Winston Churchill was not a theologian, a philosopher, or a logician. So what? He was a strong leader, a writer, a historian, and one of the most important positive figures of the 20th century. But even if you think he was an idiot, or worse yet clever and evil, that doesn't make his points wrong. You can say anything you want about a person but it doesn't make their statements or arguments incorrect. The assumption that it will (or that other people will think that it does) leads to many to substitute ad-hominem for rational argument.
Western Civilization was founded on core values from the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Jesus Christ.
The commandments and Jesus' teachings are an important part of western civilization but they are not the base for the whole of it. They aren't even the base for all of the religious aspects of western civilization, and western civilization includes many non-religious beliefs, philosophies and ideas.
"Thou shall not kill" is not a suggestion.
My understanding is that a more accurate translation would be "Thou shall not murder". Which makes sense as the old testament does not typically portray all killing as wrong.
"Love thy neighbor" has real meaning.
Loving thy neighbor is a good reason to free tens of millions of them from tyrannical abusive rule. It isn't a good reason to let the neighbor kill you or conquer your country, or do whatever he wants however bad, because you will not stop him.
There are of course all kinds of thugs that come along, that have no understanding of philosophy or logic that think they know better.
And what do you do about these thugs? Blow them kisses? Send them flowers? Ignore them and hope that they go away? What if they build death camps, or send armies out to conquer or destroy? Or on a smaller scale what if they mug, and kill, and rob, and rape?
Its precisely because of these thugs that universal pacifism is not a viable option. If no one will oppose them with credible threat or actual action than it is these thugs that decide what will happen.
Tim |
