhouse it may get very tall but its trunk will be weak and it will fall over of its own weight. It needs the wind to cause it to grow a thick trunk.
Islam was born not so much out of the unique wisdom of its founder but from the oppression of its opponents.
At the time Islam began there was an oppressive group spreading its influence in the world wiping out heretics in the name of Christ. It had already begun spreading its message of love and hate piously calling for the persecution of nonconformists who would not bow to their particular form and doctrine.
They universalized their doctrine in many ways, from just mild shunning of others to the burning of books and people.
Mohammed claimed a desire to "preserve the Gospels" and the "the Pentateuch" in his own way. His Quran or Koran was sifted and aggregated from his personal 'revelations' by others after his death much as the Bible was garnered from writings after the passing of Christ.
THE BIBLE
http://www.hisholychurch.net/sermon/bible.php
These writings of Mohammed were interpreted, explained and even transliterated in an attempt to remove matters of dialectical peculiarities of the people. Early Codex were often withdrawn from public access in order to maintain a uniform or universal text for the spread of the Islamic Empire. The scholarly interpretation of what text remained also produced a variety of dogmas and denominations and religions all claiming Mohammed. This process was also true in what history calls the Christian world. This is true because the nature of Muslims and Christians is the same. They have both fallen prey to the same great deceiver.
The compilation of the Quran by Uthman was due to the fact that dialects, foreign words, dependence on oral traditions was already causing division amongst a people always diversified.
But even words written down at one time can change by the desire and influence of scholars and authors of dictionaries. Words are often equivocal and as capricious as the sands of the desert or the waves of the sea. In time and usage words changes.
The nature of people seems to stay the same.
The fact is Islam has been a defender of justice as well as an excuse for tyrants. So called Christianity has been used in the exact same way.
These characteristics of corruption and vanity Islam shares with what history has sometimes called Christianity. When Jews and true Christians were suffering under the Apostate Churches attempt to eradicate heretics and heathens both of them fled to Islamic countries where they found freedom and security.
Mohammed forbade the killing of women and children and old men in war. He also guaranteed the safety of Christians by several charters.
Then the Crusades came with blood bathes on both sides. During clashes of armies of hate, violence and control, men met in the name of faith in their respective "images" of God. The fact is Faith in the real and same existing God does not produce war. It is the desire to be God and exercise authority over others that produces war and aggression. That is why Christ forbid such activity in the kingdom he appointed. [Luke 22:25-29]
It is hate, fear envy, judgment and self-righteous pride that is the enemy.
Old and New Gospels forbid these things.
When I was a child I recall hearing my mother stating the Parental Maxim, "It takes two to make a fight." This was to thwart and defuse the familiar Adamic Defense already voiced from the back seat, "Its not my fault.", "He started it." or, "He hit me first" etc..
Today, we face the same arguments but they are not coming from the back seat of a '56 Buick. These rationales are coming from the high offices of world governments. What is at stake is not a sibling wrestling match but world war and the deaths of millions of seemingly innocent people.
People everywhere react much the same when push comes to shove. The western nations have been bombing, depriving and shooting Moslems for decades.
Oh! They always have good reasons but it comes often down to vengeance. But not vengeance against an evil perpetrator of a crime but whole nations of people, often whose only crime is being born in one geopolitical territory or another.
We like to believe that in modern warfare we are more humane and civilized but in WWI the battlefield deaths were about 9,000,000 with 5% civilian deaths as collateral damage. In WWII the battlefield deaths were about 15,000,000 but the civilian deaths blossomed at over 67% of total deaths. Modern warfare may be one of the most inhumane forms of war.
Western nations have often supplied both sides in Islamic civil and territorial wars. This is not to say that the same tendencies have not been found amongst Islam but when it comes to military power and production it is the west who is clearly the 'big brother' of this match. This reminds me of another Parental Maxim about who "should know better" which I will leave to your own recollection.
What is really going on here?
The fires of hate that produces suicide bombers is not the product of the teaching of hate. Such doctrines may direct the energy of the flame but the fuel comes from the stoking resentment with death and destruction, deprivation and starvation, injustice and inequity.
All these things are the product of envy, avarice, sloth and more.
Why they hate the US
Http://www.hisholychurch.net/news/WClarkletter.php
Strike them with thy staff
http://www.hisholychurch.org/news/articles/wheat.php
The World Trade Center and Why it happened?
Http://www.hisholychurch.net/news/wtc.php
There has been a clear attempt to create a "them and us" mentality as if evil people are in one country and good are in another. The fact is there is good and bad in everyone and every place.
People are often lead to believe by appealing to fear and anger, terror and outrage. One president once said "we have nothing to fear but fear itself". The lack of faith in God the Father leaves us with fear and anger where love and charity should be.
Where is the faith of Moslem, Christian, Hindu, Jew and Buddhist.
We may have differences like brothers in the back seat but to kill thousands of people to resolve those differences is counter productive to the peace we claim to seek. Such wars fostered against named or ambiguous evil enemies which kill and deprive women and children of life, makes Orcs of men and ever changes the face as well as the heart of humanity.
Should we submit to those lured by the lust for power and go to war against men who would be our brothers in other times and places, or at least our friends and neighbors except for geography and doctrines of men? To say that we must strike back or appear weak is felonious at best. Who is stronger the man who strikes back or the man who stands firm and secure in the love of Peace? Which is easier anger or forgiveness? Which is Christian? Who was stronger Christ or Caesar?
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but [rather] give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance [is] mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Romans 12:19
Of course this is not to say that people may not defend themselves. I am not talking about defense but revenge and aggressive attack motivated out of fear that someone might do something. The division of whole races and faiths along geopolitical boundaries is a product of the mind of Cain, Lemech and Nimrod and leads to murder and oppression. There is always a threat of the insane individuals or small groups doing some terrible act of murder and mayhem. To punish men for what they might do is a crime.
This century is noted for its bloody wars.
For this last century's battles killed over 36,000,000 living souls.
These are battlefield deaths and do not include later deaths, shorten lives, maiming and mutilations nor does it include collateral damage of civilians caught in modern war.
We are often lead to believe that war is more civilized today but changes are taking place in the science of war. War is far less bloody hands on killing today and our industrial efficiency has brought upon us staggering statistics.
Civilian ratios may actually be climbing and may yet peak to our ultimate destruction and again death may not be the worst product of war.
Most of the deaths from war are not on the battlefield but are the results of conditions produced both during and in the aftermath of such wars and mass conflicts.
Disease, starvation and deprivation as infrastructures, economies and social systems and communities are uprooted, decimated and destroyed. Children, women and old people are the most common victim, 1.6 million already in Iraq. The total damage physically, mentally and morally are often never accounted for. There are lingering malignant causes of death in modern war due to exotic substances that is statistically demonstrating and even greater threat. [See articles above.]
But what is the greatest damage and who can calculate it?
Resentment, fear and hate prosper under the conditions of mass conflict. The blackened charcoal of hearts and minds produced by one conflagration and conflict feeds the flames of the next.
Hearts and minds are scarred and vengeance is carried to the next generation to play out a new drama of death, destruction and power, generation after generation, age after age. Mass conflict centralizes power in the hands of the ruling elite and the ruling elite corrupted by this power, lead the people into mass conflict.
What is the truth for the believer in God the Father?
The solution is simple but never well received. Pride is the barrier. Lack of faith that God will bring vengeance and punishment in His time and judgment and tempered with His mercy. Men want to play gods, be gods, rule like gods over their brother and the world. They want to exercise power over their neighbor, over the rest of the world. That desire for even a little power turns men into tyrants and beasts who like Ring Wraiths stalk the land and devour who they will.
The people of the earth are playing into the hands of the vainest of us all as they plan to rid the world of terror with terror itself. A solution of vengeance and fear is offered to the hearts and minds of people who have not yet learned the power of forgiveness, the love of the Law of God. The kingdom of Heaven is not taken by force and there is no King that is righteous who is also not the Master of Peace.
Matthew 5:43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
I didn't say it would be easy. I just said it was the truth.
Men must learn to live and work together as free people not bound except by love. This can only be accomplished by those willing to tend to the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith.
The real war is always against those who hate forgiveness, despise peace, reject love, doubt faith and refuse hope.
And who is that? It is us. In our own heart the war has begun. If we must have power let it began in our own hearts and minds by giving up the desire to exercise power over others.
Who has our faithful allegiance, the Sarumans of this world who wish to have an exercising power over the lives of men, or the Christians of this world who come to serve as fellowship of brothers under the perfect law of liberty?
There is none who do not need forgiveness and none who do not need to forgive others. If there is to be peace let it began in each of us. Let us calm the storm in our own hearts first.
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