dinosaurs.html
COMMENTARY -- WAR -- The completed article.
(To skip this commentary click here for the news - directly below this commentary):
You have gone back in time and are standing in the midst of a lush ancient forest. You hear and see some large vegetarian dinosaurs feeding on the moist soft leaves of brush and trees. You also see skulking about like a cat after a mouse, other smaller dinosaurs with a lighter build about them trying to catch and eat even smaller dinosaurs. You also see small dinosaurs feeding on the vegetation. Suddenly you hear a loud screech which terrifies every creature in this setting and sends them running for fear. The screech is coming from a large version of the lighter built and fast moving dinosaur with teeth designed to rip and tear other animal flesh. It quickly moves up on the large vegetarian. It lacks the weight of the vegetarian it is pursuing but has more speed and agility. It's massive and powerful jaws are set into motion as it lunges upon the vegetarian and immediately draws blood as it rips and tears away at a vital spot. The vegetarian tries to defend itself by using its heavy tail to whack the aggressor but it was too slow this time in defending itself and it quickly weakened because of pain and loss of blood. Dizzy and in weakness it dropped to the ground and took its last breath. The aggressor ruthlessly tore away at the most tasty spots and then left the carcass for scavengers.
In the natural world this story describes the "food chain" and the "predatory" character of those creatures at the top of the food chain. The predatory behavior is driven by hunger and the instinct of the predator to feed and care for it's young. Although all animals have some kind of reasoning capability their instincts most often prevail and their reasoning is subordinate to these instincts to make them more effective at surviving.
How does this story relate to war? Is war wrong? Is war necessary? What is accomplished by war?
Mankind is to be above the animals, that is he should be exercising his reasoning capabilities over his instincts. But mankind often does not do that. Tribal behavior is something like wolf pack behavior. There is a kind of civilized order within the pack but anything outside the pack is considered fair game. There is usually a pack leader. In many ways, the societies and cultures and communities of mankind are like the pack where the reasoning capabilities of the individuals in the pack and the consensus of the pack is directed at serving the primitive instincts of survival.
Although man is more technically capable as he sits atop the food chain, many of the nations, societies, cultures, and communities of man are more predatory in character with leaders that know how to control the pack and maintain their control over the pack. If allowed, these predatory packs of mankind will act just like the predatory dinosaur. No amount of talk or reasoning will prevent the attack because the overall social behavior is predatory and reason is used to make the predatory behavior more successful. The only defense against such predators is to be both prepared and more capable if attacked. But often a defensive posture will fail as it did with the vegetarian dinosaur which was no threat to the other dinosaurs. Many animal packs that are vegetarian adopt defensive and preventative postures as a pack to minimize any predatory attack on members within the vegetarian pack. Buffalo, cattle, and many other animals do this.
But only mankind has two things the animals don't have. Man is smart enough to anticipate a predatory attack and respond in a manoeuvre of defense to disable or kill the predatory enemy before the "screech" of death is heard. Man has the means and abilities to develop sophisticated weaponry. Compare this weaponry to the teeth of the attacking dinosaur and the tail of the vegetarian dinosaur.
But if a society or community of man is not aware of such dangers by other predatory type societies and communities then it peacefully and obliviously eats, drinks, sleeps, reproduces, plays, and in other ways occupies itself. When the "screech" of impending death is heard it may be too late. This is especially true if the predatory society has technological superiority and readiness to use that technology in an aggressive manner. This susceptibility scenario is also true if a society or community of man has been deceived into thinking that the predators are their friends or that arbitration, deals, and discourse will stop the aggression. Nothing will stop the predatory nation or community from its behavior other than its own destruction. A predatory human or human society is far more committed to violent aggression than is a predatory animal seeking a prey for a source of food. A predator is ruthless and uncaring whether it be a dinosaur, a wolf, or man. The "whimper" (or dialog to prevent aggression) that precedes death is understood by the predator as victory and the prey can be savaged. There are those that feel that a kind of social remedial exercise involving discourse, and various other forms of reward and penalty administered against the predatory society, by some powerful majority, will cause such predatory communities to change. This is foolishness as long as the pack leader remains leader. The leaders drive the communities. This is true even in western democratic nations. Sometimes leaders reflect the views of the community that elected them and perhaps leaders exploit the community that elected them.
When leaders have control of the key social institutions they can use these institutions to brain wash the community as a whole. If leaders don't have control of the key social institutions then new potential pack leaders can use these institutions to brain wash the community and thereafter supplant the pack leader. For example, often the educational institutions are infiltrated with authority figures that have a profound influence on those they teach. So it is not unusual in just about every society to see social discontent first voiced by universities and institutions of higher learning. The so called media in the form of newspapers, magazines, radio and TV industry, the publishing industry, and the movie industry are powerful means of brainwashing a society and re-engineering the "average" social mentality. A third category is the religious institutions, seminaries, and related organizations. Whoever controls the content of these institutions inevitably controls the pack mentality. Laws and government are derived from this mentality. As the mentality changes so also do the laws and inclinations of government.
As long as the average human being allows himself or herself to be herded along in a pack type social environment there will be predatory societies that feed on the other societies. They will skulk about and wait for their moment. They will form unholy and wicked alliances with each other only to eventually turn on one another. War in this context simply realigns those at the top of the food chain. War is for the purpose of establishing different leaders, it rarely occurs for the purpose of true peace and prosperity directed from a global perspective. Although the word peace is used a lot today its meaning varies depending upon who uses it. Peace as used by world leaders means the establishment of their objectives at the cost of their opponents. World leaders shake each others hands in such deceptive gestures of peace. It is a paradox. It is a horrible dilemma. If any society disarms, adopts arbitration and dialog to effect change then they will be perceived as manipulatable through that dialog. They will also be perceived by the potential aggressor as weak because they rely too heavily on a so called diplomatic solution to disputes. Meanwhile the predatory society or societies will take whatever gain they can through the dialog and when their moment comes, lunge, and with their mighty jaws and sharp teeth rip and tear away at the vulnerabilities of their prey.
For the "peaceful" vegetarian dinosaurs feeding on the moist soft leaves of brush and trees the unexpected screech and attack of the predatory meat eating dinosaur leaves only two alternatives. One alternative is to flee if possible. Otherwise the second alternative is to fight and most possibly die because the predatory dinosaur has already gained the advantage of surprise attack.
Using this natural situation as an analogy of human society, one peaceful social system or nation can be faced with the decision of flight or fight in the face of surprise attack by a predatory social system or nation. This is a paradox because we have a political/social/military situation that forces the peaceful nation to assume an aggressor role if it is to survive. If the peaceful nation acts (goes to war) preemptively in order to defend itself, it then becomes the aggressor contrary to it's life style and value system. But should the peaceful nation, out of legitimate fear of it's survival, when going to war with the predatory nation be considered the "bad" and "aggressive" nation?
There is no world wide accepted standard of what constitutes a "legitimate fear" in this kind of situation. Recently the notion of a nation possessing or developing weapons of mass destruction has been employed as such a standard. But many nations have so developed weapons based on their belief that these weapons will protect them from the aggression of other nations. This is why the world order tried to establish a non proliferation policy with respect to nuclear weaponry. However, that is not working nor are any other internationally determined "rules" that define what is acceptable and unacceptable during a war action. The reason is quite simple. War does not observe "rules". War is fought to win not as a game of rules. The object of war is to defeat the enemy and in such a way they do not have a chance to strike again. Preemptive action has a similar objective, to defeat the enemy before the enemy can succeed in its planned aggression.
The model for world peace in the face of severe differences and hostility between nations was the Roman Empire. However, it became corrupt and compromised in many ways and finally lost its determination as a people to pursue that role. The Roman Empire was able to maintain a high degree of social stability in the Roman World by developing the most technically advanced military and a population that was committed to that role. In addition, they maintained a government that was designed to ensure the destruction of any military offensive against them including any insurrections. The Roman military was very preemptive and this led to it's domination of the civilized world and it's success as a military power. All roads led to Rome and Rome was constantly dispatching its military according to this purpose. During the time of the Roman Empire the world enjoyed a period of unequaled peace and social stability.
In modern times humanity has tried treaties and finally two efforts at 2 international farces called the League of Nations and now the so called democratic forum of the United Nations. Democracy cannot work when syncretized with social systems that have different value systems, human rights, and codes of conduct. Democracy cannot work if lead by the corrupt and insensitive. Democracy cannot work when nations that are members of that forum pursue secret and sometimes predatory social and military agendas. So the United Nations will inevitably fail.
Even now we are witnessing such a break up of the United Nations, with the world nations polarizing around different social/economic/political/military organizations. The United States is the only social, economic, political, and military national power that is capable of following the example of the Roman Empire. However, the EU is rapidly developing into such a power. There may be others. As nations develop economically and militarily the balance of power and influence shift. Eventually the entire group of nations known as the Americas (North America, Central America, and down to South America) will form a social/economic/political/military bloc at odds with the EU. Some of the South East Asia and Asia Pacific nations may join these two blocks and/or form another bloc.
War cannot survive as a rule of conduct between nations and as a way of resolving differences. But war is a behavior and as in all forms of human behavior it constitutes a language. Although our words should agree with our actions that is not the way of the modern world. Even behavior does not always real purpose and plan. But behavior is indeed a language, it communicates meanings to those affected by the behavior. War is a behavior and it is the only behavior that aggressive predatory nations understand. The Roman Empire used its war machines not only to defeat enemies but also as a language. The Roman military acted in such a way as to communicate how futile it would be to resist the rule of Rome. That is the only language that many in this world today really understand. These are the nations that practice violence as part of their culture and have no respect for human rights.
Those that have the hard-line that they do not "believe in war" or "practice war", commit suicide as long as there are predatory nations. If the United States was to get rid of it's military it would suffer a military invasion almost immediately. It was the economic and military might of the United States that defeated the threat of world dominance of communist dictators. Many nations wine about the dominance of the United States of America. But if it were not for the United States of America the entire world today would be comprised of nations having a communist social structure and dominated by corrupt dictators with the most powerful communist country in total charge of the others.
This all presents a dilemma for true Christians. It is one of the reasons why the United States of America is not dominated by true Christians. This kind of behavior is not Christ Like behavior. However, if there was not a nation like the United States of America there would today be no true Christians any where in the world. The value system of the USA is an umbrella for Christian living and it's founding fathers established the USA as a nation under God and with its citizens having undeniable rights. Although there is a lot of corruption, from the Christian perspective, in the social make up of the USA, the USA is a necessary organization and force for peace and world order. The UN and the EU for example are not founded on these principles and will inevitably fail after it has grown into a mammoth world power driven by principles not based on the bible. There is a basic bible principle involved here. Man will serve God whether man is corrupt or whether man is a saint. This corrupt world include the USA with a majority of the population of the USA given over to personal greed and aggrandizement and pleasure with no real knowledge of the God they claim to worship. However, once the USA has completed its world function then true Christianity will prevail in all the world. For the time being true Christians must wait for that time to arrive and be thankful to God that there is a determination in the American population to spread their value system world wide. For from that value system will come a return of true Christianity.
There is of course one outstanding issue about war that affects a true Christian. How can a true Christian engage in the conduct of war? We have outlined how a nation that calls itself a Christian nation can engage in war, on the basis that calling oneself a Christian does not make one a Christian. And God through Christ can constrain the evil that motivates such a nation so that nation serves His purpose and plan. But how does any true Christian filled with the Holy Spirit and love of God justify engaging in the conduct of war, of systematic and mass killing? Certainly not as a norm! And certainly not driven by attitudes and motivations contrary to a loving heart! A true Christian would wish no harm on anyone - that is part of the Christian behavioral profile. But would a true Christian stand idly by and watch their family savaged? Or would a true Christian seek to help and prevent their family and other true Christians from harm and violence? When talk, if possible, fails what then? Should a Christian even negotiate with evil, compromise with evil, bend to tolerate and perpetuate evil? I think not! Dying as a martyr (refusing to deny Christ) is one thing but treating ones life and the life of others as if unimportant and with such disregard of violence is not martyrdom and may be an unloving behavior. Surely, to die is to be with the Lord. But to treat life as if it is unimportant is to insult God. After all God created life - we are nothing without God.
How does the true Christian win on this issue? They don't! Christians are not out to win, suffering can come in many ways. For a Christian, to see others suffer is to suffer oneself. To act in violence is less than Christ Like and not to act is also less than Christ Like. So what is the answer? Remember, we said behavior is also a language, it communicates meaning. It is important to communicate to the principalities and powers of this world and otherwise that Christianity is here to stay and what is perceived as it's weakness is also it's greatest strength - it is the voice of God to the entire world. Of course the world will consider this arrogance. At some point in human history the time is up and the iron fist of God's justice must level the godless mentality and replace it with the firm and relentless rule of Christ. The figurative hand of God may be in the form of one nation acting against another or it may be true Christians caught up in the carnage of mass murder. Self defense whether pro-active or in response to a war like attack must be met with the same communication, one that can be properly understood and appreciated by the enemy. If some countries operate on the principle of violence they must be stopped.
What complicates all of this is the mix or syncretism. God hates such syncretism. This syncretism is the mixing together of incompatible value systems. We speak here of the bible based value system - specifically the New Testament and the worldly value system of materialism. There are many in the USA that in the words of the Book of Revelation are neither hot nor cold and (speaking figuratively) God would vomit them out of his mouth. There are many that have compromised their Christian lives in this manner and nothing in their behavior separates them from the worldly of which they are not to be apart. There are many that when they are judged will claim to have worshipped God and done many things in the name of Christ and to the glory of God and Jesus will tell them that he does not know them.
The true Christian in North America is caught up between those that engage in this syncretism and those that are plain outright carnal self seeking materialists that claim there is no God. They want peace in order to exercise their fleshly lusts and desire for power and authority. So, in the final analysis it becomes as most governments recognize, a matter of conscience. The bible does teach that at some point in human history Christ will return and there will be a war. That is a high level statement and students of the bible don't all agree on the details. Obviously, then "war" is not totally out of the question for a true Christian if it is not out of the question for Christ. War broke out even in heaven, whatever that means. The "good guys" won. Could it happen again? There are many questions regarding the issue, extent, meaning, and value of war. And we cannot address them here in this article. Check out the OOLSB Revelation section for a bit more on this subject. Also check out the OOLSB Ephesians section for a profile of the true Christian and the Christian church. As a norm, the true Christian is a peace maker. It may be that in that same capacity God may call through Christ for Christian placements in the military. In a very real way the military can be a peace keeping agency employed when violent action is the final alternative. Here we speak of a military that acts in the interests of peace and prosperity and in the protection of the people it serves and not a a predatory tool of ruthless and unprincipled countries. At some point the violent societies only understand life in the terms in which they have lived it. In those situation the military must intervene. Bear in mind also, that he who lives by the sword also will die by the sword. One thing for certain. Without the USA military and American value system I would not be sitting here now typing this article and exercising free speech and making this article known world wide over the Internet. The concept of "freedom" is very important in the plan and purpose of God. The USA represents real "freedom" to the world. The military of the USA acts in support of that ideal. Those that make up that military engine can be justifiably proud of the American tradition of "freedom", even if it extends that freedom to perversities condemned in the New Testament.
Therefore, God must manipulate the devil who influences man towards predatory behavior. The devil incarnate is Anti-Christ. The Anti-Christ or Satan is any human being that uses their reasoning capabilities to serve their primitive instincts. By so doing they have opened up and turned over their mental "real estate" to the spiritual forces of darkness that bring only death. The spiritual force of evil is only able to influence the human mind through the mechanism of our primitive instincts for survival. If we lust and are preoccupied with the things and values of a world driven by such instincts then we have been deceived into a form of mental slavery that brings only hatred and death in its wake.
Jesus Christ is the answer. He is both an example of what we must be like as humans and he is the facilitator/mediator/interface whereby we can all know and experience the love/caring of God.
If you have any comments, questions, or concerns you can email this ministry at thilts@help-for-you.com
Click here for "Bruce Atchison Reports", World news bulletins on Christian persecution.
Visit the...
Overcomer on
line Study Bible
OOLSB articles
are now being added - Click on::
http://www.help-for-you.com/doc/OOLSB_freestanding.html
Page 1