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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (190454)	6/29/2006 3:51:34 PM
From: Lou Weed	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<<You clearly think Christianity requires a commitment to pacifism.>> To be a true Christian definitely requires a commitment to pacifism but how many true Christians do you know?? With the exception of MOST clerics we are all in many aspects hypocrites. In my opinion war is a necessary evil only to be used in situations where there is no other avenue of resolution. WW1 and WW2 for me are examples of this. I believe invading Afghanistan was the correct thing to do....after all that was where the nest of vipers that attacked us were settled. Iraq in my opinion is an unnecessary and unjust conflict for reasons too many to list here and besides you would totally disagree with me anyway.....don't want to open that can of worms. <<You should also be aware that it is not an open and shut case that Jesus was a pacifist, at least as the term is used now. Consider Luke 22: 36: "Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." Why would a pacifist ever say such a thing?>> There has always been considerable debate on these particular passages as the following link shows.... anabaptistnetwork.com Jesus claimed to be God made man and as he claimed himself was also susceptible to the weaknesses that we all encounter. The link can explain this much better than I can ever attempt to but the bottom line is that his message was love, peace and tolerance. <<Now I ask if you are both a Christian and a pacifist>> A pacifist I'm not as I've described above. I was raised Christian and still believe in the message of Jesus but I have issues with the religion as an organised entity. That in itself is a whole separate Pandora's box. I've come to realize that I'm more Gnostic in nature i.e. I believe that communication with God (whoever she is) is on a personal level and the spirit of self through the teachings that we learn knows what is right and wrong. <<is this issue just a tactic of argumentation for you?>> This issue (i.e. torture) for me is an issue of right and wrong (see paragraph above). I don't consider myself argumentative but I'm just curious to dig further into how one can rationalize having Christian principles and at the same time condone systematically degrading another human being. MON.