World Peace--Is It Possible?

[aslan]

There are countless organizations dedicated to the proposition that world peace is possible and is worth working for. What do you think? Will the world get better? Or will it get worse? Or do you believe it will remain the same? Do you do your part? What is your part?

www.worldpeace.org/
www.worldpeacefoundation.org/
www.worldpeacenewsletter.com/
www.coalitionforworldpeace.org/
www.peaceday.org/
www.worldpeace.org.au/
www.johnworldpeace.com/
www.pwpa.org/
www.apn.org/
http://cpn.nd.edu/

[Automatic Monkey]

Those people are a detriment to peace. Accommodationists, Marxists and cowards. The way to peace is rendering your enemy unable to make war, and thousands of years of human history support that position.

What pacifism too often ends up as is what was demonstrated by the ANC in South Africa. When the cameras are there, hold hands and sing "Kumbaya." When the cameras leave, set your political opponents on fire. The left-wing "peace" outfits are only peaceful when soliciting donations. You should see some of the extremists they support.

[SD Padres]

For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

[ccibball50]

The world will get better short term only. The economy will do much better in the near future. However as morals and values decline, the world will gradually becoming worse than ever. So the survey questions is not a complete question. Is it talking 10 years down the road, or 100 years?

[shadroch]

Those people are a detriment to peace. Accommodationists, Marxists and cowards. The way to peace is rendering your enemy unable to make war, and thousands of years of human history support that position.

What pacifism too often ends up as is what was demonstrated by the ANC in South Africa. When the cameras are there, hold hands and sing "Kumbaya." When the cameras leave, set your political opponents on fire. The left-wing "peace" outfits are only peaceful when soliciting donations. You should see some of the extremists they support.

Mankind has fought war after war for thousands of years and is no closer to peace than it ever was. When people figure out that true strength comes from not resorting to violence over every little percieved wrong, then we might get somewhere. All our wars have accomplished to this point is our becoming more efficiant at killing.

[moo321]

No world peace till Christ comes back.

[Automatic Monkey]

Mankind has fought war after war for thousands of years and is no closer to peace than it ever was. When people figure out that true strength comes from not resorting to violence over every little percieved wrong, then we might get somewhere. All our wars have accomplished to this point is our becoming more efficiant at killing.

Bringing others to peace is impossible. All you can do is create an atmosphere of peace for yourself, here and now. You do this by making sure others clearly understand that if they attack you, you will kill them.

For there will always be those with a predatory nature that do not value peace. Attacking others is as natural to them as eating meat is to a dog. The only way to make a dog leave your meat alone is to kick his ****ing ribs in. That's what we must do to Islamofascists and aggressive dictators of all kinds- beat on them until they are too afraid to continue their attacks.

[MAZ]

Yo moo, you're going to be waiting a long time. As a matter of fact you and generations to come will die waiting.

Monkey, you are a typical case of a moderate believer in religion not being able to relate to the radical fundamentalist. Killing a radical muslim is a treat for them, so by all means kill them. Problem is, the line is long for the next wacko of Islam to take his place. In the meantime many of the innocents and so called infidels get slaughtered in the process. The fact of the matter is as long as there are different religions of the world there will be no peace. Wars over borders and freedom can be fought and won. But mix in religion and deep set theology on each others gods and there is no clear cut winner as long as there is 1 person left with a different religious view. I mean Israel thinks God promised them their land, who the hell can top that as far as reasoning? I think its a travesty to kill each other over imaginary friends, but it is the number one cause of war. You can act like an ignorant redneck and spew the old "kill em all and let god sort em out" line but who the hell knows which god is the right one. Is it just dumbluck that you being born here affirms the majority U.S. belief that the christian god is the right one. Seems a little too luck dependent for an almighty being to operate in such away. The way I see it, eliminate all religion and you eliminate unwinnable wars. World peace, maybe not, but at least there will be actual finish lines and acheivable objectives of war that can actually bring wars to an end.

[Nazgul]

I don’t think that religion is the cause of all war although it is usually the reason most people have whether they admit it or not. It’s human nature to not get along with other people. Our natural reaction is to make the other person stop doing what is annoying us instead of trying to be peaceful and live with it. We all behave that way. In order to make ourselves feel better we convince ourselves that we are morally right and the other person is wrong. Religion is an easy way for people to justify their belief that their opinion is morally right and that everybody else is wrong and deserves to be punished. The fact that we have so many different religions is proof of that fact. The bible has become a buffet where people can choose which parts to believe and which parts to ignore. To make things worse, they also get to interpret those parts in any way that suits their lifestyle. Basically they contort the bible into what they want, then they can believe that God agrees with them and that He approves of their behavior. That gives them justification to do whatever they want to everybody else. By this time things have gotten very messy since everybody gets their own religion. Either the entire bible is right, the entire bible is wrong or we should rewrite it (again) and start from scratch so that everybody agrees. Until everybody agrees on the new bible, nobody can use religion as a moral justification.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that religion is to blame. Even if the bible never existed people would just find another way to make themselves feel superior. If religion never existed someone would have invented it...or maybe that is what really happened. When you need to justify irrational or unreasonable behavior, why not invent an invisible force that nobody can ever see or experience and profess that He agrees with you and everyone else will spend eternity in hell if they go against you, even though you have no proof or evidence of your claims. I admit it is ridiculous but it is a necessary part of human life. We need something to make us feel that we are right even when it goes against common sense or rational thinking. Religion is the philosophy of the weak-minded but it fills a necessary purpose in human existence.

[Nazgul]

So the survey questions is not a complete question. Is it talking 10 years down the road, or 100 years?

That is true. It is pretty clear that the human race will end in disaster probably at our own hands. We are destined for extinction but that doesn’t mean we can’t achieve a great deal of progress towards peace in the meantime. This poll should have a box for “A world…that is better, but still no permanent world peace, but then we’ll all die.”

However as morals and values decline, the world will gradually becoming worse than ever.

Who says moral values are declining? We have come incredibly far in just the past few centuries. The world may not be more peacefull but we have reached a zenith in human rights awareness and understanding. The US has an African American president for gosh sakes! If that isn't a huge improvement in moral values I don't know what you need to see.

[shadroch]

Bringing others to peace is impossible. All you can do is create an atmosphere of peace for yourself, here and now. You do this by making sure others clearly understand that if they attack you, you will kill them.

For there will always be those with a predatory nature that do not value peace. Attacking others is as natural to them as eating meat is to a dog. The only way to make a dog leave your meat alone is to kick his ****ing ribs in. That's what we must do to Islamofascists and aggressive dictators of all kinds- beat on them until they are too afraid to continue their attacks.

See, this is where you are mistaken. There are plenty of ways to keep a dog from eating your meat. The simplist is to make sure he's not hungry.
Beating a dog does nothing but teach it hatred.
The US/China relationship is a perfect example. Two nations, two dogmas. We should be mortal enemys. We should be spiraling in a death dance where no one could win. Instead, we've embraced them as our largest trading partner. Now they couldn't attack us without destroying their entire economy.

[bj bob]

Better take the under on this one, Aslan. Unfortunately it's a biblical prophesy. Don't try to bet against this house. No way to win this one!
There will probably be as much war and violence in the future as there was in the past, but the body count will be far higher due to advanced technology.
Unfortunately the famous quote "Pax relinquo vobis, pacem meam do vobis." (My peace I leave to you..) will only be understood by a minority of mankind.

[ccibball50]

Who says moral values are declining? We have come incredibly far in just the past few centuries. The world may not be more peacefull but we have reached a zenith in human rights awareness and understanding. The US has an African American president for gosh sakes! If that isn't a huge improvement in moral values I don't know what you need to see.

I agree a black president is a huge step morally and I am glad that the United States has come to a point where color does not matter in politics. However, morals taught by parents are definatley declining. For example, explicit language is much more acceptable, divorce rates and crime continue to rise and more and more political figures are money hungry and and always striving for power. One example is the governor who tried to sell Obama's senate seat. Good morals taught in home and school set the standards for how people live their life.

[shadroch]

I agree a black president is a huge step morally and I am glad that the United States has come to a point where color does not matter in politics. However, morals taught by parents are definatley declining. For example, explicit language is much more acceptable, divorce rates and crime continue to rise and more and more political figures are money hungry and and always striving for power. One example is the governor who tried to sell Obama's senate seat. Good morals taught in home and school set the standards for how people live their life.

Every available statistic shows crime has been in a major decline for years.
It peaked in the 50s/60s and has declined ever since. As far as explict language goes, what are you basing this on? 1950s TV and movies?
Do you think a generation of men who spent a good deal of their youth killing nazi's and japs didn't use salty language? Divorce rates climb, but that just means fewer people are stuck in lousy marraiges.

[aslan]

Religion is the philosophy of the weak-minded but it fills a necessary purpose in human existence.

I pretty much agreed with you until you got to the very end. You said that religion is the philosophy of the weak-minded. Prior to that you described weak-minded people who "contorted" the meaning of the Bible to fit what they wanted, I agree that people who do that are weak-minded, but to say that religion is the philosophy of the weak-minded lumps everyone together, even those who are strong-minded in their religious beliefs.

It is usually pretty easy to see who is creating a religion to suit themselves, or contorting the Bible to suit themselves. If what they choose to believe allows them to participate in some self-serving activity, that's a pretty good tip that they are one of those weak-minded persons. We call them "cafeteria Christians," which describes how they pick and choose what they want to believe.

If there were no religion, there would still be moral values, and there would still be those who pick and choose moral values that are self-serving.

I am a Catholic. It is not easy being a Catholic. It is not a religion for the weak-minded. It requires more discipline than anything else I can imagine.

You mentioned wars. My belief is that killing in any context other than the defense of life is murder. I derive my moral standard from what I believe is the correct interpretation of the Bible. By this standard, many modern day wars are nothing less than mass murder. It would be difficult to use my religious beliefs as a pretext for war. In my opinion. truth, moral or religious, will never lead to war, although it may require a reactionary defense of human life.